>> that roar on match point was really loud. i'm grateful for every single person that believed in me and supported me. >> reporter: her grand slam title started way dream. ♪ this video of an 8-year-old coco at the u.s. open resurfacing overnight. one fan declaring, she was always a star. [ cheers ] a star shining for this moment in history, determined to rise towards an even brighter future. >> very good weekend at the u.s. open. that's going to do it for me today. "deadline: white house" starts right now. hi, there, everyone. 4:00 in new york on day that is one of somber reflection in our country as it has been for the last 22 years. memorials today in new york, pennsylvania and washington, d.c. and across the country. later in the hour, alaska, where

president joe biden just touched down making remarks at a september 11th remembrance at the military base in anchorage. we'll bring the remarks to you as soon as they get under way. the memorials today a reminder of the moment of national unity that took place in the aftermath of the brute's september 11th attacks. as the attacks revealed humanity's capacity for pure evil. the ability to inflict almost unspeakable horrors on other humans. what happens after 9/11 reveals best of humanity. never forget the images, all-hands on deck effort and the national effort to support first responders and victims and all their families and the pledge to never forget. the attacks also fundamentally changed washington, d.c. for a moment. officials of both parties along with former officials of both parties were in public office at the time of the attacks attended events today to mark that. it is an echo of how americans

were, for a while, able to set aside all differences, political and otherwise. and -- just a question we ask today 2, 2 years later. are we still that country? can we still do that? are we capable of that kind of national unity? 22 years later, the republic faces something he didn't have to deal with back then. a grave let that comes from within. according to government officials of both political parties, the gravest threat to our homeland right now today does not come from abroad anymore. it is instead, domestic violent extremism and these officials tell us it is on the rise. fbi director christopher wray appointed by donald trump last year called political violence a "365-day phenomenon." new reporting today on alarming gaps in the way we handle has is becoming a major focus on the domestic violent extremists

themselves. attacks on our power grids. so how do americans contend with this threat? today? in this country? how do we grapple with the fact that the threats we face, the threats to our homeland could come from -- somebody living right next door, from our fellow americans? making the situation more complicated for all of us the fact that our politics are now intertwined with the threat. the free-flow of violent and dangerous rhetoric on one side of the political spectrum means the possibility that that rhetoric could proceed or lead to a sudden burst of violence, that looms over us at every moment. a moment of reflexes on the state of the country 22 years after the september 11th attacks. where we start today. mary mccourty national security decision here. andrew weissmann, back. former justice department and fbi at the table for the hour,

former u.s. senator claire mccaskill and my schmitt. mary, start with you. regardless where the threat emanated from, your body of work for your career. what are your thoughts today? >> well, you know, what i reflect on, on 9/11, is that attacking critical infrastructure, you know, that was what 9/11 was. mass transportation is part of our critical infrastructure, and we've seen attacks not only in the u.s., of course, with 9/11, buttalswhere, trying to inflict mass casualties and create really psychological trauma by foreign terrorist organizations. that's what al qaeda was doing on 9/11 and what other foreign terrorists groups, particularly islamist extremist groups have done elsewhere in the world. attacks here in recent years, there's a significant uptick documented, tend to be not so much on our mass transportation

or intended to inflict mass casualties when they're committed by domestic extremists, but this rise in attacks on our electrical grids, also part of our critical infrastructure and also characterized as a federal crime of terrorism, done often times to create chaos, to deepen societal divides by trying to suggest to americans that their government can't protect things, basics like their power grid and used by skellerists to accelerate towards societal collapse so in their minds, means what's could emerge from that a white supremacist state. a white nationalist, christian nationalist country. and so, you know, attacks on critical infrastructure aren't new. used by terrorists for decades, but the motivation is different, and it is pretty, it's really

sobering to reflect on where we've come over these 22 years. from mostly looking outward at the signs of danger, and concern, and banding together as you indicated, to trying to protect against that foreign terroristic threat. sometimes you know, very, in a way like, that you prayed, americans coming together, sometimes in a way unfortunately targeted our muslim neighbors. and i don't mean neighbors outside this country, although i mean them as well, but neighbors right here inside this country in our own communities. you know, now we've come at a very, in a very different direction. as you indicate, the perpetrator of an attack on our power grid sometimes it doesn't cause a lot of injury. sometimes it leaves thousands of people without power for days, and it has been attributed to some deaths. this threat could come just right, you know, from anyone. domestically, who has bought

into disinformation, who is, you know, becoming more of an adherent to this idea of white christian national im, because they feel, perhaps, they have something they're losing as we become a multicultural country and don't want to lose something and the way, one way preventing that, in their minds, engage in these kind of attacks. so i've never imagined on 9/11 that we would be 22 years later talking about this threat at home. >> yeah. i mean, i think andrew weissmann, it's sort of trauma on top of tragedy on top of trauma on top of tragedy. right? trauma of 9/11. i still, when i see the local footage of the memorials, i cry through all of them. but there's the tragedy on top of the trauma which is this question we have to ask. right?

i want to play, again, this is not a program posing this question. these are what government officials throughout the last i think three aministrations articulated represents the greatest threat to the homeland. let me play some of them. >> secretary majorca, last year you se domestic vile rcht extremism poses the most lethal and persistent terrorism-related threat to our country today. is that still true? >> mr. chairman, that continues to be our assessment in the department of homeland security. that domestic violent extremism, particularly through lone actors, or small groups, loosely affiliated, are spurred to violence by ideologists of hate, ant government sentiments, personal grievances and other narratives, propagated on online

platforms. >> since the spring of 2020, so the past 16, 18 months or so, we have more than doubled our domestic terrorism caseload from about 1,000 to around 2,700 investigations. and we've surged personnel to match more than doubles the am of week working that threat from the year before. >> we have a growing fear of domestic violent extremism and domestic terrorism, and both of those keep me up at night, every morning virtually every morning, i get a briefing from the fbi and one or the other or both areas. >> andrew, by design our country, people, protecting our country like those three individuals, have fewer tools to combat domestic violent terrorism, but i wonder if you think that we are structurally in a place that--

that should get more attention? >> well, first, nicolle, on personal level, started out, i still to this day remember driving my father to work and hearing the first plane overhead, and we thought it was going to the airport. not to attack the world trade center, and then i saw the second plane and then from my office, the u.s. trade office watched people as they jumped from the tower which is -- it's -- still to this day, unimaginable. when you think about the trajectory that you and mary talked about, that, you know, i think in many ways is embodied by rudy giuliani, that was the day which was his finest moment, and he was a statesman and held the country together, not just the city, and when you see sort

of, what has happened to him it is very much an embodiment of -- in many ways insanity that has gripped our country, and, you know, one way in which i think people are combating this is not just the department of justice where you see many people held to account for engaging in domestic terrorism, as they should be, but i also think when you see an image of joe biden visiting a memorial for john mccain, from a different party, and being able to be an american and human and decent first, that models the behavior that you want to see from a president, regardless of politics, and i think, unfortunately, i think that the tools we have are not

ones where you look just to the criminal justice system. i think the intelligence community and the criminal justice system are capable of dealing with this. it does pose unique challenges, because of the domestic context, as you noted, and because of the roles, but i think that, because it's a deeper problem that it really has to be addressed in terms of modeling behavior and values that we need to instill in people, because we really are very, very lost from where we were 22 years ago. >> yeah. and claire, i think, andrew's right, and joe biden's bet is that the most he can do is to fight in ways that are not at least detectable for the institutions and the norms that he reveres, and so far, he's been right. right? he won in 2020. i feel that sometimes those

fights are -- asymmetrical in ways that make them, like, marching up a hill with 1,000 pound bolder strapped to your back, one hand tied beyond your back and in high heels, it's so difficult. but he believes the best antidote to everything he sees in the system, cleave off the extremes, make peace with the rest. i mean, he was, i think, the first public official to give mitch mcconnell a clear back after mitch mcconnell's doctor, but my question for you is, is that -- is that a symmetry going to catch up with him? do you think that the fight is still fair, in the political arena? >> well i don't know that's fair, but it's winnable. >> hmm. >> you know, andrew mentioned rudy giuliani. 22 years ago, his approval rating was about 72% in america. a poll take an few days, his approval rating was 16%.

