you can catch me weekend mornings at ten a. m.. the rachel maddow show starts right now. good evening, rachel. mornings at 10:00 a.m. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, ali i am both glad and worried to have you where you are tonight thank you for being there my friend great report this whole hour. thanks for being willing to make that trip, man. we are glad and worried in equal measure. >> thank you, my friend. enjoy your home. >> thanks to you at home for being with us.th before he became the editor of the most important english language magazine in the world david remnick was moscow correspondent for "the mn washington post" and in fact won the pulitzer prize for his os landmark 1993 book about the er last time russia fell apart at the end of the soviet union.ss david remnick will be joining us live in a few minutes as we try

to make sense of the latest news that burst out this weekend. everybody in the world trying to figure out whether russia may be falling apart again, whether vladimir putin may be teetering at long last after 23 years of n increasingly consolidated, increasingly dictatorial power in russia. david remnick will be joining us live on that story in a moment. we are also keeping eyes tonight on our own supreme court where in the midst of their own serious and expanding ethics scandals among conservative justices on the court, that court is nevertheless expected to issue yet another round of hard right, very controversial,e possibly very unpopular rulings. we've got more on that ahead tonight ahead of what is expected to be a big day at the court tomorrow. we are also watching one rr particular federal court in south florida. tonight the trump appointed judge who will apparently be tr

overseeing the federal criminal trial of former president trump issued an order about witnesses in trump's criminal case over the mishandling of classified documents after he left the presidency. you may remember late last week prosecutors gave trump's defense team a list of 84 witnesses who may end up testifying in this case. prosecutors told the court in court documents that they had handed over that list of 84 witnesses to trump's defense. now, the reason they've done that is that it is part of the normal sort of pretrial process for criminal court, a criminal case of this type, but also specifically trump and his co-defendant walt nauta are explicitly and specifically not supposed to talk about the case with each other or with anybody else who might be called as a witness so they need to know wht else is going to be called as a witness. so prosecutors gave that list of 84 potential witnesses to trump's defense team. they also asked the judge

overseeing the case to please put that list of potential witnesses under seal.t please keep it secret. well tonight the judge issued an order declining to do that. she turned down that request from prosecutors. we'll get some expert advice tonight in understanding the importance of that, plus there is other stuff to watch here as trump's co-defendant walt nauta is going to be arraigned tomorrow plus tomorrow is the day a federal judge in the southern district of new york will consider his request to r move his other criminal case out of state court in new york and into federal court in sdny the criminal case where he is as charged with more than 30 felonies under new york state law related to alleged business records fraud.to we're going to get expert help in figuring out the importance of all of those matters tonight. we actually have to start with some breaking news related to the special counsel's indictment of trump on those classified

documents charges. when special counsel jack smith brought those 37 federal criminal charges against trump earlier this month in the classified documents case remember these were charges for willful retention of national defense information at his home in florida, also false statements and obstruction. you might remember in the indictment there was sort of at length detail given of a supposed audio recording of donald trump. oh, lordy, there are tapes. according to the indictment there is a tape from july 2021 when trump was at his golf club in bedminster, new jersey. according to the indictment trump in this recorded conversation is allegedly speaking with a writer who is working on a book about the trump administration and a according to the indictment st

during that conversation trump seems at least to show this writer some documents that he do says are classified. now, you can't do that.'t a, you shouldn't have classified documents after you leave the presidency. but, b, you shouldn't be able to show them ever to somebody who is not -- has not got proper security clearances and a need to see them. the indictment quotes from this supposed tape. it describes trump showing the writer a piece of paper and allegedly saying, quote, i just found, isn't that amazing? it's like highly confidential, secret.hi this is secret information. as president i could have declassified it. now i can't, you know, but this is still a secret.t, it's crazy, right? i mean if you were inventing, like cartoon level you did it wrong allegations for somebody mishandling classified information you'd dream this up as a hypothetical to teach 1-l law students right? imagine there was a tape in

which the accused said, now i'm not supposed to be showing this to you. it's really secret but look. here it is.se i mean, it's just a prosecutor's dream to have something like this on tape. but all we could see in the indictment was prosecutor's allegation that this tape existed and that on this tape trump said those things. you know, as an allegation it is damning. the special counsel is alleging trump improperly held on to classified information, here allegedly was this description of audio evidence of trump appearing to admit he was in possession of secret material. that it is not declassified. it is classified material and he is nevertheless showing it to people who are absolutely not cleared to see it at this meeting at his golf course. thanks to the indictment we've all read the transcript of that

