Ukraine scheme. Later we will breakdown the latest news from the president ial race including the latest on the Georgia Election Board ruling on counting ballots. But first i want to get right into it with the Executive Producer of from russia with lev, my colleague, Rachel Maddow, who gets to add a new and important moniker to your resume. You are the Executive Producer of this amazing documentary we just watched. Congratulations, first of all, my friend. Thank you, it feels so great to have it out in the world. Have to ask you, did you like it . Not only did i like it, i was set up not to like it. I dont mean that for any other reason than lev is a complicated character and it is an honest documentary about the complexity of lev. His Wife Talks about the complexity of lev. You had the first interview with him all those years ago. So i was not sure what i wanted to know that i did not already know and you stitched the whole thing together in a way that makes me wish i knew all of this back then. You know, it does matter that he is a very compelling person. And you can tell this story and lots of different ways. You can tell this story from the perspective of the ambassador that was unjustly forced out. From the perspective of zelenskyy on the way he was extorted by trump in the crime against ukraine that was at the heart of the impeachment, the sort of culminating thing. You can tell it from the perspective of Rudy Giuliani. From the perspective of trump. To tell it from the perspective of lev, you get this guy who is a very flawed person. He is open about the fact that he does have a background where he was a hustler, involved in organized crime. He came up in that environment. The whole reason that characters were going after him for years is because he had these legal judgments and debts people are trying to collect from him. Definitely, you know, not a boy scout, but that is also part of the story. That is part of what is so amazing that he ended up in the White House. That he ended up tasked to do something by the president of the united states and when you layer on top of that what i believe is his genuine repentance and the fact that his phone has terabytes of evidence about what all these people did, it is unlike any other story that i know of from the Trump Era or my time and covering politics. The thing that makes this so great from the beginning is the degree to which lev leans into the fact that he is a mob like Character And Mob like characters and in some cases actual mobsters were embedded in the Trump Administration, which makes you wonder, the conclusion i come to after watching this is, who was really calling the shots during the Trump Administration during this time that you cover . That is part of the worrying thing, right . It is not just a character flaw, it is a national Security Problem when youve got criminals involved in the u. S. Government. When the crooks take over the White House, that is not just bad for the american people, but it is really good for the crooks because it means anybody involved with people they should not be involved with, anyone involved in crimes, also become susceptible to blackmail, to extortion, to doing all sorts of things that could pervert their work in what is supposed to be the public service. So it is really bad to have crooks in charge and in this case in ukraine, the permeability of the White House. The fact that the guy who ran the nightclub called Mafia Rave in ukraine had access to the president of the united states was seen as being a fantastic piece of news for the kinds of guys who would know a guy who ran the Mafia Rave club in kyiv. Those sorts of characters should not have access to the american president , to the state department, to getting an ambassador fired who they wanted out of the way because she was anticorruption. Those sorts of people should not be able to do it, but that is how the Trump Administration ran. That was a moment in the documentary when lev was relating the way in which he talked to Donald Trump about Marie Yovanovitch being the problem, the u. S. Ambassador to ukraine being the problem and needing to get rid of her and literally Donald Trump looks over his shoulder and says get rid of her, she is done and you realize in that moment, the power that people like Lev Parnas had in the Donald Trump circle. This is a real story about a fake story, essentially and Lev Parnas was involved in creating the fake story. There is a point where he is sitting in the control room, overseeing the interview with the former ukrainian minister of Internal Affairs and he describes it very well as old soviet Style State Tv propaganda. You have spent so much time talking about the funnel of misinformation in america and you have basically done a documentary about the funnel of misinformation. I mean when lev says at one point in the film, you know, i eventually realized that there was not anybody who fed us any piece of the story who wasnt either working for the russian government directly or working for russian intelligence. So this was a foreign Influence Operation to target the united states, right . The director of national intelligence has just said that russia is targeting our elections again in 2024 to try to get trump back in the White House as part of the overall effort to harm and weaken the united states. You know, using their best weapon against