water can't clean tough stains? i'd say that myth is busted. turn to cold, with tide. good to be with you, i'm katy tur. there's a lot of news happening, including word that yevgeny prigozhin has died in a plane crash. we have to go to fulton county georgia, we have breaking news, rudy giuliani is turning himself at the rice street jail as we speak. sidney powell also surrendered just moments ago. we have a reporter down there. we're going to get to them in a moment. joining us right now, lisa rubin. she's going to have a mic in a moment. you're here. >> i'm here. >> let's talk about rudy

giuliani, can we? >> rudy giuliani, $150,000 bond. >> second highest of all the defendants so far, and you know, one of the things i thought was unusual about it was his georgia lawyer came today and said, we think it should be no higher than the president's bond, and it should be no higher than $100,000. don't negotiate against yourself. this guy sort of went out in the public and said what he thought the bond should be. it's not surprising that it came out higher than what he bid in the public domain. >> can we expect to see rules around what giuliani should and should not say. donald trump is very vocal, but rudy giuliani is vocal as well. >> he is, but the bond order is no different than it is for the other defendants, so he doesn't have some of that greater specificity. if our viewers will bear with me, as i catch my breath, i just ran down the hall. it doesn't have the same specificity. you can't intimidate witnesses, you can't intimidate

codefendants, you have to abide by the law. >> rudy giuliani has money problems. he owes a lot of lawyers a lot of money. he has a lawyer down there in georgia to represent him for turning himself in, unclear if that lawyer will remain with him. talk to me about the financial issues. >> financial issues for giuliani are substantial and they come from a variety of different places, right, one is just the sheer cost of defending himself against all the actions he's involved. he's been sued civilly by ruby freeman and her daughter shay moss, the election workers accused of tampering with the vote as they worked the election, famously continued to make the accusations, endangering them and their lives. he has real exposure to them too. and giuliani's money problems are perceived to be so serious that he put his apartment here in new york up on the market a

few weeks ago, literally the same week he entered into a stipulation with freeman and moss, basically admitting to the core facts, established defamation, intentional infection of emotional distress. >> sidney powell has turned herself in, how much is her bond? >> i believe $100,000. >> blayne is outside of the courthouse, blayne alexander for us. glad you're with us. rudy giuliani's lawyers spoke to reporters a moment ago. what did they say? >> reporter: i talked with both of them, katy, as they were rushing across the street, trying, not necessarily to talk to us. a couple of things we were able to get from them. i asked one of his attorneys what message they had for the d.a. today, and they said no message, they were complimentary of the process. they spoke with members of the d.a.'s team. they were professional, courteous in making sure to expedite the process and get everything done quickly. they confirmed the details of the bond agreement and made it clear that mr. giuliani was in the process of surrendering at the fulton county jail

currently. i asked if mr. giuliani had spoken with former president trump since the indictment. didn't get an answer on that. asked a number of other questions that they weren't answering as well. they did, again, kind of make it clear that, yes, the surrender process is happening right now. we know that they were inside for the better part of two hours, almost two hours. we saw them. we had some of our team members inside, including my producer, charlie dial who saw them walking with, to and from the d.a.'s office in the sky bridge we have here. we know this is following the same cadence we have seen with other attorneys for the codefendants who have shown up here at the fulton county court. they were inside for about two hours. in the meantime, we have seen attorneys for jeffrey clark coming out, not answering our questions as well. again, making it clear that the surrender process is underway. >> let's talk about mark meadows, ask a federal judge to intervene, making so he doesn't have to show up. d.a. fani willis said if you

don't show up, we'll issue an arrest warrant. what's the word whether they're going to intervene or get involved before friday? >> d.a. willis has papers due at 3:00 p.m. i have not seen the meadows response from the d.a.'s office. i think the likelihood is low that he's going to get relief, and equally high that he's going to try and escalate this to an appeals court before friday, so stay tuned and let's watch for it. >> donald trump's new schedule will be leaving, i believe, bed minister, and seeing him turn himself in tomorrow night. >> potentially moving all of the news about the gop debate out of the headlines and making it all about him inside. lisa rubin, thank you very much. blayne alexander, thank you as well. we're going to go back to our breaking news out of russia, yevgeny prigozhin is believed to be dead.

state media reports he was on the passenger manifest of the small plane that crashed into the tver region north of moscow. nbc news has not confirmed the reporting but here is the video, again, this is according to russian state media. the plane falling from the sky. and then the burning remains in a crash. if the reporting is true, the timing is obviously suspicious. it is two months to the day since prigozhin tried to lead a mutiny against the kremlin. when that uprising failed, experts predicted it was only a matter of time before prigozhin met his own fate. here's what secretary of state antony blinken told our andrea mitchell, quote, if i were prigozhin, i would remain very concerned. nato has an open door policy. russia has an open windows policy. and he needs to be very focused on that. again, we have not confirmed any of the circumstances around the crash, and we don't know if prigozhin actually was on the

