you can watch highlights from today's show online. thank you for the privilege of your time. andrea mitchell picks up with more news right now. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," breaking news. under pressure from hard liners in his caucus, kevin mccarthy moves ahead to open an impeachment inquiry against president biden. >> today i am directing our house committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into president joe biden. i do not make this decision lightly. regardless of your party or who you voted for, these facts should concern all americans. >> i will speak to republican congressman ken buck about that. he has said in the last few weeks, it's a bad idea. donald trump's attorneys try to remove the federal judge from presiding over his d.c. criminal case while trying to get the charges against him in georgia dismissed.

vladimir putin today defends mr. trump while preparing to welcome a trump pen pal to russia, kim jong-un. an nbc news exclusive in iran. lester holt has a rare interview with iran's president ahead of an expected prisoner swap. >> are they healthy? are they well? >> translator: yes. they are very healthy. and according to our latest information, they are in full health. >> it's what the iranian leader said about how he plans to use $6 billion of frozen iranian oil money that the u.s. promised to release to get the americans home that is already causing a stir in washington. ♪♪ good day, everyone. a busy news day here and around the world. i'm andrea mitchell in

washington where the far right republican members of the house have won their demand to open an impeachment inquiry against president biden. kevin mccarthy just announcing opening that impeachment inquiry this week without citing hard evidence that president biden committed any specific crimes or crimes and mismisdemeanors. he assigned it to the oversight committee. broke precedent by not putting it to a vote. a reversal of what he said he would do. it's not clear that he would have the votes to open it. >> these are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption. they warrant further investigation by the house of representatives. >> the white house responding just now to mccarthy saying, how gop investigations turned up no evidence of wrongdoing by potus. joining me now is senior capitol hill and campaign correspondent garrett haake.

we know that any biden impeachment will probably die in the senate, if it gets out of the house. any idea when the house is going to start this, vote on it, how it's going to go with all of the other things that congress is supposed to be doing, like funding the budget with the end at the end of the month? >> reporter: buckle up. the next month especially is going to be very chaotic with the issues colliding in real time. i asked speaker mccarthy's spokesperson that question about a vote. he told me they don't expect one. they will plow ahead with this impeachment inquiry without doing anything to formalize it beyond the press statement that the speaker just made. they can do that, but impeachment inquiries don't have any magical powers in and of their own. it might give them more power to get a subpoena later on. you will see a lot of the same investigations going on since the republican-controlled

congress was seated in january. now with republicans hoping a bigger spotlight on them. they have thus far produced no hard evidence directly linking president biden to any of the corruption, obstruction and essentially helping his family make money off his name. that's the broad stroke of what house republicans say has taken place here. they have not linked the president to it yet. mccarthy argues that making this an impeachment inquiry will help him do it in the future. when we see the first specific hearing that's under the impeachment umbrella remains to be seen. it's going to operate in the same pace that republicans have been trying to be in since january, without much success thus far. >> garrett, as you know, as we both know, there's never been an impeach inquiry opened without an impeachment. one thing always leads to the other. the only reason it didn't with nixon is that he re-signed from office before he could let that

happen. they had the votes. garrett, thank you very much. buckle your seat belt up there. you are going to be running all over the hill as we deal with all this. joining me now is republican congressman ken buck of colorado. he is a founding member of the house freedom caucus who also serves on the judiciary committee. this all just happened. you were in the building as this was being announced. we will play a little more of what speaker mccarthy said. you said as recently as to my colleague jen psaki i believe on sunday that you did not think this was a good idea. you didn't think it was warranted. what do you think today? >> i think -- what i wanted to do was look at the evidence. i said, i will go where the evidence takes me. i will get a briefing on what evidence links at the time vice president joe biden to hunter biden's activities. i haven't seen that link yet. i'm reluctant to agree with speaker mccarthy.

he doesn't need to put this to a vote, even though he said he would. he doesn't need to. my understanding is it has been assigned to the oversight committee and we will get the facts from the oversight committee. >> given the fact that there are no appropriations approved or not all the appropriations. the senate has acted, the house hasn't. the budget year is running out. there's pressure from a number of republicans to make deeper cuts that was agreed to in the debt ceiling plan. even though that was a bipartisan agreement. senator mitch mcconnell has said that those cuts -- those further cuts are not warranted. the senate is not going to go along with it. the house is barrelling towards a potential shutdown of the government over money. why start impeachment now? why not get the government spending crisis resolved first? >> we should. we should absolutely folk ounce the government spending.