>> and who are they? >> tell you who they are. calcified epicenter of trumpism. and i want to, in this somber reflection of what our country went through and how we united after that moment, i want to lay blame clearly and simply at fact for the first time in america we had a leader that had no desire to unite the country. i mean, george bush wanted to unite the country. sometimes he wanted to do it in ways i disagreed with. bill clinton wanted to unite the country. george bush's father wanted to unite the country, john mccain wanted to unite the country. joe biden wants to unite -- there's only one outlier here. donald trump wanted to drive a wedge of grievance between america's most vaulted institutions and the american people. and that grievance is his political coin in the realm. and it is making people angry

and cynical, not all americans. i think most americans are weighing in on rudy giuliani, exactly right. they want us to get back to a time where it's not all aboutpo. that we can come together and i think that's joe biden strongest case for re-election, stronger than any policy. it's the ideals of this countries and the extremism were not prevail. we have a lot of challenges around that, but it cannot prevail, and donald trump has people that totally bought in, but not majority of this great country. >> and something reptilian about what trump set out to do for a second and third. fundamentally alter the way people viewed institutions in which mary and andrew worked. fundamentally change the way people held the nonpolitical nature of the justice department and the fbi. >> you sort of touched on this in the intro, but how would you

country react today if 9/11 happened? how would -- the country really came together. do you really think if something like that happened, that there would be that unity? i think that's hard to imagine. and -- i can't help but think as i ask that question about september 11, 2012. height of obama's election. that terrible attack in benghazi, and -- his opponent, mitt romney, but out a statement that day trying to appeal to the far right of the party, and accuses obama of being on the side of the attackers, saying that the u.s. response had been empathetic, kicking up this stuff about benghazi that goes on for years and years. >> it's a slide. we make a mistake if we think it started -- >> i forgot that.

>> it's not over. >> hold him up as good guy. >> the story's not over. benghazi becomes a huge issue on fox news, and on the far right and go on and on and on and on and turns into pressure to investigate the benghazi attacks because getting so much, you know, presure fra-from-that part of the party. that committee sends subpoenas to the state department asking for a lot of documents, and in those documents are the emails that showed hillary clinton used her personal email account. look -- how are things connected, not connected? it's just an example of how romney in trying to -- to appeal to that part of the party. >> yeah. >> created this notion that went on and on for several years, until it achieved significant

damage that the republicans hoped it would. kevin mccarthy said that on the record. >> it is amazing, and it is important and it shouldn't take our slowing ourselves down on a day like today, mary to get to it, but the slide towards political extremism certainly pre-dates trump. i guess the distinction is that boehner was leader and as mike's describes, he bends to the pressure. what happens now is that trump directs the pressure at the department of justice and the fbi. >> i think that's right, and, you know, beyond even what's happening with government, and, you know, this, now, of course, we have congressmember jordan way whole series of hearings on the weaponization of the department of justice. almost like there's, not almost like. reality is, there is a, a very vocal, very active portion of our elected officials in congress who are, you know,

actively at war with institutions like the department of justice. and constantly politicizing everything. certainly politicizing the investigations of donald trump as being political persecution, even when, you know, the evidence is there and the evidence we all can see for ourselves. but the infection isn't just sort of within the politics at that level. the infection, you know harks gotten out there into the american psyche all over the country because i think you're right. it's not new there would be political divides. it's not new there would be white supremacist, supremacism, those analogies have never gone way in america and sprang up really with the genesis of america. hundreds of years of historical roots in this country, but they had been tamped down. they had been kind of put under

a rock, and what has happened in the current moment, and i think mike's reflection back on 2012 is apt. i was criminal chief in the u.s. attorney general's office when the benghazi attack happened and eventually prosecuted people for that attack. seeing that, that evolution since, in the last 10, 11 years is pretty remarkable. but what going on that has started maybe then but really amped up with donald trump is people being willing to just come out and be very public about their white supremacy. superior publicable their christian nationalism and make it seem like it is actually politically mainstreamed and an acceptable ideology in the country and perfectly fine to engage in intimidation, threats, even acts of violence based on your ideology. >> i mean, look. i think, andrew, brings us back to this big question.

right? so still take your shoes off at the airport. unless you have your tsa pre-card and a lane is open. other than, you know, a passenger annoyed, you don't see anyone refusing to do that, when after 9/11, they put up the metal detectors, republicans refused to go through them and/or give up their guns. you know how an inability to concede any personal prerogative for the security of the whole, and i guess that's where the questions about who are we, if we get attacked again, emanate from. >> you know, listening to mike, thinking another example of that sense of division and victimization came with covid, where it was a national and global problem that you would think any other normal

administration, republican or democrat, you would have a unifying effect of the country and of the globe. over how to deal with this, and it was used, instead, in this divisionive way, and so you, as a friend of mine said, who was sort of a bush republican, said he does not have a party anymore. >> uh-huh. >> because you've got such -- you know, you've got attack that is completely about division and playing all sorts of cards, race, national origin, sex, class, homophobia and anti-semitism. you name it. all of that is part and parcel of a way of maintaining power of sort of the maga far right, and so, you know, that is a part of

who we have become, as mary said. it's now much more out in the open and mainstreamed, in a way that it did exist, but not with this much power and not with a sense that it used to be, like it could exist and that people knew it was wrong. now people just embrace it as it's right, and sort of sarah, people view this as a mistake on mccain's part now is the way forward for a part of the group. >> andrew, listen to the president, interrupting you. just taken the microphone. remarks in anchorage, alaska, remembrance of 9/11. let's listen in. >> the major general, i -- i really appreciate all you do. and as is general sacks and tribal stewards of these sacred lands and all family members and distinguished guests here i join

you on this solemn day to renew our sacred vow. "never forget. never forget. we never forget." each of us, each of those precious lives stolen too soon when evil attacked, crowds that are in new york and i remember standing there the next day and looking at the building. i felt like i was looking through the gates of hell. it looked so devastated, because of the way, from where you could stand. shanksville, pennsylvania. the pentagon in virginia. i spent in those hall ode grounds to bear witness and remember those we lost. every day but especially the last few days their memory's been with me. i'm just returning from the g20 summit in india where we strengthened america's leadership on the global stage. followed by a historic trip to

vietnam, transforming our partnership in one of the most critical reasons in the world. these trips are a sense of how we're going to ensure that the united states is flanked by the broadest array of allies and partner whose will stand with us and deter any threat to our security. to build a world safer for all of our children. something that today of all days we're reminded of is not a given. because at this military base is located on ground zero, we know the distance did not dole or diminish the pain we felt all across the nation of september 11th. because we know on this day 22 years ago from this base, scrambled on high alert to escort planes through the airspace. alaskan communities opened their doors for stranded passengers. american flags sold out of every store and out in front of

americans homes. every big city, small town, suburb, rural town, tribal community, american hands went up. ready to help where they could. ready to serve like so many of you here. ready, like chief master sergeant shady taylor here with us today, recently started college when flight 93 went down a few miles from shanksville and said, i quote "i immediately knew i wanted to sign up and suit up to serve my country." ready like general -- excuse me. general eisler who said on that day, when our nation calls we must be ready. they called and we went without hesitation. my fellow americans, september 11th, 2001 tested our strength, our resolve and our courage. the billowing smoke and ash that darkened a clear blue sky that september day, the shredded steel and concrete slabs that

rained down from the world trade center. the plume of fire that shot up in the sky at pentagon i remember seeing as i got off the amtrak train on my way to work in the united states senate. the pit and into the earth shanksville. merkel reserve. we endured. we endured. every year we mark this hallowed day it's never easy. to anyone here or anyone across the country who's grieving a lost child, parents, spouse, sibling, co-worker, all of those who still bear wounds from the this september morning, i know how hard it is on a day like this. how can we reopen that boom? it's like opening a black hole in your chest. sucking you into it again.