plane. but you cannot ignore precedent. there have been a lot of reports of untimely deaths for those who have crossed vladimir putin. so what does this mean for vladimir putin's grip on power in russia? and what does it mean for his war it ukraine where prigozhin's wagner group had been largely responsible for russia's territorial gains? joining us now, nbc news chief foreign correspondent, richard engel. he has covered yevgeny prigozhin extensively. there was word from the wagner group there was a second plane and prigozhin might have been on that plane. what do we know about that? >> reporter: so if you look at the wagner telegram channels and telegram channels that are wagner supporters, there's a lot of chatter about the second plane. was prigozhin on the second plane. is he still on that plane, is he still safe. some members of the wagner community, let's call it, are

urging their followers to stay calm. nothing has been confirmed yet. maybe he sent a body double. they believe that he is a man or was a man with great survival instincts, great cunning and they are still holding out hope because it seems that there was two aircraft, both of them wagner aircraft flying together in some sort of convoy. and that one of these planes, according to the russian news agency tass and according to numerous videos has crashed, and was a devastating crash, an unsurvivable crash with the plane dropping out of the sky from about 26,000 feet and then bursting into flames on the ground and according to the russians, eight bodies have been recovered from that crash site of ten people who were on the manifest. and according to the russian, yevgeny prigozhin's name was on the manifest, so the assumption in russia, according to the

russian government is that yevgeny prigozhin is dead, died because of this very suspicious plane crash that happened about 30 minutes into the flight, leaving from moscow on the way to st. petersburg. but we don't have very much information about this second crash. but based on the information we do have, which is coming from the russians, it appears that yevgeny prigozhin has died in this plane crash. it could be some time before we get more verification. if we ever get complete verification that the russians might just try and leave this in the air of ambiguity, believing that the message has been sent, that if you rise up and stand up against vladimir putin and challenge him, you will meet a terrible death, and there's no need to express it further. i think the message that putin, if he was, in fact, behind this, wanted to deliver, would already

have been delivered without an extensive investigation. but obviously for us, for journalists, lots of people, we want more confirmation. >> but if you are russia and you're watching this, and they're saying this plane has crashed, is it tongue in cheek that this is a terrible accident, do russians know when they look at that video of the plane falling from the sky, and again, we should get an aviation expert to tell us what sort of failure this indicates, whether there was explosion on board, whether it was hit by something, a failure of the mechanical failure what indicates a free fall. do they think yeah, it was an accident or vladimir putin took out his number one enemy? >> reporter: well, what do you think, katy? i mean, they saw an uprising in moscow. they were aware that this happened.

there was a state of emergency declared. people rose up with weapons. they were driving toward moscow, and there were battles along the way. prigozhin didn't just have an uprising and throw a temper tantrum and drive his vehicles toward moscow, they engaged in fire fights and shot down russian aircraft and killed russian pilots, so they were aware of this mutiny, they were aware of how shocking this would have been. this was, and by the way, it was two months ago today when the mutiny happened. so this is still very fresh in russia's mind. it was the biggest challenge to vladimir putin's authority in the two decades that, over two decades that he's been in power, so russians certainly know it is incredibly suspicious, they have seen opposition figures get pushed out of windows, die from poisoning or survive poisoning,

only to be locked up later on. and this would seem very familiar to most russians. i can't imagine too many of them are scratching their heads and thinking what a terrible aviation accident this was. and if you look at that video, and i'm not an aviation expert, but it does not look like it fell because of any natural cause. it was high in the sky and plummets to the ground, out of control, twirling as it falls. >> you lose an engine and glide for a little while, at least before something like this happens. richard, can you give us a little bit about how yevgeny prigozhin was viewed inside russia. we saw the video after the attempted mutiny of russians taking selfies with him. it seemed like he was a relatively popular figure. the fact that he was able to get as far as he did without, you know, a big blockade, without the russian military coming in and stopping him, how was he viewed in russia?

>> reporter: so two months ago, the war in ukraine was going more or less like it is right now, very badly for both sides. a very difficult war of attrition, worse obviously for the russians since the russians launched this war, an unprovoked war of aggression, based on some sort of historical fantasy in the mind of vladimir putin, and wagner was doing relatively well, and had managed to achieve battlefield successes, but it wasn't just that. prigozhin, almost every day was on social media yelling at the russian, screaming at the minister of defense and the army chief, calling them incompetent, telling them that they were -- them and all russians that the leadership were stealing money, that they were a bunch of cowardly thieves hiding back in their offices and that they were denying his forces, the wagner

mercenaries, the weapons and logistical support they needed to win the war and that message resonated. it's clear because he wasn't stopped by the russian military on his way to moscow. he stopped, and then when he turned around, he was greeted by people who wanted to come up and take selfies with him. he had the courage to step, to call the russian leadership incompetent in carrying out the war in ukraine, and i think that was a sentiment that resonated with many residents. it was something that russians wanted to say but didn't have the ability, didn't have the power to say it, like prigozhin did. >> let me ask you about timing. >> reporter: this is a major moment. >> let me ask you about timing because we heard from prigozhin for the first time in a while yesterday talking about what the wagner group is doing in africa. where did we know him to be, one, when that video was released, and then two, what does it mean for the wagner group in africa?

