it has to be about what you do for the rest of this country. >> ben collins, i got 30 seconds, but when i see whatever it is, 68 tweets before 8:00 a.m. from the president, my first instinct is to ask you what you make of this. >> umm, look, he has a message to get out this morning, specifically about portland. the worry for years and years was that these white militias and people on the left would start fighting in these pop-up civil wars throughout the country, and you know who that benefits. and the president knows who that benefits. so he has to get some messages out there about polling and he has to get messages out there about what he considers to be law and order. that's exactly what he's doing this morning. again, they may not be the accounts of genuine people. we don't know that, in part because their identities are masked. really think twice before you assume that somebody is real, even and maybe especially if the president is tweeting it. >> yeah, and one of these days you and i will have a conversation we've had in person many times, that we should have on tv, about the fact

ben collins reports on the far corners of the internet and joins us now. achlt thanks for having me. >> what is it about conspiracy theories like q anonare people latching on? i don't think it's that simple. >> it's not that simple. the thing is i'm sure you know somebody at this point, whether it's a friend from high school or somebody closer, a family member or someone like that, they've gone down this rabbit hole. it's not because they've lost it or anything. they've been trained by bad actors to go down this path. qanon followers started innovating fitness groups, religious groups, things like that in facebook in the last few months. they said, maybe you lost your job recently. you lost a family member to covid. maybe something really bad happened to you. instead of being hopeless, you know what you can do? you can trust the plan. that's their monitor. trump's the plan. they give you a catch automatic. an answer for everything. it's that donald trump is saving the world from all the bad guys and they're not just bad politically, they're really eating ch

nbc's ben collins joins me now. ben, let's just start from -- let's be honest.w me and you know i know nothing about tiktok. i don't have a tiktok account, don't know how it works. so, let's just start with this. is tiktok a threat from a security perspective? >> it is. but a couple of things can be true at once here. why are we starting with tiktok when there are chinese hardware companies with hardware in american homes that, you know, once they're there, they can pretty much do whatever they want? tiktok is behind a walled garden, what's known as a walled garden on the app store, in apple's app store, so there is some, you know, there is some sort of like a clearance they have to get past here. it's weird that they're starting with tiktok, especially considering what is happening with the president and this narrative that is basically as true as you want it to be, that these tiktok users messed with his tulsa rally. that was a narrative that really took off. it's sort of true. like, you know, they were a part of a campaign to try to prevent people from going

ben collins and clint watts, thank you both. think. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. >>> up ahead -- much more on this day of dramatic developments in american politics. bannon's indictment, obama's dire warning and president trump's legitimizing of a death cult. george will joins me to talk about all of it. >>> later -- does it all come down to tonight? joe biden is hours away from accepting the democratic nomination for president. a first look at what we expect to hear from him. >>> but first, as we've been doing this week, all this hour, we're going to share memorable moments from past democratic conventions. we'll begin in the wee hours of 1972. something joe biden doesn't have to worry about when presidential nominee george mcgovern didn't get to accept his nomination until 3:00 in the morning. >> to anyone in this hall or beyond who doubts the ability of democrats to join together in common cause, i say, never underestimate the power of richard nixon to bring harmony to democratic rise. stoppable. no sweat! try it and love

tom winter, shannon pettypiece, ben collins, appreciate all your work there on the dark web. we'll be checking in with you throughout the afternoon. let's bring in chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney, former fbi official, now an msnbc contributor. chuck, these charges against these four defendants including steve bannon, how serious are they? >> very serious, craig. on one hand, it's a simple straightforward case. they promised people they were raising money for a certain purpose, and then they diverted the purpose to their personal use, so simple case. that doesn't mean it's not a serious case. so far they've been charged with two conspiracy counts each, conspiracy to commit money laundering which carries a 20-year statutory maximum penalty and a conspiracy to commit wire fraud which carries the same 20-year statutory max. as tom winter said earlier, they're very unlikely to get 40 years in jail each, but these are serious felonies in a simple and straightforward case. >> sources familiar with this case, chuck, say bannon is going to plead not guilty. what are the next ste

joining me now is nbc news reporter ben collins. tendency to write-off conspiracy theories. this one is so far out there you assume nobody in their right mind could believe it. i was at a trump event down the street and people do believe it. they believe in this idea that the president is saving the world or -- can you explain what is happening and what it means to this group to have the president say, i'm happy that someone is out there believing i'm going to do good? >> reporter: it makes sense that people believe it and the president believe it. the president is the messiah in this. that's very much in keeping with this ego he likes. in terms of people believing this, they really do. at the end of the day it's a conspiracy theory about the world run by a global cannibal ring that eats children for their blood, that they think has magic powers. you would think how could regular people believe this. last week we talked to a person who owned a marketing company and during the pandemic lost everything. she got really sad and lonely an

