on that point, what miaht this vladamir putin. on that point, what might this now— vladamir putin.oint, what might this now mean _ vladamir putin. on that point, what might this now mean for— vladamir putin. on that point, what might this now mean for the - vladamir putin. on that point, what might this now mean for the future | might this now mean for the future of wagner mercenary forces. we heard from president vladamir putin saying they were funded by russia, presumably that funding will now stop so what happens next? interesting because that is the first time that president vladamir putin has ever made such a claim. he spent years denying the very existence of the wagner group and certainly never claimed that direct link in terms of funding. i think he was doing it to make a point on he wanted to say that this has been our toy essentially, we have been paying the bills and now we will not pay them any longer, so wagner will be strangled. the group itself does have a separate financing because it is a mercenary operation and is operating all of many countries in africa for exam

the leader of the uprising says vladamir putin is deeply mistake anne donovan calling his fighters traitors putin is vowing to crush the rebellion. a developing story inside russia with a lot of ramifications as we get more information this morning, we'll bring it to you. will: meanwhile attorney general merrick garland pushing back against testimony by an irs whistle blower that the justice department interfered with the investigation into hunter biden. >> he was appointed by president trump as u.s. attorney in delaware and assign bid the previous administration. i don't know how it would be possible for anybody to block him bring ago prosecution given that he has this authority. will: whistle blower revealing how long the fbi knew about hunter's infamous laptop. rachel: saying the fbi verified the laptop's authenticity in november of 2019 by matching the device number against hunter biden's apple i cloud id. pete: tristan levet is the attorney and president of empoweroversight.org and joining us now. thank you for being here. tell us how has it been since your client has come public with

. >> rebecca, changing vladamir putin is responderring how internally? >> putin continues to enjoy at least according to the russian state sources as well as sources that are considered aauthoritative by -- authoritative by western analysts and between 70 and 80% approval rating and that could also be part of the russian people fearing to express their opinion. what happens right now is that the elite and russian elites including the children of military leaders are still parting in the west in london, new york, miami and the common folk and the russian defense minister he said we do not fight children but children with 18 year-olds and they've drafted and untrained and unprepared whereas the wagner group fighters and they're battling hard and versus fighters and all over africa and it's in a very complicated situation and the pent gone watching this very closely and -- pentagon and watching this very closely and putin presiding over the largest nuclear arsenal. will: rebekah, there's the devil you know and devil you do not know. does he represent a real

how is vladamir putin responding to all this?ears to be increasingly concerned about all this. one of the things we have seen over the past year is that the russians have felt pretty invincible on their home territory. well, today, vladamir putin striking a decidedly different note. let's listen in. >> translator: today, we will also address these issues in relation to assuring russia's security. in this case, domestic political security ---ing the efforts of our foes to destabilize the situation inside russia. we must do everything we can to prevent this from happening no matter the cost. >> reporter: he's talking about the situation in russia, possibly being destabilize. that's something we haven't heard to that extent before. one to have things the ukrainians were saying is they believe the russians have positioned special forces in that region to come to terms with that situation. but it is a vast and large region that's being hit in that cross border shelling. two people have been killed. but we have also seen drone attacks

the incident now raising new questions about vladamir putin's hold on power. ys ago putin looked like the strong man with an iron grip on power for 20 years. but then his one time ally with thousands of battle hardened mercenaries by his side, suddenly mutiny. marching on moscow against russia's leaders. putin calling it a stab in the back and coup. prigozhin's men heading toward moscow but meeting relatively little resistance. then, within 120 miles of the russian capital, suddenly prigozhin calling a halt to the advance. in exchange he got amnesty for him and his men. we probably haven't seen the last for him. for now vladamir putin looks weakened. president zelenskyy now warning russia may be planning an attack on europe's largest nuclear plant. with the head of ukrainian military intelligence telling a magazine the plan to stage, quote, a terrorist attack on the plant in, quote, fully worked out and approved, just awaiting final order to blow it up. something russia denies. linsey? >> thank you. now to prince william's new passion project ending homelessnes

of questioning yesterday, they're still insistent that donald trump won the election because vladamir putin interfered and colluded with donald trump to lead to that end. they went through to embarrass a career civil servant john durham and steve cohen said there, terrific stuff. keep in mind that john durham won an award from eric holder when he was in charge of the justice department. this isn't like a maga leader. it was a sad display and he stuck to the facts and democrats stuck to lies. >> it was expected to take three hours. it was a six hour testimony, and it is clear that the cia, the fbi, former president obama, all knew about this plan that hillary clinton had to tie trump to russia. but they didn't say anything and let the investigation play out and one of the most interesting things is when john durham was talk about the moments of the hurricane to investigate trump russia collusion and he told them about the clinton plan and the fbi already knew about it, and he said the agent e immediately became emotional, got up and left the room with his lawyer and spent time in the hallway

while he made swift progress facing inexperienced local troops, he soon realized that vladamir putin, his long time ally, was siding with the ministry of defense and key leaders in moscow were siding with putin. that is when he accepted the deal to go into exile. the u.s. official said they do believe he will go to belarus, if he's not there already, but he will not likely stay there, adding that his long term survivability is hard to calculate. michael? >> we can imagine that, martha. thank you very much. gonna turn to the audio recording of former president trump discussing classified information. prosecutors indicated it was a critical piece of evidence in the special council's indictment. we are now hearing it for the first time. pierre thomas has the story. good morning, pierre. >> reporter: good morning, michael. prosecutors clearly believe that this audio helps to establish trump's state of mind and his understanding about the nature of the classified documents he had taken. this morning we're hearing former president trump for the first time appearing to discuss having a class

