resolved. no, jack smith has been working away. this morning, the special counsel released a scathing report about the ex-president about his rhetoric and disinformation, the kind of rhetoric and disinformation we have heard over and over and over again. whether it's when trump is bloviating about election interference outside his trial in new york, or in a late-night christmas rage post on truth social. now donald trump can say what he wants online outside of court. but what we cannot do, jack smith argues, is make dubious clai before a jury for his upcoming federal election interference trial. quote, through statement public filings and arguments and hearings bore the court, the defense has attempted to inject into this case partisan political attacks and irrelevant and prejudicial issues that have no place in a jury trial. although the court can recognize these efforts for what they are

and disregard them, the jury, as subjected to them, may not. the court shall not permit the defendant to turn the courtroom into a forum in which trump -- inject politics into this proceeding. jack smith then kicks off a highlight reel of trump's favorite spurious arguments, things like, trump, quotes complaints about the jury indictment and the trial date will interfere with his political activities. or trump's quote, false accusation was directed at the former president. jack smith also takes issue with some of the trump's favorite catch phrases like the injustice department or biden indictment. all of it, jack smith says, would taint a jury pool. quote, the in addition t being wrong, these allegations are irrelevant to the jury's determination of the defendant's guilt or innocence. it would be prejudicial if presented to the jury. put another way, the trump defense was, quote, repeatedly used rhetoric that made the

acceptable on the campaign but not on the trial. make no mistake, this is jack smith arguing that words matter, especially when those words are aimed at potential jurors, who will be deciding the fate of the disgraced ex-president facing 91 counts. that is where we start this hour, with cofounder and executive director of protect democracy. plus former lead investigator for the january 6th committee. and director of the policy program. gentlemen, it is good to see you all. tim, let's start with you. jack smith takes issue with what he calls trump's habit of blaming other people for what happened on january 6th. i want to read just a little bit more for you from the filing. quote, the defendant has signalled his intention to blame the events of january 6th on the capitol police, national guard, and the district's mayor. courts in this district have overwhelmingly rejected attempts by other january 6th defendants to shift the blame to law enforcement.

the legal matter, the alleged shortcomings of law enforcement do not sanction the defendant's criminal conduct. a bank robber cannot defend himself by blaming t bank security guard for failing to stop him. a fraud defendant cannot claim to the jury that his victim should have known better than to fall for his scheme. and the defendant cannot argue that law enforcement should have prevented the violence he called an obstruction he intended. tim, trump trying to shift blame for january 6, something the january 6 committee itself grappled with, your reaction to this filing. >> alesia, when we first started working on select committee, we, kind of, looked at the 9/11 commission as an example of what we were trying to do, credible, non-partisan accounting to what occurred. with respect to 9/11, the commission found there were failures of u.s. intelligence that perhaps should have been more acutely aware of the threat

posed by al quaeda and osama bin laden. but that did not absolve osama bin laden and his conspirators from flying planes into the world trade center. here we found there were failings of law enforcement to share information, to operationalize the intelligence they had. none of that absolves the probable cause of the attack on the capitol, which was president trump and his co-conspirators. we have heard this attempt to shift blame. our committee found that it did not succeed, that the only reason we had a riot at the capitol was because of the -- that was the final prong of a multi-step, intentional plan to disrupt a joint session and prevent the transfer of power. the context of what law enforcement did or didn't do in no way absolves the probable cause. >> here's the thing, ian, it's not a surprise that donald trump's already responded to this latest filing from jack smith. i'm not going to read you what

he wrote in its entirety. it does pnt out that judge tanya chutkan has stayed the case, that there should be no litigation until questions of presidential immunity are resolved. i'm wondering what it tells you, what it should tell us, that jack smith is still working away, pushing ahead despite that? >> there's something very mundane going on and there's something more consequential thing going on. the mundane thing going on is that special counsel jack smith has filed a very standard motion that is filed before criminal proceedings that seeks to make sure that the court excludes from proceedings in front of a jury those things that are not relevant to the jury determining whether the facts alleged actually took place. jack smith has filed an indictment that citizens of the district of columbia voted on -- official proceedings and deprive people of the right to vote. and the question for the jury is simply whether trump did the things alleged or not.

as any prosecutor does at trial, jack smith is simply saying all this other stuff that trump is going off about on the campaign trail is not relevant to that question and would potentially distract the jury from the task before them. the more consequential thing that's going on is jack smith also understands that when defendants don't have the law on their side and don't have the facts on their side, the only strategy left to them is to actually put the entire system on trial. there is a very frightening precedent for that, which happens to have happened 100 years almost to the day before this trial is scheduled to begin. on february 26, 1923, the beer hall puch trial began in bavaria, are adolf hitler was put on trial and decided to turn the proceedings around and put the entire german government on trial. 100 years later, jack smith knows that's exactly what donald trump plans to do and it's not

what's supposed to happen nay court of law. >> we talk about the undermining of institutions. that is part of what is at risk here. >> yes. that is exactly right. what's interesting is that on -- in this christmas season, he rained fire and brimstone down on his alleged opponents. and, you know, unfortunately no matter what jack smith could do here, this is the move that donald trump has. it's almost -- it's really his only move. so, he's going to continue to do this. our institutions are not safe from this. and in fact we do need to figure out ways to be more protective of them. and if there's any concern as to whether or not we are at all desensitized by his rhetoric, only look at ruby freeman and shaye moss, who can't even live in their own name right now because of all that has come before them. being able to engage in this kind of rhetoric is coin of the realm for donald trump. it's the legal tender that he

uses to run for office and for his supporters to buy into his candidacy. so, it will not go away. and quite frankly, for anyone that's trying to, sort of, shift this dynamic, think about the fact that everywhere he says the response is meant to get to the emotion of his supporters. as much as we want to challenge with legalities and we want to challenge with words, we have to remember that this is touching the emotion and the anger, the fear and frustration of his supporters. >> right. again, i think ian and basel get right at it, which is it's hard to believe there are many americans out there who have not already heard all of this rhetoric, who have not already heard donald trump blame what happened on january 6, on other people ranging from law enforcement to nancy pelosi, inas much as it is about this trial, the outcome of this trial, what happens in that

courtroom, what the jury decides. it is also, to their point, about what happens to the system writ large. >> yeah. yeah. look, exactly. a lot of what i have seen from the former president and his lawyers seems, as basil said, to be motivated at a trial in the court of public opinion, not a trial in the courtroom. all jack smith is doing here, as ian correctly points out, is flagging issues that may or may not be introduced in court. he is, as a presidential candidate, at liberty to criticize the system, to question the motives of the special counsel. judge chutkan has adjudicated that. but in court, where evidence -- relevance is the standard. evidence is what determines whether or not a jury can or can't hear something or base a verdict on something is an entirely different form. there are rules of relevance that apply. and the problem with a lot of what the president is saying is, a, it's factually false, it

lacks foundation. and secondly, it's not core to the case. did the former president specifically intend to disrupt, impede, or disrupt an official proceeding? it fails on both prongs, the factual prong and the legal prong. and jack smith is pointing out, hey, this is not a political campaign. this is a courtroom. and evidence matters. >> ian, factually false is a pretty evergreen way of describing most of what donald trump says, he and his legal team. also big fan of using the first amendment to justify his rhetoric, to cloak himself in it, to claim he is the one being attacked and with him, all americans. is that argument going to work here? >> first off, one of the things that jack smith said in a filing today, which is the first amendment question is a legal question for the court, and the former president can raise that and indeed has. and that's for the court to determine, the judge to determine, not the jury. so, he'll have an opportunity to

