thursday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now, good evening, alex. alex wag>> chris, domestic polin israel, netanyahu's ability to survive are just a dimension address that never ceases to stop me. >> it does seem like particularly with the war effort right now, andy fractiousness and the rage's government, even some of it beforehand, but in the aftermath, there is pressure building up in the chamber. we'll see where that goes. >> we will. thank you, my friend. thank you at-home for joining me this evening. if you missed it, this is what it looked like when robert f. kennedy junior officially announced that he would run as a third party candidate for president. [crowd chanting] [applause] >> i need my speech. [laughter] you can't read anything. you can't read anything. what? [crowd chanting] it's upside down. it's upside down. >> it's upside down. that is how rfk junior began his independent bid for the presidency last month, and that is kind of how it's been the whole time with rfk junior. his campaign has been full of unfortunate stunts, like pushing videos of himself doing pushups shirtless for the camera, for no reason at all. he is trafficked in wild conspiracy theories that are more suited to the dark web or a reddit page. >> covid-19 is targeted to attack caucasians and black people. the people most immune are ashkenazi jews. i don't know what happened on 9/11. i mean, i understand with the official explanation is. i understand that there is the scent. >> so there's that in your mind that al-qaeda was responsible. >> well, i know, i don't know, you know. i know they're strange things that have happened. >> and yet, the spite the f no immunity theories and 9/11 trutherism's, there are still people in this country that think the rfk junior belongs in the white house. this week, the new york times and cnn columnist released a poll of six battleground states, arizona, nevada, georgia, michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin. they found an f3 white race, 24% of registered voters in those swing states pick rfk junior. 33% shows joe biden, 35% shows donald trump digging a little deeper, that same poll found rfk junior beating both joe biden and donald trump among voters younger than 45. that is most pronounced among americans aged 18 to 29. candy -- kennedy at 34%, biden at 30%, and donald trump at 29%. another poll from quinnipiac found rfk getting 22% of the three right race, with biden receiving the jefferson and trump receiving 36%. now, it's not that voters are all of a sudden trooper levers that 9/11 was an inside job, or that covid is a government by a weapon, but it does appear that voters, especially young voters, are unhappy with both the likely nominees here and a third party candidate could have a real shot at the shopping this election. enough so that the current president of the united states and the former president of the united states could lose a key voting bloc to a shirtless vaccine skeptic. against that backdrop, we got this surprise announcement today. >> i have made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that i will not be running for reelection to the united states senate. but what i will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interesting creating a movement to mobilize the middle. >> west virginia democratic senator joe manchin announced today that he is not running for reelection in west virginia, and he hinted that was her sons like a potential third party presidential run. that whole traveled the country, talk to voters thing is reminiscent of hillary clinton's tour in 2015, before she ran for president. manchin's decision to not run for the senate seat as a moderately created problems are democrats looking to keep control of the senate in 2024. that is when the party will be defending seats and red states like ohio and montana. but a third party presidential bid by joe manchin, that complicates things on an entirely different level. if he decides to enter the race, manchin will be joining at least three other independent candidates. but precisely because he is a mainstream political actor and a democrat and not doing shirtless pushups and talking about the immune systems of ashkenazi jewish people, joe manchin could significantly change the landscape of the 2024 race, among a wider swath of voters, in a way that even the other third party candidates cannot. which is why, according to the washington post, republican senator mitt romney has been pushing manchin to give up on the idea of a presidential run, saying, i lobbied continuously, that it would only electrons. for now, all we know is that joe manchin is leaving the senate to see if there is a movement to mobilize the middle. joining me now are my friends, jennifer palmieri and mark mckinnon, co-host of the showtime's the circus, which after a great seasons, will air its series finale on sunday at seven pm eastern. i say that with a tear in my eye. >> you're not a big crier, alex, i am very moved. >> i am emotional about it. we'll get to a later after we have gotten to, well, equally emotional stuff, but in a different way. thank you for being here. mark, i have to start with you, because every time we wanted to interview joe manchin on the circus, we say, can they get us manchin? listen, i know, you know, joe manchin. you have talked to joe manchin. you helped establish the label of the sort of third party independent organization that you are no longer affiliated with. >> let's make that clear, yes. >> wonderfully clear. how do you read the decision at the announcement on joe manchin. today >> it's the surprise to me. manchin has always been thinking about something like this, making it look like this. -- jim justice would be a much stronger candidate, as republicans win and state, for trump, it's huge. it was like it for joe biden that manchin was their, when he was, to pass key