good to be with you, i'm katy tur. almost exactly one year since october 7th, after months of escalation, and following last week's israeli assassination of hezbollah leader hassan nasrallah. the wider war the white house has been cautioning against is precariously close, if not already here. right now, israel is fighting for its adversaries across the middle east. hamas in gaza, the houthis in yemen. hezbollah in lebanon, and also iran. how does it hold each off? and what will israel do in response to iran's barrage of ballistic missiles last night?

some 200, almost all of which the iron dome intercepted. then, what will the u.s. do as president biden says he does not support a retaliatory strike by israel on iran's nuclear sites. joining us now, nbc news international correspondent raf sanchez who is in tel aviv for us. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel in lebanon, and also with us is nbc news senior national security correspondent courtney kube. raf, i will begin with you, what is the outlook from the israelis right now about retaliation? >> reporter: it is determination to retaliate, katy. prime minister benjamin netanyahu met at the defense ministry here in tel aviv earlier today with israel's top military and intelligence officials, and the topic of discussion, how, when, at what scale to retaliate for iran's ballistic missile attack last night. an israeli official tells me

israel is determined to respond swiftly. they feel that they need to show not just iran, but those other enemies you mentioned across the region that an attack like this will not go unanswered. there are a couple of complicating factors here, though, as israel waves its retaliation. one, is the biden administration, you have mentioned the president and the administration sending these lightly mixed signals. on the one hand, israel has the chance to respond to this iranian missile strike, and calling for a cease fire in the broader region, saying they don't want to see further escalation, and today, president biden specifically saying he does not want to see israel targeting iran's nuclear program. the other complicating factor here, katy, is the jewish calendar, the sun is down here israel. we are rosh hashanah, the jewish new year. generally speaking, the israeli

government tries to avoid putting its citizens through periods of escalation on jewish holy days, and there are several coming up. yom kippur coming swiftly on the heels of rosh hashanah. israeli officials saying while they are trying to thread the needles between the biden administration, the jewish calendar, they are determined to respond and it's a question of when, not if. >> you have touring the country and seeing the damage from the iranian missiles that were able to break through the iron dome. what did you see? >> reporter: so we were at a school in central israel earlier today in one of those roughly 180 ballistic missiles came down just in front of that school. you're seeing it on your screen there. the impact blasting through the walls of two lower floor classrooms. now, the strike happening almost exactly 24 hours ago. it was at night. those classrooms were empty.

there were no children inside. and as we have been talking about, almost miraculously, israel's government is saying nobody was killed in israeli territory. no serious injuries. there was a palestinian man in the occupied west bank who was killed by shrapnel falling from the sky after one of those interceptions. but, katy, those are the visible signs of after math that we have been able to go see with our own eyes. what we haven't been able to see is the scale of the damage caused to israeli military bases. israel's military said there has been no interruption to its air force operations, but it has acknowledged that some of those missiles that did get through hit some of those air bases and as yet, we don't have a detailed accounting from them of what exactly happened. katy. >> let's go to lebanon. there is fighting right now in southern lebanon. the idf says a number of soldiers have been killed in the last day and a half. what are you seeing there?

>> reporter: so we're seeing an escalation on the ground here. and, katy, you mentioned four countries, there's also a fifth, according to the syrian government, israel today carried out a strike in damascus and killed three people. we're talking about a fight against the houthis in yemen, an ongoing battle against hamas in gaza that has leveled gaza, a battle in the west bank against a variety of militant groups , so that would be six on top of the other five, strikes against militia groups, the iranian-backed militia groups in iraq, that brings it to seven. this is a regional war i think by any account, and the question is how much further it's going to expand, and where we're already seeing it expand in a very bloody way, is here in lebanon. lebanon is has long been a

quagmire for israel. israel has been involved in numerous conflicts in this country since the 1970s, and each time it has come in here, it has gotten stuck. the last time it tried to create a buffer zone, israel ended up saying here, causing a civil war, and having troops on the ground for nearly 20 years. what we are now seeing on day three, more or less, of this war is a rapid escalation, because for the first two days, israel entered into small numbers, stayed close to the israel lebanon border. hezbollah was hanging back, observing them, trying to assess their strength and capabilities, and today for the first time there are direct ground fights between the hezbollah fighters, and israeli troops, and announcing the death of eight israeli so far. this is not a ground war, like israel has been fighting in