>> reporter: it hasn't been confirmed but in all likelihood that was in the central african republic. he was taking a video with locals, including influencers from the central african republic. it was all but confirmed that he was there. and that would make a lot of sense. the central african republic, one of the poorest countries in the world, next to the democratic republic of the congo, and cameroon, extremely impoverished, has had decades of lawlessness and civil war, and the government has become, the president in particular, has become dependent on the wagner group for its survival. this is the wagner group's business model. they find countries in africa in particular that are weak, that are vulnerable to being overthrown by rebel movements, and they come in and they offer

security services, to prop up the dictators, but in exchange, they take whatever they want. in the central african republic, they take diamond mines and gold mines. i went to the central african republic with a team, spoke to people at the gold mines, and describes how the process happened. wagner was there, they ran the government, they patrolled openly in the streets, and when they arrived at a mine site that they wanted to take over, they told the people to leave, and if they refused they killed them or killed several of them in order to terrify the rest of the people and buried them right there in the center of the village in order to send a message, get out while you still can. that was their business model, and it was a successful business model because, well, not for the people of the central african republic, but successful from vladimir putin's point of view because through this proxy,

through this modern day pirate like organization they were able to spread vladimir putin's influence in africa, which is very much a continent up for grabs at the moment, with china, the united states, and russia all competing for influence there and trying to take control of the country, its resources, or at least engage in a constructive matter. that was what he did. it seems that he was last seen in the central african republic, which begs the question, and there's a lot of speculation online as well. why was he going back to russia. why was he going back to moscow now, leading from a moscow airport, headed to st. petersburg. he's from st. petersburg, that's where his power base is. what was he doing in moscow, who had he just met?

and then what happened after he got on one of these two planes and now whereabouts unknown, according to the russian, likely did. >> and was he on that plane? we still haven't been able to confirm that obviously. richard engel, thank you very much for joining us. stay close if you can. let's bring in former cia director and nbc news senior national security analyst, john brennan. good to have you. thank you so much for being here with us. the national security council has said that they haven't confirmed it yet but wouldn't be surprised. the president said basically the same thing, he wouldn't be surprised if vladimir putin was behind this. why now? >> i think as richard pointed out, it's two months to the day since prigozhin launched his mutiny against vladimir putin, so there is something symbolic about that. secondly, i do think that putin wanted to wait a while because at the time of the mutiny, the situation was very unsettled inside of russia, as well as the military. i don't think putin knew exactly

who was on his side, and who was not on his side. if he moved against prigozhin at that time, i think he was concerned that there could have been additional types of moves against him, so over the past 60 days, he's had a chance to sack a number of generals and high level officials and have confidence that the loyalists around him are going to actually stay with him, and therefore, after 60 days, i think he felt as though it was necessary to take this action against a traitor. such as prigozhin. as you pointed out, we don't know whether or not prigozhin was on that plane, whether or not he was alive since he had been in moscow, and also a lot of questions about what happened in those -- the day or two before he got on the plane. it's clear that when looking at the footage of the plane coming down, that's the result of a catastrophic explosion. either as a result of a missile that was launched from the ground or from another aircraft or some type of large ied, improvised explosive device on

board. that's not the result of an engineer failure or mechanical problem that would have caused some type of small fire. that was a catastrophic explosion that took place that brought that plane down into a free fall and anybody on that plane certainly was killed once it hit the ground. >> i grew up in the skies, planes don't fall out of the sky like that unless something major happens, and it's usually the result of explosion, either internal or externally directed. let me ask you a question about vladimir putin's power, and how the u.s. assesses his leadership now, and what sort of operator he is? >> well, i think they see a lot of his fortunes are tied to what's happening on the battlefields in ukraine, clearly there's continued challenges he faces, there is some upset inside of russia, as far as the toll that was taken, not just in terms of the number of deaths

but the economy. putin is still trying to keep on board those elites, those oligarchs, supporters that have allowed him to retain power for the last 20 years. i think he's holding out hope that there's going to be some changes including in the political environment here in washington because he sees that the u.s. led support for ukraine that has been so so critical to ukraine's ability to withstand this russian onslaught is something that he's hoping to be able to outlast, and therefore i think he's going to continue on this track of trying to make sure that he does whatever is possible to stunt the ukrainian counter offensive and also keep throwing a number of russian young soldiers into the fray. he doesn't care how many of them die, how many of them are going to be maimed and injured. >> so much of the speculation or worry around the war in ukraine is what would vladimir putin do if he were backed into a corner. what lengths would he go to to remain in power, and would he use a tactical nuclear weapon,

would he go there? does this change our assessment of his, the way he's operating right now. does this seem like status quo for vladimir putin? >> he goes after traitors with a vengeance, and that's certainly what happened here, looks like with prigozhin. he believes if he can win this war in ukraine, conventionally, he realizes if you go into the tactical realm, that would bring a very sharp and strong and immediate response from nato countries in the united states. and so therefore he's going to push resources into his conventional capabilities, continuing to build up the ability to manufacture and produce drones that are taking a toll inside of ukraine. but at this point, i think he is not going to go beyond the conventional realm. it also demonstrates if he was the one responsible for killing

