that is it for all in on this wednesday night. before we go, don't forget to watch inside with jen psaki every sunday with noon eastern right here on msnbc. over on peacock, there is a new original episode of inside with jen psaki every thursday. alex wagner tonight starts orig with jen psaki every thursday. alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening, alex. >> good evening, my friend. does it mean you're working six days this week, or actually seven. >> yeah, i think about seven shows or something like that, but yeah something like that. we're having fun. there's lots to talk about, that's the good news. >> that's the msnbc version of the full ginsburg, something like that. thank you, my friend. i love these hand-offs. america loves these hand-offs, i don't know if they do, but they do, jen. and thank you all at home for joining me this hour. late last night at nearly midnight former president

trump's attorney, rudy giuliani, stopped contesting that he lied about the 2020 election. he waved the legal version of a white flag. specifically mr. giuliani stopped contesting the claim that he made false statements about two georgia election workers, ruby freeman, and her daughter, shea moss. >> ruby freeman and shea freeman moss and one other gentleman quite obviously surreptitiously passing around. >> giuliani used this video to push a conspiracy theory that somehow with usb sticks and secret boxes of ballots, ruby freeman and shea moss helped to steal the election from donald trump in georgia. in trump's infamous call pressuring george raffensperger

to find him nearly 12,000 votes, trump himself brought up ruby freeman and brought her up 18 times. he called her a professional scammer and a hustler. to this day you can still find that video pushing baseless conspiracies about freeman and moss, you can still find it on trump's official youtube page. none of the allegations against ruby freeman and shea moss are true. they were doing their jobs. they broke no laws. the illicit thing they passed each other was not a usb stick. it was a ginger mint. so when mr. giuliani made this major concession last night, no longer contesting he lied about moss and freeman in their defamation case against him, he did that, it was national news. and now today mr. giuliani is saying this latest admission was not actually an admission at all. giuliani released a video tonight explaining he isn't

actually admitting that he lied. he is just no longer contesting he lied in this specific court case so that can move forward. in other words, giuliani didn't want to have to prove he wasn't lying in court, i wonder why, so he's just going to stop contesting the facts. and the facts are giuliani lied about ruby freeman and shea moss. but don't get the man wrong. don't misquote him. three years later he's apparently somehow still sticking to the lies he told about these election officials despite the profound damage these lies have done. >> there's nowhere i feel safe, nowhere. do you know how it feels to have the president of the united states to target you? >> i gained about 60 pounds. i just don't do nothing anymore. i don't want to go anywhere.

i second guess everything that i do. it's upset my life in a major way, every way all because of lies. >> around the week of january 6th the fbi informed me that i needed to leave my home for safety. >> i received a call from my grandmother saying that there were people at her home and they -- you know, they knock on the door and of course she opened it seeing who was there, who it was, and they just started pushing their way through, claiming that they were coming in to make a citizens arrest. they needed to find me and my mom. they knew we were there. >> the other election workers shown in that video and their supervisors how many are still election workers in fulton

county? >> there is no permanent election worker or supervisor in that video that's still there. >> did you end up leaving your position as well? >> yes, i left. >> the damage is done. ruby freeman and shaye moss aren't just facts in a defamation case that can be conceded to and skip over. they are real people. and in many ways these two women are the tip of the iceberg. they're emblematic of the real harm giuliani's and trump's baseless claims of election fraud brought to election workers all across the country. we're going to play some clips now fairly disturbing, so if you want to mute your tv or cover your kids' ears, now is your chance. this is a sampling of the kind of vitreal aimed at election officials thank tuesday the lies propagated by president trump and his associates. >> time's running out, richard.