supposed recording. but now tonight we can all hear it. because cnn tonight and kudos to them for failing this, cnn tonight has obtained the audio recording of donald trump in which he appears to tell a writer he is knowingly in possession of classified material. i should tell you this is cnn's reporting. nbc news has not authenticated this recording.ng but if what cnn has obtained is legit, what it appears to be is the tape that is described in the indictment. the evidence that helped lay the groundwork for special counsel jack smith to indict donald trump. t so here it is. i'm going to play the whole thing for you now. listen. >> these are bad, sick people but -- >> that was your coup, you know, against you that -- >> well, it started right at the --

>> like when milley is talking about oh, you were going to try to do a coup. they were trying to do that even before you sworn in. >> well, with milley, let me see that. i'll show you an example. he said that i wanted to attack iran. isn't it amazing? i have a big pipe of papers. this thing just came up. j look. this was him. they presented me this.se this is off the record but they presented me this. this was him.im this was the defense department and him. d this wasn't done by me. this was him.do also, pages wrong. wait a minute. let's see here. i guess, isn't that amazing? this totally wins my case you know. >> mm-hmm. >> except it is like highly confidential, secret -- this is secret information. look at this.ti you attack -- -

>> hillary would put that out all the time.me >> she'd send it to anthony weiner. >> yes. [ laughter ] >> by the way, isn't that incredible? i was just thinking as we were talking about it.t you know, he wanted to attack iran and what -- w >> this was done by the t s military. given to me.e. i think we can probably, right? >> we'll have to see. >> declassify it. >> yeah. >> see as president i could have declassified it. i now i can't. isn't that interesting? it's so cool. you probably almost didn't believe me but now you believe me. >> no, i believed you. >> incredible right? it brings some -- bring some bl cokes in, please. >> bring some cokes in please. it does give it the ring of authenticity doesn't it? i'll show you an example. look. all sorts of stuff. pages long. s

look. this was the defense department. all sorts of stuff. pages long. look. this is secret information. look.et look at this. he wanted to attack iran. a these are the papers. trump has since tried to say in subsequent interviews there was no document. i i wasn't showing anything. it was just newspaper articles and magazine articles. this was the defense departmenta these are the papers. this was done by the military. and given to me. i think we can probably write -- staffer i don't know. well we'll have to see. we'll have to -- trump -- declassify it. as president i could have declassified it. now i can't you know. but this is classified. isn't that interesting?cl it is so cool.nt can we get some cokes? i mean, let's just draw down onm

the specifics of this for a second. in jack smith bringing charges against donald trump, the sort of crux of the case, right? is that the prosecution has to e be able to prove that trump had classified documents in his possession after he left the presidency, right? that's the illegal activity alleged in the indictment. and here in this part of the tape is donald trump saying he had possession of classified si information after leaving the presidency.n >> except it is highly confidential, secret -- this is secret information. >> highly confidential.or this is secret information.co ha ha ha. this is secret information. look, look. look at my secret information. it is one thing to sort of readn these words as part of the indictment. it is another thing to hear it. another key part of jack smith's case against trump is proving not only that trump had these documents in his possession but that he knew that it was no

longer in his power as an ex-president to declassify them. right? t so, again, part of his sort of purported defense, or part of his attempted defense if he can even call it that. it doesn't even seem that coherent. is to say, yes, these things were classified but i used my mind to declassify them. here he is on tape admitting that he does not have the power to declassify these things and these are still classified. >> see as president i could have declassified it.es now i can't. >> we have a problem. >> isn't that interesting? >> as president i could have en declassified it. now i can't, you know, but this is classified. isn't that interesting? it's so cool.nt it's a lot of things. not sure cool is like in the top 6,000, but this is definitely the kind of thing that sounds like it should end up in a federal criminal indictment.