gaza. gaza is a closed off area. hamas has effectively penned in along with the 2.2 million people of gaza. this is an open country, it has a border. it has an airport. israel has been attacking here in southern lebanon, where it's trying to create the buffer zone. it has been attacking along the syrian border, trying to cut off resupply, but hezbollah has lost its leader, it has lost its communication systems to a degree but still has its fighters, and we're now seeing those fighters and there are tens of thousands of them in action in lebanon against the israeli troops. this has the potential to become a very bloody war for lebanon, but also for israel. >> courtney, you heard richard there, seven fronts, so astutely putting what israel is actually facing. that's the four i mentioned, also including syria and the west bank, and iraq. the united states says it's going to back israel no matter what, that we have israel's interests as our own interests.

at the same time, president biden is saying that he does not believe israel should strike back at iran's nuclear sites. are there any red lines for the united states? >> reporter: so at this point, all the u.s. talking about in support is defensive in nature, and the statements that they're putting out, specifically yesterday morning, before the attack by irans, was that the u.s. would continue to defend israel and israeli had the right of self-defense, to defend against all of those potential threats that richard just laid out there. now, the u.s. has taken some offensive actions in some of the cases, specifically against the houthis. specifically they take offensive action against potential threats in iraq and syria. those militia groups are the same ones that could threaten israel. iraq and syria, an arm of lebanese hezbollah who the israelis are fighting right now

in southern lebanon. so far what we have been hearing about the u.s. support, it's defensive in nature. of course, in addition to the actual defensive actions that the u.s. military takes, they also send weapons. we have no indication that the u.s. has slowed down or stopped its continued flow of weapons and military support to israel since october 7th, and, in fact, some of the things have even accelerated in certain cases. so that's another way that the u.s. will continue to support. as of now, one of the things that we have been watching since the death of hassan nasrallah on friday is whether any of these proxy groups would act up or we would see more actions from them. we do not see that much from the proxy groups in iraq and syria, we have not seen much over the last several months. so that are that's continued. there haven't been significant movements or large scale uprisings by any of them. the houthis are the same. they continue to operate, not

getting as much attention in the u.s., they continue to operate, attacking vessels in the red sea, but we haven't seen any big uprisings since the death of hassan nasrallah. >> courtney, raf, thank you for starting us off. former prime minister of israel, thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> what should israel do? >> will accept the attack by 200 ballistic missiles, twice in several months without responding very forcefully. probably there will be attacks on the oil industry aspect, and probably, i cannot promise you because i'm not around the table of decision making right now, probably one of the elements of its nuclear military program, even if just to hint that there's an opportunity, and it's

someone else's failure that we are finding ourself alone. >> i wonder if you can put yourself into the heads of the people who are currently making the decisions. my colleague, andrea mitchell spoke to an israeli leader who said they learned the lesson from the americans. when your enemy is down, don't let them get back up. in that sense, do you expect that the retaliation from the current leaders in charge of israel might go further in order to try to handicap, not just the houthis or hezbollah, but also iran? >> i can easily think of making this decision. but i don't want to do this. it's not necessarily clever thing to do. but i can tell you there will be a forceful response, if you want to have an example, think of yemen, it's about the same

distance, and the air force attacked very forcefully, the main part and some other power plants. there are no oil industry. but we can do it and it will be done. >> does it end there? >> excuse me? >> does it end there or is there going to be another retaliation, and back and forth? >> i'm not sure that it's very economical even for the iranians to keep sending attacks of 200 missiles, and ending up with not even a finger dead from any of these or any damage caused. in fact, you might the interceptions happens, out in space. but it's extremely effective in 30 years, and the americans and british, thankful for that.

