continuing resolution to keep the government open until nuary or april. in the now minted speaker's words, so the senate doesn't jam the house around the holidays. that's something all of us might be happy to hear. he has said they need to push forward on condemning hamas, that resolution, the first thing the house took up after it got back to business today. >> ali vitali, thank you very much. after three weeks, there is a speaker of the house. his name is mike johnson. he is from louisiana. he's never held a leadership position. he's a religious conservative. somebody who's voted for a national abortion ban, 20-woke abortion ban, and that's something democrats are talking about. that's going to do it for me today. "deadline white house" starts right now.

hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. the ex-president today on the verge of snatching jail time from the jaws of civil liability. donald trump taking the stand today in his civil fraud trial in new york after being ordered by the judge to testify about comments he made regarding a court clerk. now, you all know this. we don't normally air his remarks for fear of amplifying them, particularly when they are so clearly tied to threats of violence and intimidation. we're going to play them for you right now, because they led to near immediate liability for the ex-president. >> this judge well, because this judge is a very partisan judge with a person who's sitting very partisan, sitting alongside of him, perhaps even more partisan than he is. >> on the stand for just one minute after saying that, trump claimed that he wasn't talking about the person sitting next to the judge. he was actually talking about michael cohen.

who at the time was in the middle of his second day of testimony. the judge was not buying it and swiftly fined donald trump $10,000, and rebuked trump. the jud said this, quote, it is easy for the public or anyone to know who that is. i'm very protective of my staff, and i believe i should be. i don't want anybody killed, end quote. this is the second time in less than a week that donald trump has been fined for violating a gag order put in place by judge engoron who warned trump this, don't do it again or it will be worse. for his part, michael cohen did resume testifying but trump didn't stick around to hear him finish. the disgraced ex-president storming out of the courtroom. the secret service agents left to chase after him, just after judge engoron denied a motion from one of his attorneys. manufactured mayhem in the courthouse on the part of donald trump is where we start today

with some of our favorite reporters and friends. former top official at the department of justice, andrew weissmann, former acting u.s. solicitor general, neal katyal, former "new york times" investigation winner, russ buettner is back. we're going to start with my colleague, lisa rubin inside the courthouse for all of this. tell us how this all went down. >> reporter: today should have been a day where we were really talking about michael cohen es cross-examination but as usual, trump found a way to make it about trump. as you noted and played earlier, in the hallway on a break, trump made a common about the highly partisan person sitting alongside the judge. once that came the subject of the judge's attention, insisted -- we are watching michael cohen come out of the courtroom right behind me right now, we're expecting michael cohen to make a statement to the press. i'm happy to continue talking to you about what happened today, but in the event our viewers want to hear what michael cohen has to say, i wanted you to know

he's walking out having finished his cross-examination today. >> let's see what he has to say. we'll dip into this. i like screwing the wings on at 30,000 feet. >> i know you want to hear from mr. cohen. i'm just going to say on a semipersonal note, i have represented mr. cohen for some time. i got to know him when he was in solitary confinement in otisville under the worst conditions for having had the temerity to speak out against mr. trump when he was president. i represented michael again when he was railroaded with a $500 million lawsuit, since dismissed by mr. trump himself, again for the temerity of having testified in the district attorney's criminal investigation. i have seen time and time again, the personal peril, and deep danger he has put himself in because he has, again, the

temerity to be a truth teller now. he was beat up in court as one of the reporters here just said, to some degree, yes, he has been dragged through the mud, raked over the coals time and time again, for what, the defense in this case, claims that he has a personal motive, that there's some benefit. i would love to know what that is. i have seen him go through physical pain, psychic, emotional pain, as well as that of his family who i have come to know. he has gotten no benefit. nothing. he has served his entire sentence. and all that he's done is tell the truth here. yes, he is the first one to admit, as he did on direct, and as he has since the day he pled guilty, he has accepted responsibility. and he said, yes, i lied, and i'm sure he'll speak to you about why he lied, i'm sure you've heard it. i think we can't lose sight of that. i believe my client. he is telling the truth, and

that is why he came to court today. against, honestly, his personal interests. so i will cede the microphone to my client. >> thank you, everyone. let me be very clear about something, when i lied to judge pauley, something that defense counsel thought was going to be the gotcha moment, i did it because as you may recall, i was given two days, 48 hours from a friday evening at 5:30, to monday morning, in order to plead guilty or face an 80-page indictment that would include my wife. first time ever hearing from anybody, and i ask everybody to please take a look at the petrillo sentencing memo which we put out, something also defense counsel did not want admitted. why? because very much like the gop

when i testified before the house oversight committee live as well as the other six different congressional committees, the only thing they know how to do is to attack, attack, attack, attack. that's the trump way. denigrate, deflect, and attack. and you know what, as danya said and my friend jeff levine, we didn't take it. we didn't just walk away. we're continuing to fight. every single act that mr. trump tries to throw at me from the $500 million lawsuit to now a new issue where they want to depose me. so i want to thank each and every one of you. i want to ask, something that was completely ignored, petrillo sentencing memo. everyone wanted see the governance mean book, like mean girls, another denigration against me. didn't work for them today. you may have seen mr. trump

storm out. he stormed out because they wanted to make a motion -- they wanted to make a motion to dismiss the case to which the judge responded absolutely not. you know why? because he will ultimately be held accountable. as i said the other day, that's what this is all about. it's accountability. >> michael, how did you feel going in the same courtroom as him? >> absolutely no problem for me. no problem at all. >> looking at him in the eye and -- >> absolutely. >> reporter: did you look into each other's -- >> when? >> several times. >> reporter: what was it like for you seeing him on the stand? rewasn't on the stand. i was on the stand. >> reporter: when you looked him in the eye, what did you see? >> a defeated man, somebody that knows it's the end of the trump organization, already found guilty of fraud, the license will ultimately be taken, and now this entire case is merely

about how much. this is merely about how much discouragement the defendant will be seeking. >> reporter: it's believed he came out to intimidate you. >> he picked the wrong guy to intimidate. i haven't stopped for how many years now, and i won't new mexico -- won't until accountability. >> this is our expert lisa rubin, able to give us a live report from there and walk us into the press avail for michael cohen and his attorney. the headline, i found a defeated man found guilty for fraud. no love lost, but these fireworks that we came on with, michael cohen said he didn't see him take the stand. it was for comments we showed at the top of the hour, a comment donald trump clearly made about

the judge and his clerk that cost him 10,000 bucks and a threat that the next time the punishment will be quote worse. >> reporter: nicolle, it was startling to see, and what cohen just said that he didn't see that. let me explain to our viewers why. cohen as the witness was not brought into the courtroom until the court was ready for his testimony. therefore, when the judge was examining trump, cohen and his lawyers were far away from the action. what i found really interesting and even historic today was not only was trump on the stand, and it's the first time i can recall we've seen his testimony in a court of law. but that the first person to pass judgment on his credibility, judge arthur an -- -- judge engorgeousen has stated in a written order that the penalties can increase, up

to and including possible imprisonment. there's a lot of distance between $10,000 and possible imprisonment. i hope trump and his lawyers take judge engoron to heart. at some point, the patience is going to run out and it almost did today. his relationship with his law clerk is a close one. he made clear to the parties, i make the final decisions not my law clerk. >> you know, andrew weissmann, deal with this specter of prison time with you. i mean, this case doesn't represent the threat of incarceration for donald trump, the mar-a-lago documents case, yes, georgia, rico, yes, jack smith's election interference case before judge tanya chutkan, yes, but this one, and as everyone has said, he's already been found guilty of fraud.