make that argument and see how far it gets. but i think what donald trump gets here is that he doesn't fare well in courts where evidence matters and facts matter and rules matter. he's someone who fundamentally doesn't believe in the rules. when he takes his giant, hand-waving comments into a courtroom, historically they have tended to lose over and over and over again, 60-some-odd times in the aftermath of 2020. his allies, rudy giuliani, kari lake, they are struggling with facts in the courtroom. what donald trump understands is if he's going to win in court, he's going to have to do it in a way beyond law and facts. and that's with this stirring up of political rhetoric and mobs of people to intimidate the system. and that's what our system is designed to prevent. >> there's an element of this filing i want to have you talk us through. that's one of the things smith specifically cites is the question of trump's state of

mind. trums state of mind very much the heart of the investigation. the defendant's state of mind during the charged conspiracies would be a key issue at trial. both parties will introduce circstantial evidence of the defendant's state of mind, and the defendant may choose to testify himself. but the defendant should be precluded from eliciting speculative testimony from any witnesses other than himself about the defendant's state of mind or beliefs about the election or his claims of election fraud. help us understand what jack smith is driving at here. >> yeah, so the statute, that issue in the indictment requires for the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant corruptly intended to interfere with an official proceeding. corruptly is interpreted to mean intended that the official proceeding be disrupted. so, what jack smith is saying that he is going to present circumstantial evidence of the president's state of mind, which he believes will have proof

beyond a reasonable doubt, that the president absolutely intended for the joint session to be interrupted and the election not to be certified. and he anticipates the president himself may testify and say, nope, i had no idea these folks were going to storm the capitol and that the election -- that the special proceeding was going to be disrupted. what he's trying to prevent is very standard prosecutorial practice, and that would be eliciting opinion. it would be a mistake for a witness to say, i think he believed this or i don't believe he intended that. those kinds of opinions are just not admissible. someone's speculative opinion about the president's state of mind. what is admissible is what the president said, what the president did, circumstantial evidence that bears upon his state of mind. and of course the defendant himself has the opportunity to talk directly about what he intended or did not intend. so, a lot of what we're seeing in this pleading is really standard fare, the special counsel trying to limit the

evidence that is admissible to that which is relevant and not stuff that is meant to inflame, distract, or otherwise get in the way of jury's determination of intent. >> so, hanging over all of this, of course, the question of presidential immunity. there was a development there. a group of former officials for republican presidents urging the appeals court to reject trump's request for presidential immunity, arguing that, quote, nothing in our constitution or any case supports former president trump's dangerous argument for criminal immunity. they add that siding with trump would, quote, encourage future presidents to commit crimes and stage coups to remain in power. there are a lot of moving parts in this. this part seems the most relevant, the most dangerous. >> it certainly does and the fact you have those individuals coming out making that statement is very important. being trump supporters are not going to care. they see them as relics of the past. what is interesting to me about that question is what do the current leaders of the house and senate, leaders of the

republican party think. the individuals that signed that letter are standard bearers of republican politics. somebody should say, you know what? let's listen to this body of information and this history and this context. let's move it present, move it forward, and say, we need to start to think deeply and seriously about what the future of the party should look like. and that should start with donald trump. they're not doing that. what they do is -- they are, in one part, looking busy and two parts trying to appeal to donald trump. so, it's not going to -- it's not going to land the way that it should land. and that's unfortunate. i imagine -- and i'm not an attorney. but this question about immunity is going to go back and forth in multiple courts over the course of time. the main issue for donald trump is how much can i delay? how long can he delay the process, delay the proceedings so more of that angry rhetoric we've been talking about starts to filter among voters and in some ways bolster the drive.

>> i want to go back to the historical analog between hitler and the trial that we are seeing now. we spent a lot of time rightfully talking about the ways in which some of trump's rhetoric mirrors that of adolf hitler, using xenophobia, racism as an aperture for authoritarianism, for extremism. when you layer in the elements that you bring to us, right, this idea of turning the question on the system itself, as putting the system itself on trial, and you zoom out, it's bigger than any one piece that we are seeing from that playbook. it is the totality of it. >> it is. and fundamentally, it is the way in which donald trump differs in kinds, not degree. from every prior president in this country from either party and frankly almost every other elected official of either party of this country -- because the truth is almost every elected

democrat or republican in this country, at least prior to the arrival of donald trump, believed fundamentally in the american constitution, in the idea of checks and balances, in the idea of a separation of powers, in the idea that rules mattered and that process and due process matter. and what's different about donald trump is he fundamentally does not believe in any of that. so, what you're seeing here is ultimately the clash between an american system, a constitutional government with rules and procedures and institutions, and the leader who simply doesn't believe in any of it and is trying to overwhelm and overrule it all with brute force. >> as always, thank you for being at the table with me, spending some time with us, getting us started. ian, you are sticking around. tim's going to be back a little later in the hour. when we come back, what words come to mind when you think of trump 2024? is it dictatorship, revenge, corruption? if you answered yes to any of those, turns out donald trump, he agrees with you. trump appears to embrace the

dictator label. that story is next. plus, a critical new piece of evidence involving the ex-president himself and a key witness who has now flipped. the investigation into team trump's efforts to overturn election results in michigan is heating up. we have the latest. and later in the program, a court in michigan says donald trump can stay on the primary ballot, but the high stakes legal battle over whether trump is eligible to run from office, it is far from over. all that and more when deadline white house continues. do not go anywhere. e white house continues. do not go anywhere

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. then i have an article ii,

where i have the right to do whatever i want as president, but i don't even talk about that. >> when somebody's the president of the united states, the authority is total, and that's the way it's got to be. it's total. it's total. in 2016, i declared, i am your voice. today, i add, i am your warrior. i am your justice. and to those who have been wronged and betrayed, i am your retribution. i am your retribution. >> under no circumstances, you're promising america tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody. >> except for day one. >> except for -- >> except for day one. >> there's so many ways he can make it more obvious at this point, maybe a banner towed by a plane at the beach or getting hit over the head with a full page ad in the sunday paper that reads, i want to be an american

dictator. or this, starting with a poll conducted, asking 1,000 likely voters for a single word to summarize president biden's and trump's plans for another term. then they turned the results into a word cloud. the more frequent answers appear larger. so, it was telling, quite telling, when donald trump posted his results on social media without comment or context. because the primary words at the center in crimson, revenge, power, dictatorship. joining me at the table, nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard, also joining us, professor of history at nyu. vaughn, the likelihood he posted that word cloud from a sense of pride? >> i don't have any other explanation and nor does the campaign. i don't know if the staff has any idea themselves. the reality is we have to listen to donald trump, right? this is his own social media account. you see the word, revenge there,

the biggest and boldest one, the word he often uses is retribution. i have been traveling and covering donald trump for the last eight years. i can tell you this is more about donald trump. this is about the movement, the following behind him. because eight years ago in 2015, 2016 in iowa, when i would go to rallies, it was very much to see the show, see the circus. it was a rock concert. >> for the goers. >> for the goers, not for me. for the guoers. they were here to see what this is about. when i go to talk to people there, they want revenge. they want retribution. they want donald trump to get back in the white house and take out not only joe biden but take out the district attorneys, to take out the supreme court justices. this is real. it is serious. and this is not just a dictator for a day. the folks that are following him and coming to these events, driving hours, waiting in line for him, they want him to act when he gets in the white house.