we're coming after you and every mother [ bleep ] that stole this election with our second amendment. subpoenas be damned. you're going to be served lead you [ bleep ], [ bleep ] animal enemy communist [ bleep ] sucker. you will be served lead. >> it'd all gone too far. all of it. joe geneva today asked chris krebs to be shot. death threats and a noose to be hung for treason because he was transferring a report from an ems to a county computer so he could read it. it has to stop. >> one night -- one night in december 2020 i was about to put my son to bed when dozens of individuals descended upon our

home. growing in numbers over the course of an hour, they stood outside my front door, waking my neighbors, shouting obscenities and graphic threats into bull horns. to this day these images and that memory of that evening still haunts me. there's after ever permanent feeling of anxiety and dread that permeates our daily lives. not long ago our son standing in our driveway, picked up a stick, turned to me and said, don't worry, mom, if the bad guys come again i'll get them with this. he's 6 years old. >> threats and harassment like that have become a regular occurrence for election workers and election officials all across the united states. and like shaye moss and ruby freeman that means a lot of them choose not to return to their jobs. the brennen center for justice found turnover is so high when the 2024 election comes around more than 20% of local election

officials may have to be new recruits. that's people who have never administered presidential elections before. in key swing states the effect of these election lies and accusations of fraud was even more acute. last year the boston globe actually quantified it. in michigan nearly 27% of county level election officials have left their posts. in wisconsin 30% are gone. in georgia 36% have quit. in arizona 37% are gone. and in pennsylvania 39% are no longer on the job. almost 40% of county election officials in the state that determined the final outcome of the 2020 presidential election, almost 40% of them have quit. that is the toll taken by these lies. so thank you, mr. giuliani, for kind of sort of maybe admitting

you lied but just in court to move the case along but not in real life. the damage quite clearly has been done. so how do we as a country cleanup this mess? joining me now is the secretary of state of michigan, jocelyn benson, the chief elections official for that state. secretary benson, thank you so much for being here. i would like to get your first -- you know, your reaction to this. i think we can call it a concession on the part of mr. giuliani that these claims about these two election workers were baseless. >> i don't even know i'd go so far as to say it's a concession because of the way outside of the court documents that he continued to walk back what he said. but none of his capitulations or dancing in this moment or any other changes the reality or the history that he and others lied about an election causing dire consequences to the lives of

professional election administrators in the process. people showed up outside my home two days, three days after mayor giuliani, rudy giuliani had showed up at our state capitol in lancing telling lies about our elections. shaye and ruby moss, amazing women represent the stories of untold election workers who have lost their jobs because of these threats that come in many ways from these very loud voices and continue to do so. so the question is will there be consequences for the violence and threats to these lives? i certainly hope so. but as my colleague gabe sterling said almost three years ago, this needs to stop also. we need to stop seeing mike lindell and others out there spreading these lies.

>> on that note, it's not just limited to an administration intent on clinging to power. this is now the de facto position of the republican party suggesting there's fraud in the 2020 election and could be in future elections. no one is out there telling the truth and we're on the precipice of a federal indictment on january 6th charges or charges to interfere with the 2020 election, do you think that could have the effect it needs to have which is abameliorative effect to reverse the decay, the rot in public confidence. do you think the toothpaste for lack of a better metaphor can be put back in the tube? >> i think two things can result. certainly accountability is an affirmation of the truth. when we were going through this in the fall of 2020 i remember

the days in which we were up against the federal government. the president of the united states was coming after us we felt and its most ardent supporters for just doing our jobs. our jobs was just to make sure everyone could vote and tell the truth. we always had these moments my team when we recognized we may lose this battle over democracy in the moment, we may lose it in the future and that's real. but the courts were the ones who led the line and demanded truth be told. and that's why this concession today or last night was so critical. you can perhaps lie outside the four seasons garden arena or wherever that press conference was to be held, but you can't lie in the court of law. the more we see charges, that helps us get to a pint where we have official affirmation what is fact and what is false. what i've lived through as we've

seen this unfold these last three years is at the same time we've seen pain in our democracy, people losing their jobs, people walking away from the work, we've also seen an influx of so many americans on both sides of the aisle who know the truth, who know the courage that it took to defend the truth and are standing with us serving as election workers, volunteering as poll workers for future elections because they believe in the process, and that in many ways gives me hope we can emerge from this moment with a stronger elections process than ever before. >> on that note i guess does it worry you up to a fifth of election workers in the 2024 presidential race maybe knew they had no administrative experience in what is sure to be a contested election or at least a very fraught election given the position of one of the leading candidates. >> yes, certainly. that turnover is concerning, but it also provides us with an opportunity to recognize over half of those election officials who lived through 2020 will be