legislation. >> although some people would say that he made it difficult to pass. >> sure, but they would not have passed the infrastructure bill without joe manchin. without joe justice, they would not have that bill. >> that is true. >> here's the thing, he obviously has a history of no labels. or familiar with each other. i've not been associated for a long time, so i don't know -- >> can i say it again, i am not affiliated -- >> i don't want to speak for the organization, and i don't know what is going on, or what the conversations have been, but he has a history, i think, that could line up. but here's the bottom line for me. i trust joe lieberman more than anyone in politics. he's a man of faith, a man of his words. he says a couple of things, one, if we put this together and cannot win, we're not going to pull it down. >> joe manchin? >> joe manchin or whoever is on the ticket. >> you set joe lieberman. >> but joe lieberman is the chairman of -- he's the chairman of no labels. >> that makes sense, i did not know that. >> he's the chairman of no labels. he is a man, like you said, i trust anything he says. if we put together this ticket, they cannot clearly win, will pull it down. the other thing he says is that the whole point of the exercise is to ensure that that trump is not reelected, so there's another plan b. this is mckinnon going rogue, but they can put popular republicans on the no labels ballot in five key swing states and take votes away from trump. >> but just as it pertains to manchin, i think there is a certain segment of the democratic electorate that heard the manchin announcement, and our hearts dropped. it's been a week for democrats. at the beginning of the week, the poll numbers, right? and then the high of tuesday night, the democratic platform, remain sound and strong. >> they are showing up everywhere, voting for democrats, it's like fall of 2022 still. and now -- >> there is a question about how much joe biden and the democratic platform are one in 2024, whether the distastes for abortion restrictions and any other issues that republicans bring up, are enough to translate into strong support for joe biden. i got to read the statement at the white house to, eugene. joe, gayle and the entire manchin family ship feel proud for the service in west virginia and our country. i look forward to continuing our work together, to get things done for the american people, says joe biden to joe manchin. our work together, jen, subjects, please don't run against me. >> in 2016, and jill stein, all it took was a gentle stun to run as the green party candidate, her margin of victory -- or the vote that she got in michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania was enough to get those states to donald trump. now, we have rfk junior, justine, cornell west and possibly joe manchin. so, it is -- joe manchin getting in the race, the whole thing explodes. we are in a different situation. now, having said that, there is zero evidence that there is grassroots support in america for a joe manchin candidacy. you cannot concoct these kinds of candidacies in a laboratory in washington d.c.. there needs to be some movement among grassroots that they want someone like him. my view is that there is a centrist that people can vote for anti presidential primary, and the presidential election, his name is joe biden. the agenda that he has put forward, the agenda that he is passing and asking for, it is right down the middle of mainstream america and supported by a big majority of america. you already have that. i just don't see what the theory is with a manchin candidacy. >> yeah, that's the question, right, does he siphon votes from biden or trump, but we know from polling, if you believe it. biden's problems are with younger voters and voters of color. >> not exactly his constituency, right? >> that is not joe manchin's bread and butter. does this hurt joe more than biden, if joe decides to run? >> i think the same as lieberman has said, i think the same is true, at the end of the day, joe manchin, he's a poker player, we'll put everything on the line, but at the end of the day, i don't think he would want to let donald trump get reelected. >> he is a good poker player. >> i do wonder, i do wonder -- let me just talk about the senate before we get into a big extension discussion about the middle and america. there is the very real, the looming reality that democrats could lose the senate in 2020. there is -- the joe manchin seat will go to a republican. >> we came to terms to that a while ago, joe justice will run against him, and then he will not be able to defeat somebody like that. and then it means that the democrats will have to win kristen sinema, does he need to be held by her or a democrat. that means that they have to hold and montana, get a chance of. that sherrod brown is with the work in ohio, very red states that democrats have to win to hold up the senate. >> when you talk about -- not shared brown, but when you think about kristen sinema and jon tester and even joe manchin, it also speaks to a certain reality of modern american politics, which is that the democratic tent has got real big, right? as the republican party has shrunk to a smaller and smaller group of the sort of maga acolytes, the democratic tent has expanded bigger and bigger. it's almost sort of like, it's the plain and obvious that if either side is going to shed centrists at this point, it's going to be the democratic party. that seems to be a natural extension of the intent to some. three >> individual candidates, they share races. you saw that with -- in kentucky for the end of the sheer race. jon tester, montanans know who he is. these candidates are very adept at working really hard to communicate within their own state about who they are, that is what they would have to do. >> jon tester knows retractable 's. >> yes, he does. >> one of