i'll give you that. like i said, cnn obtaining this audio tonight that appears to be the audio from 2021 referenced in the indictment brought against trump in federal criminal court in florida. this describes -- this is where donald trump appears to show classified material to a writer at his golf club in bedminster, new jersey. now i should note we have reached out to trump's legal team and campaign for comment but so far have heard nothing back. trump has been charged with improperly taking material like this when he left the white house and illegally storing it at his home in mar-a-lago. special counsel had described this conversation in detail in his indictment he brought against trump earlier this mont but now if this is what it purports to be we are now able to hear it in full. joining us now is barbara mcquaid former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan and professor at the universityi of michigan school of law. thank you very much for being with us tonight.ry

i am so glad we were able to get you here for this story with this late breaking news. >> glad to be here, rachel. >> let me get your top line e reaction. we obviously had some of this tape described in the indictment line for line. there were some ellipses in the indictment. not every line on the tape is reflected in the indictment. it strikes me as potentially important when trump says wh explicitly these are the papers. which would seem to cast no doubt on whether or not he was actually holding papers that he was describing to this writer but as a prosecutor as a former prosecutor, as a lawyer, how do you hear this as evidence? >> well i have two reactions to it. one as a former prosecutor it makes my hair stand on end a little bit to see this in the public domain. prosecutors try to keep this stuff safeguarded so you can't r have witness tampering and crowd sourcing of defenses.

now people can because this is in the public domain.c as a matter of evidence this is really powerful evidence. we had seen some verbatim quotes from this recording that was in the indictment but to hear the whole thing play out, i think, is incredible evidence. and at trial, it will not just be this recording that's played in a vacuum. they will have to authenticate . this document, this recording with someone who was there.ho so whether it is the biographer or the publisher or one of the two staffers, one or more of them will have to be there. and one question i think they'll be asked is did you look at it? because it sure sounds like they are showing it to them and they are actually reading it. so i think it proves a couple things. one as you said, his knowledge and intent which is important ai here about that he is willfully violating the law. and the other is the incredible recklessness with which he is treating our nationalic secrets.

it is a very powerful piece of evidence. >> let me ask you about the fact that when you hear this it seems the person he is in conversation with is looking at the documents. i got the sense, i got sort of that as a vague impression from reading it in the indictment.g hearing it that seems much moret clear. again, that part of the tape i have a big pile of papers. this thing just came up. look. this was him. mark milley. they presented me this. this is off the record but they presented me this. this was him. this was the defense department and him. and then the person he is speaking to, the writer says, wow. as if they are looking at the thing he is imploring the person to look at.he this wasn't done by me.t this was him. all sorts of stuff pages long.of look. when the writer, the other person in the room says, wow, ie does appear that he wasn't just, you know, waving it in the distance showing that papers existed but rather asking the person to view the content of that material. and that does just as a lay

person makes me wonder why ak dissemination of classified material wasn't charged.n it does seem like they've got evidence he showed it to at least one other person. >> yeah, that is how it lands t with me as well. and as we said, i think they'red going to call that witness. they got this recording from l somebody. my guess is it came through some sort of grand jury subpoena or n request from the person who was in the room recording it for the purpose of gathering information for this biography. and so certainly it is a separate crime to disclose ri classified information to a person who is not authorized to receive it. that could be another charge. my guess is, this occurred in bedminster i believe in new jersey and so it would be el technically improper to charge s it in florida because there id would not be proper venue there. but i know some have suggested perhaps this is a charge prosecutors are keeping in their pocket that could be filed in a separate indictment in the district of new jersey. so that is one possible theory for that. >> barb, let me also ask you

about a few developments about to happen quickly over the next in some cases the next 24 hours. tomorrow we are looking at walt nauta, trump's co-defendant in the classified documents case being arraigned in south florida. we are looking at sdny, federal judge in the southern district of new york holding a hearing to decide whether or not trump's state criminal case in new york can be moved into federal court. we also have just had an order from the judge in the classified documents case rejecting doj's, the prosecutor's request to keep the witness list under seal.es in terms of, i notice a lot of things happening at once in a couple different cases, but aree any of these developments, things we're watching happening in these cases signaling to you that anything strange is going on, anything concerning? or do they seem like boilerplate developments in cases of these kinds? >> i think they're all sort of expected.