i think what kevin mccarthy did in this situation was to take the vote away from the house floor, have the oversight committee continue the work that they have been doing for a number of months and really focus on spending. this move is to focus on spending. we should have been focused on spending in june. we should have been passing bills to get the 12 bills passed in time. >> is he doing this because he is under pressure from a number of members in his caucus, and he made so many concessions to go through the 15 rounds to get the job, that he is trying to keep the gavel? >> i think president trump has made it known through his social media account that he wants to see president biden impeached. i think that has really stirred the base of support in the republican party. i think a lot of members have reacted to that. i think there's in the

republican base a real desire to see this move forward. >> would you prefer if the former president stayed out of this fight and let house members resolve it? >> you know, that's a preference whether i do or not, that's never going to happen. i can see donald trump enjoying this moment. it distracts from the four indictments that he is facing at this time. >> regarding the spending crisis, do you think that that should be a hard line of going to that lower amount of spending rather than what was agreed to between senator mcconnell, house speaker mccarthy, all of the leaders, democratic and republican, and the president agreed to that as the spending level. they have to worry about what's going on in the individual appropriations. is this the time to start renegotiating that? >> kevin mccarthy negotiated one deal when he became speaker. >> right.

>> the members he chose to go to the white house and negotiate, negotiated a higher number. now he is trying to balance the interests of the promises he made to the freedom caucus and others with the lower number and the deal that was cut for the debt ceiling increase. >> do you think that the speaker can keep his job and survive all of the crosswinds here? >> i think the speaker probably survives, because nobody else wants the job. i don't think it's a very good job. >> you don't want the job? >> i certainly don't want the job. you will never hear speaker buck. i think with the five-vote majority, this speaker has a difficult job to balance the interests and move forward. we all hope that there's not a shutdown. we want to make sure we get to a number that works. we don't want to be jammed up against the christmas deadline with a cr that forces us into a bad situation where if we shut down government, government

workers are going into their christmas break without jobs. i think there's a lot of real pressure to try to make it right before the end of september. >> we know that with government shutdowns, it usually hurts congress and the president. in the past, they have hurt congress more than the president. we saw it with bill clinton and newt gingrich. >> right. they hurt republicans more than democrats. we will be blamed. we are in charge in the house. if there is blame, it's going to come our way. it's going to come our way right before a presidential election. >> one question about a senate matter. it does affect all of us, because it affects national security. what do you think about senator tuberville putting the hold on the military? we won't have a chairman of the joint chiefs because his job is over by october 1st. you have 300 plus people, including service chiefs as well

as the chair of the chiefs, who have not been confirmed. >> i think there's a lot of frustration in the senate. i'm not in the senate. i'm really an observer from the other side of the building. i think that what senator tuberville has done is to express his outrage over a particular issue within the military that president biden issued an executive order on. i think the two sides need to get together and they need to hammer this out. there's nothing more important in terms of the federal job than to secure our homeland. that's with the defense department. hopefully, this can move forward. >> congressman buck, it's a pleasure. it's great to have you here in person. thank you very much for being so thoughtful and coming here today. i appreciate it. >> thank you. tag along. donald trump's lawyers trying to latch on to some of the legal strategies of his co-defendants. what that means for the multiple cases against the former president. that's next when "andrea mitchell reports" is back in 60 seconds.

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former president trump's lawyers are putting up every legal roadblock they can on the way to the multiple trials their client faces. in georgia, trump's attorneys have adopted motions filed by co-defendants in an effort to dismiss charges. here in washington, trump's attorney says the district judge should recuse herself, take herself off the case in d.c., for comments that she made during january 6 sentencing hearings for other defendants. among them, this 2022 quote from chutkan to a participant that, quote, it's a blind loyalty to one who remains free to this day. joining me now is former u.s. attorney joyce vance and greg

bluestein. joyce, as a former prosecutor, former assistant u.s. attorney, take us through what this is against judge chutkan, the federal judge. are you surprised by this request for recusal by the trump team? or are they just using anything that they have and throwing spaghetti against the wall? >> right. i think spaghetti against the wall, delay, the vintage trump strategies, we are seeing that in action again here. this is not a good case for forcing judge chutkan to recuse. the legal standard is whether a reasonable person out in the community watching her behavior would lack confidence she could conduct proceedings fairly. that's not a trump supporter. that's just a reasonable, objective person watching her behavior. trump's lawyers have pulled some convenient quotes out of context