basically what we see is very powerful. the last two weeks from the pager through the nasrallah, and the successful operation. so it regains easily the intelligence in the air force, the defense system, and creates open deterrence. it helped netanyahu with some credit. but having said that, israel however powerful, it's not only potent, and netanyahu presented in his speech to the u.n. these two maps, one of the alliance of blessing and the alliance of whatever we call it. so we need this alliance. ten months ago, the proposal of president biden to establish the alliance, and put an end in gaza

and bring the hostages to organize, to resupply the idf, to deploy against this wider landscape starting with iran and all its proxies. the ring of fire around israel and fight it together. >> let me talk to you about that ring of fire. the lebanese foreign minister came out after benjamin netanyahu made his speech at the u.n., and he said this in response, and i would like to get your opinion on it. we'll play it. >> the israeli prime minister came here today and said israel is surround bid those who want to destroy it. we're here, members of a muslim arab committee, mandated by 57 arab countries, i can tell you, unequivocally, all of us are willing to right now guarantee the security of israel in the context of israel ending the occupation, and allowing for the emergence of a palestinian state. he is creating that danger because he simply does not want

a two-state solution. and if he does not want the two-state solution, can you ask israeli officials, what is their end game? >> if he's right, that the arab countries want stability and peace, all they're asking for is a palestinian state, why would prime minister benjamin netanyahu not take that? >> lebanon. >> i misspoke. >> i listened very carefully to the speech. it's only half of the truth. the other part is not described for obvious reasons, so it's not the right timing to speak to the issues of palestinian state. >> why not? >> because the whole collective, both our collective and the other collective under a certain kind of the events. recently, the hamas, and the hezbollah, there is no

worthiness to contemplate it. israelis are struck by a strong pain, by a deep frustration, by sense of human relation after 7th of october. it's not the right time. no one will listen if you talk to israelis now. but boiling blood is not a good recipe for statesmanship or leadership, so we have to hug our people to calm them down to show empathy, and so, but leaders should always never lose sight of the end game, and one of the tragedies is that netanyahu persistently from day one rejected all the need to discuss the day after. what will happen? what's the end game? there's an old woman saying, if you don't know which party, no one will take you there, and there's a parallel in alice in wonderland. that's part of our tragedy, netanyahu for reasons that have nothing to do with the national

security, totally from private consideration, has nothing to do with common good. he does not want to discuss what will be the next stage, and how to put an end to it. but nowadays, it's not the time to discuss it. now it's time to win the war. we have a challenge. we expect the americans to respect other friends, neighboring concerns. we need this alliance of the moderates in order to win. it's not the job of israel to do it alone. it's not clever to expect israel to complete it alone. >> point taken on the israeli public. i know the sentiment is not behind a two-state solution right now, but also what the jordanian foreign minister said. they're allies of israel. they helped shoot down sochl some of those missiles, what he was saying is the arab states

around israel can help guarantee the security. i mean, that is a very intoxicating offer if you don't want to continue war. >> katy, believe me, i spend most of my life fighting in uniform. i spent most of my political life, trying to drown the swamp, not just killing mosquitos. and i tell you honestly, that's not the time. we shouldn't lose sight of it, but it's not the time to discuss it. it's now the time to focus on first of all to defeat the iranians, hezbollah, the houthis, the west bank, it's enough job to be done. we need unity in israel. i do not exclude the possibility that we will see close to establishing a unity government in israel or in order to make sure there is a strategy and decision that have been made, not just fighting with no end

but, it's time to fight, and time will come to consider how to make this. >> let's hope it comes sooner than later. >> mr. prime minister, ehud barak, we appreciate your time. glad you were in manhattan for the interview. what the war in the middle east could do to mix up the presidential election, and president biden and vp harris are touring the damage in the southeast today. what they are promising in the aftermath of hurricane helene. >> and what one michigan college student said to shred a j.d. vance talking point after last night's debate. we are back in 90 seconds. hayden: the fact st. jude will take care of all this, this is what's keeping my baby girl alive. chelsea: it's everything for us. we wouldn't know what to do. we couldn't afford for our little girl to survive. and st. jude gives us that. [music playing] they get it. they know how it works. and most importantly, it works for them. i don't have any anxiety about money anymore.