bringing you back to that moment when you saw the news. the moment you got that phone call. the moment you realized you'd never say again, see ya later, mom. or talk to you soon, son. think of everything your loved one might have done if they had a little more time. what would they have done? though that can leave you so hollow, it also makes you full at the same time. on this day, i'm thinking about a friend of mine named davis who grew up with me in delaware. 22 years ago he and his family just passed the first year without their youngest son, of three sons, who died in a boating accident at age 15. his oldest son davis jr. with just six days on a new job of the south tower of the world trade center. davis went straight to ground zero to search for his son. searched deep into the last as

he referred hope as he put it. few days later talk about a fur that knows about losing a piece are your soul. on may way to speak with students of the university of delaware to try to make sense of what happened. and guess what? having lost two sons within a year davis told me, just tell them, joe, don't be afraid. don't be afraid. the terrorist stole 297, 2,977 souls that day. 2,977 souls. fresher in the future so many families, story of our nation. but those terrorists could not touch what no forest, no enemy, no day ever could. that is the soul of america. what's the soul of america? it's the breath, the life, the essence of who we are. the souls that makes us, "us."

the soul of america is based on a sacred proposition we're all created equal and life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. haven't always looked up to it but never walked away from it either. the soul of america, fortitude found in the fear of that terrible september day. the purpose found in our pain, the light we found in our darkest hour. an hour when terrorists believed they could bring us to our knees, bend our will, break our resolve. but they were wrong. they were dead wrong! the crucible of 9/11 on the days andfollowed we saw the stuff america is made of. firefighters, police office running into jet fuel, debris at ground zero. breathing in toxins and ash damaging their own health but

refused to stop nor months. rushing into the fire and breach again and again and again to res crew their colleagues in the pentagon. patriot passengers of flight 93. think of this. who did not know the horror that awaited them. but they confronted the unimaginable. fear air terror with absolute courage. astonishing. the poem maya angelou wrote, history, despite it's wrenching pain, cannot be unlived. but if we face it with courage we need not live it again. my mother had it in a different way. my mother, 5'2", lady with a backbone like a ramrod. she used to say, i mean this sincerely. courage lies in every heart, and the expectation is that one day it will be summoned. on september 11th it was

summoned at 9:57 a.m. it was summoned and 40 incredible men and within in shanksville answereded call. civilians that gave their lives in in doing so served their country. saw it on the ground of the pentagon and so it in so many other ways. these are heroes, like the faith community leaders across the country who pushed back against the fear and hate they saw directed at muslim-americans and middle eastern americans of south asian descent. heroes like all of you. the brave women and men of the armed forces, who never faltered, you never failed, to defend our nation and our people and our values in times of trial. heroes like 9/11 generation, hundreds of thousands of brave americans deployed to afghanistan making sure the

united states would not be attacked again. who served in iraq, like many of you probably did, in war zones. around the world, risking their own safety and safety -- for safety of their fellow citizens who serve add sacrificed again and again to save other democracy and deied terrorists. followed osamu bin laden and sent him to the gates of hell years ago. and i made a zawahiri. and today recently assessed and declassified a memo that al qaeda threat from afghanistan and packstein reached historic lee. all this changed over the last 22 years. resolve of the american people has proved, we never bow. ne we never bend. we never yield.

our longest war is over but our commitment to preventing another attack on the united states and our people and allies will never, never rest. never. terrorism including political and ideological violence is the opposite of what we stand for as a nation. it settles our differences peacefully under rule of law. we're going to continue to track terrorist threats and in all forms wherever it may be. continue to disrupt terrorist activity wherever we may find it. and i will never hesitate to do what is necessary to defend the american people. just as i will never forget our sacred duty to those of you who serve. never before in our history, never before in the history has america asked so much for so many over such a sustained period for all volunteer forces. you make up 1% of the population and the strength, ven you're, you're the backbone and sinew of

mishg. as a nation we have many obligations saying 30 years one truly sacred obligation. to prepare those we send into harm's way and care for them and their families when they return home and when they do not return home. it's an obligation. not based on party or politics. but on a promise that united states all americans, and together over the last two and a half years i worked to make good on that promise signing more than 25 bipartisan laws to support our service members and veterans and their families and caregivers and survivors. we will not stop. we owe you. we owe you big and it matters. across the country many americans heard our nation's call in the days right after 9/11. there are those who were just children. not even born yet when this happened. but when the their time came to choose to serve, not because they saw something, but because they felt something, like many

of you did. the same feeling that brought americans together on this painful day 22 years ago. unity. now, it shouldn't take a national tragedy to remind us of the power of national unity. but that's a truly honored -- how we truly honor those we lost on 9/11. remembering what we can do together, to remember what destroyed -- what we repaired. what was threatened that we fortified. attacked and -- and an american spirit prevailed. ordinary americans responding in extraordinary and unexpected ways. that's who we are. you are the soul of the nation. that's not hyperbole. to me that's a central lesson of september 11th. not that we'll never again falter or face setbacks. for all our flaws and

disagreement, there's nothing we cannot accomplish when we defend with our hearts, which make us unique in the world. our democracy. our democracy. every generation has to fight to preserve it. that's why the terrorist targeted us in the first place. our freedom. our openness. our institutions. they have failed but we must remain vigilant. today we can look across the country and around the world and see anger and fear in places many of you have been stationed before. a rising tide of hatred and extreme and political violence. it's more than other we come together around the principle of american democracy regardless of our political backgrounds and must not succumb to poisoning politics of division. must jev never ourselves to be

divided but stand united. we have a duty a responsibility to defend, to preserve, to protect our democracy. and always remember, american democracy depends not on some of us but on all of us. american democracy depends on the habits of the heart. the "we the people." the habits of heart. let me close with this -- earlier today in hanoi i visited a marker to honor my friend, war hero senator and statesman john mccain. john and i disagree like hell like two brothers, argue like hell on the senate floor and then go to lunch together. i went out to see john just before he passed away at his home. as i was walking by, he pulled me down, said i love you. will you do my eulogy.

jaund i were friends. ted stevens and i were friends. disagreed but were friends. one thing i admired about john, how he put duty to country first. not hyperbole. he did. above party, above politics. above his own person. disday reminds us we must never lose that sense of national unity. so let that be the common cause of our time. let us honor september 11th by renewing our faith in one another. let us remember who we are as a nation. we never forget. we're never afraid. we endure. we overcome! we are the united states of america and there is not literally historically, nothing beyond our capacity when we set our mind to it together. god bless you all. may god protect our troops. thank you. [ applause ] ♪

an arousing speech from the commander in chief. president joe biden there. went about 16 minutes. hitting all four corners of all that is sacred to this president when it comes to public service, the military, sacrifice. those who serve something bigger than themselves. loss. talked about those who didn't see their loved ones after that day and after they enlisted and the most animated, section about national unity. he said our democracy was why terrorists targeted us on that day, talking about 9/11. and then he made a nod to his audience that they may look out at their own country and see a "rising tide of political violence and political extremism." he said, we must not allow ourselves to be pulled apart. that democracy depends on the habits of the heart and ended it, claire, with that mccain moment we've talked absence

absence -- absence being on the air. >> he heard us, longing for the days, where there could be unification among the two parties. it seems like an old-fashioned notion at this point. but the fact that he brought up his friendship with john mccain and brought up his friendship with ted stevens, and, you know, this is -- he's not -- this is totally authentic and who he is. >> after 10.5 hours on a plane you're going to be exactly who you are. >> exactly. it is what he will run on. decency, humanity, unifying the country. the high ideals we all agree on. this is his strongest case and stronger than any of the, yes, he did bipartisans bills and yes, got things through the congress. >> i agree with you completely. >> totally this is what he needs to run on and that's what's going to get the swing voters.

