we hear chris krebs has talked to the special prosecutors. how might he help their case? >> in order to prove anything in court, prosecutors have to establish intent. what was in the defendant's head at the time that he did the thing he is accused of doing. someone like chris krebs can speak to donald trump's intent with respect to did he know he lost the election and continued to engage in acts of fraud, which is really what the accusation. >> right. >> conspiracy to defraud the united states. and that is what the charge is likely to be. it's very valuable information. also because of the fact that krebs would have been briefing the former president as far back as february 2020, months before he was fired, providing the same information about sort of the integrity of the american election system. so there is a lot that he can provide. there is a lot to say. but look, anybody who seemed to have talked to donald trump over the course of the last several years seems to have spoken to the grand jury. he is just another one. >> yeah. there are 22 names that people may actuall

chris krebs is another big name who may have deep insight into what was going on behind the scenes. his team has been axing about his firing and his firing around the time. another team and -- trump saying what will be after an indictment. the grand jury didn't meet today. why? more of that, coming up. also, disturbing news from the world of basketball. lebron james's son, ronny james, suffered a cardiac arrest during basketball practice at usc and was hospitalized yesterday. he is only 18 years old. so, what happened? how common is this in young, seemingly healthy athletes? we discuss all of that as well as the controversy and covid vaccine conspiracies that always seem to arise in these cases. our sanjay gupta why isn't ahead on. that plus, a threat to impeach president biden is growing as republican house speaker kevin mccarthy ramps up the accusations without offering any verified facts at this moment. how impeachments don't always hurt the politicians they are in debt. >> mark this continues to unravel, it rises to the level to require and what that provides is that the america

but as garrett mentioned, the fact that chris krebs is being interviewed by the special counsel showsey're really zeroing in on exactly what the january 6th committee was zeroing in on and that we showed during our first two hearings was that donald trump lost the election and he knew it or should have known it. there are enough people around him that tole him this, and the select committee looked into that, proved that, and the special counsel's only going deeper by looking at this 2020 meeting even before the election even happened. >> as we're talking about all these election issues, i want to shift gears to georgia because there's obviously an ongoing case happening there, and multiple cases, two georgia election workers have sued rudy giuliani overs false claims he made against them. there's a new filing in his case where giuliani is not disputing that he lied about these two election workers. so lisa, what's the potential legal fallout and how do you see it sort of, you know, i guess bolstering some of the other election interference investigations? >> i'm not sure i necessarily

and he went on and on and on, saying, therefore, chris krebs has been terminated effective immediately. well, there you have it. good enough to be praised when trump thought he was winning, fired by a tweet for saying the truth when trump lost. now, these exclusive new details come as jack smith's investigation appears to be in its final stages. trump and his team are now expecting an indictment after receiving a target letter from the special counsel. that indictment could come at any moment. the d.c. grand jury in this case is scheduled to meet tomorrow morning, and that is where our paula reid is "outfront" now. paula, what more can you tell us about this february 2020 meeting? we understand it was in the oval office, and how key it may be for jack smith? >> reporter: erin, based on this new reporting, it's clear that the special counsel is really focused on trump's mindset before he started publicly attacking the integrity of the u.s. election system. another thing i think is really interesting in this new reporting from our colleagues is that they also asked multiple witnesses if

and chris krebs, remember that guy?s in charge of election security under trump, has officially confirmed to nbc that he has spoken to jack smith's team. if you recall, trump fired crowds on twitter of all places after he insisted that the 2020 election was, quote, the most secure in american history. jack smith also continues to focus on the role of fake electors. two more people have been subpoenaed and are set to appear before the grand jury in the month of august. meanwhile, trump longtime loyalist and former white house trade advisor, peter navarro, is publicly defending his former boss, and issuing warnings that sound an awful lot like serious threats. navarro warned of a, quote, civil war as a result of the trump investigations. >> such an unthinkable war breaks out, it will be the democrats fault. the democrat activists and strategists now are driving this nation towards a second civil war, and neither justice nor righteousness on their side. my strong admonition for these democrats, as i appeal to your party, i