back again in 2024. and we are ready, wisened, and strengthened to protect the process and train those coming in to be election officials to be proud of this work and stand with the truth of the american people whatever it may be. we have gone through the last few years ipmichigan learning how to take these challenges and make them opportunities. i think that's what you'll see i believe unfold in 2024 if americans all across the country join with us and stand up to be part of the process and peek the truth and push back against the lies. >> i mean, i think a lot of people appreciate the optimism of, you know, your position which is people are flooding the zone, when democracy is being tleltenned people aren't averting their eyes. they're coming and volunteering to help save it. on that note in a more sort of craven chapter of strengthening democracy, the republican party appears to understand that it is not good electoral politics to turn people off of early voting,

absentee balloting, and the rnc is launching a new campaign featuring donald trump of all people urging republicans to vote early. that's not the same thing as donald trump saying, look, the 2020 election wasn't stolen, but it is something. and i guess i wonder, "a," what you make of that, and "b," if you're at all optimistic that donald trump somehow can encourage people to come back -- can come back home again to the institutions we've setup thus far un-paralleled in terms of their integrity. >> well, look, i want everyone everywhere to take advantage with the options they have to vote in their states and communities. look at the one most convenient for you and no matter where you live or who you vote for, participate in democracy. as far as the president and others now embracing early voting, i'd like him to also talk about how secure it is, how secure ballot drop boxes are, how we can trust the results of the election.

let's take that one step further so you're not just endorsing the process but overriding the past lies by telling the truth about the security of our election and the security of early voting and the reliability of our machines and results in a paper ballot election. if we see that, then i'll have more positive optimism, but also remember if it's neighbors and every day citizens that can be the arbiters of truth and truth tellers in their communities even if we don't get that from candidates and politicians. it's incumbent on all of us to learn the truth and spread that to our neighbors and colleagues around the country. if we can do that as citizens, then we can fight back against the lies together. >> michigan secretary of state, jocelyn benson, it's so great to get a view from a state and a state that's been through so much as it concerns the 2020 election. thanks greatly for your time tonight. i really appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. we have a lot more to get to

this evening. if you found the breathless headlines about hunter biden's plea deal collapsing, if you found those breathless headlines somewhat confusing, you are not alone. we're going to get into what actually happened and what it all means coming up. next, plus watch what happens when mark meadows is asked whether he's cooperating with the special counsel investigation into january 6th. stick around for that. unsel investigation into january 6th stick around for that.

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goli, taste your goals. everyone condemned what happened in terms of the breach of the security at the capitol on january 6th. >> trying to feed the narrative that the january 6th committee wants to put forth. >> i think of then what happened on january 6th but i'm not going to be intimidated. >> for nearly a full year after the attack on the capitol, trump's former chief of staff

mark meadows was more than happy to go on right-wing tv to talk about january 6th and slam the house committee investigating it. but then last summer after the committee released bombshell testimony from white house aide cassidy hutchinson, the former chief of staff suddenly went quiet. >> i'm not commenting on anything that relates to the president running or january 6th. >> have you spoken to him before or after her testimony? >> i don't comment on anything on january 6th. >> that was a year ago. since then mr. meadows has had to deal with more than just a congressional committee. a judge ordered him to testify to the federal grand jury investigating january 6th as well as trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and in the days and weeks since then mark meadows has sort of disappeared, and that radio silence has led to rumors mark meadows may have flipped on his

former boss, which brings us to today, when mr. meadows refused to even say the words, january 6th. >> have you testified before the grand jury? >> you know, i don't talk about january j 6 related. >> do you feel it's appropriate the investigation? >> at least one former prosecutor says meadows' silence speaks volumes. >> what i will say in watching that video that looks to me like somebody who's cooperating with the federal government. >> joining us now is mary mccord, former acting assistant attorney general for the department of justice and co-host of the msnbc podcast "prosecuting donald trump." mary, thank you for being here. and mary, can you enlighten those of us who have never done this before what it is like when a witness flips and starts cooperating with investigators? >> so, oftentimes in an investigation particularly where conspiracy the one of the charges being considered,