these are words he uses, loyalty, power, revenge, retribution. >> it's one thing to talk about donald trump standing behind those words. it's another thing to talk about many, many americans standing behind those words too. >> yeah, well, you know, as we said for a long time that trump is superb propaganda. and what he's does is educate americans to see this kind of strong leadership as positive. now with sean hannity, his propagandist who asked him the question in the first place about, you know, are you going to be a dictator, that allowed trump to raise the dictator theme. and now it's become his thing. and i would add that he talks about rooting out the radical left and communists, but many of the leaders he's been pushing and peddling to persons as the right kind of leader are communists, like xi jinping, who

he's always talking about how great he is, or the leader of north korea. so, absolute power. at the most basic authoritarianism is when the executive branch overwhelms and politicizes the other sides of the government so the leader is unrestrained. he can do whatever he wants. and this is of course donald trump's fantasy. >> ian, if i can borrow from what ruth has said, if he is a propagandist and has sold americans on this vision that involves absolute power and control, how do you become an evangelist for the democracy? how do you make people understand that that vision of absolute power for donald trump means less rights for you and all other americans? i mean, i know we sit here a lot and we talk about the dangers of authoritarianism, we talk about the dangers of donald trump. i am not convinced we have done

a good enough job annunciating what it means to live in an american that is no longer a democracy. >> well, i think we have to acknowledge that there's something driving the support for him. and part of it is the democracy is an imperfect form of government. it can be slow. it can be frustrating. certainly in recent years, it hasn't worked nearly as well as it needs to or should. but the thing i think people don't realize and that we in america are so privileged and lucky, for the most part -- most americans not to have experienced -- is that when you throw out democracy, as many people have done over history, and elect someone who says, i alone can fix this. empower that person, just give me all the power and i'll cut through the grass and start delivering the things you want. and in the long run, that never works out well for that population, whether it is now in china, whether it is daniel ortega with nicaragua, whether it is vladimir putin in russia. the people in those countries

come to regret empowering the strong men that ruth has written so well about. and what americans need to realize is don't throw the baby out with the bath water. yes, democracy is important. but it's the worst form of government except for all the others. >> here's the thing, vaughn, he is not just, sort of, sharing this grandiose vision. he's also sharing a number of policy positions that, in his mind, fall in line. "the new york times" aumulated their recordings of what a second term would look like. trum wts to use the justice department to take venn jens of political advsaes. he plans to go far beyond his first term trade wars, undercut nato, retreat from europe, pns to use military force in mexico, wants to use domestic troops on u.s. soil, and his allies want pure restraints on him. when you were in iowa, when you were in new hampshire, are people talking to you about those policy positions, or are

they talking to you about the vision of donald trump? >> no, they are talking about the policy positions. and i think ruth has articulated this so well in the past in her writings. folks here, they do understand the policy debates that are going on. but congress isn't working. this is the least effective congress based on the number of bills passed. and when you have somebody here who commits to them that he's going to come in and get the job done, that sounds pretty appealing. come build the wall. forget congress this go-around. we're going to make it happen ourselves, right? go and take care of the immigration crisis. we're going to take care of it ourselves. it's important to understand that's why there's consolidation within the republican party. he went on the attack against nikki haley, calling her bird brain, a global rino and not a smart one. i got to see that up close and personal. even the likes of nikki haley who has got liz cheney out of the party. anyone who has been a dissenting voice over the last eight years is gone. and who is he surrounding

himself as part of his 2025 administration, it is those loyalists like steve bannon, like stephen miller, along with some of our colleagues at nbc news who put out a report about those he is surrounding himself with. it is those far right individuals who have his ear this go around and they're actively envisioning what an administration in order to enact those types of policies would look like were he to win in november. >> this has been an ineffective congress led by republicans, right? they spent a whole lot of time taking a bunch of votes about who was going to be the speaker of the house. they could end up with two different speaker of the houses. a lot of issues that matter to americans. i have argued that is by design. who does that benefit? it benefits a leader who is trying to make the argument that the establishment cannot get it done, so he is less dangerous than what is in place. they are still carrying his water. >> oh, absolutely.

the gop is now an autocratic party, and it is the party enthralled to a cult leader. and everything they do is -- are things that are supposed to benefit donald trump. and i will never forget that this grateful first gop debate, where all the people who were running for president against him totally humiliated themselves and raised their hands, all but two, to say that they would support him, donald trump, even if he becomes a convicted felon. this is a party that has no identity anymore beyond what is good for trump. and that's very, very sad. and it's also extremely dangerous. we are a superpower, and we're a bipartisan country. so, when one of the two, you know, big parties becomes dysfunctional and enthralled to a dangerous authoritarian, that's a very dire situation. >> ian, when this all happened,

you made a great point. you said, for those still not taking him seriously, would you grant a 10% chance he's serious? and if so, would you get on a plane that has a 10% chance of crashing? >> and frankly it's higher than 10% because most often when autocrats come to power, the challenge for the voters and for the population is you don't necessarily know it. you know, erdogan came to power as a democratic reformer. vladimir putin came to power as a democratic reformer. when viktor orban ran in 2010, he didn't talk about creating a new media law that would suppress free expression and a free press. he got elected and then he did it. most often it's difficult to know when the autocrat is coming. they come as a wolf in sheep's clothing. but not presently. donald trump is touting this over and over again, i am the wolf. i am the dictator. it's far higher than a 10% chance that he's telling us the truth. >> vaughn hillyard, thank you

all so much for this conversation, for spending the time with us. coming up, prosecutors in michigan get a state trump elector to flip. what he's telling investigators about the plot to overturn the 2020 election. that's next. n. that's next. lowering bad cholesterol can be hard, even with a statin. diets and exercise add to the struggle. today, it's possible to go from struggle to cholesterol success with leqvio. with a statin, leqvio is proven to lower bad cholesterol by 50% and keep it low with 2 doses a year. common side effects were injection site reaction, joint pain, and chest cold. ask your doctor about twice-yearly leqvio. lower. longer. leqvio®

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votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. it's a big problem in georgia. and it's not a problem that's going away. >> that was the intimate phone call just four days before the january 6th insurrection, where donald trump pressured georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger to overturn the election results in his state. that was the call that sparked an investigation that ultimately led to trump's fourth indictment in fulton county, georgia. now, more than three years later, we are learning of another account by donald trump to directly pressure election officials that could put him and his allies in more hot water. the detroit news obtained a recording of a phone call that donald trump and rnc chair ronna mcdaniel made to two members of the county election board in michigan, asking them to resist certifying election results. que, you've got to fight for our country, trump told the two -- after the board had met

about certifying their results. we can't let these people take our country away from us. mcdaniel said at another point in the call, if you can go home tonight, do not sign it. we will get attorneys. nbc news has not been able to verify the recordings, but nbc news reached out to a spokesperson, and they did not dispute the discovery of the call. "the new york times" reporting that one of the so-called fake electors, the 16 people who were key part of trump's efforts to overturn the election in michigan, is expressing regret over his participation in his interviews with prosecutors working for the michigan attorney general. saying, quote, i felt i had been walked into a situation that i shouldn't have ever been involved in. i am very upset. i don't show it, but i am. the elector told investigators. adding that to say he felt

betrayed is an understatement. that's all i can say. joining us now, joyce vance. tim is also back with us. tim, your first reaction reading about that phone call between trump, rnc chair mcdaniel, and the michigan official? >> you know, we heard about it during our administration. we spoke to monica palmer, who i believe is one of the board of canvassers, officials. she told us she did receive a phone call from the president of the united states before she was voting on certification of the election. she did vote to certify the election. and then she subsequently tried to withdraw that, although it had no force of law. it's really important in the discussion of anything that happens in michigan, alesia, to remember that there were two lawsuits brought, one federal and one state in michigan, in which judges found absolutely no evidence of any systemic fraud. never to this day has there been any evidence of voter fraud in