this is about assessing the punishment, the damages for that conclusion, but it doesn't hold any risk of jail time unless, in the words of judge engoron, trump continues to defy this very narrow gag order to not threaten, malign, intimidate, and endanger the safety of his clerks. what is wrong with someone who is basically running through the red flag, i guess, being waved in front of him? >> i think i'm going to channel neal katyal here because this is what's going on. you have a day that as lisa said should have been simply about civil liability where michael cohen on the stand made admissions that are very damaging to his credibility. obviously the judge is the ultimate decider what to believe, any or all or none of

what he said, but he made serious admissions about his having lied to, in the senate, in the senate interviews and in federal court, not once, but twice, to judge pauley when he pled guilty. this could have been a day where there were just legitimate references to undermine his credibility and in very serious ways that you could have taken that route. instead, this is, i think, a very deliberate strategy, and as the judge found, it was palpable that this was a reference to the law clerk not to michael cohen where trump is, i think, deliberately playing to his base and goading the judicial system as part of a strategy in terms

of his base, his political campaign in playing the victim, i think this is quite intentional on his part because it would have been so easy to just go with the facts today instead of making the story, as lisa said, about his comments about the law clerk, and being behind yet again for violating a judge's order. >> so, neal, if we take andrew's frame, i guess what andrew is saying is this isn't about all of us figuring out what trump's trying to do legally and where the facts land. it's maybe turning the focus on the legal system and asking the question, what does the legal system do in response to brazen defiance from donald trump. >> yeah, i think andrew has it absolutely right, nicolle. i would start with just what an extraordinary moment that just happened in court. you have the former president of

the united states, donald trump, and current criminal defendant and current civil defendant, donald trump, testifying in open court and having a judge say i find you not credible. and trump occasioned this by having blatant disregard for a judge's orders. andrew and i know it. a judge tells you not to comment about something, you shut up plain and simple and here the judge had good reason for this gag order, feared violence, and feared intimidation. what's trump's defense? oh, i wasn't doing it against the clerk, i was saying it about michael cohen. i mean, it speaks volumes about trump's character that his defense, or his remarks, as he was launching a public attack on a witness, instead of on a clerk. that's his defense. and, you know, i worry about it for the future. i think that this $10,000 fine is not that large, you know, it's certainly not for trump. if the trial proved anything,

trump isn't as wealthy as he wants people to think he is. $10,000 fine is not going to do it. if this behavior continues as i suspect it unfortunately will, i think we are look at the prospect of jailing the former president. >> russ, you know, there is an historic sort of thud, right, so hear that sentence. there's also something so on brand about the buffoonery, about the fraud, and this is how he rolls. this is what your meticulous pulitzer prize winning reporting yielded years and years and years before this lawsuit even existed. this is the same trump story. this is the same reaction to reality, which is that trump's wealth was never as big as he said it was. all of it came from his father. he squandered and lost a lot of it. he didn't grow it, he actually shrunk it. a word he seems allergic to. and today, the big fraud as has been found in a court of law,

not indescribed by a news anchor, couldn't take it. couldn't take the heat. lost any ability to control his impulses. teaching them not to run after the squirrel, and not to roll in horse poop. trump has less control than a hunting dog, couldn't keep himself out of trouble. the story has to be so familiar to you? >> absolutely. that's the first thing i thought when i heard about this was he just has throughout his life impulse control problems. and you have to remember how he got in this spot, right, it was being too cute by half, where he says some horrible things about the clerk. because she had a picture taken with chuck schumer, she must be chuck schumer's girlfriend somehow. i think that reads on about a fourth grade level. i can't believe that felt worth saying to him, other than as a cheap jab, and we get back here today where again he loses

control, i think, and he says something else that's too cute by half. i wasn't talking about the clerk. i was talking about the person sitting on the other side of the judge. it's just absurd and that's a current that runs through his life, part of his rhetorical method, he has this super power of figuring out why they're really criticizing him. it's never because of the facts, it's never because they think he lacks judgment or character or ability, it's always because they have some hidden bias against him. he's being persecuted because he's a member of the republican party, a rich kid, always on television. he finds some other reason, and doesn't ever address those things, and if he gets in a pinch, he'll just filibuster. you have seen it in interviews throughout the years, in depositions, he just keeps talking, talking, talking, about

everything except the substance of the matter, and says he leaves, i'm out of time here. that's what was amazing to me overall. the main job in crossing michael cohen was to make michael cohen lose his cool, and seems to do the exact opposite of that, made her client lose his cool, and that's why we're talking about this now. >> lisa, bring us back inside the courtroom. extraordinary reporting about multiple outfit changes that trump's counsel was involved in,

clearly a performative element to what she was doing. that, again, seems like it's designed to play in a different arena than the court of law. how is trump faring in the court of law? >> in the court of law, i'm not sure trump is faring well. yesterday's first 45 minutes of cross-examination was for effective than the hours that alena issue and cliff robert represents the adult sons. that's for two reasons.

michael cohen resisted their questions as much as he could within the bounds of what was respectful. when he didn't understand a question, he made that clear. if they were jumping around in time periods, he asked for clarification, and when the question begged for a yes or no answer and he couldn't give more nuance, he answered honestly, sometimes stumping the lawyers. cliff robert wanted to take about michael cohen about the space and between his indictment and his ultimate plea, and he kept talking about an arraignment. anybody who has google knows michael cohen was never arraigned. he pled and had criminal information filed on the exact same day. trump's lawyers were not well prepared for what happened today. they knew they wanted to paint michael cohen as a liar, and they succeeded in that to some extent, but in terms of dismantling the core of the testimony which was about trump's intent and participation, they didn't even do that very well.

michael cohen was able to square that circle. he basically said, yes, mr. trump never directly instructed me to inflate the numbers, and so i was telling the duty when i testified in 2019 before the house oversight committee, but he spoke like a mob boss at all times to me and all the other executives who worked for him. while he never said directly, go inflate the numbers, we knew what he meant. michael cohen did a good job cleaning up that portion of his testimony later in the day, and as you noted, he maintained his cool throughout the day. and trump, unfortunately, did not. >> he testifies that he acted like a mob boss and trump walks out of the courtroom and acted like a mob boss to such a degree, the judge threatens him with jail time, something he doesn't face from the actual legal issues at hand. we're so grateful for running out and talking for us, and getting the cohen presser. thank you so much. andrew and neal will stick

around a little bit longer. we'll have much more on this, including the judge rebuking trump moments ago. still to come, republicans have elected a speaker of the house, and there's a lot to tell you about that. he reflects the gop's dissent into full authoritarianism. the party will certainly not be able to escape, talking about their concerts strategic policy-driven efforts to dismantle our democracy. we'll tell you exactly who he is, and what he stands for. plus, more fallout from yesterday's bomb shell reporting by abc news about mark meadows, news of a possible immunity deal, could serve as a huge political and legal earthquake for the ex-president in those criminal cases against him. later in the broadcast, a live report on the urgent, fast moving talks, the 200 hostages being held by gaza, in gaza by hamas. there could be some progress in trying to release even more of