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our advanced matching helps find talented candidates, so you can connect with them fast. visit indeed.com/hire . after 90 minutes of thoughtful answers and spin about donald trump's record and plans for another presidency, j.d. vance ended the debate by refuse to go answer the simplest question of all. it also happened to be the most important question. do you believe that joe biden won the election? in other words, do you believe senator j.d. vance, man who wants to be first in line for the presidency. do you believe in democracy? >> did he lose the 2020 election? >> tim, i'm focused on the future. did kamala harris censure americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 covid situation? >> that is a damming nonanswer. >> joining us now, staff writer at the new yorker, susan glasser, and staff writer at the

atlantic, and msnbc political contributor, mark leibovich. we have a new sound bite from j.d. vance. i do not know what it is, but let's play it and we can respond on the other end. >> why didn't you answer the question last night during the debate about who won the 2020 presidential election? >> well, look, here's the simple reason. the media's obsessed with talking about the election of four years ago, i'm focused on the election of 33 days from now, because i want to throw kamala harris out of office and get back to commons economic policy. >> that was worth playing, wasn't it. susan, i'll let you take it. >> you know, it reminds me a lot of what we used to talk about when trump was president, the audience of one. j.d. vance is clearly worried about the audience of one when he keeps getting the questions about the 2020 election. he would not have been on the debate stage had donald trump not soured on his first vice presidential running mate, mike

pence, for refusing to go along with his lies about the 2020 election. that clearly was a condition of vance's presence on the ticket, and it's notable, you know, he just -- the willingness to kind of almost ignore the question and move on when it's such a core question. you know, it's like saying i want to play this game but i won't tell you whether i'll follow the rules. of course it's not a game, but it's the basic principle of our democracy. >> one of the reasons why this is so important, mark, is when donald trump tries to staff up a white house if he wins again or a federal government, one of the things that his people do is they go through past statements, and they say, have you been sufficiently loyal to donald trump, and if you've made negative comments in the past, haven't fully disowned them, you're not somebody they want on their team. doesn't matter the qualifications. we saw that happen in 2016, we saw the plans to happen in 2020,

the hollowing out of the bayou -- presumably what they will do if donald trump is elected again. how do you staff a government just filled with people, again, who are just loyal to one man? what does that mean for the functioning of this government? >> well, yeah, i mean, before they were loyal to one man, presumably they were loyal to common sense, and what our own eyes and ears can see. so, i mean, it will make staffing the -- if there is a next trump government all the more complicated, but i think the larger point is it's not just the audience of one, it's the audience of one plus 40% of the country, the audience of one plus whatever the next government looks like. we're talking about a kind of world view. it's a delusional world view, it's a lie, that governs half of

our politics right now, and the half of our politics that can very well tip into a direction of american power, and obviously all the global ramifications that flow from that. so, yeah, susan says, i mean, there's nothing blithe about this. this is all fundamental, existential, elemental, whatever big word you want to throw around, you know, relating to this. >> let me talk a little bit more about what we saw at last night's debate. let's play the sound bites on abortion. bank number three. >> first of all, i never supported a national ban. i did when i was running for senate in 2022, talk about setting a minimum national standard. we have a partial birth abortion ban in place in this country at the federal level. i don't think anybody's trying to get rid of that, at least i hope not. i know democrats have taken a radical pro abortion status. >> just mind your own business on this. things worked best when roe v. wade was in place. when we do a restoration of roe,

that works best. that doesn't preclude us from increasing funding for children. it doesn't increase us from making sure once that child is born like in minnesota, they get meals. they get early childhood education, they get health care. hiding behind we're going to do all of these other things when you're not proposing them in your budget, kamala harris is proposing them. she's proposing all of them to make life easier for families. >> on abortion, susan, we have seen a lot of change from j.d. vance, certainly, who has been moderating his position on abortion, and i was struck by the way he called out to the audience, and said, we, the republican party need to do more to gain your trust on this issue. just today donald trump said he would veto a federal abortion ban if it passed his desk. do voters take them at their word on this, susan? >> to me, it suggests that they have recognized, perhaps very belatedly that they have a serious political problem. if kamala harris does deed win the election in november, it

seems to me that reproductive rights will be a significant reason why. it will be a major boost to her campaign. it's interesting to hear j.d. vance's sort of, you know, putting kind of like pleasant mood music around a policy that, you know, would have and has already taken a serious toll in women's lives and in consequences for millions of women around the country. and i just -- i just think it defies credibility to think that donald trump, the man who spent the last two years bragging that he was the architecture of rolling back roe v. wade, who continually makes the absurd claim that, no, actually everyone in america, literally everyone in america supported getting rid of roe v. wade, fact check, not true, that somehow this ticket is going to be the ticket that has anything to appeal to people who are uncomfortable with the ramifications of the repeal of roe v. wade. i would note that even during the debate last night between j.d. vance and tim walz, trump