from hearings in january 6th cases. but when you read her transcripts and watch her behavior over the course of these cases, you see a former defense lawyer -- that's judge chutkan's background -- who has been exceedingly fair to defendants, extending them every courtesy and every possibility to make out their case. her comments when they have come have been accurate. they have reflected the facts. this effort to taint her as someone who has an ax to grind against the former president i think will be unavailing. i would expect her to deny the request. perhaps there will be an effort to appeal her ruling. i don't think that the court of appeals will force her to recuse either. andrea, bottom, here is the real problem. all of the judges on this court virtually all have been called upon to sentence in these cases and to consider these cases. if trump is permitted to object to judge chutkan, there are a lot of other judges he could object to, too.

similarly, if you applied the same standard, there would be judges who the prosecution might be able to single out as treating these as insignificant crimes and showing bias in that direction. the reality is, this is the judge who has been assigned to the case. there's every reason to permit her to proceed with it. >> let's turn to georgia, where the trump team is using prior motions from the former president's co-defendants to try to get the charges dismissed. is this just the opening salvo in a much larger, more complicated effort -- delay effort? you have 19 defendants. they are all going to try things. >> exactly. there are two big buckets we see with trump that i think we will see repeated. we knew it was coming, the argument he was engaging in first amendment protected activity. here i don't expect to see that argument be met with much success. then there are a range of motions designed to point to

technical deficiencies in the indictment, to argue that it fails to make out a rico claim. so this will test the strength in the first instance of the prosecution's case. >> greg, while all this is playing out in the courts, you have been doing reporting on the efforts by trump allies in georgia to help some of the local trump co-defendants. tell us about that. >> yeah. the georgia gop has vowed to pay the legal fees for the fake electors in georgia, three of them charged. they are holding what they call fulton defense fund-raisers all over the state, including one in north georgia in a few weeks. there are some familiar names on it. some of the far right conspiracy theorists who backed donald trump. the lieutenant governor, the number two politician in georgia, also served as one of the trump electors in 2020. there are big names who are

promoting some of the donald trump conspiracy theories. >> joyce and greg, thank you very much. the manhunt for the escaped murderer in pennsylvania continues into another day. now the 13th day. they said that he is now armed with a rifle that he stole from a garage overnight. he is extremely dangerous, obviously. he was spotted last night in south coventry township, 20 miles north of the prison. police have advised residents to stay inside and lock their windows and doors. joining me now is lindsey reiser in glenmore, pennsylvania. where are you? what more do you know? tell us about this search. this is becoming quite a drama. it's a movie. >> reporter: we are on day 13 of

this saga. we have entered a new heightened phase here of this search. a couple of crucial developments overnight. a sighting last night around 8:00. a woman saw a man crouched in the woods. two hours after that, a resident called police saying a man had opened his garage, stole a rifle with a flashlight and a scope on it and then ran away. that homeowner had shot at him several rounds with a pistol. right now, authorities say they have no reason to believe he is injured. they have set up a new perimeter now. we are 27 miles north of the prison area and the botanical garden where the initial perimeter was. it is dense. it's wooded. it's very challenging to try to find someone who is trying to hide and has barns and areas where one can hide. we do know that police have always considered him dangerous.

now they confirmed he is armed and extremely dangerous. he is considered desperate. they believe that he has used violence before and he will do it again. residents in the area are encouraged to lock their doors when they are inside, lock their car doors, not leave anything out. he has already ditched his prison boots. he ditched the hoody. he is shirtless with blue pants. police have about 500 personnel on this. they have helicopters, a plane circling, canines. we just heard from the pennsylvania governor, josh shapiro, who just talked about, he understands this is a period of anxiety and worry for folks. they do say they believe they have him in this containment area. just urging people not to leave anything out. i just spoke to a man who lives in the area. i said, are you nervous? he said, not really. a lot of us are armed.

that's one of the sentiments we are getting. schools in the area are closed. people are on high alert right now. >> it's really scary. thank you so much, lindsey reiser in glenmoore, pennsylvania. lester holt speaking to the president of iran hours after the u.s. strikes a prison swap deal -- hours after a waiver on the prison deal, rather. that's coming next. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. and i love overcoming challenges. ♪ when better money habits® content first started coming out, it expanded what i could do for special olympics athletes with developmental needs. thousands of bank of america employees like scott spend countless hours volunteering to teach people how to reach their financial goals.