especially binary choice. between division and calling people names and celebrating our differences versus our better angels. >> let me say this in terms of a political message. i agree with you and i wasn't eastern thinking about that, but this was where he appeared to go off script. clear some of the -- and teleprompter begins on an airplane 11 hours and people in the crowd to pay tribute to. the section about democracy. i don't think politics were on his mind today but he really is speaking to those who like him, drawn to public service saying i see what you see. and i'm on it. i thought it might be in some ways the most comfortable way to go at the most uncomfortable piece of the republican side, and that is, they're lurch towards extremism and the party itself representing a threat to the homeland. >> yep. speaking to those republicans who don't think they have a party anymore. that andrew referenced top of

the show. he's speaking to people who cannot get onboard with the direction the republican party is going. and there's at least 25% of people who identifies republicans that are there. he's saying to them come on over to the side of rightness, and the side that really still believes we can unite at times of crisis. >> mike, he said this about mccain. you know, we were friends. he believed he had a deputiy to his countries. that duty to his country above politics. there's a -- epilogue, the rest of the story telling involves john mccain rebuking romney's attacks on 9/11 in 2012. >> so mccain saw what romney did and the statement that romney put out and he called one of romney the aides said, what the heck are you guys doing? >> it was not heck. >> he says, you know, mccain really wanted obama to be defeated and he thought what

romney did was unpresidential. you can't put a statement out that about the commander in chief in the middle of the attack. you don't have all the facts why are you doing that? an example of mccain being that sort of -- putting, you know, the idea of fair political play and sort of the well-being of the country above the hyper partisan politics of that moment. so you were less than two months out from that presidential election, and he thought that despite that, what romney had done was very wrong. >> i want to come to you, mary, the president's section on domestic extremism. not the first time he talked about it but wrapped in a rousing commemoration of those that were inspired to enlist and serve after 9/11. and he seemed to really --

became to the men and women of the military. i see what you see when you look out across our country. the words he used, see a "rising tide of political violence and political extremism." >> yes. you know, can you imagine if you are in our military now, you signed up, maybe you were motivated by-in-law ml. maybe by things since then, because, of course, so many of our younger enlisted men have just toddlers at the time of 9/11 if alive at all. but imagine right now being somebody who is sworn to defend our country because of the values it stands for and seeing what is happening to our country? these are people who deploy abroad into the most dangerous combat situations in the world. many lose their lives. not most, but not an insignificant number to lose their lives protecting our democracy. and to imagine that your own

brothers and sisters in this country would be the ones tearing down the democracy that you fight for. that you work for. that sometimes you, you know, shed blood for. even lose your life for. that's pretty -- it's pretty amazing to think that we could be in this position. now, i will say, there is no secret that there is some extremism in our military. and that's something that president biden's secretary of defense tried to address. something that needs addressed, but i think that's probably still a very small fraction of the men and women who do dedicate their lives to perfecting the very things that are under attack right now. >> andrew, his first words about -- looking at the buildings and seeing them at the "gates of hell" reminded me of your first remarks being in the car with your dad on that day. it is still a singular day in our country's history.

>> the other thing i think about, and, when i think about that, the president's remarks about his call to unity, with commemoration of john mccain, is, a friend of mine was supposed to be on the flight that landed, that crashed in pennsylvania, and just, on the later flight just by luck and his reaction was not, thank god, because he was a federal agent and had a gun. he was regretful that he was not on that plane thinking he could have made a difference. and there are different types of people in this country. but that was his reaction, was that he could have served. >> i mean, that's what we celebrate. every year. because they are different kind of people. the people that ran in to the towers.

and -- we should always hear -- separated in that way. i want to share recording mary alluded to at the very beginning. new data, new information on a specific piece of what the department of homeland security and the fbi is dealing with right now today. when it comes to combat be terrorism, protecting all americans. particularly alarming aspect of this domestic violent extremist threat that faces all of us. you might web back in february we kov ed it here. two suspects with neo-nazi ties charged with planning to take down baltimore's power grid. federal prosecutors insist when the attackers were driven by this. racially motivated hatred. and failed scheme would have cut power to hundreds of thousands of people in baltimore. city with majority black population. thankfully those two suspects were not ultimately successful, but the story doesn't end here. exhausted new analysis of

federal data by politico revealed this. utilities reported 60 incidents that characterized physical threats on major grid infrastructure in addition to three cyber attacks this year. more than double during the same period last year. making matters yesterday, politico reports communication gaps between law enforcement and statened federal regulators left many officials largely in the dark that are figuratively about the extent of this threat. claire, you were on homeland, right? >> i was. >> there was an effort to stay current. right? when the threats shifted from planes and into bombs? the -- you know, to infrastructure to bridges, to foreign locations. the committees were briefed and the policy adjusted. >> this politico report includes arn anecdote about the

executives, utilities learning about this on tv. like airline executives learning about hijacked planes on tv. we seem to be nowhere connecting the dots to the domestic threat. >> the same article lays out there were times there was serious disruptions of power by violent acts, and the federal acts and the federal authorities never knew about it. it wasn't reported to them. so really what has to happen here, this is even a little more complicated than the efforts after 9/11 to get communication going between state and local and federal law enforcement about the threat of criminal activity around terrorism. this now is more complicated because you're dealing with all kinds of different utility companies. small little co-ops, large grid power people. they need to -- jennifer granholm and the secretary of homeland security, they need to have a summit and they need to simplify the reporting. they need to make sure there's only one place that you have to make sure -- or at most two places that you have to report

these kinds of events. clearly grid is being targeted. and that's not going to end anytime soon. and if we're going to stay ahead of it, it's going to depend on communication. and right now the communication's not there. >> so robert mueller has the distinction of being -- i think he was on the job two or three days before 9/11 happened. appointed by president george w. bush. he has the mission of changing the fbi -- not changing it, adapting it to the current threat. and the mission statement becomes connecting the dots. there's the memo about the pilots. that becomes his mission. director comey comes in and has to adapt. but the mission stays basically the same. christopher wray is leading the fbi at a time when the threat environment is as dramatically different from those post-9/11 years as at any other point. what is your sense of how he has transformed the bureau to deal with the threat? >> the question is how much of

the counterterrorism work that the fbi is doing is focused on the domestic issue. because counterterrorism, at least the last time that i checked, was the fbi's top priority. it was the thing they were supposed to put the most time and attention to. with counterintelligence and espionage being the second. so for many, many years that part of the fbi, and andrew would know this better than i would, was focused mainly on sort of lone wolves and, you know, foreign terrorists who were trying to wreak havoc on the united states and attack things like planes. what does that look like now? how is that made up? how much of that is focused on foreigners who may attack the united states and how much of it is domestic? i think mary's talked about this, that the domestic

counterterrorism investigations are more complicated because of the constitutional rights that people have. >> andrew, you were there for some of this period that i was describing. you want to weigh in on how the bureau has adapted and what limitations it faces? >> sure. well, robert mueller tells this famous story of going in to then president bush and saying this is what we're doing to track who did this and bring them to justice. and the president said to him, that's not what i want to know. i want to know how you're going to prevent the next attack. that was really the marching order of really transforming the fbi. but to mike's point it was very focused on the foreign threat. even when there were people in this country who could be inspired by that foreign threat it was very much looking outward. i do think there is much more attention now to domestic

terrorism, but it also means that's where you have to put your best agents. for a while the best people and the most people were on the foreign side. also you have to be rethinking who you're looking at. many people say that one of the reasons that the fbi and other agencies really dropped the ball on january 6th and were very slow to react, because they weren't thinking and correctly evaluating the problem of the proud boys and the oath keepers, the internal text messages and communications. and the secret service are an example of that. these were white groups where they have not been traditionally viewed as posing the same kind of threat. and i think that was obviously wrong. i think there was a tinge of racism in that. and certainly comparing it to how they responded to antifa. and i think the fbi needs to and that's evolved. i would say chris wray still has a lot more work to do.