prigozhin, he feels he has the confidence to take action like this and still be able to maintain control over those wagner forces and he's not going to be vulnerable to a counter move. i don't believe he's going to waiver from the standpoint of continue to go prosecute this effort inside of ukraine. >> director brennan, stick around. i want to bring in bill browder, prominent critic of vladimir putin. he's been called putin's number one enemy, and led the fight to sanction vladimir putin and other russian oligarchs. bill, thank you so much for being here. let's talk about how you see this. you said this is not typical of vladimir putin's playbook. >> what's not typical is you have the effective mutiny two months ago. putin is a guy who's a strong man, a dictator, his whole way of being a dictator is by terrorizing anybody who challenges his power, and the

fact that prigozhin is running around freely for two months without any problem, that was what was unexpected. that was what made no sense, and so what happened today is totally within putin's playbook, he never forgets. and assuming that prigozhin was actually on that plane, he assassinated prigozhin and a message to anyone else which is that if you challenge putin's power, terrible things will happen to you. i don't think this is the end of the story. like any ruthless dictator he'll go after them as well. perhaps those who looked at him as being a weekling might say otherwise, after seeing the plane go down. >> one of the generals seen with

prigozhin was general, he hasn't been seen for quite a while now. some of the people below him have been removed. what can we guess at least about his whereabouts, what's happening with him? >> same as prigozhin. i can imagine that if he is alive, he won't be alive for much longer. putin arrests people who hold up empty signs on the street, effectively against the putin regime. these guys were involved, actively involved in an ardent rebellion. >> they obviously know how vladimir putin is going to react. how did they make this move? >> the move looked popular at the time. prigozhin with his wagner troops rolled into rostov, and taking

selfies with him. there's a lot of people in russia that are not happy with the war, they are not happy with all the deaths of servicemen. not happy with the economy shrinking. i don't think that the original crew was intended towards putin, it was intended, prigozhin was fighting with the minister of defense, and the head of the army. he wasn't fighting with putin. the whole thing escalated very dramatically, and put putin in a very weak, humiliated position, and you cannot afford to be a weakling in a -- when people think of you as a strongman. he needed to reassert himself. the only thing surprising is he waited two months to do it. >> can you predict the future with any real accuracy, when the rebellion first happened, the attempted rebellion, there was talk about how it might not mean the end of vladimir putin in the near term but sooner than later

that he was going to be removed from power. do you see that happening, the war in ukraine has damaged him. or doing something like this if he's behind it. does that help him hang on for longer than the short-term? >> one of his most obvious rivals definitely helps him. prigozhin is a very capable killer and having him out of the picture, and having his people out of the picture is helpful for putin. the war itself though is what precipitated the crisis in the first place. putin thought this would be a three-day war and people would put flowers on their tanks, which didn't happen. we're 500 days into the war, russia has lost, according to the ukrainian numbers, a quarter of a million troops. it's been an absolute disaster. the economy is in free fall. so everything that happens as

ukraine executes this war creates infighting in russia. that's what prigozhin's story was about, and all of those factors continue to weigh heavily on putin and on russia, and so, you know, i would say that there was a 5% chance of him being overthrown before all of this stuff happened and because of ukraine and prigozhin, that number probably went up to 35%, but there's still a 65% chance that he muddles through this. dictators tend to find ways of muddling through, and i would say that the most likely scenarios were here a year from now, and two years from now, still talking about this evil man, vladimir putin in power. >> let's bring back dr. brennan. i want to get your take on that. what do you think about vladimir putin's future? >> i think it's longer than most of us would like. because he's been able to, i think, just deal with the challenges associated with the setbacks in ukraine. he's been able to repress and

suppress any real significant domestic opposition. as pointed out, there are economic challenges, there is social discontent, he's an authoritarian leader, and will resort to whatever tactics necessary to include killing his opponents. as long as his military machine can continue to operate, and as long as he can continue to get revenue from oil and gas exports, which has been able to sustain his military effort, i think unless there's going to be some type of additional move against him by somebody else until the hierarchy, fed up with what's going on in russia, unfortunately i think most of his critics are coming from the right, as opposed to the left. they want him to be much more brutal and aggressive in the war in ukraine, so it could be pushed to decide by somebody who's even going to take a much more violent attack when it comes to moving against the ukrainian neighbors. >> certainly a precarious position, if you're looking on

the outside, and want this war to end. director brennan, thank you very much. bill browder, thank you, forgive us, we're going to come back to this story. we're going to follow the bouncing ball of breaking news and go back to fulton county. this time we're going to the rice street president where we're going to find our own vaughn hillyard awaiting rudy giuliani to leave the prison. he has been booked. vaughn, as you can see, is on the move. is that vaughn because you're expecting rudy giuliani to come out and make remarks? >> reporter: if you can work with us, this whole thing has been looney tunes if i can be honest with you. that's the entrance to the jail here, and then if you swing around this way, this is where the press room is. i was told he was going to be at the courthouse, we made our way to the jail where he was surrendering, and we don't think he's here in realtime. we were just down the road about 15 minutes from here at the courthouse. where just about 15 minutes ago,

his two attorneys, one attorney from new york, john esposito, they left the district attorney's office, where they struck a bond agreement for $150,000 with rudy giuliani. at that point, his attorneys left, told me that rudy giuliani at this time was surrendering in realtime, so taking about 10 miles down the road, that's where we are now. this is the fulton county jail, and his political adviser yelling his phone number out for everybody. . what time did he go in there? >> i can't tell you for sure. we're trying to set up outside here, everyone is happy and get a shot when the mayor makes remarks. >> in terms of the bond agreement, $150,000. >> i believe so. >> reporter: has he had conversations with donald trump since the indictment came out? >> i can't speak to that. we're going to have a spot here.