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in an exclusive nbc news interview todain tehran with iran's leader, he told lester holt that iran would decide how to spend the $6 billion of its oil revenue that the u.s. agreed to unfreeze in order to win the release of five americans in prison for years in iran. the white house insists iran would only be able to use that money for humanitarian needs and it would be monitored by the treasury. here is the key exchange on that issue through a government translator that could risk fuelling criticism or more criticism of the deal. >> do you believe you have the right to use that money in any way that you see fit?

>> translator: this money belongs to the islamic republic of iran. and naturally, we will decide, the islamic republic of iran, will decide to spend it wherever we need it. how to spend our money, of course, it is under the authority of the islamic republic of iran. >> it will be used for more than humanitarian purposes in your view? >> translator: humanitarian means the iranian people needs. this money will be budgeted for those needs. the needs of the iranian people will be decided and determined by the iranian government. >> joining me now is david rode and dan duluth.

david, your initial reaction to the deal and to the refusal to use it for humanitarian funds. part of this would be the totalitarian leaders reject any suggestion they have to answer to the rest of the world. part of that could be for domestic consumption. he is not agreeing to the deal that was arranged, which was briefed to us in great detail just last month. >> yeah. i think he is addressing, on one level, a domestic audience and showing he is defying the united states. he is more defiant than i expected. there's other elements of the interview that will be aired tonight on "nightly news" where he expresses no regrets for the violence, the crackdown that killed more than 500 protesters in iran. i'm surprised by his posture overall, that he is this defiant at such a critical moment when

there was some hope that this prisoner exchange could lead to an easing of tensions between the united states and maybe some real diplomatic progress between the two countries. >> dan, the funds, as you know, were frozen in south korea. they are oil revenue that was frozen under sanction. unfrozen to get the release of the five americans. you have been talking to their families, i have. we know they have been in prison for years. they were released a month ago under house arrest. lester did ascertain they are in good health, according to the president of iran. it is supposed to be deposited in qatar in the persian gulf country in their central bank and monitored by the treasury. doled out for humanitarian needs. critics are saying it's -- they

can buy drones or weapons with this money once they get it. >> that's the criticism. on the one hand, the money is monitored. it's tracked. it is in qatar. it's not in a bank in tehran. they can only use it for these items that are not under sanctions, food or medicine. however, if you get $6 billion, that frees up other money. critics are honing in on that and saying, essentially, we are freeing up money they can use for other purposes. we should mention that every administration has these terrible dilemmas. what to do when you have americans held in these kinds of countries. there isn't a lot of leverage. they did have leverage with this frozen money. the argument is, we had to use this get them out. it's a real lightning rod here

in washington. >> it was being criticized by some, but now this answer from the president to lester is creating more of a fuss. what's the white house saying? >> the white house is dismissing this. they are saying, there's a very firm agreement here. the money goes to the qatar central bank. every transaction will be monitored by the treasury department. i think david had a good point, which is iran's president doesn't really want to focus on some of the elements here that limit iran's sphere of action. he is spinning this a little bit for a domestic audience. >> david, as you mentioned, that this weekend is marking the first anniversary of kurdish iranian woman arrested by the morality police for allegedly violating the dress code. lester asked about that this morning. >> there are reports that the

government has taken action to quiet activists ahead of the date. can you comment on that? >> translator: you should be assured that the islamic republic of iran has always been ready to listen to words of protesters on any issue. we are all ears. those who intend to abuse her name under this pretext to be an agent of foreigners to create this instability in the country, we know what to -- what will happen to them. they know that. endangering the security of people and society will create a big cost. >> david, as you say, he is more aggressive about that issue. >> yeah. this is right out of the authoritarian playbook.