you know, he still has not actually given a very public candid account of what exactly happened on the -- on january 6th and the intelligence failures and the inaction with respect to the intelligence they did have. and so it's very hard to move forward without that kind of very public accounting, which i think would have happened under -- certainly under robert mueller. he sort of beat that into us, of being super candid about failures and how we're going to deal with them going forward. >> mary, the dots between waco and oklahoma city are undeniable. timothy mcveigh is inspired and agitated and a grievance is waco. merrick garland happens to be one of the people who prosecuted oklahoma city. are those things talked about? are there lessons from those domestic terror attacks that are

sort of in the bloodstream and around the water cooler? or is that viewed as ancient history? >> so i think that the current moment has really brought a lot more attention and interest to tracing the roots of the current problem. and it's not brand new, as we've said before. these ideologies have existed throughout history. but we've also seen them really, you know, burst to the fore and be the reason for attacks like the attack in oklahoma city, the oklahoma city bombing killing 165 people including so many children. right? that until 9/11 was the most significant terrorist attack in the united states and still is the most significant domestic terrorist attack. and i use those quotes because of course, you know, 9/11 happened in the united states domestically but was done by foreign terrorists. so i think that there's been a lot of attention now focused on where did this sort of white power movement start. and again, it starts even

earlier than that. and i think i probably mentioned kathleen ballou's book in the past tracing from post-vietnam up through oklahoma city. and now we can trace it up through now. i think people are starting to talk about it but not enough. >> well, we'll keep talking about it here with all of your expertise and years of insight and experience. mary mccord and andrew weissmann, thank you so much. claire mccaskill and mike schmidt, thank you for spending the whole hour with us. mary and andrew have another installment, a new episode of their fantastic podcast out. the latest episode of "prosecuting donald trump" takes them to georgetown law on the big week we just had in georgia. up next, turning to the trump investigations. remember the post-election long shot lawsuit out of texas? that one that the ex-president was rallying support for and promised would be, quote, the big one at the supreme court? we'll look at why that scheme never really got much of a look from federal prosecutors. all those stories and more when

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in 12 months on golo. golo and the release has been phenomenal in my life. it's all natural. it's not something that gives you the jitters. it makes you go through your days with energy, and you're not tired anymore, and your anxiety, everything is gone. it's definitely worth trying. it is an amazing product. it. these last two years have illustrated. the indictments by special counsel jack smith and fulton county district attorney fani willis exposed how the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election was not at all some spur of the moment idea. it was a premeditated criminal conspiracy. it involved many, many people and many, many steps. willis, who charged 18 others along with the ex-president, described the efforts in georgia as a, quote, criminal enterprise.

even though both indictments were stuffed to the gills with stories of what the ex-president and his allies did to our democracy, according to our friend and voting rights attorney mark elias, one more aspect of the attempted coup has gone missing. he writes this. "even after reading these two indictments, i realized something was still missing. trump's audacious effort to enlist the united states supreme court in throwing out the election results in four key battleground states. at the time trump called the case, quote, the big one. if successful this one lawsuit would have disenfranchised more than 20 million voters across georgia, michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin and changed the results of the election." now, if this part is fuzzy in your memory, it was originally filed by the attorney general of texas and it soon garnered the support of 17 other states and more than 100 sitting republican members of congress.

however, the supreme court, even with its conservative majority, tossed out the case, saying the state of texas had no standing to bring it. elias continues, "other than the events that took place on january 6th the texas case was the most profoundly anti-democratic act in the post-election period. the use of state resources and official imprimatur to traffic in false information and overturn an election was a precursor to the fake elector schemes and jeffrey clark's attempt to use government resources to overturn georgia's election results. elias concludes that maybe the indictments did not include this texas lawsuit because they already had enough to tell the narrative without it. but his point is one that we should not brush aside, especially with the 2024 campaign season inching closer every day. it's crucial not to forget the full scope of what they had in mind for the coup. the full scope of the anti-democratic forces that trump sought to bring to bear to

undo the will of the american people. it's where we start the hour. voting rights attorney mark elias the founder of the site democracy docket and auth ort of the piece we just read from is here with us. also joining us princeton university professor and distinguished political scholar eddie glaude is back. and former assistant u.s. attorney and president of the leadership conference on civil and human rights, maya wiley's back with us. mark, it's a fabulous piece, perfectly argued, but also sort of a note to all of us who talk about the coup, even when we think we're talking about it in its entirety this is one of the foundational pieces of it. >> absolutely. you know, i realized that as we read the indictments we get one picture of what happened. when we talk about the fact that there were 64 or 65 lawsuits that donald trump and his allies lost, we get sort of a different picture, but what's really at the centerpiece of this scheme

was an effort to throw out the election results of four states. and that scheme used state resources. that's what made it different than the other -- the other lawsuits. this was a case using taxpayer resources, using the official seal, using official resources, official personnel to try to throw out the election results of four other states. and nicolle, this is really critical. this lawsuit was the first organizing effort for donald trump for what happened in the capitol on january 6th. why do i say that? because when this -- before this lawsuit was filed, you know, donald trump and his, you know, ragtag band of misfit lawyers were out there losing lawsuits. when this lawsuit was filed, all of a sudden republican officials needed to put their cards on the table. and 126 republican members of

congress joined this lawsuit. which meant if you're donald trump sitting in the white house planning out what is to come on january 6th you know you're starting with 126 members of the house. you know you're starting with 127 or 18 attorneys general and some governors. and that really is what coalesced the official republican party support for what eventually became the most tragic day in american democracy. >> marc, there's a piece of it that i can't get over, and i mention it here all the time, that maybe your crystallization can shed light on this. the republicans who signed on -- the lawsuit is bogus and it's b.s., but it's predicated on something trump starts saying in the summer about the election being rigged because mail-in voting was going to be permitted in the heat of a pandemic. all of the republican -- every single republican member of congress who signed on to it thought the votes and the ballots were legitimate enough to believe in the sanctity of their elections.

how come they were never confronted with exactly how they thought the ballots had been corrupted just on the presidential line? >> again, i think this is really, really critical because i think it goes to why this case was so important. because it is the first time that you have republican members of congress from these states even, from the four states that they're trying to throw out the election from, wisconsin, pennsylvania, georgia. you have republican members of congress signing on to a brief basically saying the ballots that elected them were fraudulent. and that is a very, very important milestone to understand what happens to the republican party when you get into january 6th. >> and just, you know, all my viewers vote. but it's the same ballot. right? you go into the booth and the same piece of paper is the same ballot. i want to deal with one other

thing with you, marc, and that's premeditation. i thought one of the most dramatic exhibits that the january 6th select committee had was an e-mail from tom fitton, sort of right-wing legal agitator, that just bumped the timeline back to july of 2020 talking about in writing in e-mails to the white house about when they would contest the sanctity of the vote. it's not even when the polls showed that he'll likely lose. it's back in july. and then here's trump in september talking about the urgency of filling the supreme court vacancy. >> i think this will end up in the supreme court, and i think it's very important that we have nine justices. i think it's better if you go before the election because i think this scam that the democrats are pulling, it's a scam, the scam will be before the united states supreme court. and i think having a 4-4 situation is not a good situation if you get that. i don't know that you'd get that. i think it should be 8-0 or 9-0. but just in case it would be

more political than it should be. i think it's very important to have a ninth justice. >> so in september donald trump is planning on taking his defeat to the supreme court. and that is the sort of predication for confirming the ninth justice. >> people forget but in december of 2016, this is after donald trump won the election, he was saying that there was voter fraud. he said that the entire state of california results were the result of like a million illegal ballots. he appointed a voter fraud commission in 2017 to look into it. at the time everyone just dismissed this as kind of like a weird thing that donald trump was somehow looking into voter fraud in an election that had put him in office. but this has been a persistent theme of his pathology, which is that he always wants to question the outcome of elections because he's never sure when he's going to need it.

and he knew that having lost the popular vote in 2016, he was very sensitive about that, which is why he makes these ridiculous claims in 2016, 2017, when you get to 2020 he is questioning the balloting and questioning the voting and questioning everything about the election because he knows he is likely to lose the popular vote again and he's likely to lose overall, and he always wanted to keep optionality. what he needed after the election was a way to crystallize that into institutional support. not the support of sidney powell but institutional support. and that's what this texas case was. >> marc, i have to -- we're going to have some great new reporting on ginni thomas later in the hour, but i have to ask you about ginni thomas in the way that she was functioning as a director of state legislator conduct and donald trump's constant talking in public and private about his election ending up in the supreme court.