michigan sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome. a republican state legislator, ed mcbroom, in michigan, did a very, very thorough audit using the resources of the state legislature and found verification of president biden's victory in michigan. so, there has never been any factual foundation to question the results of the michigan election, which is president biden won. president biden then received the certified, officially certified electors for the state of michigan. nonetheless, the president's campaign, aided by the republican national committee, created these fake elector certificates that were sent to washington, purporting to be official when they were not. and that has led to the criminal charges by the attorney general of michigan. this is the pattern we've seen repeated in contested state after contested state. no evidence of fraud. nonetheless, generation of the state elector certificates, which is criminal. >> i want to get your take on the timing of the ents around the election certification in

michigan. noveer 17th, trump and mcdaniel call wayne county officials monica palmer and william -- who we were just talking about. wayne county certifies the election results. november 18th, palmer and hartman say they regret their vote to certify the election and file affidavits to un that vote. th g to november 20th. michigan gop leaders summoned by trump to the white house. november 23rd, state election board certifies michigan election results. this sequence of events, help us put it in perspective just how damning is it legally in your opinion, joy? >> well, it's incredibly damaging for trump and those around him. to tim's point, this is now a pattern of conduct. it's not just georgia, which was bad enough. now we see the same thing in michigan. and here's the difference, alesia, in georgia, trump gets shut down by republican politicians. they push back. they say there was no fraud. they decline to be threatened or

cajoled by trump into engaging in his conspiracy. but in michigan, something different happens. and we see these -- after they participate in this phone call doing precisely what was asked of them. now, tim hails from the commonwealth of virginia, so he's as familiar as i am with the supreme court case involving his governor, said that it's bribery to offer something of value to an official in exchange for withholding an official act. and that's exactly what happened here. trump and rona mcdaniel, romney, they say, look, if you would go ahead and withhold your certification vote, we will obtain lawyers for you, something of value. and that's precisely what the michigan canvassers tried to do after that call. >> tim, just to zoom out for a minute and talk about timeline, which it feels core pressures we're up against with all of these stories.

"the new york times" reporting this about the fake elector investigation, michigan attorney general's ongoing investigation means the legal aftermath of the last presidential election in michigan will not be over before voting begins in the next one. pretrial hearings in the electors case are scheduled to last into february. the state's presidential primary take place on february 27th. and we are just now learning about this wayne county phone call. talk to us about the danger of having a potential second trump presidency, a certain second trump candidacy, before the crimes of the first are fully investigated. >> look, alesia, it shows, again, that a lot of law enforcement was slow to focus on these very real alleged crimes. i really don't think it was until the select committee started to present findings that the department of justice, state officials, realized, hey, wait a minute, this isn't just about a

lot of angry rioters assaulting police officers at the capitol. that is part of a broader scheme, which includes these fake electors, which includes the pressure on state officials. easy for us in hindsight to say they should have been focused on that on january 7, 2021, instead of waiting until the congressional process a couple of years later ran its course. the problem is that a lot of these investigative bodies did not really devote the resources required to develop these facts and bring these cases until well into president biden's term closer to the election, which means, unfortunately, the calendars do intersect. the legal process will run contemporaneous with people voting in michigan and otherwise. >> tim, as always, thank you so much for spending some time with us. joy is going to be back in the next hour. after the break, growing fears of a wider war in the middle east, after strikes by iranian backed forces in the

middle east do another round of air strikes by the united states. stay with us. stay with us (dad) it's our phone bill... we pay for things that we don't need. (mom) that's a bit dramatic. (dad) we must tighten our belts! (mom) a better plan to save is verizon! (vo) that's right! plans start at $25 per line guaranteed for 3 years. only on verizon. to a child, this is what conflict looks like. children in ukraine are caught in the crossfire of war, forced to flee their homes. a steady stream of refugees has been coming across all day. it's basically cold. lacking clean water and sanitation. exposed to injury, hunger. exhausted and shell shocked from what they've been through. every dollar you give can help bring a meal, a blanket, or simply hope to a child living in conflict.

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quote, the president and i will not hitate to take necessary action to defend the united states, our troops, and our interests. we are committed and fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities. let's bring in aaron gilchrist out in st. croix, where president biden arrived just this afternoon. aaron, what do we know about these air strikes? >> reporter: the president ordered these air strikes after almost a full day, 12 hours of briefings and updates about exactly what happened in iraq at that air base, where american service members are working and have been for a while. the president received a series of options from his national security council after that attack and ordered three strikes to happen inside iraq on these militia group facilities, iran-backed militia group facilities. as we understand it, the orders

were carried out about 45 minutes after the president gave the order on christmas day. an unusual time to call a national security meeting, but the president did. the strikes were executed on those facilities. the iraqis have said there was a security serviceman for iraq who was killed in that attack. but the u.s. has said that this was something that was necessary and proportionate given all the attacks we've been seeing in iraq and in syria, in particular since the hamas strike on israel on october 7th, alicia. >> to that iraq and in syria i particular since the hamas strike on israel on october 7th. >> to that point, aaron, there have been at least 106 attacks on u.s. forces since october 17th. how concerned is the administration about a wider conflict? what are they doing, saying they are doing to prevent it? >> reporter: a wider conflict has been a real concern for the administration since the hamas

attack in israel. we know that the u.s. government positioned two aircraft carrier strike groups in the mediterranean sea, a show of forces, thousands of troops in each of these strike groups, a show of force to other organizations, other countries in that region to say that they didn't want them to get involved with what's happening in gaza and happening in israel. still, as you've noted, we've seen attacks in syria, attacks in iraq, we've seen hezbollah act out of lebanon and of course we've seen several incidents in the reseat to the south of israel -- red sea to the south of israel where the u.s. navy has had to shoot down drones. just yesterday the navy shot down i think it was 12 drones, and there were several missiles that were launched from houthi-controlled areas of yemen. so there is this sense by some watching that there has been an expansion of what's happening in the region. the u.s. government's posture and position hasn't changed in that it will osmond to these incidents as they happen. we haven't yet seen a real

movement within the administration to have something more proactive happen to shut down some of these attacks before they can happen. but the u.s. has said that it will act in a way that it believes is necessary at any moment this time when there is an assault on american interests in the region. >> nbc's aaron gilchrist for us in st. croix where the president landed this afternoon. thank you. we'll be right back. ternoon. thank you. we'll be right back. ♪♪ get 6x longer-lasting freshness, plus odor protection. try for under $5! (singing )i'll be home for christmas. you can plan on me. please have snow and mistletoe. and presents on the tree.

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set to take effect, an idaho law that would have banned gender transition care for minors and talent mical professionals with a felony conviction if they provide that type of care has been blocked. two idaho families alongsi t ucla and auto clu and -- aclu claimed the law violates the 14thmendment guarantee of equal protection. in the preliminary injunction, th jge said, quote, type and again these cases illustrate that the 14th amendment's primary role is to protect disfavored minorities and preserve our fundamental rights from legislative overreach. this, he said, is no less true for transgender children and their parents in the 21st century. the idaho law is part of a wave of laws targeting transgender rights. this year alone 20 states passed laws banning or restricting transition care for young people. coming up in the next hour of "deadline white house," another ruling on whether trump is barred from running for officers because of his role in

the january 6th insurrection. this time in michigan. that story right after this quick break. after this quick break.

why are we the only birds heading this way?

migration is... stay close and everything will be alright. [ gulp ] i'm okay. yeah, no. hold on! [ quack, quack ] i'm going to follow the law. what the law says is what is going to dictate how i and i hope all of my colleagues proceed in this moment, in particular around thorny issues like this one. particularly those of the secretaries in battleground states, i'm going to be talking with al schmidt in pennsylvania, with nevada, brad raffensperger. we know in particular in our states the impact that this institution could have not among our voters but in the nation.