certainly the nauta arraignment is nothing unusual. i think even this removal question before the judge is likely to fail and the case will continue though i could be surprised there. you know, the order with judge cannon, i know there has been some outcry that the justice department is not getting the protection it wants, but there i is a valid interest in the prest in seeing any kind of document that gets filed in court and so i think the judge here is actually correctly noting that prosecutors are not required to file a witness list. i think they're doing it because the magistrate judge as a condition of release told donald trump not to have any contact with any of the witnesses. h and so they could share that document and i believe they have shared the names of the witnesses. what i think they want is the clarity of filing the names, f saying to the judge, hey judge,h here are the names. and if donald trump contacts any of these people you bet we're going to be coming back to you and asking for some sort of f contempt order but asking that those names be kept under seal. understandably wants to protect their identity.

but i think what the judge is wh suggesting in her order is, look. you don't have to file this as a document with the court and if e you do it should be a public it document. by asking me to seal it you are asking me to do something that is really against the public interest here and the press interest in having access to court filed documents. >> in other words from the perspective of us in the public, if they don't file that list of witnesses with the court we're not going to get access to it so do it that way rather than ay filing it with the court and then sealing it. >> i think that is right. which strikes me as the right balance. >> invaluable to have you here tonight. thank you so much, barb. >> let's have some cokes. >> all right. we'll send out for them. all right. o we'll be right back. stay with us. hose two have any idea? that they can sell their life insurance policy for cash? so they're basically sitting on a goldmine? i don't think they have a clue. that's crazy! well, not everyone knows coventry's helped thousands of people sell their policies for cash. even term policies. i

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is conflicting information about dupuytren's contracture. i thought i couldn't get treatment yet? well, people may think that their contracture has to be severe to be treated, but it doesn't. if you can't lay your hand flat on the table, talk to a hand specialist. but what if i don't want surgery? well, then you should find a hand specialist certified to offer nonsurgical treatments. what's the next step? visit findahandspecialist.com today to get started. it was a commercial flight, a ryanair flight in may two years ago 2021. the ryanair flight took off from athens, greece, and it flew north.

it was supposed to be a nonstop flight from greece to lithuania about a three-hour flight, three hours five minutes. but on that flight path the last country that you fly over before you get to lithuania is the country of belarus. and once that ryanair flight, that commercial flight about 170 people on board, once that ryanair flight was over belarus, the government of belarus contacted the plane and said you cannot continue your flight. there is a security risk on board. we are sending a fighter jet to escort you down. here. now. you are not going to go to lithuania. we will not let you. you are if our air space and we are going to make you land in the capital of belarus instead in minsk. one woman who was on board the plane told abc news at the time that it was totally out of the blue for everybody on board the plane. she said the crew didn't say anything to the passengers about the plane being forced down and diverted into another country. she said the plane just suddenly plunged. she said, quote, we all on the

plane panicked because we thought we were going to crash. this was a sudden dive, changing the altitude very drastically. it was very violent. i've never felt this on an airplane. everybody was in shock. so the fighter jet forces this passenger airplane down. it lands at minsk. nobody knows why. once they're on the ground belorussian police storm the plane and grab a guy, a 26-year-old blogger. he was the editor of a television channel that was critical of belarus' dictator and in support of a protest that had sprung up in 2020 after

belarus' dictator really appeared to have lost an election but decided he was going to stay in power anyway. i mean it is an amazing thing, right? in modern day europe this dictator used a mig fighter jet to force a european commercial flight that wasn't even supposed to be landing in his country, he forced that plane down into his country, specifically to get this kid off the plane so he could throw him in prison. the belorussian dictator did that. his name is alexander lukashenko. even if you've never heard of lukashenko or never in your life given one thought to the country called belarus i swear he is exactly what you are imagining when you think to yourself, what does a belorussian dictator look like? just imagine right? look. magic. exactly that guy, right? giant like comically over sized military hat. regulation size and shape saddam style dictator mustache. he likes to be seen holding guns of all shapes and sizes just randomly and for no reason. makes him feel like a big man. almost as big as when he wears the big hat. during the nationwide protests

against him in 2020 after he stole the election, he put on fake military gear, the kind of generic like amazon prime branded stuff that gets called tactical because it has extra snaps. he put on this little fake military suit and walked around to try to get tough guy point against the women and students who were protesting against his dictatorship in 2020. alexander lukashenko is technically the elected president of belarus, but he was elected in 1994. and he's been there ever since. he is the longest serving dictator -- i mean president in europe. and it is not because he gets re-elected in free and fair elections. and forgive me for saying it this way but as dictators go