we also now have learned that chris krebs and richard donoghue sat down with the special counsel.rt putting you all of these pieces together for us. sort of where do we stand this morning? >> this is important new information that chris krebs and richard donoghue spoke with the special counsel. rudy giuliani is probably the least credible person i could think of. richard donoghue is about the most credible. i don't know him personally. he is a long-time federal prosecutor. he did the right thing here. he testified he is on the phone with donald trump in a conference call and takes a note. trump says, just you, doj, say the election was corrupt and me and the republican congress will do do the resist. that is one of the most incriminating pieces of evidence that we know of. the fact that jack smith is talking to him i think significant. >> hunter biden is going to walk in a courtroom in delaware. aside from the optics and the fact that this is the first in american history, the republican chair of the house ways and means committee is saying, wait, jung, don't green stamp this. tak

we heard that chris krebs told him after the election it was the most secure in history.ward and said, we looked at everything and this -- when you put all of that together you can find a conclusion that donald trump actually -- totality of the circumstances to draw -- what person knew and here this piece of evidence will be part of that totality of the circumstances to draw that inference that he lost this election. >> that point, david, donald trump can plead ignorance there. you can say i believe this entire time that i won this election and when he was calling brad raffensperger in georgia telling him to find votes you have now a very established timeline of evidence of people, of credible people, security heads in these cases, telling the president that these were free and fair and secure elections. >> and there's even more than that. my colleague at mother jones, dan freeman, reported that audiotape that you might recall, steve bannon before the election, saying that donald trump at the election, or after, is going to declare victory whether he wins or doesn't win.

five days later, trump fired chris krebs by tweet. a frequent guest on the show, a guy who was adamant in real time in november of 2020 and thereafter saying this election was secure, we have taken extraordinary measures to make sure it was and that drew the ire of president trump who fired him by tweet. >> and let's remember that chris krebs agency he touted both before and after votes about the safeguards they had taken to secure the election. 2020 being the first presidential election that took place after russia's interference in 2016 so they are focused on a lot of these foreign groups and outside hacking attempts. but of course, they will look at domestic ones, as well. it seems like chris krebs will play a pretty significant role in the jack smith investigation as he pieces together this case. we should note that though we don't know whether it will come down to donald trump's team preparing it will come down tomorrow. that is when they believe it will happen and they are deeply worried about him possibly standing in front of a

joining me now is the former senior official at the department of homeland security chris krebs. good to have you on, chris. >> good to be on, jim. >> the breaches were not of classifiedbut as you know, china and other state and nonstate actors will use information from nonsensitive systems. when you look at the scope of this one, how big is it? >> the most concerning aspect of this hack is it's a fundamental security tool inside microsoft that was obtained by the chinese-affiliated actors and they were able to use those to gain access to these accounts as you said. the upside or the good news -- and there is some here. it was a fairly limited in scope -- you mentioned the state department and capitol hill. my understanding is it's a handful of agencies, possibly three, and fewer than ten accounts per agency. very targeted. very narrow. we got on it -- the u.s. government detected it early and was able to report it to microsoft and mitigate. >> that's key. early detection is key when you look back at a russian breach of the state department, they were in there for months and didn'

chris krebs was in charge of cyber security. he said publicly this was secure and then was fired. richard donoghue was a high-ranking doj official and he, let's remember what he testified when he went in front of the january 6 committee. let's take a quick listen to that. >> you also noted that mr. rosen said to mr. trump, quote, doj can't and won't snap its fingers. how did the president respond to that, sir? >> very quickly and said that's not what i'm asking you to do. just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen. >> just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the rest of the congressmen. he has a handwritten note. that's really important to prosecutors. >> appreciate it as always. >>> rudy giuliani is conceding in a court filing that he made defameatory comments to resolve a lawsuit against him brought by ruby freeman and her daughter. former president trump and his then personal attorney giuliani says giuliani targeted them after the 2020 election by tweeting this surveillance video. giuliani also repeated the lies when he answered