prosecutors will really try to reach out to, you know, coconspirators who faced their own criminal culpability who potentially themselves might be indicted, and if they have to provide to the government is significant enough and good enough evidence it is so useful to a prosecution of the other conconspirators, they will sometimes offer a cooperation agreement. that cooperation agreement can mean that the person will have to plead guilty to something, but it will be probably lesser charges than he otherwise might face if he were indicted. and in return for pleading guilty to lesser charges and giving testimony against those who end up being indicted, the government will then also at sentencing file what's called a 5k letter, which is a substantial assistance letter. a letter saying to the judge this cooperator provided substantial assistance to the government and therefore should get a lesser sentence and in

fact a sentence that might even be below what the guidelines ranges. sometimes if a person's testimony and evidence is so valuable, prosecutors might even decide not to require the person to plead guilty to anything and simply say if you provide truthful testimony, and we believe it's truthful and you cooperate fully and completely, we won't charge you at all. and so oftentimes when there are multiple people who are being investigated and there's, you know, some information that's publicly known that would suggest they all have culpability, one person suddenly, you know, all stops talking live we've seen with mr. meadows that the spiedy sense among other prosecutors and sometimes members of the public that that person is cooperating. >> well, yeah, and i feel that's exactly what's happening here. mr. talky, talky on fox news who gave some important text to the january 6th committee all of a

sudden does not want to talk about it, is not seen around the circle he's normally seen and doesn't want to say the words january 6th anymore. do you feel meadows will be a cooperating witness? in which ways do you think he can actually be very perilous for donald trump specifically. >> well, i would throw out one caution. i would think even if he wasn't cooperating, if i were his attorney and i thought he could potentially be indicted, i would have also told him keep your mouth shut, no more public comments. you can have another interpretation of this. but getting to your question, mr. meadows was one of the people with the closest and most access to donald trump in the period between the election, november 3rd of 2020 and january 6th of 2021. he was in all of the most significant meetings. he was part of the calls and pressure campaign on brad raffensperger, the secretary of

state of georgia to find the more than 11,000 votes that he needed in order to win georgia. he was involved in communications with congressional members and state legislators in swing states where they were pushing this idea the legislature could come in and reserve and the elector scheme where electors for trump sent their ballots into vice president pence. he was also right there hearing mr. trump, you know, every day and could really i think add a lot of important details to what we've already pieced together from e-mails and texts and testimony coming out from the house select committee. he could really, you know, flesh out all the details and be i think an extremely powerful

witness against mr. trump, assuming that he appears credible. and anytime there's a cooperator who has something themselves to gain, that means they have a bias. they are trying to gain the favor of the government, and that is the jury gets instructed about that and instructed that the jury should weigh that, the fact the person has a personal interest and their own bias towards benefitting themselves, that should be weighed in assessing the credibility of the witness. so right now or maybe prior to right now, that's part of what the prosecutors themselves are figuring out. does mark meadows come off credible when he testifies, or will a jury believe him? >> what about rudy giuliani? we have this sort of garbled position he's taken maybe conceding his baseless claims were in fact baseless. does his position on that have any potential effect on jack smith and the sort of halting

the discovery process in that trial? does it have an effect on what jack smith may be trying to get out of rudy giuliani for his own january 6th investigation? >> so i think that obviously these things are completely separate, and the decoration mr. giuliani filed through his attorneys last night does say his concessions or stipulations are limited solely to that case. he did this as a nolo contendre. there's evidence that would support it's defamation per se and knowingly false. that can't be used necessarily in jack smig's case. they'd have to have litigation over that, and his attorneys tried to, you know, cabin that. i think that jack smith probably wanted to talk to mr. giuliani to find out, you know, just to sort of lock him into some things, but i personally would