. >> steve: coming up in 10 minutes on "fox and friends," vladamir putin hiding from public view afterallenge to his power in decades from an attempted uprising from the mercenary group. stay tunes. at home, president biden dealing with fall out as republicans in congress vow to push on with the investigation into his family's business dealings after doj cut a sweetheart deal with hunter biden as his rival, donald trump, tells to grow and lead in # poll. speaker of the house kevin mccarthy, will join us with a look at this and more. stuart, piers, and kirk the cyber guy will be here. buckle up, folks, nie minutes from now, we take the stage. in the meantime, ashley and carley back in a couple, you are watching "fox and friends first." your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. check it out, you could save $700 dollars just by switching. ooooh, i'll look into that. let me put a reminder on my phone. save $700 dollars. pick up dad from airport? ohhhhhh. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ so many hotels. ah! ah! ah! trouble booking the family va

meanwhile, president vladamir putin has tried to rally russia's military and security services, thanking them for preventing a civil warfrom breaking out. in a speech, mr putin insisted his rule was not weakened during saturday's rebellion by the wagner mercenaries. he suggested russia's regular military showed restraint by not being drawn into any fighting. our moscow editor steve rosenberg reports. vladimir, vladimirovich putin. at the kremlin, it was pomp with a purpose... ..to remind russians he is still in charge around here. waiting for vladimir putin — 2,500 soldiers and guards, and the defence minister the wagner mutineers wanted sacked. having survived the rebellion, it was time to say thank you. translation: you defended the constitutional order, - the lives, security and the freedom of our citizens. you have saved our motherland from upheaval. in fact, you have stopped a civil war. in fact, the reality was rather different. the wagner soldiers, who had been cheered on the streets of rostov, had only stopped their rebellion after the kremlin did a deal with them, promising not

vladamir putin issues his first statement since this weekend's mutiny. >> bryan: makes no mention of the rebellion against him. >> ainsley: mark meridith is live at the white house. >> it could be effort to reinforce his standing on the world stage, after we saw the military go up against his regime and putin's government. the standoff between prigozhin did not last long, accepting a deal and receiving amnesty. >> putin is in power and stayed in power is he's seen as ruthless dictator, someone who everyone is afraid of. rag-tag group of mercenaries, 8000 strong can take over one of the biggest cities in russia. big sign of disrespect. >> we heard antony blinken who said the u.s. has forecast idea of an uprising for quite sometime. >> the rising storm inside of russia by prigozhin is something people have seen for months now. challenge to leadership. now questioning the premise of the war. >> the chaos in russia may raise concern about the state of nuclear arsenal a study found russians maintain large nuclear warhead inventory. over the weekend, president biden spoke with zelenskyy, z

there is the uncertainty over whether or not vladamir putin will be welcome when brics heads of stateeet in johannesburg this coming august. you may remember that the russian president is the subject of a war crimes arrest warrant that was issued by the international criminal court. our correspondent is in cape town. i asked him how big of a shadow the russian president's potential presence in august is casting. >> it has cast a big shadow over this meeting. i think if you look at what has been happening, the discussions, and on the pressure, the lobbying that has been happening before this meeting in south africa, it has cast a big shadow over this meeting. if you look at even the opposition here and south africa, the da has filed a court action to stop president putin to be admitted and step on south african soil. if you look at even the activists who are ramping up pressure on south africa, not to get president putin, we saw even at the meeting, as it was going on, there was a group of ukrainian association in south africa who were picketing at the meeting as well, calling for ukra

vladamir putin issues his first statement since this weekend's mutiny. >> bryan: makes no mention of meridith is live at the white house. >> it could be effort to

maria: you think vladamir putine is's exposed as weaker.irst time and he seems to be like the strong hand. now he's viewed as weak and chairman xi is looking at putiny his ally thinking is this his ally and assessing a potentialhs invasion into tie can. maria: let me is get your take on the china element here. chinese element here. xi jinping partnered up and how doyo they view the insurrection? >> not the united states making and internal insurrection withie rush cha against more of the ministry of defense than putin,u and makes putin look like he can't control his own army or people and therefore that weakened stature as counternt offensive iner ukraine is goingo forward and hiw,s closest ally, chairman xi probably having second thoughts with thead alliance with putin. maria: interesting. and nteri wonder if any of thise up during antony blinken's trip to beijing and able to shakeinpi hands with president >> i ping. ping -- xi jinpingu.. did the u.s. give up anything to have the meet something >> diplomacy is important but you want to hav

vladamir putin is a tyrannical dictator who's conducted an illegal war in ukraine, and prigozhin, bys a very frightening warlord who's committed atrocities in syria and ukraine. i think that's the important thing to remember. the other thing is that russia has more nuclear weapons than any other country on earth, so this highly volatile situation should concern everyone. but at this point, we really need to wait and see since we're less than 24 hours into this situation building. anita: yeah, no doubt. kristin, as a democrat, a democratic strategist, what do you want to hear from the white house about this, especially the latest news that we've just heard? >> you know, i think it's interesting, you know, i want to hear, you know, obviously overwhelming support, continuing support for ukraine. i think, you know, there was a lot of concern, and i'll take it back to the debt limit bill that was passed about the defense spending. there were members on both sides of the aisle in the senate who were very concerned about the level of spending and the ability that would, you know, the impact

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