. >> and joining us now former director of the cybersecurity infrastructure security agency chris krebs. he was fired by former president trump via tweet after calling the 2020 election the most secure in american history. chris, help us better understand what this means. how widespread is this attack and how sensitive is the information that has been exposed? >> good morning. thanks for having me on. well, i think the good news here is that it was a fairly short duration attack. my understanding is that they obtained or accessed accounts at state department in may of this year. it was discovered in mid-june and promptly notified to microsoft and microsoft was able to close out the access. as you mentioned, it's only a handful of accounts. however, as you point out, the secretary's account was included in the compromise. and talks with china are at an all-time high right now, concluding with secretary yellen's visit and a promise and discussion about the secretary's visit to china. why? sanctions. there are a number of issues that the white house is looking at with foreign direct invest

it suggests they are going right at donald trump's state of mind. >> we mentioned chris krebs, formerecurity chief, part of the department of homeland security under trump, he confirms he has spoken to prosecutors in jack smith's office. do we know what he has been telling them? >> well, he's got a huge story to tell, not just this meeting. he would have been a part of this or familiar with it, so he was involved with shoring up the election, and then after the election, remember, he looked into every possible allegation of fraud or irregularity, and he and his agency, the cyber security and infrastructure agency concluded there was none, and went public, this was one of the most secure elections in history, he was fired by donald trump for doing that. he's got a very important story to tell about mr. trump's knowledge about election security, and his potential criminal intent. >> ken dilanian, really appreciate that. thank you. back with us now, former federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst, joyce vance, explain the legal significance of donald trump being receptive to our electi

we know subsequently that chris krebs had been fired after that. but the statement was we know based on the exact systems that trump had praised during this 2020 election. so what do you make of that? >> look, i think that the actual firing and the retaliation is something that jack smith and the grand jury will take note of. this meeting, though, i'm not so certain that it is going to go a long way in convincing someone that a crime was committed. i understand the fact that you have to prove intent or mens rea, but i don't think you get there by proving that donald trump is not smart or not a smart man. if that is a case, you could indict half of the united states senate. so i don't think that is going to go far. but i do believe the treasure trove of documents from rudy giuliani, when you tart turning over notes and text messages, et cetera, that is going further than donald trump doesn't believe in facts. that for me didn't hold a great deal of weight. firing someone for telling the truth, that retaliation, maybe. that sounds more like a civil e

here's what chris krebs, huge he is. with cnn's jim sciutto earlier this week. >> i have to say the hair on the back of my neck stood up thinking about 2020 and what we have in store for 2024. look. any software has potential vulnerabilities. it is just a matter of time before a bad guy finds it, or a good guy finds it and patches it. or a good guy finds it and exploits it. the key, particularly for elections in the united states, was software independence. >> yeah, he's talking about software that might be used in upcoming elections and how this might be vulnerable. krebs, as you know, was fired by trump and his narrative. what are your concerns heading into 2024? >> well, these are the things we've been thinking about and moving on for a long time. i was the first election official to appoint an election security, elections information security officer specifically. we've got that now for the state of arizona. and a lot of other jurisdictions have done so since. we are somewhat vulnerable. just like any other system. a

we've also learned that chris krebs, if that name sounds familiar, he was the top election security official the election. he spoke to the special counsel's office as well. what is the significance of the timing of this. >> let's put it in the context of our other reporting. this week colleagues broke the news that prosecutors have been asking about a meeting in the oval office in early 2020 where former president trump, then president trump, praised those efforts to shore up the security of our election systems an trump was so impressed by this privately but then publicly he was attacking the security of our election systems, prosecutors were also asking about whether any officials who publicly contradicted him, if there was any retaliation. he was fame lously fired and they've been asking about the meeting and possible retaliation. >> and chris krebs was the one who said that 2020 was the safest election in u.s. history as he was head and he should know and he was subsequently fired. you mentioned rudy giuliani so let's talk about him. he's conceded that he made defamatory statements about