these were the largest demonstrations since the revolution, since the establishment of the islamic republic in 1979. hundreds of thousands of iranians on the streets. women leading these protests, young women taking head scarves off and risking their lives in the process. his response essentially was to dismiss them as foreign agents. i just don't think that's an accurate reflection of iranian society and the opposition that this current government faces. dan knows more about iran than i do. but i'm just surprised by the tone of the response. it shows, i think, this is the type of person that iranian protests face, who will deny the use of violence. at one point he told lester there's a free press in iran and people are free to say what they want. that's just false. >> david and dan, thank you both so much. you can see a lot more of

lester's exclusive interview with iran's president about the american and iranian prisoner swap coming next. it's part of that agreement. that's tonight on "nbc nightly news." joining us from the white house is john kirby, coordinator for strategic communications. i want to get your reaction. the administration's reaction to him saying we will spend the $6 billion wherever we need it. >> that's not true. the system is set up such that this money -- these funds can only be parcelled out for humanitarian purposes, food, medicine, construction of medical facilities or even educational purposes. each and every withdrawal is going to go through a series of checks and balances. checks by the treasury department. checks by the qatari national bank. there is a check on what they

can withdraw based on aid organizations and who is contracted to deliver the goods or resources into iran. we will have visibility and oversight over each of those withdrawal requests. if we don't approve it, it won't get approved for delivery to iran. this is not a blank check for them. it is very much going to be monitored. there will be quite a bit of oversight before any dollars -- not dollars, any money can be spent. >> why do you think that he was basically pushing back when lester was asking him follow-up questions on that very thing? on any concession that they have to give up the right to spend the money any way they want to. >> difficult to know what was in his head when he was talking to lester. i heard the speculation before i came on with you that it might be he was playing to his domestic audience there in iran. that's a perfectly plausible

explanation. the parameters of this arrangement are very clear, very con sis. the iranians signed up to this. these were iranian funds frozen in a south korean account that they did not have access to. all we are doing is moving this money to qatar so that it can be accessible to them for very discreet targeted purposes. >> the national security council with which you work put out a statement saying that there would be no americans returned this week. how are you defining that? do you mean not before sunday or monday? are we talking seven days going forward? there was hope that since he is coming to new york next week -- he will be in new york monday,

giving a speech on tuesday, that he might have the americans released from house arrest -- they are out of prison, but from house arrest, able to cross out of iran, come home, be reunited with their families after years and years and do that as a gesture on the stage at the u.n. when he is on the world stage. >> i wish i could be more specific with you. i just simply can't. we don't have that all locked in right now. we are still in the midst of the arrangement. we are careful about being too predictive. this step to transfer the funds, that's the next critical step in the process. obviously, we want to get the americans home as soon as possible. we believe we are working and on track to do that in the very near future. in terms of giving an actual date or on the calendar when that would happen, certainly vis-a-vis the general assembly next week in new york, i'm not able to do that. but we are working it, working

it very, very hard. >> the u.s. has also agreed to turn over to iran five iranians who are being held in jail in the u.s. what kind of offenses were those people convicted of? >> this is part of the arrangement. we are not done yet. it hasn't been consummated. i want to be careful about how much i say. in most cases, you are talking about folks that were involved in sanctions, that kind of thing. we need to really get a little further on in the process here before we can get too specific about all the parameters of every exchange. >> do you have any concerns about the tone of the interview on some of the tough issues? things had been moving towards a possible warming in that there have been no attacks by iranian-backed forces against

americans in the region and perhaps with that cooling they could begin to talk about other things. they put a hold on further enrichment at a higher republicans grade level. they are at 60 but not to 90 where it's enough for a nuclear weapon. >> all of what you said is the case. there haven't been any recent attacks on our american forces in iraq or syria. they did claim to be making some decreases in their enrichment, which is all to the good. we are on track to get these americans home. we are going to be careful what we say publically. that's what matters. the only thing that matters is getting those americans home to their families. we will be careful how much we telegraph publically about motivations of the other side. i can't explain why the president spoke in such a

striking terms like he did with lester. we are working hard to get the americans home. the other thing is that we are not trying to drive -- we are holding iran accountable for the way they treat their people back home. we are holding them accountable for the attacks on shipping, for providing drones to russia in ukraine and their support to terrorist networks. all of this bad behavior is still going on. we are working hard to hold them accountable for that. >> john kirby, thank you very much for coming out and responding to this and giving us context from the white house point of view. >> my pleasure. hope is fading as the hours are going by, the chance of finding more survivors under the rubble in the morocco earthquake. we will have a live report next. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. you are watching "andrea mitchell reportson" msnbc hi, i'm john and i'm from dallas, texas. my wife's name is joy. we've been married 45 years.