so we're taking this seriously. we're looking at it carefully and weighing all the thorny issues at play. >> hi again, everyone, 5:00 in new york. i'm in for nicolle wallace. an update out of michigan on that thorny issue you just heard secretary of state jocelyn benson describe. that of donald trump's eligibility to be on the ballot. the fundamental question, whether section 3 of the 14th amendment which says no one who engage friday insurrection or rebellion after having sworn a oath to defend the constitution can hold officepplies to the twice impeached four times indicted president. the michigan state court declining to hear a case that argued that trump should be left off the state's primary ballot ruling not on the question of insurrection but on procedural grounds. it is, quote, not persuaded that the questions presentedhould be reviewed by this court. "theashington post" reports that mark brewer, an attorne for the voters who filed the michigan lawsuit, sd challenges to trump's candidacy

will continue. michigan rulin have focused on trump's ability to run in the republican primary. brewer said voters may argue against trump's eligibility to run for office during the general election campaign. courtsn arizona and minnesota have also ruled against similar efforts to get trump kicked off the ballot. just last week in colorado, we saw its supreme court rule that trump is disqualified, a decision that will end up before the united states supreme court when trump's team is expected to appeal it any day now. the monumental decision by the colorado supreme court already having frightening consequences for those justs. as we cover -- justices. as we covered before the holiday weekend, there was an eruption of threats on line directed at them. that has continued, and the fbi said it is working with denver police who is providing extra patrols around the homes of the justices. the scary new reality for those who are attempting to uphold the rule of law. that is where we start this hour

with "new york times" reporter katy brenner, plus, former fbi counterintelligence agent peter strok, assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi, and former u.s. attorney and co-host of the hash tag sisters in law joyce vance is back. how do you view the decision by the michigan supreme court, they didn't take up the question of insurrection, they seemed to look at this on procedural grounds. >> right. so it really points to the scope of the problem here. we have different states using their own state laws which are different. michigan's laugh is different from colorado's law in terms of whether a candidate has to establish their qualification to be on the ballot. and so we're going to have this split in opinion among state supreme courts which only points to the need for the united states supreme court to ultimate lie weigh in and resolve the issue. we can't have a patchwork quilt of different rules in different states across the country. it's time for the supreme court to take this one up and to set

forth what the law will be in a uniform fashion nationwide about trump's eligibility to be on the ballot. >> to that point, peter, about uniformity, the plaintiff's lawyer said this is not over, this is not the end, there could be challenges to trump appearing on the general election ballot. your sense of what that could look like? >> well, i think we're looking at a year ahead of a lot of litigation in front of the supreme court. at last count, there are at least 13 additional states that have pending lawsuits about the 14th amendment. there are at least another two that are under a state of appeal. so this isn't just a question of michigan and colorado. you have a lot of other states currently right now that have litigation in front of them. so the supreme court, you know, i agree with joyce, absolutely, is going to have to take this up. keep in mind, they've got other things that they have to look at too. the question of whether or not trump should enjoy immunity, the scope of a gag order placed on trump coming out of d.c. so like it or not, i think the

ability of the supreme court to try and buy more time is rapidly coming to an end. i think they are going to have to take these on. and i think they would be wise and are going to try to resolve these in a way that -- to joyce's analogy, that doesn't result in a patchwork quilt, that results in a sort of universal decision and application of the constitution. and that from that we'll see what happens as all these different states move forward. >> right. all roads lead back to the supreme court, we are awaiting the court's ruling on this 14th amendment question. first, the trump team, of course, needs to appeal the colorado ruling. any sense of when there will be an update there? >> yeah, they've been given a deadline by the end of this year. of course they would have to meet that deadline, otherwise the ruling would stand. they would not want that. i think we'll see that happen really quickly. it's just how quickly the supreme court responds. >> heart of this

14th amendment question when applied to donald trump is recognizing what is was that happened on january 6th, which is particularly relevant given that there's an inability or refusal on the part of most republicans in power to call that an insurrection. from a law enforcement standpoints, what is the danger of not having a common language around that, and what is potentially the opportunity should you have courts codify that this was, in fact, an insurrection? >> yeah, we have anything but a common definition and common language these days. and my concern continues, as pete mentioned, this goes on and on, 13, 14, 15 more states, and as joyce mentioned, this could absolutely -- in fact, minnesota and michigan have hinted, hey, we could revisit this if you like back when it's time for the general election. but not now. so this gap in time is time that trump and his cohorts will use

and are already using to continue to drive a wedge between the american people and the courts, the american people and the constitution. and this notion that, hey, maybe we don't like the constitution so much, if it's going to go against my guy. we're losing that battle of saying, no, we're all supposed to be for the constitution. we might not like the court's decision and interpretations but we've got to abide by them. this time is being utilized by trump to say i'm against institutions. if it attacks me, it's bad. if it's against me, you shouldn't respect it either. and that's where we get into trouble. and i think we saw an unprecedentedly quick response when the colorado decision came out and the threats began from fbi denver. you don't usually see the fbi come out and say, hey, we're aware of these state threats, and we're working alongside our law enforcement partners. that's generally done quietly. but instead the fbi has come out and said, no, we're -- we're aware, we're working on this. that tells us there's something much bigger here than a

state-level threat. >> right. joyce, because we understand with whom these threats originate. you look at the other states considering this question, maine, today trump demanded the secretary of state recuse herself. talk to us about what's going on there. >> right. in maine the process is a little bit different, and the secretary of state, shannon billows, is hearing the arguments and will will render an initial decision. i think the former president is sadly mistaken if he thinks that she'll back down in the face of hiss threats. maine has a proud tradition of protecting voters' rights. it's one of the states with consistently the highest voter turnout in the countr. this question of eligibility will get serious consideration in maine as it has done in other states. the problem is these are serious questions with legal and political importance that should be made in the democratic tradition. they shouldn't be made with

actors, decisionsmakers being pressured with the risk of violence emanating from the former president. i don't really know how more plainly to say it than to say that the republican heart has completely abdicated its responsibility to the rest of the country by permitting trump to continue to make these threats that are threats of violence. he knows by now that when he speaks, it has the ability to impact people in his base. he knows that he's putting legislators and judges and prosecutors at risk when he makes these comments. anyone who's in a position to condemn it and fails to is in essence condoing it. that's simply where we are as 2023 comes to a close. >> peter, it strikes me we've talked about michigan, the big news we came in on. we just talked about maine. i go back to the point that joyce made earlier about the fact that there is going to have to be a unified understanding this is not going to work if there is a patchwork of state

solutions. she is thinking of that, of course, legally, that is the role we asked her to play. for you, from a security perspective, right, from a sense of people being able to get on board and say these are the rules whether or not you like them, this is how we are proceeding as a nation. both your biggest concerns and sort of the best path forward here if we are able to get to a unified understanding? >> well, my biggest concern is that we have the presumptive republican nominee for president who has and continues to engage in calls for violence from his supporters. look, there's an interesting data point here. no -- just shortly after the michigan supreme court indicated they weren't going to take this up, donald trump took to truth social and lauded their decision, talked about how they were absolutely right. it would be very interesting -- frank pointed out how the fbi and colorado out of the denver office is actively working the threats to the colorado justices. let's look at the data coming out of michigan. are there any threats right now with to those michigan supreme

court justices who decided not to hear the case? because the fact of the matter is this isn't an environment where everybody is prone to violence. the fact of the matter is this is an environment where adherence and supporters of the former president are engaging in threats of violence, and there's a comparative absence of any sort of like behavior on the side. you don't see supporters of joe biden going out and threatening michigan supreme court justices. my worry is that donald trump is not constraining any of his behavior. his words result in violent action. it isn't stopping. he is well aware of what's going on, and i think whatever we see coming out of the supreme court there is going -- they can't unwrite the 14th amendment. there's going to have to be some provision that if somebody engages in insurrection that that does potentially disqualify them from the presidency in some way, some manner of determining that. trump is not going to like that. so the question is, as we move into 2024, we've got a slow boil right now.