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hellooo clean and comfortable. always. fear no gush. we are back with and ewe, neal and russ, the train wreck of the commander in chief of the united states is stillt it. from my coeae, a short time after the former president stormed out ofheourt, he walked back in with his lawyer. robert asked for a directed verbatim, quote, absolutely not,

engoron said, there's enough evidence to fill the courtroom. andrew weissmann, so much losing and so much melting down. how does that serve his legal cause? >> well, i mean, it's bad lawyering if this was only about the law. just because what you think one witness has not been truthful, there's no way that a judge is going to in the middle of the case after hearing some evidence but not all the evidence say i'm going to give a directed verdict. that was, i think, either done through bad lawyering or to posture, to continue the refrain of this is a biassed judge, a biassed law clerk, the witnesses are lying and i'm being framed. it isn't what you do in a court of law. the one thing i would note to continue our discussion again,

the point that neal was raising, which is, this is a man who tests limits, and his read of this going from a 5,000 to a $10,000 bond, and first violations, 5, the second is 10, but the second was found by the court to be intentional, and that he lied to the judge in making this excuse. i am very worried that with somebody who's so attuned to power dynamics that he's going to read that as license, not as a true restriction on his words going forward, and as we talked about repeatedly, those words are ones that two judges, a state judge and a federal judge are very concerned about their effect on people taking action against these perceived enemies of donald trump. so i am worried about the exact

figure that was imposed here as being insufficient given this defendant. >> well, and, you know, neal, fool the country once, i guess, shame on you, fool the country two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten times, shame on us. i'm coming back to you with the same kind of question, what is available in the tool kit to stop the directed intentional repeated threats against named officers of the court? in this case, the judge and his clerk. >> everything, nicolle, is available, up to and included jail time, and i suspect that trump is going to keep on testing these limits, as andrew points out. he's already violated the judge's order twice now, not once. find $5,000, now $10,000. trump says he's being treated unfairly. and in a way, there is an unfairness about this. it's just not the one he thinks.

i can't think of any other defendant who could get away with twice violating a gag order and get to walk away with a slap on his wrist both times. now i do think that ultimately as we think about legal strategy, andrew is right. this is not the way to try to defend yourself in a case, and, you know, when the judge today said i find you donald trump not credible, that's not just something that's about this particular issue about, you know, intimidation of the clerk. that's a character judgment, and remember, this is a case of which there is no jury trial because trump's lawyers forgot to ask one. judge engoron, the same judge who issued this order today, he's the one who's going to assess the relative credibility of michael cohen, of donald trump, of all the accounting witnesses and the like, and trump is definitely not starting out on a good footing here with

the judge in terms of his own credibility. it looks like he's trying to intimidate the judge, trying to intimidate the court. those of us who practice know no chances you're going to be able to intimidate the judge on something like this. >> russ, when you look back at his most bruising and seemingly humiliating defeats, they are legal ones, right? trump university, e. jean carroll. the case that was enjoined after he went on and smeared her again for the very same thing he was found liable by a jury for in a cnn town hall, and this finding of fraud in the trump organization. are there any examples where he's aided his cause as a witness and in the arena inside the court? >> i can't think of any off the top of my head. i think of a litany of ones that followed what you're talking about, going back to when he founded his father's business.

in 1973, his father is sued by the federal government for now allowing black people to move into their apartments. the father wants to settle. the father's long time attorney wants to settle that. they get an offer the same as the other is setting. let's fight. and after a year and a half, they wind up accepting the same settlement that was offered to them at the beginning. in the 1980s he took over a football team in an upstart league, the usfl, he bought that team knowing that the nfl had september and october locked up on all the networks, but then encouraged them to file a lawsuit challenging them as an illegal monopoly. they lost the lawsuit, wiped out the league, and ended everybody's enjoyment of the whole thing, and that kind of continues on throughout his career. i can't tell you how many times he's filed lawsuits for the amount of $100 million against people that wind up getting thrown out. he thinks he's a great legal

strategist, and some of the people who have represented him said that's usually a problem because he wants to tell them what to do, and it's an impulse of his that might serve him like from a stage at a rally, might serve him on a debate stage, but in a court of law where there's real rules about what you can admit, about what constitutes evidence and proof, it just doesn't serve him very well, and i think that's part of the reason that he's wound up with, you know, not a super experienced attorney handling a very important cross-examination for him today. he also has a habit of not paying attorneys, which makes him kind of like persona non grata. there's a lot of what you talked about setting up that question but not a lot on the other side where the legal judgment has resulted in a good outcome. >> well, to be thorough -- >> oh, go ahead, andrew. >> yeah, i just wanted to break in with something. sorry, but lisa rubin has reported that the judge has

cleared his courtroom and has brought the parties back, including donald trump. so he stormed out, but he's now back in the courtroom, and judge engoron, i think very similar to what he did the first time around when he issued the $5,000 order is now speaking to the parties with donald trump present. it remains to be seen what is happening. but it is clear that he is in control of the court, and has clearly required donald trump to be back in the courtroom, which is where he is right now. >> and we -- lisa has updated that reporting. that meeting took place and it lasted about 90 seconds concluded and he has now left the courthouse. we have not heard what came of

that. if we do, we will press secretary -- break in. russ, thank you very much for spending time with us, and deepening our understanding of the chapter we're in. it's not chapter 1, 2 or 3. it's about 47. so thank you. up next for us, we're going to turn to the mayhem on capitol hill, which has, i guess, a period at the end of the three-week, two-week sentence. republicans have agreed to just make it a official, they elected a new speaker. he may not be as well known as some of the other well known tv faces and fire brands in the caucus, but he's just as dangerous to our democracy. we'll fill you in next. ll you it (footsteps crunching) (pensive music) (birds tweeting) (pensive music) (broom sweeping)

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earth 2 has a new mayor. house republicans have elected a speaker. all it took was four votes of the floor of the house. four republican nominees for speakers. three weeks of total paralysis in congress and an international disgrace for america. the man now in charge of steering congress through global crises and a looming deadline to fund the government, louisiana republican mike johnson, and you might wondering just as we did, who is that? well, here was his first big moment before the cameras last night, after being nominated for the speakership. >> did you help lead the efforts to overturn the 2020 election

results? [ booing ] >> shut up. >> shut up, just like we teach our kids, right? as much as house republicans would love to stop talking about that, not because it's wrong but because it's unpopular, the efforts to overturn american democracy, the man they picked to be their leader was a critical architect of the legal and policy pieces that made up the coup plot. johnson was the leader of the brief filed in support of a december 2020 lawsuit by texas that sought to throw out the election results in four key swing states. other states. the ”the new york times” once called him the most important architect of the electoral college objections that were raised after the insurrection of january 6th. leading the board to say he has

a quote, coup on his resume. it should be no surprise, then, that going into today's vote, johnson appeared of the blessing of donald trump. why not? who last night said on his site truth social he wasn't endorsing a candidate per se but suggested that republicans should go with pike johnson. joining our conversation, nbc news correspondent ali vitali is back on capitol hill for us, and et tor at large for the bulwark, charlie sykes is here, and former chief republican strategist, author of the new book "the conspiracy to end america, five ways my old party is driving democracy to autocracy" stewart stevens is here with us. such a good book and it's so important. it's an act, if the republican drive to end democracy is a play in four acts, this has to be one of them. >> yeah, absolutely. so they elected jim jordan, who wears a jacket. it's the same thing. you know, there's just nothing here that is about governing. there's not any sense that can