former director of the cyber security and infrastructure security agency chris krebs confirmed to nbc news he was interviewed by investigators but would not characterize what was discussed in the interview nor when it took place. krebs, of course, was at odds with trump in the aftermath of that 2020 election because krebs insisted that the voting systems were protected. as the agency's director krebs focus on u.s. election infrastructure nationwide and efforts to stop any foreign government interference or hacking of the voting system. while he was in charge, the agency released a rumor-controlled website that debunked some of the false election conspiracy theories that trump himself spread after he was defeated by joe biden. notably, on november 12, 2020, the agency issued a joint statement with other election security groups, calling the election the most secure in american history. five days later, trump fired krebs by tweet. joining us now former u.s. attorney and an msnbc contributor barbara mcquade. barbara, great to see you as always. let's start there briefly with mr. krebs in

now that we have chris krebs confirming that he did speak with jack smith's team in early may, obviouslywa the top -- for people who don't remember him because it was obviously a really chaotic period, he was the top election cybersecurity official. and he had said this was one of the safest and most secure election in u.s. history. trump directly said that was why he fired him. what do you read into the fact that jack smith's team is not only speaking to him but they're also asking questions about the timeline surrounding his firing? >> yeah, to jack smith is a career non-political, very serious federal prosecutor, like laura before she left for higher pastures. >> says the man of the courtside podcast. oh, my goodness. thank you so much. wow. that's touching. >> what i think he's trying to do is really demonstrate something we call mens rea, criminal intent, which is did donald trump act with corrupt intent. and the way we do that is to look at starting in february of 2020, as the cnn story yesterday showed, that smith is investigating people that told trump and what trump said about j

it makes sense that people like chris krebs and richard donohue are among the people that jack smith wants to talk to. he wants to talk to all the people who are telling the former president that there was no fraud in the election that would justify overturning the results. but i think there's more than that. he's plarm interested in the people who rich donoghue in the clip you just played saying there were people in his ear, conspiracy theorists saying the opposite. those are the people jack smith has to worry about. was there enough being said to the former president that gives him a basis to say he had sort of a good faith belief in what was going on, that he didn't -- that he didn't really accept what was being said by all these other people? so that's the reason, for instance, you are hearing about the effort to talk to rudy giuliani, the effort to review all his documents because those two people were tasked with looking to see there was fraud. and to the extent they did not find any, that's yet more evidence to find people who were real loyalists to the former president, even

we know one top department of homeland security official, chris krebs, was fired. how do you read that? >> i think it goes to the same comments eli was making. intent will be a key element at least of the three statutes we know from the target letter that the justice department or special counsel are looking at right now. that team is going to assemble as many different pieces of evidence that point at the same idea, which is that trump knew the election was not stolen from him, and he knew the claims of fraud were fraud lulentfraudule. so retaliating against his own administration, who was out extoll the accuracy and security of the election, goes directly to his desire to eliminate those sort of statements and to eliminate people in his administration who were contradicting his claims of fraud. >> chris, i know you're near the bed minister property, what is the outlook there is, at least with the former president and his team. >> reporter: they do believe an indictment is coming, but when it comes to timing, it's unclear what that will look like. they are reading

joe geneva today asked chris krebs to be shot. death threats and a noose to be hung for treason because he was transferring a report from an ems to a county computer so he could read it. it has to stop. >> one night -- one night in december 2020 i was about to put my son to bed when dozens of individuals descended upon our home. growing in numbers over the course of an hour, they stood outside my front door, waking my neighbors, shouting obscenities and graphic threats into bull horns. to this day these images and that memory of that evening still haunts me. there's after ever permanent feeling of anxiety and dread that permeates our daily lives. not long ago our son standing in our driveway, picked up a stick, turned to me and said, don't worry, mom, if the bad guys come again i'll get them with this. he's 6 years old. >> threats and harassment like that have become a regular occurrence for election workers and election officials all across the united states. and like shaye moss and ruby freeman that means a lot of them choose no

recent spate of high profile hacks, we hone in on cyberattacks and the threat posed by china with chris krebs