the united states, which they think is Donald Trump in power. They are doing and now, which is why we have seen these indictments from the Justice Department in recent days. Famously we remember what they did in 2016 to try to get trump in power with troll farms and wiki links and the Clinton Campaign and all that stuff. That is 2016. In between in 2020 what they did was lev. What they did was this project to create a story that would hopefully knocked Joe Biden out of the running for the democratic president Ial Nomination in 2020, because Donald Trump knew that biden had the best chance of beating him, so he wanted him out. So the russians ran and Influence Operation to try to essentially spoil Joe Bidens chances at winning the nomination and they went at 10 by what they thought was his achilles heel, which is his love for his son, hunter. His troubled son, hunter. Using a fathers love for his son against him i think is morally repugnant. I think it is evil, but it also was really consequential in Hunters Life and ultimately in the biden Familys Life and It Led to the first trump impeachment. It led to the change in Levs Life and him going to prison and all of this, but that was the origin. In a few minutes i will talk to lev and his wife, central characters in the show. These documentaries dont work without central characters. As you mentioned you can tell it from separate perspectives, but from too many perspectives and you lose the effect of the story. He frames himself as The Con Man Who got pond. At the same time, as we discussed, he really did help orchestrate this whole operation. Yes. I know where i stand on this having watched this, but for the viewer, why should they believe Lev Parnas now . It is a very good question, totally fair question and one we had to confront and have long conversations with the Director And Producer of the film. We talked about this a lot because that is core to the journalistic import of the film. Can you believe what he is saying . There are two things i think are powerful. Maybe three things, but two main things that powerfully come down on the side of believing what lev is saying. One of them is the first interview he did with me in january, 2020, which set this whole process in motion. You know how this works. When somebody gets arrested, somebody gets indicted, the one thing you can be sure they are not going to do next is appear on television doing an interview with a real journalist, right . And yet after lev was arrested and indicted, he came and did that interview with me at great legal peril to himself. The Justice Department actually tried to remand him to custody because he did that interview with me. All of his sort of come to jesus, heres what i know, let me testify, let me tell you what i know, let me show you whats on my phone, all of that was not only not in his own interest, it was against his interest directly and may have led to a lot of the legal peril that he found himself in. It was not selfinterested and i found that important. The incentives went the other way. The other part is that he really does have a record of all the things hes talking about. Hes got thousands and thousands and thousands of text messages, thousands of documents in his icloud. Thousands of photos and he gave us full access to all of that to make this film, which was the most amazing Fact Checking Process i have ever sort of been through for such an incredible story to tell about important people. We watched together a powerful moment at The End of the film and now it is out there, we can talk about The End of the film, where Lev Parnas finally meets Hunter Biden. How did that come together . So we had a totally different ending planned for the film and in his final interview, it was the series of interviews with lev that made the sort of core of the film and in his final interview he said to the director, you know, i am going to go to my Probation Officer and ask for permission to leave the state of florida, because i would like to go to california and apologized Hunter Biden facetoface. Billy was like okay, sure, i want a pony. I know that you want that, it doesnt mean it is going to happen, but lev made it happen. He figured out how to contact Hunter Biden. Hes that im doing this documentary and i would like to apologize to you faceto face. You dont have to say yes, but would you consider it and if so could i bring a camera . I did not even bother putting it on my calendar. I never thought it would happen and then it just did and we didnt know when lev walked in the room whether hunter wood, you know, punch him out or talk to him or accept his offers of forgiveness and accept his apology and it was really a remarkable moment given what he was the author of in Hunters Life. He understands the role of what he did and where we are now with the invasion of russia and the russian invasion of ukraine and we are still waiting to see what the outcome of that war is going to be, but throughout the ukraine war as i was covering it, and maybe this is part of his penance. He was trying to be really helpful, saying what you need when you were in ukraine and trying to do things to allow us to cover it. As you recall i was sitting in for you when i was doing that. What is your sense of lev . Is he a changed man . I mean i think he is still the same person. I think hes very smart. I think hes charismatic. I