was on social media giving an all caps rant about abortion in which he repeated his absurd claim that democrats are actually in favor of after-birth abortion. i don't even understand what that is. you know, this is something he said in his own debate with harris and has repeated and it suggests, obviously, a fairly extremist view of the matter. >> that's not true. it's not legal in any state to execute a baby, just like it's not true that haitians are eating dogs or cats. i had another question on the mideast, but i ran out of time. mark leibovich, and susan glasser, thank you very much. voter sound coming your way. first, though, what president biden and vice president harris are doing for victims of hurricane helene today. .. tired. itchy, burning... my dry eye symptoms got worse over time.

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the death toll from hurricane helene is now at 176 people. at least 90 of them in north carolina alone. that number could rise and potentially a lot. hundreds are still unaccounted for across the southeast. president biden is in the disaster zone right now. as you can see, he's making his first stop in south carolina. he will be touring the damage there. vice president harris is also doing that same tour but she is headed to georgia where she'll outline what the federal government is doing to help with the recovery. joining us now, nbc correspondent ryan nobles who is in valdosta, georgia. what do we expect from the vp when she lands? >> reporter: we're in augusta, georgia, katy, about six hours north on the eastern part of georgia. an area that was hit pretty hard by this hurricane, and kind of hit hard in a way that they weren't really expecting. they didn't expect the curve of the storm to hit this far east.

as you can see, it left behind a pretty significant path of damage. that's one of the reasons that the vice president chose to come here today. she has been on the ground now for about a half an hour or so. she's already met with some first responders and some of the local officials, and she talked a little bit about how they were able to quickly respond to the damage here, despite being caught a little off guard by just how extensive this storm was. take a listen. >> i have been reading and hearing about the work you have been doing over the last few days, and i think it really does represent some of the best of what we each know can be done, especially when we coordinate around local, state, and federal resources. >> reporter: so she's going to continue this tour now for the next hour or so. she's then going to have a briefing and then address the media about what she learned during this particular visit to this community. part of her message here is that the federal government is here to help, and she wants to talk specifically with these local leaders to find out where there may be gaps in that response from federal officials, what the

local teams need in order to deep that process going, and help with the recovery. in terms of the recovery here in augusta, it may not be as bad as it is in some parts of north carolina, south carolina and tennessee, but it is still very very difficult. the power situation here is very intermittent, one street may have it. the next may not. there's a lack of cell service. they're being forced to boil water as a result of this big storm that came through. we talked to quite a few residents that have driven by where we are right now. they have talked about how they're looking out for their neighbors. setting up coffee stations in the morning so people can get a hot cup of coffee before they attack this massive cleanup effort that you see behind me. there is a great degree of resilience here in georgia, but it's going to be some time before they get things back to normal, katy. >> ryan nobles, thank you very much. and coming up, what battleground voters took away from last night's debate. will it change any of those votes? anyone undecided with now just 34 days until election day.

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millions of americans tuned in to last night's first and only vice presidential debate of 2024, including young voters in the battleground state of michigan. jacob soboroff was there talking to college students, in the

county that helped joe biden win in 2020. will it do the same for kamala harris? jacob joins us now, political and national correspondent, i should say. what did you hear? >> reporter: last night, we were at one type of watch party. that was the vice presidential debate. now we're at a different one entirely, i'm at comerica park, we're on assignment, but the enthusiasm level in oakland county, one of the swingiest and most important counties in all of michigan. it will be determined in the presidential election. we heard from young people who vote in this state than any other state in the union, that's at least in the 2022 midterm elections. they lean democrat in oakland county, here's what we heard from one student, marcus, who you might have seen on social media today. you said to me, i have been to high school civics class, why did you say that? >> because if anybody took high school civics class, they would know what the vice president can

do and what the vice president can't do. i want to make a quick point. neither candidate on that stage talked about what executive action they're going to take on day one to do what they want, nor were they asked because they know that they can't. that's not how the vice presidency works. you don't get to do what you want, you do what the president delegates you to do. >> reporter: so, katy, i think you know what side marcus came down on. at the end of the day, here in michigan, those youth voters are going to play an outsized role. it's going to come down to the turnout. oakland university is a great place to be. i wouldn't be surprised if we and the candidates find themselves back there in the 30 something days to come. >> you are the king at placing yourselves in places where you're working but you're actually there to enjoy the scenery. the tigers game today, you got to be kidding me. you got to be kidding me. by the way, i know the dodgers are doing well, i love the dodgers. mets also in the playoffs. won last night.