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we are continuing to monitor that horrible news out of morocco, that massive rescue and recovery effort following friday's earthquake and the aftershocks that have devastated numerous communities. the death toll approaching 3,000 people. matt bradley is in morocco. we have seen some amazing rescues. what are you seeing now? >> reporter: we are not seeing as many amazing rescues. the fact of the matter is, there hasn't been as many here as we have seen in other earthquakes. i spoke with you in turkey many february. that was an all earthquake. there were tens of thousands killed. here we are not seeing those numbers but we are not seeing drug out alive from rubble. it's a different situation. i asked ahead of one of the british rescue efforts why that is. they said they weren't finding

that many living people under the rubble. he said it's a number of factors. one of the main factors is the construction and architecture here. these are older buildings and the thing you would see in turkey where it's more modern. when those buildings collapse -- yes, they were terribly constructed. but they had support. they were made with reinforced concrete. that created cavities under some of the wreckage where people -- not many, but enough people could survive for days at a time. we are not seeing that here. a lot of the structures are unreinforced, made from adobe blocks. when they fall, they are almost melting. this gentleman is a firefighter in britain. he said that this situation lacks what he called livable voids. that means basically cavities under wreckage where you could

live for days at a time. that's the sad situation here. there really aren't that many people being drug out of the rubble, not like in other situations where we have seen that happen. a lot of the rescue workers we have been speaking to, they say they are not seeing a lot of miracles coming out of this situation. >> matt bradley, a sad story. we can still hope for miracles. thank you. a bridge too far? efforts to use the 14th amendment as way to keep donald trump off the ballot face legal headwinds. more on that coming next. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports." this is msnbc. watching "andrea mitchell reports." this is msnbc. ♪ ♪ i got the power of 3. i lowered my a1c, cv risk, and lost some weight. in studies, the majority of people reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. i'm under 7. ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack, or death in adults also with known heart disease. i'm lowering my risk. adults lost up to 14 pounds.

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the suit allegations his role makes him injeble for office. critics, including georgia secretarydi of state brad raffensperger warn against using the so-called disqualification clause saying it, quote, merely thequ newest way of attempting short-circuit the ballot box. joining me the raffensperger top election official for the georgia secretary of state.y it's great to see you again. we met virtually when all of the fallout of the election was taking place, but you and brad raffensperger were the public facewe of the state's 2020 recot and youst testified before the january 6th committee. what is the lesson out of georgia that voters need to decide who is on the ballot not elected b officials as mr. raffensperger is saying? not just georgia voters but american voters. the reality is, the only

other way to remove somebody from being present is a few things tong disqualify you, to under 35 a, elected twice and a binary kind of things. the other way is a two-thirds vote to convict in the senate after the house does the indictment on impeachment.he these don't seem to meet that level. this is a self-executing constitutional amendment. even people who it's bizarre for me, growing up hearing about michael ludg and lauren strin. if you want to hit the agrievement side of the people who say the system is rigged and they're against us have i a sta that trump might lose anyway, take him off the ballot, and that will just be pouring glass lean on the fire. >> and you cited judge lieu dig and professor tribe at harvard.

esteemed legal scholars, one deeply conservative, and judge lieu dig believes the 14th amendment will be litigated because which ever side moves the other side will sue, whether it is or isn't a move to take a him, the former president off the ballot, but this is exactly the same as, you know, the age and the other constitutional requirements that it is in the constitution if you aid an insurrection you can't run for president of the united states. >> well, who decides that is the real question? it can't be left to individual electionft officials and states and that's whatic they're tryin to say in many of these cases. section 1 of the same 14th amendment it puts the due process clause down to the states. what is the intention of that. saying an individual -- an s.o.s., election officials in a county can decide -- i have decided that you have committed insurrection. i'm telling you what will happen in the future, because this with

isau what we've been saying since we'86, one side said says something and the other side doubles down. somebody has to be the adult in the room stople let the voters decide, don't do tricks in the court. i get it. there may be a legal thing. we're not sitting in a faculty lounge or college dorm on common law section. this is the real world. ifth he's removed the future of somebody to be removed we'll be fighting this in the courts forever. let the voters decide to put this behind us. like youeh pointed out, we had stand up for our state and the law and the constitution in 2020 and i get there are individuals that think this could be self-executing. i don't how it can put the power in one person's hands to say you can't be on the ballot. the power has to be with the voters. that's how our constitution is formulated with laws and rules. if you're 30 you can't be on the ballot. if you've been elected twice you