i'm hoping the press, you can work together and be friends. >> reporter: this is playing out in realtime, and rudy giuliani here, upon the completion of his booking will be here and come and talk to the press. rudy giuliani does not talk to mainstream news outlets. there's a great number of questions the press has not been able to ask him since the 2020 election. hopefully we'll have the opportunity this afternoon. >> fact-based news outlets, i think we can call them. any idea when this is happening? i mean, you're talking about imminently, does that mean a couple of minutes or longer than that? do they have any idea? obviously he's inside of that jail right now. >> reporter: my best guess is he entered a half hour ago, and these have been ticking upwards in the case of john eastman, it took 90 minutes, and so this is, honestly, we're kind of in the heart of the afternoon, that's why the former georgia chairman, david shaffer came about 2:00 a.m. because some of these folks were given the heads up

that it may be worth their time to come in and move quickly through the process. do the finger printing, official booking, so that is a good question here, we have not been given much credible heads up from this camp, if i may. we know rudy giuliani flew down this morning, is going through the process, $150,000 for context, $200,000 for donald trump, and the expectation is that he will, in fact, leave here after talking to the press. >> do we expect to see sidney powell or is she already gone? >> reporter: that is a good question too. i know i was engage instead a conversation on my phone a few minutes ago with a question around sidney powell. kenneth chesebro was here this morning. went through the arraignment process. rudy giuliani right now would be 7 of the 19 who have gone through this surrendering process, of course tomorrow might, we expect donald trump to be number 8.

folks could come in, ultimately friday is the deadline. if you can show them the scene. there's a cup of counter protesters here with trump arrest signs that are up. it's about 96 degrees here in atlanta, and what's -- >> for planning purposes, taking care of a few things. nothing to break yet. >> reporter: that's what we've got from atlanta, georgia. >> get some shade. i think we're used to the scenes looking just like that. become familiar. vaughn hillyard, thank you: we'll go back to you. let's bring in lisa rubin, who has caught her breath. thank you, we appreciate it. let's talk about rudy giuliani addressing reporters. if you're his lawyer, and it's unclear who his lawyer will continue to be? what do you want him to say. >> nothing at all.

anything he says at this point is ripe to be used at this proceeding or a number of other ones that could face him on the civil side. ideally, you want him to listen to his lawyers. >> this video is him leaving his manhattan apartment earlier. this is not him at the courthouse. let me ask you about mark meadows. in the time since i have seen you, i looked on my phone and there was a response from d.a. fani willis from mark meadows' request to delay his arrest or move the case entirely. i did not have a chance to read it because we were talking about yevgeny prigozhin. >> i had a chance to scan it. one of the things fani willis says, she's asking for a judge to immediately remove his case to federal court, and fani willis and her team say no can do. the statute requires an evidentiary hearing. the judge has set the hearing for monday. the other thing is the only way he gets any form of emergency relief is if he can show that

they acted in bad faith and that the prosecution is itself unconstitutional. and they say that there's a federal court doctrine called abstention, it requires federal courts to stay out of the way of state criminal proceedings where there's not a showing of bad faith or unconstitutional action. >> isn't the argument it's unconstitutional because he's protected by the power of the presidency? >> yes, and in that way it's circular. the reason he's saying the case should be in federal court is the reason he's also saying he's entitled to emergency relief. i don't think that they're going to win here. i don't think you can show at least on first blush, you can't show this was undertaken in bad faith after a several month's long special grand jury process for the purpose of investigating this case, and having submitted it to a regular grand jury for two months to hear evidence and make an up or down decision on an indictment. it would be difficult to show this entire prosecution was undertaken for partisan reasons or bad faith.

>> d.a. fani willis has a number of opportunities to respond in writing. we have seen her give a news conference regarding this indictment. what can you tell us about the way she's holding herself or reacting to some of these motions or requests? >> one of the things that vuk me is not the motions itself but the e-mail attached by meadows' lawyer. having had more time to think about it is she sent it herself, which is a person who's saying, look, i understand this is a dangerous time to be the prosecutor in charge of this case and i'm not going to let the career people who work for me absorb the brunt of any public frustration with me. i'm going to do it myself, and i know that this e-mail will likely be recirculated and i'm going to take that on because i'm the elected district attorney of fulton county, and that's my responsibility. that shows leadership as well as toughness and the actual substance of her response. >> correct me if i'm wrong, 7 of

the 19 defendants have shown up. who's left other than donald trump and mark meadows. >> jeffrey clark, who we understand his lawyers are in court today which is interesting given that they too have an emergency motion with the same federal judge to stay his arrest and processing pending disposition of these issues of federal removal, and then i think there's some other folks out standing still, you know, thinking about some of the other folks in this indictment. i believe that we haven't seen harrison floyd, those are two of the figures involved in a scheme to intimidate ruby freeman and to get her to falsely admit to election fraud, which she didn't commit. >> we have a couple of defendants going in overnight, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning to avoid the cameras or potentially get processed quicker. do we know if donald trump is going to have a mug shot taken? do we know if we're going to see that? >> i don't know.