lot of happy folks around here. jacob soboroff. >> that's for sure. >> before i let you go, check out the qr code on the screen. we've got an invite. jacob's book "separated" remember the policy about separating migrants from their parents, it debuted at the venice film festival in august, and now the movie is coming to theaters, including new york's ifc center starring this friday where you can join me and jacob and oscar winning film maker, errol morris for a conversation about the film ahead of the election. all right, we've got some breaking news we're going to get to now. jack smith election interference case against donald trump, the judge, tanya chutkan, just unsealed the special counsel's 165-page redacted motion on presidential immunity. joining us now, msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. it is 165 pages, we have had it

for all of, i think, four minutes. we obviously haven't been able to go through all of it. still, this was what we thought would be sort of a mini trial. here is the evidence we have against donald trump in regards to what happened in 2020. is there anything so far that is jumping out to you now that we didn't know about before today? >> well, katy, one of the things that i would just point out is that we obviously know who the government thinks donald trump's most important coconspirators are. in this indictment, there is a description of six coconspirators, the majority of whom have been definitively identified before. that having been said, one of the things that pops out to me immediately is how many people here are identified just by p numbers, meaning they're not people alleged to be coconspirators, but they are people who are alleged witnesses or participants in the event, and there are so many of them that even on page 13, which is as far as i've gotten, there's a reference to p 76, meaning there are at least 76 people listed this this description, this

detailed recitation of the fcts that the government wants judge chutkan to see relative to her immunity determinations that we know are involved here. and many of these people are from the campaign wall. that jumps out immediately, just the identification of so many people from the former president's campaign who were involved in what the government is now describing as purely private activity designed to ensure that he remained in office. that matters because for purposes of fulfilling the supreme court's mandate in terms of immunity, anybody who worked for the campaign alone and never was a member of executive branch staff, those contacts between them are, according to the government, fair game and should be fair game according to the supreme court as well. which recognized there is a realm of private conduct that could be within chargeable conduct for the public residence. >> i want our team to go

through, and find out if there are any references to vice president mike pence here. that's within of the big arguments. they believe that some of the actions that donald trump took with vice president pence are still admissible, even though the supreme court said that they would largely be covered. i'm paraphrasing here, largely be covered by presidential immunity because of the relationship between the president and the vice president. i know jack smith wanted to argue there are exceptions there, and they had proof that would overtake the supreme court's threshold for making that immune. the interesting thing is this whole argument is based on private versus public conduct, and when you're looking at just the beginning of this filing, i'll read you just the first part of it. the defendant said he's immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election. he claims it entailed official conduct. not so. although the defendant was the incumbent president during the

charged conspiracies, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt through fraud the government function by which votes are collected and counted, the function which the defendant as president had no official role. so when you have j.d. vance out last night saying, no, this was just free speech, and, you know, this focused on the future, this is what the democrats and a lot of other republicans are still arguing is that donald trump had no role in this election. >> correct. >> he got the results just like everybody else did. yes, he can file lawsuits because he doesn't trust the results in x, y or z county but once those multiple lawsuits are filed, and then dismissed, that's it. but he keeps going on, still claims the election was stolen, to this day, and finds to be such a necessity to believe this lie that j.d. vance, his vice president, has to keep telling that lie on the campaign stage,

even though he said privately he knows donald trump lost. >> yes, and i want to go back to something that you just asked me, which is about the role of former vice president pence here. there are definitely recitations about conversations between former vice president pence, and former president trump. and that's because the government's contention is it depends on how pence and trump were interacting with each other. if trump were behaving, for example, as a core adviser to former president trump, that's conduct that the supreme court would consider immune from prosecution, but if they are having conversations about their status as candidates or even conversations in which pence is really acting as the president of the senate, which is not an executive branch role, and trump is acting as the candidate, those are fair game, and so you see, for example, starting on pages 12 and 13, the list of conversations between the two of them, starting on november 4th in which trump presumably, allegedly asks pence to study up