unify these people. back when we worked for the party i think you could say somebody could stand up there and say, look, you may not like me, you may not agree with me, we have important stuff to do. what is their important stuff to do? investigate hunter biden's laptop? the person third in line to the president doesn't believe the current president is legally elected, doesn't believe in democracy, and believes we live in an occupied country. that's difficult to wrap your mind around. >> yeah, and i mean, ali vitali, he's a skeptic, funding for our ally, ukraine and their hot war against russia. he has views way outside. now, i hope they sent him out on the campaign trail. his views on abortion are outside the mainstream of republican political thought on the other side of voters in kansas and ohio and red parts of the country. his views on democracy, again, to the right of republican voters. his views on foreign policy to the right of the republican

voter. what were they thinking? >> reporter: well, stuart stevens said what i was told by people starting to parse through the mike johnson record which is he's jim jordan with a jacket and a smile. that's something that when you actually start parsing through the policy comes through very clearly, that this is someone who maybe without the publicity and fanfare is certainly working in lock step on the same ideological and ethos ideas that people like jim jordan and steve scalise have been talking about over the course of the last several years. he hasn't been doing it as often on fox news. this is who they ended up with. it takes me back to yesterday when you and i were having this conversation, albeit, at that point, it was chaos. now, there is a speaker for the first time in three weeks. the conversation that you and i were having is that it's part and parcel to the republican conference platform in the house right now to have anti-small

deed democratic values, and it shouldn't be striking that the person they put up for this job maybe wasn't citing all over the january 6th report, though there is at least one mention of him in there, but instead, he's someone who provided some of the attempted rationale for how to overturn an election. i'm glad, frankly, that you played the clip from last night, when they invited reporters in for a quote unquote, press conference, and said no policy questions, but i tried similarly today when he walked down the very steps that i'm standing on right now, and spoke with reporters for, once again, what they called a press conference and didn't take questions, i shouted quite loudly about whether or not he thought the 2020 election results were legitimizing for biden and if he believed that biden was legitimately elected president of the united states, and he once again ignored those questions, and so i know some people might say it's in the past, but certainly january 6th and 2020 loom so large over this building every single day, and

now you have someone in the presidential line of succession who helped with that rationale in a key way that republican members of congress were using his legal bases that were flimsy and nonconstitutional, but were trying to use them as their rationale for why they voted against certifying the election results, i think that speaks to where the party is right now. the other thing i would add is president biden was asked about this today. he said no, he wasn't concerned about having someone like speaker johnson with the background he's had in the presidential line of succession, but candidly, democrats around here, don't share the president's view as far as i've heard it. >> ali, let me play you something that happened there when congressman aguilar nominated leader jeffries. >> this has been about one thing. this has been about who can appease donald trump.

>> house republicans put their names behind someone who has been called the most important architect of the electoral college objections. he spearheaded. that's fair, that's fair. we know how you feel. you've made that clear. house democrats believe that when members of this body voted to reject the results of the 2020 election, they forfeited their ability to lead this chamber. >> we're back to the structural issues. why are they jeering at him when the only sort of identifiable predicate to becoming speaker was to be an election denier. you couldn't give the job to a guy who voted to certify. that made him a squish. why then jeer, why not own the

very central animating position you had to have to be the speaker? >> i believe it was congresswoman anna polina who said damn right to pete aguilar pointing out the factual, "the new york times" did call speaker johnson a key architect of the electoral college strategy that the trump campaign and his allies used to overturn the election results. the fact that she said damn right is saying the quiet part out loud, and i'm glad that aguilar punctuated it as so. now everyone knows where everyone stands and i know you and i and all of us who follow this professionally and consistently all knew where everyone stood anyway, but this is going to be one of the key points that democrats continue to make on the campaign trail and as much as 2022 was about a referendum on the post roe reality and abortion access at the ballot box, you know that i think that was a key motivator, it was also a real test of election denialism on the ballot, and we saw that in many cases, in competitive races, at

least, election denialists fell short of winning in key races. i'm thinking of places like the michigan governor's race. arizona senate race. that being said, election denialists were still sent back to congress, specifically the house, and so johnson is in very good company among his colleagues there. i think the other thing i noticed too, if we're thinking about house floor dynamics during this lengthy process, today when each of the new york republicans voted and they are in some ways, the majority makers of this republican conference, when people like mike lawler, and nick voted to back johnson, you heard democrats on the floor say bye bye bye, and i don't know if they were quoting n'sync or speaking to the electoral realities because they think this is going to help them come next november when they have to take this to the ballot box. new york republicans like mac molinaro, above the hudson valley district where i grew up, he's going to have to go home to

defend a vote for jim jordan twice and now for mike johnson. with the positions that johnson has on issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, the work he did for religious liberty groups, all of that is going to come to the fore. it's something you can see in campaign ads from democrats. >> two things they wrapped themselves in inextricably, super extreme views on abortion, and democracy and election denialism, charlie sykes and the bulwark have the definitive thought pieces and reporting on that. we're going to give him the floor on the other side of the break. ali vitali, thank you for your reporting all week long. we'll be right back. rz

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so please call now or go online to give. thank you. the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with the software by dominion, look, there is a lot of merit to that. when the president says the election is rigged, that's what he is talking about, the fix was in. i could give example after example in all these states. i don't know how much time you all have. some of the lawsuits have a lot of merit, and we need to exhaust all the legal remedies. in every election in american history, there is some small element of fraud, irregularity, error. you accept that's the case. but when you have it on a broad scale, when you a software system that is used all around the country, that is suspect because it came from hugo chavez's venezuela. >> your new speaker, ladies and gents. that's what bill barr

technically termed bull [ bleep ]. that's what cost fox news $800 million. that's who the republicans chose, charlie sykes. >> that's cracking level big lie stuff. look, the bottom line here is and adam kinzinger texted me that mike johnson is jim jordan in drag. but this is a huge victory for matt gaetz because the center did not hold. there was a moment where it looked like there might be a rump of normies or so-called moderates in the party that were going to say no to jim jordan. but the squishes ultimately did what squishes do. they caved in. what is extraordinary that as extreme as mike johnson is, the vote was unanimous. not one republican voted against him, despite the role that he played in the coup attempt. the reason why tom emmer is not the speaker and mike johnson is because tom emmer voted to certify joe biden's win and mike

johnson was one of the leaders of the coup attempt. not just a guarantee variety election denialist, but as you just played, somebody who was spreading the kinds of lies that cost fox so much money, and that jenna ellis and sidney powell are now admitting in georgia courtrooms were lies, were part of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election. by the way, how about this, for a split screen. they are -- they are pleading guilty to criminal offenses for saying and doing the same things that mike johnson has now used as a ladder to rise to the speakership. but keep in mind, though, that this dysfunction in the republican party is going to continue. it was to quote joe biden, are a very much an inflection point, and no joke. every single republican voted for one of their most extreme members and somebody who played a rather extraordinarily

deplorable role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. >> you've written a book i read months ago. first must-read of this year, where the country will go to the polls in about 13 months, a little less than that, about 12 months. the why it matters, the inflection point is what the book deals with. why does it matter? >> the essence of democracy, if there is one truth is someone has to be willing to lose. and a sub category, you have to be willing to admit that you're wrong, that maybe the other side has a point. you know, as dark as i was in the republican party, i never would have thought in october if trump lost by $7.5 million, north of 300, that all the people we know, that we know are not crazy would go along with trump. what does it matter? humor him. well, when they're running for their lives on january 6th, i think they had an idea where it might matter. and i think the republican party is not a normal american party anymore. i think it has become an

authoritarian movement. we talk about normies in the house. how normie can you be if you vote to put third in line somebody in the united states that doesn't believe we have a democracy? >> right. >> or that's going to go try to impeach someone they don't believe is the president. >> so those 18 people, members of congress who are in districts that biden won, they're going to go home and say i don't think your votes, even though they were the majority of my district, i don't think you count. i want to throw those votes out. and it's just extraordinarily telling, i think, of where the party is. and part of the problem is just how to talk about this. and to me, it's like a pandemic, that whatever you say at the beginning is going to sound extreme. probably alarmist. but in the end, it's going to be inadequate. >> it's so true. that's so true. so nice to see you, my friend. it's a sad journey, right, that we've been on. but at least we've been on it together. charlie sykes, thank you.