lukashenko is kind of a sad sack nut ball. he is as weak as he is brutal, which is a bad pairing that goes together all too often. for lukashenko the main hallmark of the later stages of his reign as the longest standing dictator in europe is not just that he kills and oppresses his own people and aggregates all the wealth and potential of his country to himself and his family, it's that he's bowing and scraping subservient to vladimir putin and russia. he is as brutal as he is weak. but the relationship between lukashenko and putin has led to some real weirdness especially in recent months, especially after those protests that could have toppled lukashenko but didn't. especially after putin sent in forces to reinforce lukashenko against the people protesting against him in his own country. since then lukashenko and putin appear to have been trying to create some kind of super state

of their two countries. one in which belarus is sort of more or less willingly subsumed into russia. this has led just within the last couple weeks to russia moving nuclear weapons into belarus. now, that is a big deal. when the ussr dissolved in 1991 all the former soviet states except russia itself gave up their nuclear weapons. this very recent, this month transfer of nuclear weapons from russia into belarus is the first time russia moved nuclear weapons outside its borders since the ussr collapsed. and it is not like lukashenko is like a real stable genius in terms of feeling comfortable that he is now in control of these things. on the occasion of receiving these nuclear weapons,way did lukashenko do? well, he gave a bizarre statement to the press in which he said, if any other country wants to join in this new union he is making with putin they

should just call him up. he said i'm not speaking for putin here, just me, but he says he is pretty sure they'd be happy to take anyone, any other country. so if you want to bring your country into this new union with russia and belarus, lukashenko says in return for you joining their union he'll give your country nuclear weapons as a thank you. again he said he wasn't speaking for putin but is pretty sure putin would go along with it. anybody who wants to join our club i'll give you nuke. this is within moments of getting the nukes. there are no big western news bureaus in minsk we're all taking live shots from on monday nights, but in recent months things have been getting increasingly weird in that corner of the world under that increasingly weird, weak, unstable dictator. and now all of a sudden that guy is the trusted authority.

he is the calm hand. he is the man the world is apparently entrusting with stopping a civil war in the largest country on the planet. that guy. whether or not you were able to pay close attention to the into us this weekend as this all unfolded at lightning speed, we all kind of now know the basics of what happened, right? the crisis centers on this guy yevgeny prigozhin, an ex-convict who did years in prison for robbery. after he got out of prison he became a businessman in st. petersburg. prigozhin came into vladimir putin's orbit very early on after putin became president of russia. and prigozhin became one of putin's favorites, kind of a mr. fix it for putin. he took on odd jobs, which is why there is this striking fbi wanted poster for yevgeny prigozhin. he was indicted by u.s. federal prosecutors after robert mueller's special counsel

investigation assembled evidence prigozhin ran this social media troll farm that targeted the u.s. public in 2016 to try to make americans hate each other more than we already do, to support extremism of all kinds, to promote secessionist movements in the united states, to promote violence in the united states, and most centrally to try to get donald trump elected president of the united states in 2016. prigozhin was indicted by federal prosecutors for his role in running that operation around our 2016 election. there remains today a quarter million dollar reward for information leading to his arrest by u.s. authorities because he is under indictment in the united states. that was one of the odd jobs he was able to do for his friend vladimir putin. one of the other things was build putin a deniable private army. so why would putin want a deniable private army when he's got, you know, the russian army? well, turns out it is helpful, handy sometimes to have guys who

don't necessarily claim as your national military. for example, there is a bit after civil war under way in sudan right now. might be weird or at least sort of difficult for the russian government to explain why it was deploying regular russian military troops to assist one of the sides fighting in the civil war in sudan. it is much less controversial for the russian government if instead this random, for profit, private army turns up there, the wagner group. so they turned up to promote russian interests in the sudanese civil war with the russian government able to say oh, we've got nothing to do with it. they've done the same thing in sudan, libya, mali, syria. wherever russia wants to exert armed military influence, but they don't want to explain that's what they're doing with their regular military. also of course ukraine. prigozhin's wagner group had a lot of attention for battle field successes in ukraine but