we have many unanswered questions about the extent of her role in helping to carry out and fan the flames of the coup. but i think the, you know, sort of $64 million one will be the conversations between her and the person she calls her best friend, sitting supreme court justice clarence thomas. >> yeah, look, there was no way for donald trump to cheat without the cooperation of the courts. that's one of the things we know from the texas lawsuit, from the georgia lawsuit, all lawsuits. inevitably he was going to need to get through the hurdle of democracy. and eventually as he gave away in that clip you showed, that meant getting through the supreme court. and why a supreme court justice's wife is mixed up with these groups that are targeting

voter suppression and targeting anti-progressive policies is beyond me. but it shows why trump and his supporters were focused on state legislatures taking power and the courts blessing state legislatures taking power. >> maya, i want to come back to this premeditation on the plot to overturn the election. it seems that the more we learn about the investigations into the coup, the congressional one was the most public, the federal investigations, the criminal investigations are by design opaque to protect the defendant's rights. but the new information all points to a longer period of time in which the coup was premeditated. none of the new information is exculpatory. it is as tim heaphy said, who investigated the attack on january 6th without access to some of the people jack smith has access to, that he didn't

believe any of the new information or additional witnesses would help trump. what is your sense of what jack smith may have amassed in his indictment of donald trump as he prepares to go to trial in march for that? >> well, we have to assume that there's a lot more evidence than we know because by definition that's what happens in a criminal investigation. even while the committee, the january 6th committee did yeoman's work in pulling together a vast amount and vast array of evidence, of witnesses, of testimony and we know that that's certainly part of what the special prosecutor was able to draw from to bring charges so quickly after taking up his role. i think this is the central point here. and mark made it as well. is you know, donald trump has long hedged his bets to use lies to advance his own political

career. and in hedging the bet of i don't know whether i'm going to win or lose, so i'm going to start putting it out here and planning for making sure i'm in the best possible position to say i didn't, that's not new behavior, to marc's point. but we also know that he has sufficient -- has amassed sufficient support from voters, not a majority of voters as we know, but enough that he was able to solidify a lot of people participating in this with him. that's what the evidence is so clearly showing and pointing us to. and i think there's a reason that jack smith has focused like a laser on donald trump himself, is because it enables to create the right story about just how much this all centers not just around donald trump being in office but it centers around donald trump as the primary conspirator. >> i think that is precisely

right, eddie. and, and his enablers were all out in public. his enablers, who were every single member of congress who signed on to the lawsuit was signing on to a lawsuit alleging fraud on the very pieces of paper that made them members of congress. i mean, there are some things that the republicans do that are dangerous and scary. there are some that are so bleeping stupid i can't find the right words to bring them to the viewers. this is one of them. they're saying there was fraud only in the presidential -- i mean, it is the mind-boggling piece of that bond between the trump base and the trump enablers. >> right. and you know, what was so important about marc's piece, at least to me, nicolle, everything you guys have just said, is that he expands the narrative arc. of course this has legal

implications. what does it mean to tell the story in the indictment that goes back to the supreme court case? but it also expands the narrative arc of the trouble we face as a democracy, that oftentimes we focus on the central conspirators. maya rightly described trump. right? and oftentimes we do that without bringing into focus not only his allies but those who are similarly committed to undermining democracy. 126 congresspersons doing something that you rightly describe as not too bright, but they are also committed to undermining democracy, bringing the court into view. so the ways in which the institutions have been corrupted by this process, marc brings it into view so when we think about this not just in terms of the court cases but in terms of the very threat that we face as a democracy, it's not just simply the executive branch. right? it's all of these other elements that we have to -- that has to come into view. if we're going to really get at the heart of the rot. >> you know, marc, i want to ask

you to pull the thread forward and ask you what you think it means he will do next time when it comes to the supreme court because trump doesn't come up with new plays but he does sort of innovate the old plays and they become more and more audacious. >> so i'm really worried. i'm really worried. i mean, look what donald trump and his allies were willing to do to keep him in power. now project forward to 2024, when he believes that his only chance to maintain freedom, to not be a convicted felon, to not potentially face prison is to regain the white house and pardon himself or whatever. and look at who those 126 members are. you know, it was 126 in december. by the time you got to -- by the

time you got to the evening of january 6th, he got more than 140 votes in the house. look at the house of representatives today. he would get probably 200 members of the republican conference today. nicolle, i'm worried because it's getting worse. he's gotten more desperate. the republican party has become more anti-democracy. our systems of elections have become weakened from the battering that they have taken from republican election deniers and election subverters. and so as we move towards elections in 2024, we're all going to have to do more to lift up and strengthen the people who run our elections, our election laws, our election systems because i fear that donald trump has more in store. >> i think it turns on what you just articulated too. the things he was willing to do to stay powerful. right? that's what we are mining for

clues. but that's not apples and apples. these are the things -- what he's going to do to our country next are the things that he has to do to stay free. and freedom is much more important to him than running the country. i think you always have your eye on the things we should be looking at, marc elias. thank you for being here and keeping our eyes on it as well. eddie and maya stick around with us for the hour. ahead, the inside story of how ginni thomas, as we've been discussing, wife of supreme court justice clarence thomas, used a trove of dark money from billionaire conservative donors to found a movement that has radically reshaped american politics and our system of justice. we will have that brand new reporting coming up in the broadcast. plus new details on the mar-a-lago i.t. worker who could very well testify against his still current boss in the classified documents case. "new york times" on just how much pressure he was under as

the feds were getting closer. also under pressure former white house chief of staff mark meadows. why his legal team is scrambling today. we'll tell you about it. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere.

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a bombshell new report from an old friend of ours who's joining us in a minute details how ginni thomas took advantage of and ultimately benefited from a landmark 2010 supreme court ruling in which her husband, justice clarence thomas, helped upend nearly a century of campaign spending restrictions. politico's heidi przybilla reports that in the months

before the 2010 citizens united ruling that would soon permit a flow of anonymous donor money to non-profit groups ginni thomas, along with conservative activist leonard leo and a half a million-dollar harlan crow donation, laid the groundwork for such a non-profit. and just seven days before the supreme court ruling their application submitted by would-be 2020 coup attorney kalita mitchell was approved. all of it setting up "a billion-dollar force that has helped remaker the judiciary and overturn long-standing legal precedents on abortion, affirmative action and many other issues." let's bring in politico investigative correspondent our good friend heidi przybilla on her incredible reporting. eddie and maya are with us. heidi, this is so important and so smart to broaden the lens and slide back the timeline as we

were just talking about in the context of the 2020 election. take us through your reporting and what you discovered. >> sure. nicolle, we have long known that leonard leo is the man behind the conservative dark money movement. what's lesser known is that there was also a plan back just before citizens united for him to be the conduit for ginni thomas to become a movement leader. now, that blew up pretty quickly due to a call she made to anita hill, which is a whole other story. but when it did blow up, nicolle, there was a plan b. and that's what people don't know and haven't known until our reporting, is that they quickly pivoted. that plan was to use one of leo's outside dark money groups, a different one that he reactivated almost -- just coinciding with ginni thomas's failed experiment with him and that that group was used to pay ginni thomas. we know that from the post's

previous reporting. what i uncovered is that began almost exactly when their own experiment blew up. and what's very important to understand here, nicolle, and what they refuse to answer to me in my reporting was whether those payments ever stopped. how much she was paid and what she was paid to do because there's all kinds of issues here, right? which is positioning herself to benefit potentially from one of her husband's forthcoming rulings. then there's questions about the payments, what she was doing. and this non-profit that was paying her is a charitable group. now, it's different from the group that she was trying to start herself. so there's very strict irs rules here around political activity. you can do some limited lobbying, but you're supposed to be primarily charitable in nature, nicolle. >> heidi, does your reporting recast thomas's concurrence in dobbs where he puts marriage equality back on the table?