i'm sorry we were short with time today. stuart's new book is called "the conspiracy to end america: five ways my old party is driving our democracy to autocracy." it's out now. as i said, it is a must read. up next for us, much more on the legal aftershocks from donald trump from that reported immunity deal from mark meadows. we'll be back after a very short break. stay with us. tact's advanced automation lets you send the right message at the right time, every time. ( ♪♪ ) constant contact. helping the small stand tall. hi, my name is damion clark. if you have both medicare and medicaid, i have some really encouraging news that you'll definitely want to hear. depending on the plans available in your area, you may be eligible to get extra benefits with a humana medicare advantage dual-eligible special needs plan. all of these plans include a healthy options allowance, a monthly allowance to help pay for eligible groceries, utilities,

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mark meadows, listen, i did this for seven years, as you guys know. you do not give immunity, complete immunity to the former white house chief of staff unless he's got information that is devastating and that you couldn't get any other way. donald trump is in huge trouble, and our party needs to wake up to the fact that he will not be the next president of the united states. he is much more likely to be in different federal housing than the white house. >> we find jail references

irresistible, and we think that different federal housing line was one of those. hi again, everyone. it's now 5:00 in new york. quite a prediction there, that donald trump will end up in jail from a federal former prosecutor and a former trump enabler. kristaps porzingis is now running against trump for the republican nomination, underscoring with some authority the severity of what happened yesterday. what we learned from abc news that former white house chief of staff mark meadows was granted immunity by special counsel jack smith's team ahead of his testifying before the federal grand jury in smith's election subversion case. that again according to abc news. nbc news has not confirmed this reporting. an immunity deal with meadows would spell deep trouble for the ex-president. no one knew more about and worked more closely with donald trump or knew his mind-set around his defeat in the 2020 election than his own right-hand man mark meadows. remember what meadows' former aide cassidy hutchinson told the january 6th committee.

>> i remember looking at mark. mark, you can't possibly think we're going pull this off. that call was crazy. and he looked at me and started shaking his head. oh, cass. he knows it's over. he knows he lost, but we're going to keep trying. there are some good options out there still. we're going keep trying. >> "he knows he lost. we're going keep trying." the extent of mark meadows immunity arrangement is still unknown. but abc news provides this detail. both the sources said his team repeatedly told trump in the weeks after the 2020 election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless. a striking break fmtrump's prolific rhetoc regarding the elecon according to the source, meadows also told the federal investigators trump was being, quote, dishonest with the public when he firsclmed to have won the election only hours after polls closed on november 3rd, 2020, before the final results were in. quote, obviously, we did not win, a source quoted meadows as

telling smith's team in hindsight. his attorney called the story largely inaccurate. trump recognizing the threat meadows' testimony posed to him took to social media, making what are sure to be violations of the gag order issued by judge tanya chutkan last week, although luckily for him that order is currently on pause. trump went after his former chief of staff and called allies that cut deals with prosecutors in recent days, quote, weaklings and cowards, end quote, in what would be another clear violation of the gag order, trump also referred to jack smith as deranged, an insult he has used numerous times and what that judge tanya chutkan made clear is not acceptable in her view. abc's reporting and trump's nasty response to that reporting reveal is that the walls could just be at about closing in phase on the ex-president over his efforts to overturn a free and fair election that he lost. it's where we start the hour some of our favorite reporters

and friends. former top official at the department of justice andrew weissman is back with us. former acting u.s. solicitor general neal katyal is back with us, and "new york times" washington correspondent glenn thrush is here as well. glenn thrush, it has been one of the enduring mysteries. what did mark meadows' skilled attorney george terwilliger do to not shield him from exposure in georgia but to avoid any charges in the federal election interference case. and i wonder your thought. not necessarily on the immunity piece, but on the story mark meadows has clearly told jack smith, at sometimes some of the earliest and most extensive reporting on that. that seems to have gotten through to donald trump. >> yeah, i think meadows is obviously a critical player in this. he was at -- literally at trump's right hand during most of the events that we have described. as you said before, we have not been able to confirm the

specific details of the nbc story. but in june we did report that meadows testified before the grand jury. and it is not uncommon. they're called a queen for a day deals in which individuals are granted situational immunity. so in exchange for testifying before a grand jury. so all that sort of comports with what we generally know. and we also know from cassidy hutchinson, and also from extensive reporting inside the white house contemporaneously and subsequently, and also the wealth of information from the january 6th committee that this is generally the sequence of events. but meadows' testimony is obviously critical. particularly now as we're seeing this momentum. the rolling up of the flanks in georgia. of the attorneys going down one by one for these plea deals, and as we are, you know, the jack smith investigation was sort of

an outer ringed inward investigation. it seems that the prosecution in georgia is interacting with the federal prosecution to sort of accelerate things. so things are sort of moving quickly up the road. i think it is very likely that over the next few weeks you're going to see an increased amount of communication between smith's office and fani willis' office in georgia as the investigations intertwine. but what's interesting about this meadows story is this is moving much, much closer to trump. as you said, the walls are closing in. and meadows, again, appears to be at the very, very center of the facts set that both investigations are needing to find out more about. >> andrew weissman, to describe a story, a very, very long story that deals with a whole lot of things, including inaccuracies

that mark meadows published, and i don't know what the contract is like with his publisher, but with the abc news story reveals there are some real questions about whether he knowingly lied and the things he put in his book because according to abc news, they contradict the things that he has testified to under oath to jack smith. knowing jack smith, how do you analyze this news? >> i completely agree with kristaps porzingis. -- chris christie. you do not make a decision to immunize anyone, let alone the chief of staff to the former president who has criminal exposure. you don't do that lightly unless that person has truthful testimony that you think would implicate people who are far more culpable. and that's pretty clear who i'm talking about would be the former president. the thing that i would note that's kind of interesting here

is because discovery has been turned over in both federal cases, the one in d.c. and the one in florida, somebody who knows exactly whether mark meadows has been given immunity and his transcripts from any grand jury testimony or interviews with prosecutors is donald trump, because he has been given that. so he is very aware if this story is true of precisely the situation that mark meadows is in and how he could hurt him. and the other thing, the final piece is the sort of denial or largely denial by mark meadows' counsel is one that, nicolle, i don't know if you share my view, but to me it read, and this is just an opinion, that it was not a flat-out denial. and the way i read that is there may be pieces of this that are