we know his team would prefer they not have a mug shot taken. the mug shot they like is the one they have manufactured themselves for use in political purposes. going back to what you said about people going in in the middle of the night. we're not being given good guidance. it's hard to anticipate. it's not flying an airline, one line for frequent fliers and one line for everybody else. you can't anticipate how long it's going to take. anybody accused of a crime. >> like going to an emergency room. >> correct. and it's not like you get to go to the front of the line because you've been accused of a conspiracy to overturn democracy. you stand in line. let's go back to the other breaking news story. the belief that yevgeny prigozhin has died in a plane crash over russia, suspicious plane crash. here's the plane falling from the sky. let's talk about this video and what this indicates to us, and bring in nbc news aviation contributor, john cox. it's good to have you. i did some armchair analysis of this video and said that it's

unlikely that it's, you know, an engine failure that would cause a plane to fall out of the sky like this. tell me as an expert what you can suss out? >> it's clearly showing the airplane is out of control. there are some reports that it's actually missing the right wing. the explosion occurred at 28,000 feet according to some of the flight radar following people, and so the airplane is in a routine climb and electrically it just totally shuts down, so that says something catastrophic happened to the airplane and when you follow the flight path on the way down, it's obvious the airplane is very much out of control, and quite probably missing significant portions of either a wing, a tail or both. >> is there anything that can happen on board? you have probably flown on one,

many of our viewers have probably flown on one. this was a private plane but they are commercially used for many major airlines. is there anything that could happen on board, any catastrophic failure of the systems of that plane that would lead to something like this? >> i know that airplane pretty well. it's widely used. it's based on an airliner, the business version of it, known as a legacy 600. has a very good safety record. has been in service quite a long time. i can't come up with a system failure that would cause this level of damage, if you had an explosive device on board, and it were properly placed possibly or an external force, that caused this catastrophic damage. >> when you're talking about external force, what comes to mind what happens with mh-17

over ukraine many years ago, 2013, i covered this. shot down by russian separatists. at the time russia said it wasn't them, and they still maintain it wasn't them, but international investigators have found that it was. that was a missile. could this be a missile perhaps? >> i think it's something we have certainly got to consider. with the airplane being at 28,000 feet. it's above the altitude that the shower fired missiles can reach. this is not going to be if it is a missile. this is not going to be a small one. but much more complex, and more powerful device. so that could be an external force that was applied to it. could have resulted in this flight path that you see in the video. >> john cox, thank you very much for joining us. we appreciate it. giving us your analysis on what could have happened with that plane. let's go back to fulton.

the bouncing ball of breaking news. here's rudy giuliani. let's take a listen. news here's rudy giuliani let's take a listen. >> the american people. >> not getting a mic into that. vaughn hillyard is there. can we hear anything? vaughn, can you hear me? >> reporter: and the reality is -- >> can we get a statement. >> if they can do this to me, they can do this to you. remember, three years ago, the fbi raided my apartment. and they investigated me for two and a half years. 20 years of my life they investigated and wrote a letter to the grand jury, they couldn't find a single crime. so that should have pretty much cleared me, don't you think,

except for this ridiculous case in which i'm being prosecuted for defending an american citizen. who i do as a lawyer, and five other lawyers are indicted. that should tell you right away that this is an assault on our constitution. fani willis, will go down in american history as having conducted one of the worst attacks on the american constitution ever when this case is dismissed. she has violated people's first amendment right to advocate the government, to petition the government for grievances like an election they believe was poorly conducted or falsely conducted. people have a right to believe that in america. biden and the biden state doesn't have a right to tell you what the truth is. >> mr. mayor. >> i will tell you if you need to know what this is all about,

the fbi stole my icloud account, and you know when they went and stole it, the day i began representing donald trump four years ago. the day after i represented mr. trump. >> mr. mayor -- >> through all of that time, the federal government on donald trump and his lawyer, i'm being indicted because i'm his lawyer. >> mr. mayor, right here, you effectively -- >> will you be here tomorrow? >> by the way, you're wrong, i didn't do that. i entered into a stipulation to move on. it specifically says i do not admit the truth of those allegations. those allegations are totally false. >> you did not contest you made fraudulent claims about the 2020 election. >> you're wrong and you're lying as you often do. as you read it, it says it was only for the purpose of that