>> we did go through a number of the briefs, nicolle, to kind of line up what this group that was filing numerous amicus briefs before her husband's court were adopted, that language was picked up in a number of the briefs. in fact, to reprise some of the actors from 2020 as well, here's another one for you, john eastman, also a former thomas law clerk, who filed one of the initial briefs on obamacare trying to roll back the individual mandate. some of that language was adopted. now, that failed before the court. but interestingly, it's just one of a number of examples where thomas did and others adapt the language that j.e.p., this group was advocating for. another one was the hobby lobby decision where thomas helped write the majority opinion. now, not to say that there weren't other groups making similar arguments, but here we have no visibility into what ginni thomas's role was in this

group that was the primary vehicle for leonard leo's dark money network to advocate before the court and its sister organization, the judicial crisis network, which is run also by a former thomas law clerk who also was a director on this judicial education project group that was paying ginni thomas. so in this case, nicolle, we're not just talking about a billionaire benefactor giving lavish trips to the justices, but we're talking about the biggest conservative legal lobbying operation before the supreme court that's filing briefs before justice thomas and the rest of the court and payments to a wife whose husband sits on that court. notably, i tried over several weeks to give them the opportunity to tell me what the payments were for, when they started, when they stopped, and i was never given an answer on that. i was given a firm no comment.

>> it's unbelievable. i want to put up the timeline, heidi, and i want you to take us through what you report and some of the milestones. you start with sort of oral arguments concluding in citizens united. we have -- actually, i don't have it on the screen but let me just go through it. cleta mitchell filing the application for ginni thomas's liberty central. the same year the end of the year she signs paperwork to incorporate in virginia. then in january, so 21 days later the supreme court hands down citizens united. 21 days after ginni thomas incorporates. in november thomas steps away from her role there. this is when things seem to get even more opaque. take us through what's happening from that moment to the present in terms of the money, what we understand on the money piece,

how much money's flowing through these organizations, the dark money funds. >> tens of millions now. look, it started with a small debit to the judicial education project in 2010. the amounts that we lined up were very similar between what she had earned at her non-profit, liberty central, which is about 120 grand a year. those amounts were eventually debited into the judicial education project account. we know she was also paid a similar amount from kellyanne conway because of those leaked documents that the "washington post" had gotten her hands on, their hands on. so what this tells you is basically when they experienced all of this blowback from ginni thomas being the wife of a supreme court justice and trying to start her own political advocacy, that that didn't go away. it just moved under wraps.

i talked with folks who were there at the inception of this. they said this was always the plan, for leonard to be the conduit of her advocacy, and that she continued to be a very popular figure within these circles. it wasn't clear exactly what her role was other than that she had this consulting company, and we've also tried for years to find out exactly who all of those clients were. but in this case congress may look into this as part of their inquiry, nicolle, into all of the money that was flowing to the thomases, not just from gifts but in this case here from income. because if you look at the disclosure filings that we've had over the years from justice thomas, it's really pretty opaque. it just lists liberty consulting. and we know she's been in this position pretty much since that original i'll call it plan a blew apart. again, this is all new revelations that there was even a plan b here for leonard to

continue to send money to her. and again, the only actual reits we have, the only actual evidence we have are those documents that were uncovered from kellyanne conway being told to, you know, pay ginni with no mention of ginni. of course, so this is raising all kinds of questions about how much she's been given. and secondly about non-profit tax laws being potentially abused here, nicolle, because my prior reports have been about leonard leo using non-profit tax laws for potential self-enrichment of $43 million flowing to his for-profit company in the two years since he joined that company. we know now that the d.c. attorney general is investigating that issue as a result, and there's this whole other thicket here of irs rules, what's permissible, what's not, perhaps not coincidentally, nicolle, yes, you mentioned cleta mitchell. and this also syncs up with

cleta mitchell's previous campaign to try to really gut the irs because at the time she was saying that they were unfairly targeting groups like ginni thomas's, like the tea party groups at the time that all sprung up after citizens united to try and disassemble president obama's agenda. >> it's unbelievable. i've got all the cliches running through my brain about power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. but this is so next level i don't have one for this. heidi, it's really important reporting. we're so grateful to get to talk to you about it. and we're grateful that you're on this beat. we look forward to your next scoop. thank you, my friend. when we come back, new reporting on the mar-a-lago i.t. worker swept up in the classified documents investigation. plus a desperate move by the disgraced ex-president today in the other federal case against him. those stories next. him. those stories next shake some hands. do not forget to laugh. [laughing] book a get-away-from-work trip. use onekeycash. order some sides.

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-woo! finding ways to make your business boom. that's what u.s. bank is for. when it comes to the four times indicted ex-president's alleged mishandling of classified documents and state secrets, we may have never learned that trump reportedly asked for the security footage from his mar-a-lago residence to be deleted, to quote delete the server, were it not for one man, yucel tavares. "the new york times" has some details about how tavares was just an i.t. employee when he got caught up in this huge storm of trump's criminal enterprise.

"mr. tavares, who ran mar-a-lago's technology department from a cramped work space in the basement of the sprawling florida property, confided in an office mate that another colleague had just asked him at trump's request to delete the footage the investigators were seeking. when he was summoned before a grand jury this spring mr. taveras did not fully recount the incident. only after prosecutors subsequently threatened to charge him for failing to tell all that he knew did mr. taveras shift course to become a potentially important witness in the case. this account of mr. taveras's turnabout reveals new details of the critical if at first reluctant role he played in helping investigators develop evidence that mr. trump and two aides allegedly plotted to destroy security footage showing boxes of classified materials being shuttled in and out of a storage room at mar-a-lago. we're back with eddie and maya. and back with us at the table,

"new york times'" mike schmidt. the "times'" reporting makes clear how important taveras is, mike. walt nauta is the one that becomes fascinating to me. it's clear they knew from the footage exactly what had happened. and once taveras tells them about trump wanting to delete all of that footage he seems to instantly implicate his co-conspirators. but it seems that as far as we know the government doesn't have any breakthroughs with nauta or the others even after they gained his cooperation. >> i think the most interesting part of this story or one of it is actually buried toward the end, where they talk about, and this has been reported but it's still not answered. was the pool drained to destroy the servers. because the servers why moved by one of the trump org folks after the flood to ensure that they wouldn't be destroyed.

and the story says, as my colleagues report, that it's still unclear why the pool was drained and had it been drained to destroy these things. and i'm not sure how legally that changes it, but it's just an extraordinary fact or question. that these individuals who were trying to protect this stuff went to such great lengths that they drained a pool to destroy computers? >> well, i'm thinking of something that chuck rosenberg said many years ago when he talked about just criminals in general, that they're not all smart, right? some criminals are very, very smart ike in the thomas crown affair but the majority of them not so much so. and something your colleague glenn thrush has pointed out is they're down an alleyway making these plans and having these conversations and it's all captured on footage. and the footage makes its first appearance in the original

request that goes before the judge. they have these guys on camera at a pretty early stage. >> yeah, and look, a lot of what we know about trump and january 6th is based on things he did or said publicly. there was never -- trump never seemed particularly concerned about trying to hide his behavior when he was in office certainly and in the mar-a-lago case after he left. i can't tell you how many times in the first few years of the trump administration when we were trying to understand how he was trying to get control of the justice department and to use it and weaponize it and try to block it from investigating him that we went out and we would do this reporting to find out what he said behind closed doors but oh, wow, that's really interesting, only to then quickly see that he had said it publicly. >> tweeted it. maya, it is an interesting thing about trump's brazenness.

but i think what this reporting points out is that some of these individuals stared into the eyes of the fbi investigator asking them the questions and after first lying changed their mind and told the truth. and that might be -- that might be sort of the crack in the facade that helps doj bring such a strong case in the mar-a-lago instance. >> well, and i would say that just based on the indictment there is a very strong case here including the fact that donald trump was required by law to turn the records back over in the first place. i mean, the obstruction of course is a very serious charge. and i think what we know is by the way, as a matter of law you don't have to have completed the act. i mean, the mere attempt to obstruct is enough. and i think we're seeing in this a pattern that i think we've seen in a lot of instances in which donald trump gets into legal trouble, which is that he has a lot of influence, it

appears, over those who work for him including his offer or finding ways to make sure their legal fees are paid or that they're represented by attorneys who are frankly very committed to success for donald trump. and what we're seeing here is getting caught dead to rights with some evidence against you of lying under oath to law enforcement is its own separate crime. and so when you're faced with doing the crime and doing the time, in this instance we see law enforcement working in the way it's intended, which is to say we can come after you on this unless you cooperate on something else. we know that there's a lot of loyalty to donald trump. we saw it with his cfo in his organization who sat in rikers island rather than cooperate in that case. so there's a pattern here for sure. but i will just say this. donald trump's in legal trouble whether or not we understand why they emptied that pool or not.