joe asked today for chris krebs, the patriot that he ran beside to be shot. a 20 something -- has death threats and a noose, put out saying he should be hung for treason because he was transferring a report on fascists from in ems to county computer so he could read it. it has to stop. >> one night after december of 2020 i was about to put my son to bed. dozens of individuals descended upon our home. growing in numbers over the course of an hour, they stood outside my front door, waking my day burrs, shedding obscenity's and graphic threats and bullhorns. to this day, these images and memory of that evening still haunt me. there is an omnipresent feeling of anxiety and dread that permeates our daily lives and those of our families. not long ago, my son, standing in our driveway picked up a stick, turned to me and said, don't worry mom, if the bad guys come again, i'll get them with this. he's six years old. >> threats and harassment like that have become a regular occurrence for election workers and election officials all across the united states. like shaye

immediately after the election in trump's own head of cyber security, a man named chris krebs, said the election was the most secure in american history trump fired him by tweet within days. but all along it sure seems that president trump knew he had lost. he had been briefed months earlier about how secure the election systems were. he wanted to put out a press release about it, and he had admitted privately multiple times to multiple people that he had lost. >> and the president says, yeah, we need you to let that issue go to the next guy being president biden. >> i remember maybe a week after the election was called i popped into the oval just to like give the president the headlines and see how he was doing and he was looking at the tv and he said can you believe i lost to this f-ing guy. >> i said does the president really think he's lost, and he said a lot of teal times he tells me he lost but he wants to keep fighting it. he's pretty much acknowledged he'd lost. so he said something to the effect of i don't want people we lust, mark, this is embarrassing it, figure it out, figur

loud, i know i lost the election, if enough people tell him so, william barr and security expert, chris krebs and his own consultant, even if he stubbornly refuses to admit it, he can be blind to the fact he should know it's true. >> willful blindness is a legal term with consequences? >> it is because you can't read a person's mind. you can't say, i didn't see the accident. i was stand right there. i didn't see what happened. it's a jury question. it's a matter of what the jury believes. if you pile on enough evidence there's no way he could have believed that he won the election, in light of all of the things people were telling him, i think a jury can make a fair inference he did know he lost the election. he was refusing to admit it. >> we're going to continue to talk about this because there's so many layers and levels to the legal challenges the former president is facing. i want to talk to you. we'll do that in our hour. why you are where you are today. and we don't know from the statement from the former president he got this on sunday, where the proceeding would be carried out. >> al

we heard that chris krebs told us that even after the election it was the most secure in history.o of trump's own campaign analysts came forward and said that we looked at everything and we don't find any fraud. so when we put all of that together, you can reach a conclusion that donald trump absolutely knew that he had lost this election. jurors are to look at the totality of the circumstances to draw fear influences about a person knew. and here this piece of evidence would be part of that totality of the circumstances to draw the inference that he absolutely knew he lost the election. >> to that point, donald trump cannot plea ignorance here. he can't say that i believe this entire time that i won this election and that when he was calling brad raffensperger in georgia telling him to find votes, you have now a very established timeline of evidence of people, of credible people, security in these cases, telling the president that these were free and fair and secure elections. >> and there's even more than that. my colleague and -- reported that audiotape that you might recall, s

tells cnn he has spoken wite special counsel investigating s efforts to overturn the election, chris krebs. he puby rejected trump's claims of widespread fraud saying, quote, there is no evidence any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised and then he was fired. the former acting attorney general richard donahue has been interviewed by jack smith's team. he previously testified by the house january 6 committee that investigated the capitol riot and here is what he told them. >> you also noted that mr. rosen said to mr. trump, quote, doj can't and won't snap its fingers and change the outside come of the election. how did the president respond to that, sir? >> he responsibilitied quickly and said essentially, that's not what i'm asking you to do. what i'm asking to you do is say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen. >> meanwhile, trump told reporters in new orleans he's not worried businessing charges. >> i'm not concerned. we're legit. we have very corrupte running our country.>> if he is probe, trump 's charges cou