it is not like the wagner group is fighting as an independent force there. prigozhin's wagner mercenaries are basically a private augmentation, adjunct to the russian military. they rely on russian military infrastructure. they can't operate a whole war there on their own. the russian military has to be there, too. but that dynamic has created some friction. since the ukraine war started and russia's invasion of ukraine has gone so poorly from day one, prigozhin has taken on this sort of unsettling new role in russian politics both for putin and for everybody else. he has essentially taken credit for all the russian military victories there have been in ukraine and has gone after the russian military for all the russian failures. and at a time when regular russian citizens are being arrested and prosecuted just for describing russia's war in ukraine as a war, when regular russian citizens are being

arrested and prosecuted not just for holding up signs that say no to war but literally for holding up blank signs that say nothing when regular russian citizens are facing years in prison for making a drawing against the war or even making lists of russian casualties from the war, here is prigozhin, putin's guy running this private military contractor company, talking to social media like every day, showing corpses of russian fighters, screaming expletives against russian military leadership calling them criminals and worse. calling for them to be killed saying the russian elite is corrupt and the war is a lie. why are they letting prigozhin do that? well, friday apparently he hit the end of this rope. he announced in effect a mutiny. wagner fighters versus russia. wagner fighters took over a military outpost in russia that is key to supplying russian forces in ukraine. they took it over without firing a shot.

they were greeted warmly by the russian citizens of that town in which the military garrison is located. and then wagner troops started to advance toward moscow saying out loud that's where they were going. columns of wagner troops going hundreds of miles in a straight shot right at moscow. they got to within 150 miles of moscow. the whole world was bracing for a military coup in red square. putin himself purportedly fled. he left moscow as wagner fighters were closing in. and then prigozhin and his wagner fighters turned around. because apparently, lukashenko, the dufus dictator of belarus was the one who made the call. he made a call to prigozhin to offer a very strange off ramp to this very strange crisis. the end result is that prigozhin has gone to belarus to

lukashenko's country to live out his days? what? i don't know. nobody seems to know what exactly is going to happen to him there or to his wagner group fighters. are they all going to belarus with him? putin gave a speech to the nation from an undisclosed location in which he appeared enraged and said this was all betrayal and treason and there would be no mercy. he just as quickly appears to have backed off that and now gave a speech today saying it's fine. those guys can all just stay in belarus. so obviously there are many questions now. did putin almost just get toppled in russia? i mean a hostile force, a hostile, heavily armed force got within 150 miles of moscow with apparently no resistance whatsoever. so that doesn't seem good even if it was only a dry run, only a dress rehearsal. and what the heck is going on

with this other country with belarus and lukashenko now being in the middle of this? what happens with this immense, well experienced, well armed private army that just tried to mutiny against russian forces and they're now maybe cooling their heels in this neighboring country that's kind of forming a union with russia anyway? are they no longer fighting russia's failing war in ukraine? how did this all happen so fast and what, pray tell, is on the menu of things that may happen next? david remnick joins us live here next. stay with us.

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we moved out of the city so our little sophie could appreciate nature. but then he got us t-mobile home internet. i was just trying to improve our signal, so some of the trees had to go. i might've taken it a step too far. (chainsaw revs) (tree crashes) (chainsaw continues) (daughter screams) let's pretend for a second that you didn't let down your entire family. what would that reality look like? well i guess i would've gotten us xfinity... and we'd have a better view. do you need mulch? what, we have a ton of mulch.

before he became editor of "the new yorker" magazine david remnick was moscow correspondent for "the washington post." that experience helped form the basis of his pulitzer prize-winning book about the collapse of the soviet union. it doesn't look like we are now facing another russian collapse but i think this weekend we just went through the closest thing to it since the fall of the soviet union. joining us live now is david remnick. really good to see you. thanks for making time to be with us tonight. >> great to see you rachel. that was quite the wind up and the questions are all the right ones. >> good. i am -- first of all, i do not expect you will associate yourself with my term dufus dictator and i am sort of sorry i said that about mr. lukashenko. let that not be put on you or your reputation. >> just a dufus. >> yeah. i mean yes.