be extremely hesitant if i were prosecuting this case to rely on mr. giuliani as a cooperating witness because, you know, i think there's a possibility that mark meadows might be credible, but mr. giuliani has lodged so much to see many people about so many things that are easily proven false that i would be very reluctant to put that man on the stand. >> well, it so far doesn't look like he has a deal, so i think your assessment seem tuesday be reflective in the thinking of the special counsel as it's been reported thus far. mary mccord, co-host of the msnbc podcast "prosecuting donald trump," thank you for your time tonight. >> sure. >> still to come this evening, former vice president mike pence still wants to qualify for the first republican presidential primary debate badly. plus what really went down when hunter biden appeared in court today. the explanation is coming up next. e explanation is coming up next

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several years ago while donald trump was still president, the department of justice opened an investigation into hunter biden, the son of presidential candidate joe biden. president trump was apparently unaware of that investigation and was reportedly livid when days after losing that election

it was hunter biden himself who announced he was under federal investigation related to a tax case. trump perhaps understood this to be a missed opportunity. anyway, the doj investigation continued and under joe biden's presidency hunter biden was charged for two misdemeanors for failing to pay his taxes on time in 2017 and 2018. biden is also facing a separate charge for failing to disclose he was using drugs when he bought a gun back in 2018. and so after all these years the hunter biden saga was poised to conclude today as biden and his lawyers entered a delaware court ready to plead guilty to the tax charges. now, the guilty plea was part of an agreement biden reached with the prosecutor in charge of this investigation, the prosecutor who was a trump appointee. that agreement stated hunter biden would not be prosecuted for the gun charge if he abided certain conditions. experts say this was a fairly standard deal, but it fell apart

today at least temporarily over a question about the terms of the agreements. the judge also asked both sides about the scope of the immunity, which was a good question to ask given that trump and a lot of other republicans are running on a promise to prosecute hunter biden again with or without evidence. joining us now is former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official chuck rosenberg. he's also an msnbc contributor. chuck, it's great to see you this evening. and thank you in advance for helping clear up what exactly went down in delaware today. the first -- i think a lot of people snds this plea deal has been worked on for quite some time now. so how exactly did it fall apart in the courtroom at the last minute, and how unusual is that? >> yeah, it's unusual. plea agreements happen all the time every day in every federal courthouse around the country, alex. and every now and then they hit a snag. it's unusual but not unheard of.

when it happens in a high profile case, of course, we're paying more attention to what happened here, there seemed to be two problems and the first one was that the judge was concerned that the pretrial diversion agreement gave her a role she was uncomfortable with not just adjudicating there was a breach or could be a breach of that provision down the road but it gave her some other decision making authority she thought best left to the executive branch. now, we haven't seen the plea documents. i don't know precisely what the language is. we don't know precisely what concerned her, but that seems to be snag number one. snag number two is what you just conferred to, how they'd conifer on biden once he pled guilty to other crimes. i do think they will be resolved and this will ultimately go forward. >> do you think those two

snagserize sort of political at their root? i would imagine if you're hunter biden's team resting any power or privilege with the executive branch is chancy, right, depending on who the executive is. and the same is true for, you know, other parts where you're deferring to potential doj investigations down the line when i don't know donald trump could be president again. do you think that's at the root of the concern here? that biden's folks are worried this could be the new benghazi where hunter biden is, you know, investigated exhaustively despite whatever evidence may not exist? >> i imagine their concerns are not with this prosecutor or this administration, but to your larger point the reason the defendant would want broad immunity from other prosecutions is because, well, in this case if mr. trump wins the presidency, he's bound to go after what he calls the biden crime family. i think that's a deeply

offensive and reckless statement, but it has to resonate with hunter biden. and so when a defendant pleads guilty they're looking from immunity from crimes that the government knows about that it has investigated. they want some assurance that this chapter in their life has closed. the government, of course, wants to conifer a more narrow immunity. let's say you and i are out robbing banks across the country and we've robbed ten and the government knows about all ten and pleaded guilty to three of those. they're going to promise us they're not going to prosecute us for the additional setting, that's typical. but maybe they also don't know you and i are also kouchbter-footing currency. the government wouldn't agree to immunize us as part of the plea agreement. how broad is the immunity the government is going to confer on mr. biden if he pleads guilty? and of course mr. biden is not