that pot is just going to get hotter and hotter and hotter on the oven. >> i want you to pick up, frank, if you will about peter's comment of asymmetry that comes as we witness political rhetoric, political violence in this country and what that means for law enforcement institutions as they attempt to track that violence and threats of violence as best they can. >> this does appear to be one sided, and the data does support that in terms of arrests, convictions, and facts. look, the facts -- this is one of the problems of not having even a common language, we don't have a common truth. the colorado court reviewed just reams of data and evidence, and actually gives us a glimpse into what jack smith has in front of him, as well, what we're likely to see in the d.c. election case. they all looked at all of that evidence and think about all the evidence they likely have in front of them, and what did they come up with, insurrection. trump engaged in an insurrection.

so we can't even present facts and have them responded to with reason and logic anymore. but i often -- if i'm talking with someone who sees things from an entirely different way, i ask them to flip the scenario. tell me about how you would feel if biden had done everything we know trump has done. well, you know, biden's not qualified -- oh, so you're making a decision about a president not being qualified? isn't that what the colorado supreme court is being permitted to do because we pay them to make those decisions. then kind of their head explode. but it's an exercise i encourage everyone to engage in. ask them to flip the scenario in any particular debate you're having. >> katy, you think about this, none of this is in the rearview. yes, we're talking about accountability for something that happened, but we're talking about an election that is on the horizon. to add to the unprecedented nature of that, you have a candidate who is running for his party's nomination for president, and he's using the

criminal charges. he's using the potential constitutional violations as reasons to vote for him. we've never seen that before. >> no, he's using his criminal trials basically as campaign events. i think that one of the things that joyce said earlier is really important here. one of the reasons he's doing this is because he's able to, and he's allowed to. because his party, which he hopes to represent, hasn't stopped him and is empowering him. i think that that's the big question, at what point does the party decide what it -- that the constitution is more important than power. i was just reading the romney book, "romney: a reckoning," these are his words, he doesn't believe that a lot of people in his party care so much for the constitution anymore. but they're really invested in power. and if he's right, that's one framework through which we can see what's happening right now. they're incredibly empowered by trump, by his supporters, and by the potential for his win. so they're not going to stop

him, and we're going to continue to see threats, whether or not we have a shared language it's a question of power. >> peter, you take that framework, right, a governing party that is interested in power, not interested in the constitution no matter how many times they might flash you their pocket copy of the constitution, turns out they're carrying around, they're not actually reading it. and then you take these threats that there are to people who are trying to be the guardrails, people trying to uphold the rule of law, and through just those two lenses, it becomes incredibly clear just how fragile our democracy is in this moment. >> right. and it goes to show the experience of the last four to five years about how powerful that motivation is. i mean, we've seen going back to the first impeachment where the intelligence community whistleblower was talented when the ambassador was recalled from ukraine and trump said she was going to go through some things, when any number of fbi officials were threatened by donald trump.

you know, this sort of fear coupled with the fact that political actors within the republican party in particular want to avoid -- know something needs to be done, but are both afraid and lack the courage to do something themselves and whether it's relying on bob mueller who's going to do something or mitch mcconnell refusing to take a vote because we can, you know, indict and criminally go after the president, you have these political actors not wanting to take that action on themselves. coupled with the fact that the very real fear that his been demonstrated -- has been demonstrated by trump against his opponents, and we're at the point where it's the supreme court's turn. is the supreme court going to rule and, you know, provide a fig leaf for the political actors in the republican effort finally stand up against trump and nominate somebody else and move the party away from him. i don't know if it's going to happen, i don't know if the supreme court is going to act quickly enough for that to occur, but we're reaching the point where we can't keep -- we can't kick this can down the

road any longer. >> especially when what he is doing is fundamentally putting the entire system on trial. he's trying to act as though this isn't about a question about him, it is a question about the institution that's have long undergirded our democracy. your take on the story -- i don't know if you saw, we covered at the top of the last hour, special counsel jack smith filing a notion block trump's political disinformation in court. >> right. this is a motion that would be routine in most trials. it's called a motion in limine, an effort to ask the judge to rule before the trial starts as to what evidence will be admissible at trial. d jack smith takes i think just a very noncontroversial position and says that trump isn't entitled to go on any political rants in the courtroom. he's permitted by the rules to offer evidence that's relevant to a fact that's in question. those are the facts that support

the charges that will let the jury determine whether he is guilty or not guilty. and so for instance, permitting him to argue these crazy theories like there were foreign officials or fbi undercovers who led to january 6th -- that sort of argumentation before a jury is out of bounds. it might be perfectly permissible in the court of public opinion, but not in front of a trial jury. of course, the on, ditty is that those positions are stayed. jack smith went ahead and filed this motion, we'll have to see if the judge will rule on it now or if she'll set it aside along with everything else in that case while we wait for the d.c. court of appeals and the supreme court to weigh in on the immunity motions that are on appeal. >> we have a lot more of this conversation to get to. luckily no one is going anywhere. when we return, why the deputy attorney general is calling out republicans blackmailing their false claims -- blaming their false claims of politicization of the justice department for that rash of new threats against

law enforcement. that's ahead. plus, the results of a newly leased study into the rise of extremism inside the u.s. military. what's being done to curb a dangerous threat to national security. and russian opposition leader alexei navalny has been found after having gone missing in the russian prison system. where he is, how he's doing, that is later in the hour. we pay for things that we don't need! bloated bundles, the reckless spending! no more... (mom) that's a bit dramatic... a better plan is verizon. it starts at 25 dollars a line. (dad) did you say 25 dollars a line? (sister) and save big on things we love, like netflix and max! (dad) oh, that's awesome (mom) spaghetti night -- dinner in 30 (dad) oh, happy day! (vo) a better plan to save is verizon. it starts at $25 per line guaranteed for 3 years and get both netflix and max for just $10/mo. only on verizon. ♪ ♪

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resemblance to the justice department that i know. the justice department that i know is filled with dedicated men and women, investigators, lawyers, prosecutors, analysts, professional staff, who get up every day, they get up every day without regard to who's in the white house or who's in congress. it really bothers me when i hear those claims because it does a disservice to the men and women of the justice department. >> deputy attorney general lisa monaco defending those at doj who have faced an onslaught of criticism and conspiracies spread by the former president and his republican allies. it has become like clockwork, case is opened, charges brought, a decision reached, the former president goes on full verbal attack against those involved including judges, prosecutors, agents, even clerks. the vicious words he uses we do not like repeating on this program. they are heard and internalized

by his supporters. here's more from deputy a.g. monaco. >> what see seen is an unprecedented rise in threats to public officials across the board. law enforcement agents, prosecutors, judges, and -- election officials, and we are seeing that and responding to it. just this week, just this week, pierre, we've had cases involving threats to kill fbi agents, a supreme court justice, and three presidential candidates. >> three. >> that's just this week. >> just this week. we are back can katy, pete, frank, and joyce. frank, just how dangerous is this when you look at it in its totaliti? >> oh, there's a tangible threat. for the first time in my career, we now have a unit at fbi headquarters solely dedicated to monitoring threats against fbi agents, fbi personnel, and their