claims of voter fraud in states that they had won together to determine whether they could bring legal challenges. and ending with conversations on december 21st in the private lunch where pence encouraged trump, according to the government, again, not to look at the election as a loss, just an intermission, and then there was a private discussion in the oval office in which trump allegedly asked pence, what do you think we should do, pence said, after we have exhausted every legal process in the courts and congress, if we still came up short, you should take a bow. >> finish that thought. >> i was just going to say, you know, i expect that as these pages continue, that's only page 13 of the brief that you will see much more detail from the government. and i just want to remind you and our viewers that when the government asks for permission to file this brief in the first place, and they estimated that it would be about 180 pages long, they told judge chutkan that they thought roughly half

of that would be devoted to a detailed factual proffer. we're talking about roughly 75 to 80 pages because the last 30, as i understand it, are basically consumed by detailed footnotes, and we can already see some of them here. roughly 75 to 80 pages of this factual proffer. i'm only on page 30. >> i did a pence search on my phone throughout the document, and he's on 44 of the pages so far. and what i find interesting is that they're going through minute by minute the events of that day, and they're talking about what donald trump was doing,doing, what donald trump was tweeting at the time, but they're also going through media coverage and showing what reporters were doing and who reporters interviewed and what those people were saying. on page 80, for instance, they're talking about fox news' coverage of the capitol about 2:20 video of the crowds on the capitol lawn in the west terrace were shown alongside a chyron stated certification vote paused

as protests erupt on capitol hill. at 3:31 an on the street reporter interviewed an individual marching from the ellipse to the capitol who claimed to have come to washington because president trump -- this is a quote -- because president trump told us we had something big to look forward to and i believed that vice president pence was going to certify the electoral votes and or not certify them, but i guess that's just changed, correct? and it's a very big disappointment. i think there's several hundred thousand people here who are very disappointed but i still believe president trump has something else left. you get a number of interviews where people are mentioning pence, you also get the hang mike pence chants heard on the capitol and you get donald trump's tweet, mike pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones on which they were asked to previously

certify. usa demands the truth. when they are trying to overcome that threshold, how do they do that? how does this information help them say that what he was doing with vice president pence was not a part of his official acts? >> i think part of it is to show that, for example, the tweets, right? i want to bring you back to the supreme court's ruling for a second because they say that the president has broad authority to communicate with the american public as the president, but there may be instances where, for example, using his tweets he really is functioning as a candidate and not as president. they are not backing down from certain of those tweets, as you noted. and one of the reasons that the government is fixated on that is because they want to show not only what donald trump knew and what he was ingesting at that time, which may account for the minute by minute recitation of what fox news was airing, but that in his communications he wasn't doing anything official. again, we are talking about january 6th, a date on which the

current president of the united states has absolutely no official role when it comes to election administration. >> i want you to go to page 89, lisa, if you can, because this is where they get into the defendant's interactions with pence. they argue the only conduct alleged in the original indictment that the supreme court held was official and subject to at least a rebuttal presumption of immunity was the defendant's attempts to lie to and pressure vice president pence to misuse his role as president of the senate at the congressional certification. the supreme court stated that whenever the president and vice president discuss their official responsibilities, they engage in official acts and further explain that because pence's role at the certification was a constitutional and statutory duty of the vice president, the defendant was at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct. accordingly unlike all of the other threshold determinations that the court will have to make about whether the defendant's conduct alleged in the superseding indictment was official with respect to the defendant's conversations with

pence about pence's official role at the certification proceeding, the court can skip to the second step whether the government can rebut the presumption of immunity that the supreme court held applies to such conversations. because the executive branch has no role in the certification proceedings as we've been talking about and indeed the president was purposefully excluded from it by design, prosecuting the defendant for his corrupt efforts regarding pence poses no danger to the executive branch's authority or functioning. it's part of the argument they're putting forward. i want to bring in nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian. ken? >> just to continue on the theme that you guys are discussing because really the interactions with mike pence are a crucial part of this document and in section 3, further than where you guys are, on page 139, for example, it goes into a detailed analysis of the infamous tweet that donald trump issued condemning mike pence, which later led to cries of hang mike