think like svetlana says early in the film, No One has ever forgotten meeting him. There is a real charisma, thats true, but i think that he has been through a real transformation. He talks about having been in a colt and is not using that as hyperbole. He thinks of himself as effectively having been in a colt and coming out the other side of it and it has been brutal for his family. Svetlanas love for him is another thing i find moving. Very compelling. Very compelling. She is the star in many ways. I am curious to see what you think and how that goes. She is amazing. When lev says now what he would like to do is help people get out of the trump colt, to help people come out the other side of it the way that he did, i believe him. This was the story of his life and he wants to try to help and i am interested to see what he does. I think he has a lot to offer. It was a marvelous film. What did it feel like to be a filmmaker . I dont even know. This was the first Feature Documentary we produced at surprise inside, my production company. I hope it is the first of many, but it is like giving birth to a 600 pound baby. It does not feel like you will ever do it again. I was very fortunate to have them at the home of this. A total privilege to work with filmmakers that talented and with whom i share a sense of humor and a sense of the importance of this story, so i dont know. I dont know if i will ever be able to do something like this again. I would love to. We will see. I am thankful to Msnbc Films and universal Television Alternative studios for helping out. There is a lot of content, but this was amazingly compelling. Congratulations, my friend. Well deserved. I will be watching it again because it is one of those things that you need to see again, to hear those things again and have it all land in your brain, so i am really grateful to you and thank you. Thanks, much appreciated, my friend. When we come back as promised, Lev Parnas and his wife, svetlana. We will get their take on the film, Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and the mission to dig up dirt. Later as voting gets underway in three states, Vice President harris campaigned in georgia, where the state Election Board passed last Minute Rule changes that could make a miss on Election Night and for days and weeks to come. The 11th hour just getting underway on a friday night. [child laughing] [child giggling with delight] come on you two. Dinner time. Ooooh. Ooooh. Some days, you can feel like a spectator in your own life with chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month each lasting 4 hours or more. Botox prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. And treatment is 4 times a year. In a survey, 91 of users wish theyd started sooner. So why wait . Talk to your doctor. Effects of botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. 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I betrayed america. Im sorry. That is Lev Parnas and his wife, svetlana, in the new msnbc film, from russia with lev. Both of them are joining us live tonight. Good evening to both of you. I have not told a lot of people this. In fact i just set it to rachel. On the first trip to ukraine i was not even at the airport and you were the first person to call and say, what do you need when you get there . You and i have known Each Other for a while and i appreciate that you reached out on that very day. Svetlana, i did not know you and if lev is the narrator of the story, you are the commentary about the whole thing. What did you think of it . Well i loved the documentary. I think it was so special the way that it was directed and produced. I think it was really special. I did not expect for the documentary to turn out the way that it did. Some of it i was a little surprised by the Moments Billy Cott of both of us, but overall i think that the documentary is really important for our country right now. I think it speaks to the power of truth. The power of redemption. Reconciliation and unity and i if that can be taken away tonight from this documentary, i think that would make us very happy. Lets talk about reconciliation. Lev, lets start at The End where we saw your meeting with Hunter Biden. What were you expecting . In the moments up to that you are in the car, holding hands. She asks if you are ready and you get out of the car. How did that meeting go compared to what you expected it to do . I definitely didnt expect hunter to, you know, you know, accept my apology. I never expected that. I was blessed and thankful that he would meet with me. I wanted to get the opportunity to apologize to him. I wanted to give him the opportunity to ask questions and to let him know that if there was anything i could help him out with, tell him stuff i was involved with and hunter, you know, embraced me and accepted my apology and said some of the strongest words ive ever heard and i think that is why it is so important. People dont really know Hunter Biden. They hear these narratives that i helped create of a human being, of a father, of a son and used his addiction to do it and that was the sick part about it. To have him sit and embrace me and accept my apology and tell me he is proud of me. I mean it was so emotional. I cant believe it and i am grateful and thankful to hunter and to his wife, melissa, and to the whole Biden Family. Like i said it is my mis