talking about this for a couple of years and i sort of take some satisfaction in the fact you and ben collins live in this stuff so the rest of us don't have to worry about it, but you let it out. it's not in your swampy world in which you work, it is mainstream. it's not in the dark corners of the internet. there were 14 people who are running for congress, many of whom may win. >> yeah. qanon is no longer a part of the fringe. it is a mainstream political movement. it's terrifying, and, you know, what's been really interesting is that this week we had an investigation where we got some leaked documents from facebook, and facebook had an internal investigation where they were looking into qanon from the platform. and from that leaked investigation, the preliminary results we saw a scale that even frightened me. and this is, you know, the low guess of it according to this investigation is thousands of qanon groups with millions, at least 3 million -- that's the lowest estimate. at least 3 million members and followers. now, that's terrifying. i belong to a hundred of these groups personally,

brandy, nbc news reporter and ben collins, nbc news technology report, he are thanks to both of you.arning every state that it might not be able to deliver mail ballots on time. i'll speak to gary peters about it. velshi continues after a break. it. velshi continues after a break. ♪ here's your iced coffee! ♪ america runs on dunkin' thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr+/her2- metastatic breast cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole, and shrank tumors in over half of patients. patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs that can lead to death. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including trouble breathing, shortness of breath, cough,

me are two journalists who have done some of the best reporting on qanon's rise since the start, ben collinsimes" charlie warzell, opinion writer at-large. thank you for being with us. ben, i want to do just like a quick lightning round on this because i know you're able to play with me on this one here. describe your reaction, describe qanon five words or less. go. >> oh, man, donald trump is the messiah and taken down satanic cannibals throughout the world. that's not five but that's about it. >> your reaction to the president's comments, ben? >> honest to god, i thought almost precisely what he said was what he was going to say. he had, this is an electoral game for him. there are millions of people who believe in that stuff and we know that evidenced by some reporting from my colleague at nbc news, brandy, there is an internal document at facebook showed millions of people in groups and growing on a daily basis reading this stuff and really starting to believe it and this is not -- it's so ludicrous to us to rational thinkers but people get drawn down bad paths because they are nervous a

she asked the president that question and ben collins who has been following the qanon movement for yearsd like the president is willing to accept support from any group no matter how vile they are as long as they like him. >> and a lot of the language he used here talking about qanon. we've heard him use talking about white nationalist groups. i think back to this issue when it came up before and i talked to the president's business associates about it. a lot of them said this goes back to when he was a real estate developer and would sell an apartment to anybody as long as their checks cashed. an oligarch, a criminal, a dictator. he just wanted their business. and that's kind of really what it seems like here. he doesn't care who someone is. he just wants their vote. it's interesting on this qanon question. this was an interesting question. he could have said, i don't know anything about this and move on. i was sort of ready for that. but instead he clearly, as you just demonstrated, decided to go full on in and not only disavowing this group but really throwing the support behind their

this committee also said, again, let's see -- rubio, cotton, collins, blunt, cornyn, ben sasse all toldtold the truth and said that donald trump committed perjury in the robert mueller investigation in his answers to robert mueller, that he lied regarding his contacts with a man whose sentence he ultimately commuted and then said that donald trump and his campaign's behavior posed a grave risk -- a grave risk -- let me get this right. i want to make sure i get this language right. trump campaign's coordination with russians posed a, quote, grave counterintelligence threat to the united states of america. mind you, those two men that you're seeing right there, who, donald trump and his campaign coordinated with, apparently, if you believe these republicans. donald trump still hasn't talked to vladimir putin about the bounties that have been put on the head of young american servicemen and women in afghanistan, despite the fact people in this white house have been panicked since march about the need for him to take action. so, steve schmidt, with them having all of this information, i'm s

dejoy, and senators ben sasse, marco rubio, mitt romney, corey gardner, susan collins. i know this is really going to make you sad, susan collins. i wonder if donald trump learned -- susan, do you think he learned his lesson, right? you think donald trump learned his lesson? let me read you this quote, susan and you tell me whether you think donald trump learned his lesson. if we don't make a deal, donald trump said, that means they don't get the money. that is what donald trump said. that means they can't have universal mail-in voting. so sayeth donald trump. they just can't have it. jonathan, let me read it again. if we don't make a deal, that means they don't get the money. that means they can't have universal mail-in voting. they can't have it. and donald trump says this at the same time the post office sends a notice to 44 states that ballots in their states may not be counted. now, i know there's some of you under a spell. i understand that. i understand you are in a political cult, a personality cult. so i'm going to read you the quote for a third time and for yo