just thinking about this attorney general and this president and this administration, but what might happen to him if mr. trump regains the presidency. >> well, and indeed those concerns seem well-founded given the fact members of congress speaking today, republicans including nancy mace saying i can the disillusion of this plea deal opens doors here and gives us fuel behind what we're doing. they suggested there could be an impeachment inquiry regarding hunter biden and joe biden's alleged role in some of the financial misdeeds though there has been no actual evidence to that end. i mean, how unusual is it to have members of congress making statements about federal investigations like this? >> yeah, i've gone through much of my adult life, alex, not paying attention to what members of congress say and i mean that in a bipartisan sense. i don't think it matters at all to the prosecutors here. it may matter in some quarters, it may matter in politics, it

may matter to fund-raising, but for the prosecutors i can assure you it doesn't matter at all and they don't pay attention to it. it's an unusual case because it's a high profile case. most cases as i mention do resolve by plea agreement. occasionally they hit snags but what republicans or democrats frankly has to say about it doesn't mean very much at all. >> and we're going to leave it on that note. chuck rosenberg, thank you for making the time tonight. appreciate it. >> my pleasure. still to come, while mike pence still has not found enough small donors to qualify for the florida debate stage, florida governor desantis is doing better sort of. we'll explain coming up. better sort of we'll explain coming up. mmm, popcorn. (alternate voice) denture disaster, darling! we need poligrip before crispy popcorn. (regular voice) let's fix this. (alternate voice) poligrip power hold + seal gives our strongest hold and 5x food seal. if your mouth could talk, it would ask for... poligrip.

we're reaching out to people all across the country who share our vision, our conservative values and even encouraging people to go to mikepence2024.com and just donate a dollar to get us on that stage. we're grateful for the support. even one dollar at mikepence2024 will make sure we get on that stage. even one dollar, although i want to emphasize you can give a lot more. it would be a help to us. go to mikepence2024.com. donate even a dollar, you'll help us get on that debate stage in a month. >> if you have seen presidential candidate mike pence lately then you have heard him pleading for cash because the republican who

recently served as the vice president of the united states has still not qualified for the first republican presidential debate in milwaukee next month. vice president pence has run into trouble reaching a key bench mark to qualify for a spot on that debate stage, getting at least 40,000 individual donors. public service, name recognition, serving the second highest elected position in the country, putting your life on the line to certify election results, turns out still can't buy you 40,000 people willing to give your campaign a dollar. so far at least seven of pence's republican rivals have announced they're qualified to appear on the stage, donald trump, nikkei haley, tim scott, chris christie, and governor doug bergham. it turns out close to zero name recognition can indeed buy you 40,000 people indeed willing to give your campaign a dollar particularly when you literally try to buy those people off.

governor bergum offered $20 gift stafts to the first 50,000 who gave at least a dollar, and mr. -- offered his donors a 10% cut they raised for his campaign just like avon. vivek has been offering people commission interest am money they raised and now they have secured their spots at the debate and a bunch of supporters have a lot of gift cards. former vice president mike pence, however, continues to try to get there the old-fashioned way with endless appeals on conservative media. when we come back, what the rnc's criteria for these small dollar donations tells us about the race as it stands right now. that is next. as it stands righ. that is next