case and it was not an admission. >> reporter: you had the opportunity to refute it, mr. mayor. >> we got to go. we got to go. back it up. >> mr. mayor. mr. mayor. hey, mr. mayor. mr. mayor. mr. mayor. do you acknowledge that you made false statements? >> that is a total lie. why don't you go -- >> reporter: you acknowledged it, why did you not fight that in in the court? >> i did not acknowledge it. that's a stipulation, not for the purposes of truth. >> reporter: you did not contest it. you had the opportunity to fight that. >> i did not because i had to move on to legal issues. let me take another question. >> reporter: you do not deny that you made false statements. >> i will not be here tomorrow. i talked to the president today. i wish him well. i have every confidence in him. what they are doing to him is an assault on the american constitution, and i say to american citizens -- >> reporter: you got to stop

now. >> you are a clown. >> katy, can you hear me? >> who posted your bail, sir. >> giuliani getting in the car. reminds us a lot of the scrum with saw with george santos. a lot going on there. and rudy giuliani saying a lot of things, including that the fbi stole his icloud account the day he started representing trump four years ago. he said he's being indicted because he's a lawyer and that if it can happen to him, it can happen to you. he also said that the stipulation he made, the admission he made in court documents regarding what he was saying about ruby freeman and shay moss passing a ginger mint was like drugs, passing votes to each other on a usb port. in a court document he said that wasn't true.

let's bring in lisa rubin. can we get back to the stipulation he made on the court document. what was he saying there, and what does the court document saying? >> he's saying in that document he's agreeing not to contest the elements of a defamation claim but he's limiting those agreements not to contest solely to that civil case. that was deeply unsatisfying to the judge who's overseeing that defamation case, and she ordered giuliani to submit a second stipulation clarifying what he was admitting or not, and to what extent he was trying to reserve defenses for himself. ruby freeman and moss have a response due to that on august 25th. i was just looking at the docket for that case. but his response to our colleague, vaughn hillyard, that he's lying by saying that rudy has admitted the falsity of those statements is itself a blatant mischaracterization of what he has admitted to. he is trying to limit his costs

and his expenses by getting his liability out of the way so that that case solely becomes about damages. this is a person who's a sinking ship financially, and he made those admissions in order to reduce costs. now he's going to have to live with those. >> what about giuliani saying the fbi stole his icloud account. >> the fbi had a search warrant to go in his office and home, and multiple devices, and in the process of that they got access to his e-mails and icloud account. that was in service into whether giuliani had violated foreign lobbying laws. there was no fbi stealing going on here. in fact, the federal judge in charge appointed a special master to ensure that any attorney/client privileges were protected. barbara jones was appointed in that capacity. went through all of the giuliani's communications and decided that only a very limited number of them were actually attorney/client communications in the first place, and the remainder were turned over to

the southern district which recently made a decision not to prosecute him. i'm not sure where mr. giuliani is getting the idea that things were stolen from him, if it happened pursuant to court process. >> if it can happen to him, it can happen to you. >> for a guy not on great terms withtrump, for someone who is not on good terms with his former client it's interesting how he imitates him. >> vaughn asked him if he's been speaking to donald trump and he refused to answer. vaughn, tell us what that was like. >> right. i think lisa just outlined it well and the reason i wanted to get that direct question because literally a month ago there, he did not contest the fact that he'd made false statements there, and as you heard him say dismissively to move on were his words from that and saying that he wanted to get past, acknowledging, get past essentially the legal end of this and the funds that multiple cases in front of him would

ultimately dig up here. i want to let randy show you the scene that we're looking at and it's become a little bit more as these days have gone on here, katie, but rudy giuliani is just this interesting character in it, because the attorney, the district attorney fani willis directly alleges in her indictment that he knowing he made false statements. yes, there are the phone calls to folks in michigan, pennsylvania, here in georgia, but she very explicitly, in her indictment says that rudy giuliani knowingly made false statements and so for rudy giuliani looking at these potential charges, that's why we wanted to get that question to him and yet, as you just heard him there, very dismissive about the filing that was made on his behalf. to note, rudy giuliani, we just became familiar with who his two lawyers were this morning, katie. i know the conversations were going late into last night with potential counsel. i also want to note that i had the chance when they left the

district attorney's office asked both men whether they intend to stay calm and john esposito as council from new york say they will stay with him through the trial, and georgia counsel told me that he was not yet ready to make that commitment. so for rudy giuliani, was there a lot of involved here. $150,000 bond and potential charges could loom there and this could get expensive and for rudy giuliani there is increasingly a difficult legal situation -- >> georgia representative, do we know that the issue is a financial one. is it why he can't confirm why he'll stay on? >> i wish i had the answer for you, katie. we're trying to build a relationship with these folks in real time. this was counsel that we just found out about this morning and we know that his new york counsel was with him in this local office before giuliani

ultimately came out here and surrendered and it's a good, outstanding question. >> what about giuliani's relationship with donald trump. did thai speak anymore? >> if folks were around a few minutes ago you all met a guy named ted who worked as his political adviser and that trump and giuliani maintain a close relationship and that they still speak often. for rudy giuliani, this is a relationship that led him to mar-a-lago in april. we do not know the exact specifics of that meeting here, but it is known that rudy giuliani has not been paid for legal work for 2020. he has a podcast that he goes on the internet with on a nightly basis and for those that thought rudy giuliani would flip along the way, i'm not ruling that out, but if anyone were to sit in the hour to hour and a half long podcast it is clear that