immaterial that are wrong. he may have met with the government more times or may have gone into the grand jury more times. there may be things around the edges about what he precisely said that are incomplete or may be wrong, but it wasn't a flat-out denial about the immunity deal. so this is obviously huge news. it does suggest to me what chris christie said, and it's something that donald trump actually knows all and his team knows all of the ins and outs of is his testimony. >> i never thought it would feel inadequate to have the journalistic firepower and the legal brainpower of the two of you, but i find myself most days needing a shrink to say, neil and andrew came on the air, we moved their schedules around, we earlied them up to 4:00, because

we got alerts from "the new york times" that trump freaked out in court today, that he went and smeared judge's cler and we've been covering him in and out of the court. there he is. maybe he'll put that on the wall next to his kim jong-un selfie. there is his sketch from being called to the stand today. where trump faces no jail time in this civil proceeding, yet he seems tbe trying to land himself in jail. and neal, i can't get my brain around what the hell he is doing. >> i you know, i'm trying to play psychotherapist, but i'm not particularly great at it. here is the best i can come up, with nicolle. any immunity deal, any arrangement by mark meadows with jack smith is very bad for criminal defendant donald trump. meadows is in the room where it all happened. he understands trump's intent, his mens rea, his state of mind, and also trump's acts, what he did. and the details will matter, because not all immunity

arrangements are the same there could be a narrow immunity deal called limited immunity, which means meadows could still be charged, and it means he hasn't necessarily flipped on donald trump, or broad immunity, full i immunity, where meadows is safe from prosecution. and probably in order to do that, as andrew is saying works have to give extremely damning evidence against donald trump to arrange such an arrangement. whether it's one way or the other, this testimony is obviously going to be i think whatever has been given, is probably very, very bad for trump. you know, obviously trump lost the election. and the it's unlikely, very unlikely that meadows heard trump saying, "i won, i won, i won" behind closed doors. so that's what the abc news story is basically saying. forget about the technical details of which andrew is right that might provide meadows' attorney a chance to quibble with this or that. but the basic bottom line is

meadows went into the grand jury and said donald trump thought he lost the election. that is very, very bad. that's a key element to the criminal case against him. and even if there isn't a broad immunity deal yet with mark meadows, there very well could be. remember, it's just this week that in the last week, we've seen so many different people, sidney powell and ken chesebro and the like plead guilty in georgia. and so the noose is tightening. and if you're someone like mark meadows, you know one final thing. you know trump really well. and you know if the situation were reversed, trump would turn on them without giving it a second thought. and that i suspect is part of the dynamic for why we've had these plea deals this week, and why mark meadows, even if he doesn't yet have a full immunity arrangement, may very well try to cut such a deal right now to get out in front of this before trump tries to do something to

him, as trump said in email -- or tweet suggests. >> i don't think he tweeted. i think -- we can't call them truths, but he blurts when he is not on the stand, being fined $10,000 for breaking a gag order. glenn, the piece that i went back -- the abc story broke while i was on the air. there is some extraordinary accounting that meadows was asked specifically about election night. and abc goes on the report that trump knew he hadn't won that night. it's consistent with things i'm sure you were hearing. i was hearing on election night, that stepien told him, that all the people witnesses in the congressional hearing in the taped depos go out and say, this is how it works on a losing campaign. i've been onon one. first, the data guy goes out and says we didn't make up the margins. and the campaign manager and then the lawyer goes out, there are no challenges to be had. it's over. here is your concession speechl. and then the family goes in. they went through that whole chain of reality.

and trump goes out in the white house into the briefing room and claims victory. what abc seems to suggest is that some of that testimony starts with election night, with trump's known falsity of the public statement, and pulses it all the way through. i was thinking pence has gone in before the grand jury, right. milley has gone in, who was making foreign policy determinations with donald trump, an outgoing president who knew he was such, an outgoing president. bill barr has spoken just about every. you can't get between the camera and bill barr when he talks about why he left and what the circumstances were and what he told trump, that all the claims were bs. it would seem there is nothing other than a story that's in line with pence, barr, milley and the others, if you were a white house chief of staff in any version, even remotely resembling any other white house chief of staff in american history. >> well, and also, remember.

and andrew and neal can speak though this as well. the burden of proof suggests making his case is not to prove that donald trump knew or asserted that he had lost the election and was still doing it, it's to present evidence that shows donald trump was given time and time again information that he -- credible information over and over and over again that he lost the election. and that is irrefutable. i'm sure whatever it is that meadows said behind closed doors, that he confirmed it just like everyone else did. trump clearly was given the information in a rational world in which he would accept the result. but we talk about you talking about state of mind, both his, ours, and why he is motivated to do this. all you got to do is look at the split screen. to me, last night, when johnson was appearing at this press conference, and rachel scott of

nbc asked him the most basic threshold question, which was do you believe essentially donald trump -- do you still believe donald trump's lies about the election, she was booed. the entire group of republicans stood in front of the presumptive speaker and ridiculed that fundamental question. so why does donald trump have confidence as he is entering this process, even from a legal perspective he probably shouldn't? because he has this entire political force behind him. it might be wounded. it might be in disarray. but these are the elements that are enabling and invalidating his approach in the courtroom. because he is certainly at the moment doesn't appear to have to be in a particularly strong legal position. >> and maybe he can play this if he ends up where chris christie thinks he is going to end up, federal prison. i'll show it to you. >> you helped lead the efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

do you still believe -- >> that little coupie thing, forget about that. focus on our great and unpopular positions on health care and taxes and abortion. i don't even know what that was, andrew weissman, but i'm pretty sure to glen's point, it does not suggest any strength in the legal side of things. it would appear even donald trump's actual anxiety resides in his legal concerns. >> well, once again, we're seeing what federal judge amy berman jackson said. she was the judge who presided over the paul manafort and roger stone cases. and she said about her cower house, that this is a place where facts and law still matter.

that unfortunately is not true of the clip you just showed of a large part of congress, which is as glenn said, is filled with people who are enabling the former president, where nay are willing -- they know that what the facts are, and they know what the law is. they're smart people, and that makes it worse. that they are doing what we just saw. and it's indispensable to donald trump and his scheme. it also relates to what we've been seeing and talking about with respect to the gag order, because that strategy of using violent rhetoric, we have seen how that plays out, and the affect it has in terms of encouraging enablers and silencing witnesses and people who don't want to be the subject

of that kind of scrutiny. this is as a very deliberate strategy, i agree with you there is a certain amount of acting out and lack of control. but i do think there is a plan here that, again, as neal has said repeatedly, that his plan here is not to win so much in the court of law, because if the facts are so strong and the cases are so strong, it's really thinking about this from a political point of view as a way to get out of the significant legal peril that he is in. >> i guess this is where the political strategy starts to collapse in the same way the legal one clearly has, neal katyal. what the january 6th committee did so successfully in the walk-up to the midterm elections where the red wave became like a red spit-up basically, was to put republican trump supporter

after republican trump supporter after republican trump supporter staffer on national television and have them describe the plot to overturn and end american democracy, have them tell their firsthand account about how rudy had nothing. bill barr over and over again, i thought it was bs, i thought it was bs. and all the lawyers saying eastman knew it was both illegal and unconstitutional. you know how in my mar-a-lago documents case, oh, yeah, the boss wanted me to flood the server room. really? i don't know who you voted for, but i didn't get the memo to flood the server room. and you have in the election interference case the accomplice, right. mark meadows was historic because he was so subservient. all of trump's anti-democratic impulses. the guy that came before him called him, quote, the most damaged human being i've ever seen. that was john kelly. what do we do sort of to