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okay, take a look at this. this is a graph showing the share of fund-raising from small dollar donors to republican 2024 presidential candidates in the first two quarters of this year. donald trump is the leading candidate. 82% of trump's total fund-raising comes from individual contributors is from small dollar donors, those are people who gave $200 or less. and those are the kind of donors typically able to donate more than once. they also happen to give us a pretty good indication of the grass roots enthusiasm that is out there. now, the enthusiasm for trump is evident despite his considerable legal peril, and then there is biotech entrepreneur vivek, he's second on this list with nearly 56% of his total fund-raising coming from small dollar

contributors. now, small dollar donations also tell us a lot about a campaign's long-term viability and whether it has a base of sustaining donors who help keep it afloat in the long run. which brings me to ron desantis. 17% of hisfund raising comes from those small dollar donations, which is, well, it raises some question. joining me now to help answer them is tim miller, writer for the bulwark, also a communications director for jeb bush's 2016 presidential campaign, which i remember well and which we're going to talk about in a second, tim. but, first, the small dollar donations, those numbers to me more than the diminishing poll numbers seem like a considerable problem for the desantis campaign. do you read it that way, tim? >> yeah, they sounded familiar and look like the jeb bush numbers. i don't remember what i percentage was but probably close to 17 and you can how that turned out, me more vividly than

most. desantis was always going to be the golden boy of the donor class, the big donors, the rich donors because they thought he was going to be the person who could save them from donald trump. he was maga enough rank and file voters would like and he wouldn't do all the crazy stuff donald trump did, they could trust him to advance conservative policies and economic issues. well, it's turned out that the voters have a say in that and they don't like the candidate that much put out by the donor class, the rank and file. in fact they like vivek better and he's doing that 10% gimmick and i've listened to a lot of maga media and they loved it. this is an outsider who doesn't like the gop establishment, who's not into the war in ukraine, not into vaccines. that's the kind of person the gop base is looking for, and ron desantis is the kind of person that a bunch of rich guys in new york and chicago are looking

for. >> i just wonder if this is at the risk of being premature the fact he's firing -- i think they've fired at least 50 and as many as 80 campaign staffers in the desantis campaign, that happened once upon a time in mccain land i think in 2000. when you have no measurable retail skill or retail politicking, when you have no donor base, when your poll numbers are decreasing the more people learn about you and see you, is there anywhere to go but out? >> i've got a lot of experience with campaigns and ron desantis' situation. and, you know, john mccain was a very different candidate as you pointed out. you're going much smaller, going much more intimate, spending a lot more time with voters and trying to get momentum that way.

that fit john mccain, that fit his style. that doesn't fit ron desantis. going lean and mean it's hard to see how that works. that said, 30, 40% of the republican electorate said they wanted him and he did well in florida with republican voters, and so, you know, if something happens to donald trump, he has a lot of indictments out there, you know, he eats a lot of well-done cheese burgers. ron desantis i don't think has totally lost that, you know, that connection he had to at least a certain part of the republican base. it just isn't enough for the republican base to take on donald trump if he continues to stay in as strong a position as he did among republican primary voters. >> yeah, i mean, tim, the x-factor here which is to say maybe the only factor is donald

trump. i was talking to my former colleague, and i don't know -- someone you worked with in the recent past, john heilemann. he said it kind of doesn't even matter what happened with these other candidates because the only thing that matters right now is donald trump's survival in this race. and right now there's no signs that he's going anywhere. i know we're talk about the looming federal indictments and the cheese burgers, but the fact of the matter is the base is with him like 80%. and until that changes, until there's a black swan event, they are but details are they not? >> that's right. he's getting stronger and it's all about trump. it's not like any of these other fantasy candidates, not like tim scott or ted youngkin are going to come in and do any better than ron desantis. ron desantis part of his problem is the campaign and the other part is donald trump. and as long as donald trump remains in this position we're staring down the barrel of a

donald trump nomination. >> almost certainly. tim miller, thank you so much for your insight tonight, my friend, as always. and going back in the annals of failed republican campaigns there's no person with more experience than you, tim. it's great to see you. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. have you testified before the grand jury? >> you know, i don't talk about anything j6 related. >> do you feel it's appropriate the investigation? >> what i will say in watching that video is that looks to me like somebody who's cooperating with the federal government. and mark meadows looks to me like a federal witness under a cooperation agreement, and my guess is that's what we're going to find out he is. >> that's former u.s. attorney and current republican presidential candidate chris christie speculating on why donald trump's former chief of staff was so tight-lipped yesterday. and that comes as