rudy giuliani is as defiant as he was in 2020 and he continues to propagate the conspiracy theories that led to the charges and for donald trump, there may want be a financial stipend for his continued echoing of his own election fraud claims, he very much has a loyal defender in the one-time mayor and longtime very good friend and fellow new yorker rudy giuliani. >> would you want rudy giuliani as a cooperator? would you want to flip him if you were d.a. fani willis? >> i think i would want him as a cooperator and want to know what he knows and what he wants to tell me. rudy giuliani is like mark meadows, a person who was in rooms alone with donald trump when he apparently gave orders or approved of certain actions that people down on the food chain never saw directly. you heard trump say himself, i don't know most of the people. the people he did know and knew intimately include rudy giuliani and meadows and that's what

their value is, katie. >> lisa and vaughn, thank you very much. let's go back to news of yevgeny prigozhin. josh letterman and pentagon correspondent, courtney kube. i understand you have reaction from inside of russia. >> that's right, katy. we've now heard from a telegram channel that is associated with the wagner group that now says that they have confirmed that he died in this plane crash. they are calling him a victim of traitor within russia calling him a patriot for russia. we still don't have definitive confirmation of that, but that would seem to throw cold water on this theory that we'd heard from some wagner-associated groups in the past few hours suggesting that he might have been on a second plane and could potentially still be alive, but in the meantime, reaction now coming in throughout social media and on television from ukraine including from a close adviser to president zelenskyy

who posted just a link to the song "highway from hell" seeming to troll the russians. we heard from another zelenskyy adviser saying this is a signal from president putin to the political class in russia, but also to the military not to consider any signs of disloyalty in this war, and we are also, katy, hearing from russian prop gandists, those who are close to the kremlin and push a kremlin message, they are starting to claim that it was ukraine behind this attack on yevgeny prigozhin saying that putin no longer had any beef with prigozhin, that that had been settled and that clearly this was some type of a strike from the ukrainians. out absolutely no evidence at this point to suggest that ukraine had anything to do with whatever happened today to yevgeny prigozhin, but in the meantime the one person we have not heard from is president putin himself and he was at a memorial for world war ii veterans when it

became public. he was holding a moment of silence for those who died fighting in world war ii. so far the kremlin remaining very quiet about this incident today. >> do we expect vladimir putin to make remarks on this? >> we've not heard anything from the kremlin suggesting that he's going to make any formal remarks. it is likely that he would want to weigh in on this at some point in the future, if only to indirectly suggest involvement or to deny involvement with a wink and a nod, but certainly for now, the kremlin has been silent on this and has not indicated whether or when president putin will weigh in publicly. >> josh, thank you very much. president biden remarked on prigozhin's apparent death a few minutes ago and let's listen to what he had to say. >> i don't know for a fact what happened, but i'm not surprised. >> do you believe putin is behind this? >> i don't know enough to know

that. >> it is hard to hear, but he says he's not surprised if this is true. let's bring in courtney kube? what's your reaction from inside the pentagon? >> that's a pretty common sentiment that we've been hearing from american officials that if, in fact, this is true, if in fact, prigozhin is dead, that if putin has a role in it they wouldn't be surprised that two months ago today that the wagner group start its march through russia at the time with the belief that they were trying to take over country and take it over from vladimir putin and they turned it around and there's been a widespread sentiment among u.s. officials since then that vladimir putin would, in some way, take some sort of revenge against prigozhin for that action. i will say there's still no evidence or the u.s. still has no evidence or information that would confirm that, in fact, prigozhin was on that plane and whether he is alive or dead. one thing that viewers should know is if, in fact, it was a

miss they will were to take out a plane like this the u.s. would very likely or a u.s. ally would very likely be able to see some sort of a heat signature. the plane was flying pretty high, about 26,000 feet is what we're hearing according to flight tracker. so that would require a relatively good sized missile that would be able to see a heat signature. so there should be some confirmation that something was fired at that plane at some point. we don't have that yet. believe me, we are asking, but at this point we don't have an indication from u.s. officials that they've seen that. u.s. officials and i'm not expecting that we'll get a real confirmation of that as early as today. the wagner group had been side lined recently. the russian ministry of defense had been having meetings trying to identify some sort of other mercenary group that they could use that could ultimately replace the wagner group and prigozhin was trying to expand

their footprint in africa and u.s. officials aren't confident that he was there even this week despite the video that they released that claimed he was somewhere in western africa. >> he could have recorded that much earlier. courtney, thank you very much. again, this video, the plane where vladimir putin -- i'm sorry, yevgeny prigozhin as being onboard falling from the sky. you saw it a second ago. that will do it for me. thank you for following the bouncing ball of breaking news with us. "deadline white house" starts right now. ♪♪ ♪♪ hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york, welcome in wednesday, kicking and screaming for the 19 people indicted in fulton county, georgia, for their roles in what has been described as a criminal enterprise there to overturn the results of the 2020 election. for some more than others, since we last spoke, kenneth