insulate the legal process from all the toxicity in our politics, especially when we enter a moment where the legal process is going to showcase trump's own insiders making the legal case against him? >> yeah, i think, nicolle, the legal process is already insulated against trump and his machinations. you're absolutely right to point out the january 6th committee had trump appointee after trump appointee, trump cabinet officials, trump's very close advisers, all going and giving giving evidence against him about january 6th. and now as the criminal trials happen, something even more remarkable we have trump's own attorneys fall going and pleading guilty. not just to idle talk in some congressional hearing. but they're saying we committed crimes around january 6th. and so all of that evidence is going to be produced in a court of law. and sure, you have the attitudes

from that videotape that was played yesterday of members in congress pooh-poohing this, absolutely. but these cases are going to be decided by a jury, and whatever everyone can say about those members of congress, juries are a lot more rational and bound to the facts and live in the real world as opposed to this constructed thing that they're, you know, laboring in or projecting or whatever. so trump's hope here, and this is why it connects up to what we were discussing at the 4:00 hour, trump's hope here is somehow to intimidate the witnesses so they don't come forward, to intimidate the jurors because they'll be scared to render a verdict against him. and that's why you see things like -- you called it a blurt today. i don't know what a social truth, whatever thing that he's got. today he went and attacked mark meadows in those blurts. and trump is basically begging

for the bag order in the january 6th case imposed by judge chutkan, and as you say, nicolle, is temporarily stayed, but begging for her to reininstitute that, because he can't be allowed to publicly intimidate witnesses in these ways. it really undermines the integrity of the entire trial system of the entire legal system as a whole. and there is no way the judges can stand by and let this kind of attempt to distort the truth happen. he can do it out of the courtroom and all sorts of ways when there is no legal process, as there was before these indictments. but once the indictments happen, once a grand jury has said we believe it's more likely than not that you donald trump committed crimes, everything changes. that's the way our system works. >> and it's so interesting and so important. and the glenn's point, his plan is clearly to push against the gag orders by arguing he has a first amendment right. but a lot of those blurts or

posts on his social media are against witnesses. they're against mike pence. they're against mark meadows. they're against sidney powell, or people who have pleaded guilty and will now have to testify truthfully in all the subsequent cases. neal katyal, andrew weissman, glenn thrush, thank you all for spending time with us and having this conversation. we're really grateful. when we come back, as we've been discussing, the vote today for a new house speaker shows how far the republican party has fallen down, down, down toward earth 2, to a fum embrace of election denialism and further and further away from further normal republican standard bearers like mitt romney, whose unvarnished thoughts about the radical transformation of his party is the subject of a riveting new book. we will be joined by the author mckay coffins on a romney reckoning after a short break. also, an urgent effort to

free the hostages by hamas. there is an ongoing effort to release a larger group of people. we'll have a group talk on those results. "deadline: white house" returns after a quick break. don't go anywhere. eak. don't go anywhere. (♪♪) (♪♪) (♪♪) (sean) i wish for the amazing new iphone 15 pro! (♪♪) (jason) sean! do you mean this one - the one with titanium? switch to verizon, and get iphone 15 pro on them. (sean) wow! (vo) get iphone15 pro, apple tv 4k and 6 months of apple one. all three on us. only on verizon.

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you've all heard the phrase "canary in the coal mine." when a baseline indicator flashes red, signaling a change for the worse, for the more depreciation. for the gop circus, we've been covering all afternoon, up to and including today's vote including election denialism appointing mike johnson to be house speaker. one of those early blaring, flashing lights and sirens was senator mitt romney, the party's

2012 presidential mom knee, turned pariah for not drinking the kool-aid fast enough for refusing to board a trump-bound shuttle bound for earth 2. now as his colleagues drift further and further away from reality, we're getting our deepest and closest most unvarnished look at romney's uncensored opinions on the people he once called peers and supporters when he was the party's nominee. that's thanks to our friend mckay coppinss, whose new book "romney: a reckoning", that lays it out in great detail. quote, a very large portion of my party really didn't believe in the constitution. joining us at the table author of the new book "romney: a reckoning" mckay coppinss. it's such an extraordinary body of reporting. it's an extraordinary brick in the wall of the collapse of the modern republican party, right? this wasn't some back venture. this was the party's nominee in

'12. this was the last guy the party picked before it picked trump. >> it's incredible to think about how they went from romney as their standard bearer to four years later nominating donald trump. it's emblematic of how quickly the party seemed to change. mitt romney looked around one day and thought that the party that stood for promoting democracy and free markets and individual responsibility and character, all of the sudden to see all the leaders of that party rally around a by who was the embodiment of everything the party was supposed to stand against. >> yeah. >> you know, he looked around and he realized one day i don't fit here anymore. i'm not -- i don't have a home here. and these people that i used to respect have sold out their principles to back this guy who manifestly doesn't believe in the constitution, doesn't believe in democratic values. and i think the reason he talked

to me for this book and gave me such an unvarnished account of these last few years of his career is because he wanted to issue a warning. he is worried about not just his party, but the fragility of american democracy and what he has seen inside the senate has made him very alarmed. >> there is some echos to mark salter's last book about his old boss john mccain who in some ways, the death bed confession of what he saw, and what has collapsed. but what's so amazing about romney, let me show you what he said and then ask you about this. this is on sunday shows. . >> no question, i don't really have a home in my party. i come from a tradition of ronald reagan and george herbert walker bush and george w. bush and john mccain. those are the people that have shaped our party. anti-putin, anti-russia, anti-aught author stairians, anti-kim jong-un. character counts. the character of our leaders makes a difference and it shapes the character of our country. that's the party i've come from.

and i don't recognize that in the great majority of our party today, and that for me is very troubling. >> what your reporting i think layers on to that is romney's almost feeling like -- i thought this way, disoriented. it's not that it stopped standing up against putin. it's that it likes him. >> yeah. >> what does romney think explains not just falling down on what it used to stand for, but actually standing for something else? >> one of the questions that i asked him early on and that he kind of thought about and grappled with a lot throughout our two years of introduce was this rot always there, or was it new? was it something that had been activated by donald trump? >> what does he think? >> he went back and forth on this question, but he told me, you know, i think back to the tea party in 1220 when mitt romney was running for president. i thought the tea party, i took them at their word.

i thought they were about, you know, low taxes and deficit reduction. and you laugh now when you think that way, but he said i thought i could appeal to them by talking about fiscal policy. and what it turned out is they didn't care about fiscal policy. they wanted a strong man. they wanted an authoritarian that would go after the people they hated. and i think mitt romney realized maybe too late, but realized that he had just fundamentally miscalculated what the base of his party cared about and it became clear once donald trump became their champion. >> your reporting is so harrowing. i don't know if you know the movie "sleeping the enemy," but you almost get the anxiety that he is looking around and these people are not for the u.s. constitution, they're not for american democracy, they're not for the norms. i want to press you on some of that. i have to sneak in a quick break first. will you stick around? >> yeah, of course. >> we'll be right back. we got the house! you did! pods handles the driving. pack at your pace.