as brutal as he is weak and ridiculous. but i mean, what do you think happened this weekend? i get the sense that a lot of us were wondering if it was a coup and then it started to look more like it was a mutiny, which is something that happens within military forces. now i'm not quite sure how to think of this. >> i think in foreign policy terms they call this a grave miscalculation. that is the euphemism for it. what you had was a protegee of putin, somebody that grew up in the, if putin's st. petersburg, they are contempories. this guy spent nine years in jail for breaking into apartments. that is yevgeny prigozhin. when he got out of jail he started selling hot dogs in the park and then opened up some restaurants and was lucky enough

to have a customer named vladimir putin who became his patron and to have vladimir putin as your patron it turns out is a very lucky thing. you become extremely wealthy. you become extremely powerful. you enter what is called putin world, this personalist regime that all depends on the great dictator. the problem is one of his enterprises, the wagner group, went to his head because he had some successes or so he thought in ukraine and he felt betrayed by the regular army and started speaking out like crazy on telegram and other means and people started hearing about this in russia and they thought this was fantastic. here is this popular new guy who is winning some battles in ukraine and he curses just like putin used to before he got all fancy. and this went to prigozhin's head and he thought he could make a move on the defense secretary and the general staff and by implication putin himself and possibly to become a successor.

do i think that he thought he could enter red square and take over the kremlin like in some bad movie or like in august, 1991? probably not. but he certainly thought that he was capable of raising his own profile and power. and he miscalculated horribly but nobody has miscalculated more horribly than putin himself who now has three enemies. the ukrainian people who are embarrassing him now for a year and a half, the west, which used to hold him at least in careful regard and now sees putin as a prime enemy, and now figures in the russian power structure itself. so he is at war on three fronts. it is terribly expensive in life and in treasure, and his power is now in greater jeopardy than it's ever been in 23 years. so nobody wins. >> david remnick, i'm going to take a quick break here. we have to take a break and then i'll come back.

i have much more to ask you including what is going to happen to prigozhin's private army, which we don't know if he gets to take with him on his all expenses paid trip to lovely minsk. we'll be right back with david remnick right after this. stay with us.

we're become with david remnick editor of "the new yorker." it strikes me there are sort of three indelible things that will be sort of changed forever based on what happened this weekend in

russia. one of them is prigozhin telling russia and telling the world that putin's war in ukraine is not for the reasons that he said it was. he said, this war wasn't needed to return russian citizens to our bosom nor to demilitarize or de-nazi fy ukraine. the war was needed so a bunch of animals could simply exult in glory. someone telling the truth like that from his perch in russia seems indelible. the fact that putin fled moscow when wagner troops were marching on moscow is indelible and the other thing that seems indelible here is the question that is, the fact that it's left unresolved what happened to the mutineering forces prigozhin appears maybe to have brought with him to belarus. those who participated in the armed revolt are at large and we don't know what happens to this

military force now. >> i think you've nailed it entirely. look at the contrast between the way zelenskyy reacted to an invading russian army. what did he do? remember his line? i don't need a ride. i need arms. and he stayed on the streets of kyiv and he took selfies and he addressed the people with courage and good humor. as opposed to putin, who disappeared for many, many hours at a time. i don't know that he fled moscow. usually he works out of a compound outside of moscow or a palace in sochi. it is not quite like the white house. but what's been punctured here in all three of the things that you express and i think you have it exactly right is the wizard of oz like sense of mystery and power and all knowingness that he projects to the russian people directly and through his propaganda. that is shattered or at least

badly, badly wounded. and for a dictator, for a dictator that is everything and now that's in question. >> david remnick, editor of "the new yorker" and guy i most wanted to speak to with these unfolding events this weekend. david, thank you for making time to be here. i appreciate it. >> great to speak to you rachel. >> all right. we've got much more ahead tonight. do stay with us.

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one last thing before i go. i have a new podcast. it is called "rachel maddow presents deja news" and is only six episodes all together. episode three just came out today. you know how republicans say the election was stolen and it was all voter fraud and they're sure they can prove it but they never do? they ran that exact same play almost exactly the same way in the 1960s. it's uncanny. and it involves a whole cast of characters that will surprise you. a bunch of people that are still shaping our politics even today. again, it's called "deja news" episode 3 out right now.

it is free to listen wherever you get your podcasts. you can also use your phone to scan the black and white box thingy there. can't do this right. right there. on your screen. if you scan that little black and white box thingy it'll take you right there. that's it for me now. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. i was just saying because we were talking about it, and he said he wanted to attack iran and -- >> you did. >> this was done by the military and given to me. i think we can probably, right? >> i don't know. we'll have to see. try to -- >> figure out a -- >> declassify it. as president i can declassify it, but now i can't. isn't that interesting? >> that's part of a recording obtained by cnn of donald trump