can't be on the ballot. thisn question, constitutional speaking the first amendment allows thesp right of assembly d that would mean where we have the parties get to choose who they nominate. i don't think you could put the 14puth amendment on the choice a candidate. at that a point you're talking about being on the ballot for the general election. all kinds of things having to go on and i don't think they're looking at the long game.at we have to look at the long game to protect the republic as a whole. >> i take your point. just a quick question, very briefly, you've got 19 19 defendants, maybe 150 witnesses. do you expect to be one of them? >> absolutely. i'll be a witness in the fulton county case, yes. >> we'll bety seeing you again then on camera, in fact. thank you very much. >> unfortunately. >>ve yeah. >> thank you. >> appreciate you being with ush today. in russia, early this morning leader kim jong-un arrived on a heavily armored train in vladivostok ahead of ad anticipated meeting with vladimir putin in the next few days. it would itth be the second

meeting between the two isolated leaders in recent times as they try to prop up each other militarily andot economically. joining me now is long-time former diplomat richard haass, thear president emer tas and author of the bill of obligations, ten habits of good citizens, a best seller. we should all keep it close us to. great to see you. how concerning should we be about this meeting between these two isolated leaders, putin needs weapons, kim has them. kim needs money. putinne has that. seems to me like a marriage made in hell, right? >> couldn't have said it better myself, andrea. look, what it also means it feeds into putin's strategy of playing for time. this gives him more ammunition, more equipment, so this allows him to pursue a long war strategy. he's hoping that if he can persevere over time, the west cannot. it helps him. north korea has been busy doing

its missiles and nuclear development and a this will help give them the economic foundations that he needs. there's nos silver lining in this. >> what a do you make of north korea unveiling its first what they claim is a tactical nuclear armsa sub? we don't know if the claim is real, but that's concerning because much, harder to track, much harder to defend against if you're talking about mutually assured destruction here. >> look, it's part of a larger phenomenon if this is real or not. what's happened, all of our attempts, sanctions, diplomacy, loveti letters, you name it, nothing hasrs really worked. north korea has developed a medium-sized nuclear arsenal. at the moment we have no policy for dealing with. it we don't recognize it, we don'tre formally acknowledge it but it's a reality. he's never giving it up. it's going to get larger, it's going to continue to get modernized. we in the united states are increasinglyth going to be unde

potentially vulnerable to u it. this is one of the really uncomfortable realities of, you know, what's happening now in the third decade of this century. >> let me switch gears and talk about iran. as you may have heard lester holt interviewed president raisi in ta ran and on the $6 billion deal, he was insisting they will decide how to spend that $6 billionsp of their oil money no unfrozen going to be deposited and nobody is going to tell them basically how to spend it. the deal was for only for humanitarian aid. what does this do to the administration's efforts to get through this? >> i mean, on one level money is fudgeble but other money wouldn't have to be spent for food and medicine. it has to be monitored. $6 billion going into the banks has to be monitored to make this palatable. it's barely palatable as is. that's one of the things i would

say there can't be any compromise e on. he may just be saying that for public consumption, but we have asu monitoring mechanism to mak sure this money is only going for humanitarian -- >> do you have any expectation that when he comes to new york for the united nations general assembly on monday, speech on tuesday, maybe americans or five americans will finally be released from house arrest and get out and get home and reunited with their family? >> he's clearly going to do it at some point. it'som good for how the regime perceived. the interesting thing to look at, the l nuclear -- it's the dl that's not a deal. we're talking to the iranian. at some point they're putting limits on their nuclear program, the size and quality, and they're hoping for sanctions relief in return. i would watch that space.or >> we will do that. i always listen to you richard haass. it's carried me all this time

learning foreign policy. thank youe very much. >> great to be with you. thank you. and that does it for our edition of "andrea mitchell reports." what a busy day. another one tomorrow. follow us on social media @mitchell reports. chris jansing reports starts right now. good-day. i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. high drama in the house where speaker mccarthy is taking a leap into the unknown, launching a new impeachment inquiry against president biden. the red flags are everywhere, for the president, for mccarthy, for republicans, and for the country itself. does this sink any chances of stopping a government shutdown now just two and a half weeks away? plus, mother nature at her worst. in libya as many as 10,000 people are feared dead from floods. inm morocco, the death toll is near