chris krebs who's in charge of security got fired because he said it was and yet at every turn what thes trump didn't listen to those people. he didn't listen to bill barr, his own attorney general. he listened to the people that were leading him down a road to overturn the election and people warned him every step of the way it could lead to violence. >> and i think a lot of the names you just mentioned today, the giuliani's, the johnniesmans, the people who had trump's ear when you look at and talk on capitol hill makes them want to go and scream into pillows thinking of those people advising the president. and will herd is running for 2024 but dan crenshaw, another republican on capitol hill, they were asked about the prospect of what it means for their party and this is what they said today. >> if the gop nominates donald trump as our nominee to go against joe biden we're willingly giving four more years to joe biden. >> in a general election, yeah, it makes it tougher. i hope it doesn't offend anyone to state that fact but it's true. it is what it is. >> i mean is it pretty obvious

immediately after the election when trump's own head of cybersecurity, a man called chris krebs said the election was the most secure in american history, trump fired him by tweets within days. but all along it sure seemed like president trump knew that he had lost. he'd been briefed months earlier about how secure the election systems were. he wanted to put out a press release about it. and he had admitted privately multiple times to multiple people that he had lost. >> so we're in the oval office and there's a discussion going on, and the president says, yeah we lost, we need to let that issue go to the next guy. meaning president biden. >> i remember maybe a week after the election was called, i popped into the oval just to like, give the president headlines and see how he was doing. he was looking at the tv, and he said can you believe i lost to this effing guy? >> he did he think he really lost, lot of times you tell me that alaska, the have to keep fighting it, he thinks that there might be an alternative election, he's pretty well acknowledged that he's lost. so he had somethi

unlikely he actually uttered those words, but the more you can have witnesses come in y william bar chris krebs, his own campaign members, his own polling statisticians. the more people can say we told him he t lost. and becausehe we cannot read another weperson's mind it's impossible to know their intent, but we can draw reasonable inferences based on all the things they said and all the things theynd did. and so all those things will be what the prosecutors are trying to putrs together to show that donald trump did indeed know he lost the election. and i'll add one other thing, the jury would also be instructed on a phrase known as willful blindness, which is once there's abundant evidence a fact is untrue, you cannot simply tu a blind eye and pretend it's not true. you cannot's ignore a high probability that a fact is true. >>is willful blindness indeed. charlie savage, barb muquade. >>> when we come back top republicans in the house coming back tobl defend the ex-preside. what plans they're making to counter these potentialin charg. >>> plus real life consequences of the big lie for those 1

a spokesperson tells nbc news the claims are false, and the cybersecurity's chris krebs tweeted, quotere literally every other carbon-based lifeform on earth. for example, drones plus bird strikes equals crash sites and biomass. pump the brakes here. people saying, oh, there were aliens on the ships. claire mccaskill, you're clear of your time in the senate and can be forthcoming about what you know about aliens. what do you make of this hearing? >> oh, man, color me skeptical. you know, en would the government have to gain by not being transparent about this? what would they have to gain in terms of safety in the skies? by the way, it was convenient that every time these witnesses were pressed about evidence, they said, "oh, i can't talk about it" or, "oh, it's too sensitive." i was in a lot of classified briefings. i served on the armed services committee for 12 years. i am not convinced that there is anything the government is hiding in this regard. i think the pentagon got it right. i think these guys found a couple of witnesses that were willing to kind of feed the masses in terms

during the announcement of krebs met his chief product officer, chris cox took a swipe at musk and his style of leadership. he said, we've been hearing from creators and public figures quite interested in having a platform that is the same lead on that they believe they can trust and rely upon for distribution. metal has a significant advantage over other twitter challenges. it already has billions of you says, on day one of 10, the company said 10000000 people signed onto the app. within 7 hours, most would have known tad's was coming. in fact, who most of the app last month trigger talk of meta ceo, mach stucco. but i must planning to stage a public cage fight a physical fight. the means what as absurd as the actual stunt would have been had it happened. when we were sped and the 2 men are keeping their backless birchwood for now. thanks for the little mermaid. miss marvel and console. what does those 3 disney productions have in common? they are all films and series that are relied on cultural consultants. a new role introduced to address issues of diversity and representation. move