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we're back with author and reporter mckay coppins. i want to read -- i want to read some of what you write, because it's clear this gets so personal for romney, that it isn't just a betrayal of his principles as he is articulating there in previous standard bearers, it's a betrayal of people that were sort of nose to nose with him. about donald trump, quote, he is unquestionably mentally unstable. he is racist, bigoted

misogynistic, vulgar. mitch mcconnell, indulgent of trump's deranged behavior over the last four years, but highway he's not crazy. desantis, he is much smarter than trump. there is a peril to having someone who is smart and pulling in a direction that is dangerous. ted cruz, scary and a demagogue. chris christie, an unbelievable burn for chris christie, quote, another bridge and tunnel loud mouth like trump. he spares no one, really. >> i think the thing to understand about some of those quotes, and that last one actually is my characterization of his feeling toward christie. but the thing to understand some of these were comments that he made to me over the course of our years of interviews. some of them were in his private journals that date back a decade in some case. he gave me his journals for reporting on this book. but he -- like you said, it's not just that he feels like the republican party abandoned the policy positions he cared about,

or even the core principles that he cared about. he saw these people that he once held in high regard, that he respected as serious political figures sell out their principles to join the trump cult of personality. and he is enormously disappointed in them. a lot of people when some of these quotes trickled out in the media are saying oh, romney is petty, he is consumed with these old resentments. i'll let people make their own conclusions. but there is something humaning being so viscerally repulsed by people you once considered friends and allies just brazenly giving up what they believed in so that they could win reelection. and that i think comes through more than anything in this book. >> i mean, the portrait that you paint for me is one of heartbreak. is that accurate? >> no question. there were some days where i would go over. sometimes he wanted to dish, and he was in a good mood and he was

gossipy. but there were some interviews where he was just sad. he was sad about what had happened to his party. he was sad about some of these people, you know, telling him one thing in private, but then refusing to say it in public. and after a while, that wore him down. it was really after january 6th when we saw the most dangerous consequences of that kind of hypocrisy and cynicism that he finally agreed to do this book with me. he said -- he sat down with me every week. he gave me his journals, his email correspondence. and i think he was ready to unburden himself. and often it was in a tone of tragic disappointment. >> what does he think the future holds? >> you know, he is hopeful. he wants to believe that eventually the fever will break. but, you know, there is a reason that he is not staying in the senate. he has seen the republicans and democrats who he feels are really willing to roll up their sleeves and work on legislation and operate in good faith slowly

make their way out of the senate. and he feels that as long as his party is under the spell of donald trump, and as long as his party has any control over some of the government, it's going to be impossible to get serious work done. and ultimately, that's what shaped his decision to leave. >> i feel like he and liz cheney could make a band, go on tour, speak a little bit. it's really so important. it's so important. he is an important figure. and what you were able to get out of him and through his diaries and everything, just such an important piece of history that we're living through. congratulations on the book. >> thank you, nicolle. >> thank you for being here. the book is called "romney: a reckoning." it's out right now. when we come back, we'll shift gears. we'll head to the middle east. and there are new reporting today that talks are ongoing to free what could be a larger number of hostages currently being held by hamas. we'll have that new reporting after a short break. eak.

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have to make extremely difficult decisions about how to distribute aid. all the while, there are still more than 200 hostages being held by hamas in gaza, which president joe biden addressed earlier today. >> we're also working around the clock together with our partners in the region to secure the release of hostages. and including american citizens behind, left behind and held by hamas. and the safe passage of foreign nationals out of gaza, not just americans, but australians and a whole range of people were trapped in gaza. >> a diplomat with knowledge of the hostage discussions tells nbc news that while talks of the release of a larger hostage group are still progressing positively, those talks are incredibly fragile. joining us now, nbc news chief international correspondent keir simmons. he is in doha, qatar for us. keir, tell us everything you're learning and what you've been reporting today.

>> nicolle, for the first time today here in qatar, government officials said publicly, predicted a breakthrough, quote, hopefully soon for the civilian hostages, including americans to be released. now that is something that has been talked about. we've already seen those two pairs of hostage released, first two on friday and then on monday. this appears to be a conversation about a bigger group. but it is incredibly challenging, for midbly challenging. a diplomat with knowledge of the talks tells me in order to free inside gaza a larger group of hostages, hamas would need to be able to go and get them. they need to be put on a convoy and brought out in a war zone. that diplomat tells me there would have to be a pause in the bombing. and my understanding is just over the weekend, for example, with the two that were freed on monday, there were many setbacks.

there were many moments where it looked like it wouldn't work out. in fact, that pair were released into egypt, the first pair were released into israel. that gives you a picture of the delicate conversations that are happening now for a potentially bigger group, and therefore a more challenging operation. >> and keir, just take us inside how this is working and how qatar is playing such an instrumental role, the offices that hamas maintains in doha. talk about the structure and who is at the table for these important negotiations. >> well, hamas has had an office here in qatar for many, many years. now the qataris will tell you that israel and the u.s. have known about that and have agreed with that, acquiesced to that, if you like. and they would say now that what they're showing is the value of keeping that door open. traditionally, qatar has had a relationship, for example, groups of the muslim bureau bro hood. so there is a history there with qatar.

it has annoyed some of its neighbors in the region, saudi arabia, the united arab emirates, and perhaps after all of this, there will be a conversation about whether a qatar stance is the right one. but they were praised today by the israelis for the mediating that they are doing. and just today president biden in those -- in that address that you played there saying that he is encouraging benjamin netanyahu to try to secure the release of the hostages before launching a ground invasion. and all of that will be coming through here, through qatar, all of those talks. the clock is ticking, and for now i think the focus is on jus trying to see whether or not the civilian hostages can be brought out. >> antony blinken has also praised qatar notably in all of thinks public appearances around and before and after the releases of the two pairs of hostages. i wonder how much of this is driving the decision in your

view about the timing of a ground incursion. >> well, i think it must be part of it. it must be, because you can imagine president biden is very clear he's not telling benjamin netanyahu and the israelis what to do. he's not urging, but encouraging them. playing the calculation, if you go with a ground invasion, and in that process you kill civilian hostages from around the world, including americans, how does that impact the way we're doing this? there's an awful lot of cynicism here, as ever, and people are making calculations about exactly, you know, kind of what the right approach is. i will say this, ultimately all of these countries in the gulf -- qatar, uae, saudi arabia -- continue talking about trying to look for stability.

clearly that's not what we have right now. what can be argued that happened is the palestinian question has reared its head and instability, and there's agreement among thor different countries about how you get stability. i think that's part of the issue. they're not always unified in their approach. >> keir simmons, thank you very much. please stay safe. a quick break for you will, we'll be right back. y safe a quick break for you will, we'll be right back. i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are looking up, i've got symptom relief. ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ feel significant symptom relief at 4 weeks with skyrizi,

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one more story before we go, something we have covered here closely over the years, related to the story we were talking about before the break. there's brand-new data that shows that since the hamas terrorist attack on israel, there's been a surge in anti-semitic incidents all across this country. not an up tick. such occurrences are up almost 400%, compared to the same period last year, the last five years, we were already living through a period of unprecedented anti-semitism. more as we have it. we will be right back. anti-semi. more as we have it we will be right back. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes. we are grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. thank you, nicolle. the house of representatives has a new speaker of the house. mike johnson has won over ten candidates had came and went. it was quite a spectacle. i can tell you tonight we will show you new remarks from top democrat hakeem jeffries, what he told me today in a brand-new interview. as for today's big vote, every republican voted for johnson. that's the first