families. and prosecutors, that's unheard of. and they're busy because it doesn't make necessarily front-page news, but over the course of the last 30 days or so we have seen people arrested for threatening to take the lives of fbi personnel. it's happening. and it's a theme that's running not only through our nation but through this -- the segments that we have in this hour of programming which is trump has created and given license to an environment where we can lash out violently against our institutions and the people in them, career personnel who simply want to go home safely at the end of the day to their families, and do what we ask them to do -- do what we want them to do which is to uphold the oath they took to protect, preserve, and defend the constitution of the united states. donald trump would be wise to take a lesson from those career professionals who put that above all else in their professional

lives. and now sometimes they may have to pay the price for it, the supreme sacrifice for it. it's a tangible threat. it's why a couple years ago i released a book, i felt compelled to write a book saying, look, that wasn't my fbi, i don't know what trump is saying, it's not true. it's not been my experience. but here's -- here was my experience. take a look at this. >> right. peter, i can almost hear the pain in frank's voice, which you never hear. but when you've been part of an institution which has brought you pride where you have served your country, to have that institution called baselessly into question, there is the morale issue, there is the full clear and present danger issue, there's also just the stress test that is happening right now both with these institutions as guardrails for our democracy and just the volume of what it is that we are dealing with. you heard a.g. monaco talking about the number of high-level threats in this past week alone. >> right. well, i think it is -- my

experience is similar to what she said and i'm sure what frank and joyce have experienced. that this is -- absolutely a job that we went into every day and just went out investigated and applied the law. so to have somebody in the form of donald trump going out there and undermining what the fbi and what doj are doing every day, as frank said, the notion of a unit now stood up to protect and look out for threats against fbi personnel. that unit wasn't needed during the height of the war on terror. that unit wasn't needed during the height of the organized crime battles between the fbi and organized crime in america. yet here we are in a political context where there is such a volume of threat activity going on that you need this dedicated unit of personnel. now, prosecutors, agents, analysts, investigators are going to go out there and do their job. but it is hard to focus on that not just with a -- something being said on media, but when there are threats being made,

threats that might implicate your family, you know, we've got a special counsel now in jack smith who has a dedicated security detail. when i was working with bob mueller when he was special counsel he didn't have a security detail at that point in time. so this has become et cetera panel -- exponentially worse. it is not going to get better. unfortunately it is targeting the very people who are there to enforce and uphold the laws which keep americans safe, whether it's from violent crime, whether it's from white-collar crime. these are the institutionses that protect americans day in and day out. they're under attack because of the words and actions of donald trump. >> right. and because they are trying to hold him accountable. katy, i want to play you a little more from that interview with lisa monaco. she was asked about the many special counsel investigations under way right now and their independents from the doj. take a listen. >> these are matters of the utmost importance and significance. cases of that level of

significance are -- it's exceptionally important that they are handled independently, confidentially, and free of any outside or inappropriate influence. that's exactly why the attorney general appointed special counsels in the first place. >> just for the record, so the public can hear it from a top official at doj, has president biden ever raised the classified documents documentation, the probe of hunter biden with you, or the a.g., tried to influence you, has he ever done that in regard to president trump? >> no. and the attorney general's been exceptionally clear on this point. >> so katy, you can have that sort of critical exchange there at the end, right, where, please, make this plain, make this clear for me, have these conversations ever transpired? talk to us about the moment this justice department finds itself in and the sort of importance of that last exchange at the end of that interview. >> sure. i would say first of all the fact that lisa monaco is on

television having this interview is extraordinary. this is a department that does not want to talk about anything internal. these threats to fbi agents, to prosecutors, these have been -- these have been a reality basically ever since the raid on mar-a-lago. however, nobody has wanted to publicly speak about it because this department really believes you follow the rules, you follow the law, and the facts, and that is all. you never speak publicly. so the fact that lisa machine co-has been willing -- monaco has been willing to do this interview should really -- i can't stress enough how that indicates to me at least that these issues have become really, really, really terrible. that she feels she needs do this. also, she's just simply trying to explain to the american people how the justice department conducts its business and why such important investigations need to be independent. but it also really underscores the quandary the department is in. one of the things that trump has done is by -- by attacking these institutions is he's undermined for supporters any credibility

-- sorry, not undermined, he's undermined any credibility, so when someone like lisa monaco does go on television, they just don't believe her. also, she's an n -- in a quandary because the special counsel has indicted donald trump not once but twice. when she says we're simply following the facts and the law, the facts and the law have led us to this place, his supporters see the indictments and simply think this is just proof that the justice department is after trump unfairly. and so again, no matter what sort of work she does at this point to try to explain what's going on to the american people, there's a large swath of his supporters that have spent basically since 2017 listening to his rhetoric about this department. so she is going up against years and years of anti-fbi, anti-justice department rhetoric, and it's not clear to me that there's anything the department can do at this point rhetorically. >> i mean, joyce, that is an

alarming proposition. >> it really is. you know, the deputy attorney general is someone who has served in a number of positions at doj. she was a line prosecutor. she ran the national security division. she had national security responsibilities in the white house during the obama administration. and to see her feel the need as katy points out to give an interview and to be willing to talk about threats to prosecutors and others is really alarming. it's a real red flag about the position donald trump has placed the country in. yes, a big part of it has been his rhetoric that people have accepted that undercuts doj's integrity and the public's confidence in doj's integrity. but again, it goes back to our discussion earlier that donald trump is one voice, and if donald trump had said this and if others in his party had said that's not the case, these are strong, solid democratic

institutions that we can have confidence in, we would not be at the point that we're in today. now we've got a deputy attorney general who's forced to reveal in the course of an interview that not one but three presidential candidates were the subject of serious threats. there are now so many fbi agents and their families who have been threatened, that there's a whole unit at the bureau that's committed to investigating those claims. this is a diversion of our resources from where they should be and again it lies at the feet of the former president. people in law enforcement are used to threats in the course of their work. what they're not used to is those threats from coming inside of the house. >> right. and that is the critical point. joyce, katy, peter, thank you all so much for starting us off this hour. frank, you are sticking with me because when we return the growing specter of extremism within the united states military. the alarming results of a newly unveiled report. going to bring that to you after a quick break. stay with us.

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reporting reveals an alarming confirmation by an internal pentagon study about extremism within the u.s. military. a long-awaited report completed a year and a half ago order by the secretary of defense in the wake of the january 6th capitol attack. the study warns according to "usa today" that extremism in the military is rare but dangerous.

and that quote, the participation, violent extremists' activities, of even a small number of individuals that present a risk to the military and the country as a whole. all the findings according to that reporting appear to only reiterate the widely reported alarming extremism problem within the military. the study also importantly confirms the growing participation rates for former service members in extremist activities and underscores and warns the need for the u.s. military security clearance process to start accounting for the, quote, threat of home-grown extremism. joining our conversation, tom nichols, staff writer at "the atlantic" and professor e-merritt that's of national security affairs at the u.s. navy war college. frank is back. tom, what do you make of this studi? >> i'm not surprised. i was part of the -- still a dod employee back when we did the billing standdown as they call it, a one-day event about

extremism, and really nothing came of it. it was a day of presentations that said it's bad to be an extremist, and we should all serve the constitution. i think the pentagon doesn't quite know what to do about this because i think they're still -- there's not enough reliable data about how far into the ranks this goes at this point. it's -- it's clear a problem, and it's clearly been growing over the past several years. so while i'm not surprised, i'm also not particularly heartened that anybody's really knows what to do about it yet. >> right. frank, to that end, it did seem like this emphasis on the security clearance with a more tangible recommendations out of this report. this is what came out of "usa today," quote, to a significant extent on cold war threats and threats related to the global war on terrorism, rather than the threat of home-grown extremism, that's what the security clearance process focuses on. i mean, is that part of the answer, examining the security