pence and led to mike pence being evacuated from the capitol. remember that that tweet said "mike pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and constitution giving states the chance to certify a correct set of facts not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones they were asked to previously certify." usa demands the truth. this document jack smith is arguing was not a public statement of a president, that was private conduct to a person clinging to power. it goes into almost a novelist i can rendition of what happened in and around that. essentially that's what this document is, it's incredible level of detail supporting the more -- the drier and more sparse facts in the indictment. some of what we heard in the televised january 6th hearing but never before has it been laid out in in kind of fashion, again, almost novelistic in

form. it talks about just the fact -- i will read. the defendant's actions and knowledge in the hours leading up to this tweet provide helpful context. continuing on, the tweet shows that the defendant understood that his gathering supporters who were angry and believed his false claims that the election had been stolen were a powder keg. >> ken, hold on one second. i have to let lisa go in 30 seconds, i want her to jump in. >> one of the things i was noticing as ken was talking about former vice president pence is that the government makes a very clever argument about rudy giuliani in particular on page 97 and they say that when trump is talking to pence the fact that he brought rudy as his private lawyer into some of those conversations is proof positive that these are not conversations between two executive branch officials in their core constitutional authority or even in the outer perimeter of their authority, but proves it's a private conversation and then

they add this damning detail, that the white house counsel who at the time was pat cipollone, was invited to one of these meetings where trump, pence and giuliani were present and then he was excluded from the meeting and they say that reinforces the fact that this is a private conversation between two people in their capacity as candidates aided by rudy giuliani as trump's private lawyer, but with pat cipollone purposefully and deliberately shut out of the room, that shows that this is not the type of conduct that the supreme court means to hold the president immune from. >> i have to let you go, i see people gathering at the door and they look angry. you will be on "deadline: white house" so don't worry, audience, a bit more of lisa rubin. thank you very much. ken, i interrupted you as you were listing off a third thought. >> it was remarkable the level of detail here. they have just unloaded everything they have to argue with evidence that these were private acts and not official acts. back to the scene where mike

pence is in danger, aides are rushing in to urge donald trump to do something to calm the waters, telling him his vice president's life is in danger. i'm going to continue reading. the defendant further revealed the private nature of his desperate conduct as a candidate rather than as a president in an exchange that the government does not plan to use at trial. he had with an aide and these aides are unnamed shortly after the 2:24 tweet, the infamous tweet condemning mike pence. upon receiving a phone call alerting him that pence had been taken to a secure location, this aide rushed to the dining room to inform the defendant, donald trump, in hopes that the defendant would take action to ensure pence's safety. instead, after this aide delivered the news, the defendant looked at him and said only "so what." and there are scenes like this throughout this document. we're going to have to read through it, we've just gotten it, but it is the attempt by jack smith to show the public and the courts everything they have in argument that a lot of

this conduct was private. and ultimately, you know, their audience here is judge chutkan, but this is going to go to the appeals court and ultimately going to go to the supreme court and they are -- they are -- >> they're going to have to make that argument again in front of clarence thomas, samuel alito and kavanaugh and gorsuch and they're going to have to convince them once again that they believe that donald trump is immune from -- or not immune from this sort of -- this sort of behavior. that these acts were unofficial, they were nonofficial. they could have made a ruling on all of this stuff directly, this case directly when this case was in front of the supreme court. they didn't. they did send it back to judge tanya chutkan to decide where the lines were. we will see if they have any room for it. i'm going to read one more bit and hand it over to "deadline: white house" in talking about the tweets about mike pence. the context and content of these tweets establish that they were unofficial, jack smith argues. through the tweets the defendant was using the political pressure of his supporters and social

media followers to convince pence to take an action to benefit the defendant as a candidate and help him overturn the results of the election. as discussed, the defendant played no official role in the congressional certification proceeding and was not using his tweets about pence's role to advance any executive branch or government interest. likewise, the defendant had no role in whether state legislatures might take action regarding their own electoral slates. they go on to say that this was a criminal enterprise. donald trump was not acting as the president. don't worry, there will be so much more on this. ken dilanian, thank you very much. "deadline: white house" starts right now. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. we have major breaking news to tell you about in the case of the united states of america versus donald j. trump with