>> eddie, the sort of chain of events is similar to cassidy hutchinson. right? she goes into the january 6th select committee with a trump-appoint, trump-funded lawyer and tells part of what she saw. she changes lawyers and blows their case wide open. mr. taveras goes into the fbi and i think lies. that's what the "times" is reporting. he changes lawyers and cracks that case open. it is -- it just brings me back to something chris christie said about trump, that he lays awake at night fearing that moment that people like cassidy hutchinson had, people like mr. taveras had, happening over and over again in the four cases he now faces. >> yeah. and that connects it back to something marc elias said in the first segment, right? that his fear of loss of freedom will make him desperate to do anything. i think you're right. and you know, to connect the

cassidy hutchins shift -- hutchinson shift with taveras is really important. the lawyers are acting in donald trump's interest. can't we infer that from these two? and if we can then we need to understand that something is really, really -- it doesn't really pass the smell test here when it comes to trump's lawyers representing all of these folk and us getting at the truth of what he did. >> right. and it's another consistent theme of the trump story since the very beginning. all right. i want all of you to stick around a little bit longer. after the break i'll tell you about a desperate move by the disgraced ex-president in another one of these cases. we'll bring that to you next. att (josh allen) is this your plan to watch the game today? (hero fan) uh, yea. i have to watch my neighbors' nfl sunday ticket. (josh allen) it's not your best plan. but you know what is? myplan from verizon. switch now and they'll give you nfl sunday ticket from youtubetv, on them. (hero fan) this plan is amazing! (josh allen) another amazing plan, backing away from here very slowly. (fan #1) that was josh allen. (fan #2) mmhm. (vo) football season is here. get nfl sunday ticket from youtubetv on us.

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i stay undetectable with fewer medicines. ask your doctor about switching to dovato. we have some breaking news to tell you about in what may amount to a hail mary attempt to rid himself of the highly respected judge in the federal case into his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. trump is seeking the recusal of the judge there. i'll read you from the "new york times" reporting on this, maya. "lawyers for former president trump on monday asked the federal judge overseeing his looming trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election to recuse herself, claiming that she has shown a bias against trump in public statements made from the bench in other cases." this is -- and there may be a legal piece that i'm missing. but since everyone assures me that trump is simply feuding in the public relations space, in the public relations space he's throwing all in with the violent

insurrectionists it would appear. >> yeah. i mean, look, what's so obvious about this from what little i have read and based on the statements i think this judge did make, which said nothing about donald trump, by the way, or whether or not he should be imprisoned or convicted of anything prison or convicted of anything is simply a continuation of a delay, deny, distract sort of tactics. not unlawful. he has every right, if the legal team thinks that a judge's bias for anybody before the judge to say, this is not going to be fair. this judge, based on the statements i have seen, did not say anything biased against donald trump. you know? and, frankly, i think going back to something that eddie said earlier in terms of the importance of our institutions, our democratic institutions, that includes the bench and our federal judges, that they are obligated to recuse themselves

if they're biased, but in this case, there's no bias, and it just becomes another way of undermining any notion that our system is independent and can behave independently and without partisan politics in mind. the person doing the harm here is an donald trump well, and, the federal judges have had to deal with the defendants from the january 6th case, really, long before the congressional investigation existed. i want to read some of what some of the federal judges have had to say, in june, before censoring -- sentencing a california men, rodriguez, using a taser against the dc police, judge amy jackson declared that mr. rodriguez had been radicalized by what she called mr. trump's, quote, irresponsible and knowingly false claims that the election was stolen. also reporting in november of 2020 when, judge mehta told judge lolos , quote, he had

been fed falsehoods about the election about people who had never been held accountable. a lot of judges have had to come face-to-face with the evidence of cases brought by the justice department, the insurrectionist have had to do with the facts as they are, including judge judkins. >> i think that the move in this area that we were expecting was not necessarily trump moving against the job of the judge, although, that is expected in terms of what he can throw against the wall, but was the government -- was jack smith's office going to try to do that to judge gannon in florida, so judge gannon in florida, who has the documents case, and widely criticized for how she ruled on the original search warrant of mar-a-lago in 2022, and was the government going to take off is what i think the legal experts would say -- is a fairly risky move of trying to force her to recuse herself?

she's someone who does not have a lot of experience it on the federal bench. that's not a reason for her to be recused, but someone who drew a lot of criticism, including from conservative judges, in terms of how she handled the search warrant, and how favorable she was to trump. so, when i saw a move to recuse the judge, i thought, oh, wow, but it's just donald trump. >> i think what mike just articulated is the audacity gap. right? the side that has just cause to call for the recusal of a judge hasn't, and likely won't, for all the reasons mike articulated. i think mike has talked about this before. you don't want to anger someone who can have control over your fate, but the side that has none of the facts on his side is attacking a judge who has all of the facts on hers. >> you need to copyright that phrase. >> yeah. >> that's perfect. that is perfect. you know, and just thinking

about heidi's reporting in "politico," is is what they do. the irs tries to hold them accountable, then you say, the irs is signaling them out. mike meadows is shaking in his boots. this is a hail mary pass, but this is not a hail mary catch of franco harris. i'm just dating myself. he is scared, shaking in his boots, and this is a desperate play. >> meyer, what is the process, just for non-lawyers here -- what will come of this request to get judge judkins to recuse herself? >> i would guess very little, but what's really clear here is -- and that's one of the reasons that jack smith and his team didn't seek recusal it's really hard to get, and what happens is, you know, we do have to demonstrate there's a financial conflict, back to the point about ginni thomas, or bias. being on on a case, as we saw from judge cannon, is in the

same thing as bias, although, i would say, this evidence of bias in that wrong opinion, but it is dangerous, and in this case, it's not really much they can do about it unless it plays itself out and they get an appeal, but i think the point is -- i think it is a hail mary, except there ain't a lot of religion in it or make you know, mike, it's interesting. trump's survival instinct -- people have called the reptilian -- does sort of line up with the facts, in that this is the case that likely reasons the latest of his greatest threat to him, that can has. >> probably the most likelihood of happening before the election. and the one that really cuts at the heart of the whole trump story -- not to diminish the documents investigation -- that certainly raises questions about how he would handle national security secrets as president --

but the whole trump story is really the january 6th story, the way that january 6th is sort of this culminating event that takes everything of the previous four years, basically sort of builds on itself, it all plays out in a way that, you know, was obviously devastating in a lot of different ways. >> tells us every thing we need to know about him. >> correct. so, and i think, you know, it is really hard to predict the future. you have all of these different cases, but just from sort of looking from the sidelines, it does seem like this is the most likely one to happen. >> all right. eddie glove, mike reilly, mike schmidt, thank you so much for spending the hour for us. a quick break and we'll be right back. ♪ so caramel swirl is always there for the taking.

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thank you so much. during these two lectionary times, " the beat" with ari melber starts right now high, ari. >> hi, nicole. hello,! i'm ari melber.welcome, and, to the new week. a lot of the elements in clarence thomas end billionaire scandal. the vice president harris, making use over this weekend. we have this story by the end of the hour when we will actually be joint by the artist, comment, who is with harris on saturday. out top stories the loss for a key trump legal defense strategy in georgia, where donald trump's former chief of staff led an effort to remove his case out of the georgia courts, and the lost. a federal judge, denying the bid to take that trial to federal court. he thought his odds were better. the loss for mr. mike meadows, now defendant, means he will face trial in georgia. it's also bad news