clearance process? and my other question, does that really work if what they're saying is inasmuch as this is a problem among current members of the military, it's really a problem among former members. >> yeah. i mean, this is what jumped out at me the most about this study is that gatekeeper function, who comes into the military and who's asked not to come into the military, is not working. and the cure -- the current status of our background investigations at the military -- that the military conducts isn't cutting it when it comes to ferreting out the potential for violent, radical behavior. i think back to the fbi application background process. it's somewhat similar but certainly far more in depth than someone signing up to join the military. we ask questions that go back to the cold war. do they have continuing contacts with people in adversarial

states, russia, china, et cetera. and why should we or not look into that, has anyone -- we'll ask on a polygraph in the fbi has anyone asked you, directed you to apply to the fbi? that's not happening at the u.s. military. more importantly, that process doesn't serve any agency well when you're talking about the domestic threat. yeah, i have no friends in russia or china, okay, i'm good. do you -- are you going to defend the united states? yeah, absolutely. what's going on in their head is, yeah, i'm going to defend the united states for donald trump. that's what i'm going to do. so it's one thing to say we don't allow certain nazi tattoos and white supremacist tattoos into the military, but it's another thing entirely to get your arms around the metrics of measuring whether or not you've got a true problem. and this report, by the way, was done a year and a half ago, and we're just now in the smack in the middle of the holiday season. we're now getting it and talking about it. it's a giant colossal shrug of the shoulders as to what they're going to do about it. i know this, it's going to take

money to revamp the background process. you should not be giving a top-secret clearance like that young man up in new england did in the air force national guard that's now been arrested for espionage, why does he have a top-secret clearance when he has all of these engagements with law enforcement, all of these issues in his prior life? we've got to get better at this because these people are trained, trained to kill, and they need something to do when they get out. something different than assaulting the capitol on january 6th. >> well, tom, to the point that frank raised about the fact that it was a year and a half that it's being released in what is supposed to be a sleepy time when it comes to media coverage, you wrote, "the extremism problem within the u.s. military is, quote, more worrisome than military leadership would like to admit." i wonder how you break through. >> unfortunately we've had plenty of incidents that should have broken through. one of the things that you find particularly with these kind of lost young men who end up joining extremist organizations

is that they joined the military because they think it's almost like they're taking the cure, you know. that they think that this is going to be the thing that straightens out their lives. i really want to emphasize what frank was talking about with security clearances. i held a department of defense clearance for most of my adult life, and yeah, it's really good at making sure that none of us were communists, but you know, it doesn't -- it's not very good at finding out, you know, are you obsessed with violence and nazi imagery and, you know, all of these other kind of red flags that scare people about high school and college students. it's just not designed to do that. some of it's like still right out of the 1950s and 1960s. and so i think part of what's unsettling for the military is not only that they see at that problem is grow, and i want to emphasize, though, that i think small but worrisome is right. this is not, you know, a massive problem in the u.s. military.

but any -- a problem like this of any size is a worrisome problem. i think part of what's worrying the military and part of what's worrying the pentagon is they just don't know how many problems they really have because the whole personnel and security clearance system wasn't designed to spot this. and so now they've got to try and do it, but you know, a lot of time's gone by since january 6th, and i don't think that, you know, there's been a lot of motion on this. >> again, you add on the entire layer of retired officers who are participating. tom nichols, frank, as always, thank you so much for your time. when we return, after going missing in the russian prison system, opposition leader alexei navalny, the main rival to vladimir putin, has been located. where he is, how he's doing after a quick break. a quick bre. results fast, rinvoq delivered rapid symptom relief and helped leave bathroom urgency behind. check. when uc tried to slow me down...

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an update on a story we brought you before the holidays. alex a navalny has been located after nearly three weeks of radio silence. he was found in a penal cony north of the arctic circle nicknamed polar wolf. his lawyer was able to see him monday, according to his spokeswoman. warned that this prison will be much worse than the one he was held in before in which she said was an attempt to make his life, quote, as unbearable as it possibly can be and to isolate him further.

the region is notorious for long and severe winters, located near the soviet-era gulag camps where coal mines were known to be among the harshest. navalny joked that the beard he grew on his 20-day journey made him, quote, your new santa claus. let's bring in former ambassador to russia and msnbc international affairs analyst michael mcfall. ambassador, what do you make of the timing of navalny's re-emergence here? >> i think he finally got to hisses horrific -- his horrific deficit neemp they allowed his lawyer to see him. the second good news is he's alive. there were worries that he had been killed. the bad news is he's in one of the worst prisons in all of russia and they have lots of bad prisons. two hours of sunlight during the wintertime. it's part of the gulag, as you described. and it's designed, a, to torture him more and notorious for being a place of increased torture,

and b, to keep him even more isolated from his followers, from his supporters, from his lawyers, from his family. that is why he was assigned to this place. >> do you give any credence to his allies who suggested that it was not a coincidence that when he went missing just as president putin announced his re-election? >> hard to say. most certainly putin does not want people to be hearing from mr. navalny during the pr to underscore an election to underscore an election that we all know who's going to win, but the fact that putin so fears navalny also tells us a little bit about maybe putin's popularity insid rsia. think about it. if putin was so popular and everyone supported his barbaric war in ukraine, why would he have to go to such elects to silence a critic that allegedly has no support? and so that suggests to me that

putin is extremely paranoid about mr. navalny. he understands that navalny's message is one that resonates at least with some russians. >> understanding all of that context, ambassador, your sense of what's next for navalny? >> well, you know, he did tweet out both in english and russian a long thread joking about being, you know, santa claus again. i deeply admire the fact that he can keep his sense of humor and irony under these extreme conditions, and that, i think, helps him to do the number one thing that he needs to do which is to stay alive and all his family and his supporters and his friends tha what they're focused on now. he just needs to stay alive to keep fighting for anoth day. >> ambassador, i want to you about other prisoners in russian prisons. ukrainian pritchers of war. a spokesperson for ukraine's office on the treatment of pows recently told "politico" quote, a person has not heard from a

relative for over a year and here he calls and says he's alive. russia said they're ready to exchange him, but ukraine does nothing and this is to cause distrust with the government and this is aimed at inflaming tensions with ukrainians and society. your thoughts on the tactics here? >> thanks for mentioning that, because i am glad to see the outpour of alexei navalny, but my ukrainian colleagues were talking about the outpouring of concern about our pows and not just prisoners of war, people that were kidnapped, children that were kidnapped. the defenders of mariupol. we still don't know where they are and they now need the same attention that alexei navalny got and it's part of putin's cruelty and evilness that he does these kind of things. i frankly, think, he takes pleasure in this kind of

cruelty. he likes it. he likes to put it up and he likes to show to his people inside russia and the rest of the world that he's capable of doing it and nobody can stop him. >> ambassador michael mcfall, as always, thank you for your time and expertise. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. right back. the promise of this nation should extend to all from new york to new mexico, from alaska to alabama. but right now, people like you are losing their freedoms. some in power are suppressing voting rights. banning our kids books from libraries and attacking our right to make private health care decisions.

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did you say stupid song, but i'll sing it. i don't want you angry, i just want you to know that it's a stupid, dumb song. >> talk about an all-time duo in the history of american comedy. we are very sorry that tom smothers from the smothers brothers died of cancer at the age of 86 according to his family. beyond their sibling comedy, tom and his brother dick were trail blazers in mass media. cbs famously canceled their comedy hour program for continually poking fun at the establishment and being honest about civil right and the vet nat war, for which his family should be very proud especially these days. we'll be right back. especially these days we'll be right back.

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