my favorite scenes on the circus. >> they can be flat tire. >> that is jon tester for you. >> on his tractor. >> i want to ask you guys both, because when we talk about american politics, it's impossible to talk about, it's impossible to avoid conversations about things that we don't -- have done on the circus, whether it's jon tester having the tractor, or chasing joe manchin down on his hospital in washington d.c.. these are things that happen, for people that watch the circus. you guys have had a front row seat. i was there for a little bit of a, watching american politics, and i wonder whether you think, that as much we talk about how joe manchin could change the rules are not, whether you think that conventional wisdom, even still applies anymore, or we talk about what we think would happen -- >> absolutely not. >> i don't know. >> dick about conventional wisdom. it was that this show would be one and done. we would cover the hillary clinton for president candidate. >> the circus just did one presidential race, not all of them. >> we thought we would be one and done. how interesting with the hillary clinton presidency not being that interesting in a good way, but two weeks later, the circus had not stopped going. 130 absolute. are part of it is that it was a surprise after surprise that the surprise. if we pitched this as a fictional script, they would have turned it out. >> i feel like that night in atlanta, on january 5th, 2021, in atlanta, alex and i were both there covering jon ossoff and raphael warnock. they won. we had this conversation -- >> it was a feeling that we are in a different point of american politics. >> democrats are also cited but, that but that so many people voted, and they won in a runoff, more than ever before, and biden had won, and trump was not going to be able to steal the white house away from him. and then the next morning, the bottom fully fell out. that is when i felt like there are just -- you can look like very recent history to see like 2022, what motivated the turnout then, but to think that you can look back 20 or 30 years and predict how things are going to go based on what is necessary, it's very different time. >> you can say ross perot and justin all you want, but who really knows anything anymore about where we are headed. >> nobody knows nothing about nothing. >> listen, folks, i am sorry that we won't have the circus to tune into on sunday nights at seven regularly, but i am thrilled that maybe this means we'll be in new york city and available to join me more often. >> stay tuned. >> i will stay tuned. thank you for joining me, and congratulations. >> thank you for all you did for the circus. you were the straw that spurred the circus. >> the cocktail swizzle stick. we >> couldn't have done it without you. he really helped to make it the success that i was. >> olivia. palmieri and mark mckinnon, thank you for joining me tonight, my friends. did not forget to tune into the series finale of the circus this sunday at seven pm eastern on showtime. we have a lot more this evening, including an in-depth look at the on again, off again relationship between donald trump and fox news, which is apparently on again. ryan stelter joins me with a preview of his new chronicle about the network of lies. plus, special counsel jack smith previews a big piece of his case against trump and trump's attempt to steal the 2020 election, that is next. that is next. liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. with the money i saved, i started a dog walking business. oh. 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[upbeat music] ♪♪ ♪♪ new pork carnitas. only at el pollo loco. the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. >> so this, week we got an (♪♪) (♪♪) the new festive family meal. starting at $24. now celebrating at el pollo loco. interesting preview of a very important case. jack smith's trial strategy in the federal indictment of donald trump's efforts to undermine the 2020 election. last month, trump's lawyers asked the judge in the case, a judge tanya chutkan, to dismiss language when the indictment that linked trump to the violence of january six. and the special counsel's team responded to that to spe, calling trump's request a merit-less effort to evade the indictments clear allegations, that the defendant is responsible for the events at the capitol on january six. the defendants knew that the crowd that he had gathered in washington for the certification was going to be angry, despite this knowledge or perhaps because of it, the defendant told knowing lies about the vice presidents role of the congressional certification and directed the crowd to march to the capitol and fight. the special counsel plans to join two narratives here, one that trump lied about election fraud and, to, that he incited violence as a last resort to stay in power. this is from political today. by combining the trump allegations of election fraud with the riot, jack smith is unlocking a mountain of case log developed and the generous six rise cases, paying trump more clearly through the violence than he has been today. in short, smith has casting trump as one of the 1200 plus right defendants we have already charged. joining me now is mary mccord, former u.s. assistant attorney in washington d.c. and former acting assistant attorney general for national security. she is also, of course, the co-host of the msnbc podcast, parkas prosecuting donald trump. mary, it's good to see you tonight. we have not talked enough about the filings this week for the special counsel's office. this one to me seems significant in the it ties those 1200 plus jan six cases through the looming federal trial against donald trump on january six charges. can you explain a little bit the significance of uniting those two, as they call it, mountains of case law? >> yeah, first i have to say, it's kind of funky to m