Public. Also out in the open, the Justice Departments fisa warrant for the former trump adviser carter page has been redacted, but this line was clear as day, quote, the fbi believes that page has been collaborating and conspireing with the russian government. Also four republican judges obviously thought there was something there. With us we have mike barnacle, John Heilemann, knnick confesso, carol lee, benjamin wittis and Michael Schmidt. So, John Heilemann, i dont know if Trump Supporters digest twitter the way i digest twitter, but if they do, these days especially on summer weekends, theyre probably getting one line into his rantings and its like scrolling on. Been there, done that. But the amount of vitriol, the amount of just craziness, the level of unmored behavior by the president this weekend was over the top. Its always over the top, but the intensity is picking up and of course it ended with him talking about fire and fury coming to iran. Right. Is this a president feeling more cornered than usual because of the Michael Cohen tapes . Well, its hard to judge exactly how cornered he feels relative to other times hes felt cornered. My thought when the story broke theres going to be a lot of all caps this weekend. There were. On a variety of topics. And as you pointed out, joe, he often Foreign Policy has become a place that is refuge for him. And its a little strange. There was a period, a moment, a brief moment, after the summit in singapore where with kim jongun where, the notion that he had engaged in this incredibly heated bellicose rhetoric with respect to north korea had somehow paid dividends and driven north korea to the table that he could make the argument that that kind of brinksmanship paid off. Given how things are going in north korea, its not so clear theres anything you can point to even in Donald Trumps tenuous logic, this firing up the rhetoric, this kind of exclamatory behavior is going to pay off on the Foreign Policy stage. But i think at heart, youre right. That this is, again, one of the many diversions he tried to throw up over the weekend where anything thats not discussion of russia and anything thats not a discussion of his sex life is in his view good for business. Yeah. Microsoft barnacle, speaking of russia, the lies just continued. Again, im talking about i know everybody goes, oh, we have to understand the trump voter. Who is the trump voter. We cant be disrespectful of the trump voter. I know a lot of people who were trump voters got a lot of friends who are trump voters. Got family members who are trump voters. But even they cannot believe the baldfaced lies, the obvious lies, the third grade level lies, the stupidity that come through in these tweets where the president has gone back this weekend and now said that putin didnt try to interfere in the 2016 election. Why didnt obama tell our campaign . Because its all a big hoax, thats why. And he thought crooked hillary was going to win. So donald trump, again, talking about how what our four intel agencies have all told him, all of his appointees have told him that russia did try to interfere in the election. But once again he is playing stooge, playing dupe for Vladimir Putin and the former soviet spy. He had a tough week, a week of apologies, not apologies, but coming back with other explanations. Carter page, a very unstable person involved, the fbi involved, the misleading tweet about what the fbi was doing, the double negatives, all of that capped off last night by what you just mentioned initially, joe, at the top of the show, 11 30 p. M. Last night, all caps, you know, you better watch out, iran, or something will happen to you thats never happened before in the history of the world, whatever he said. Unfortunately i think it kind of works for him with his constituents. Its a great deflection, but i think it works out there. I dont know, but mike, you can only hand the rose to the wrong woman so many times in bachelor marcus proved that to be untrue, joe. While youre lying to the other one, after a while people abc cant do that at the end of the season again. Donald trump does view this as a reality show, but im telling you, its my job to read his stupid tweets, even when theyre lies. And ive gotten to the point, why bother, ill just read what the news says about the stupid tweets because im not going to waste my time. Thats not out of anger. Thats just out of ive seen it a thousands times before. Im just saying if im feeling that way, even Trump Supporters have got to start feeling that way. Yeah, hes going to lie. Hes going to go in all caps. Its all nonsense. He is just speaking to himself. But you have to define what you just said. What does after a while mean . I mean, were 18, 19 months into his presidency and we continue to read these tweets on tv, giving them enormous exposure, enormous air time. How long is after a while . I dont know. You know, it may be, nick confessorry, after the democrats win big in the fall. I dont know. The republicans more republicans support donald trump now than they ever have, which means that more 71 to 80 of republicans said they liked the side of donald trump cozying up to a kgb spy and appearing to be his dupe. 71 to 80 of republicans say they liked donald trump basically doing the bidding of putin, undermining u. S. Foreign policy for the past 50 years and picking up what was soviet policy for 50 years. Who knows. Maybe thats the Republican Party or maybe its just blind brand loyalty. Either way, i dont think that drives people to the polls in november. Well, joe, im not sure. I think that whats happened here is that political triablbam in the United States has overwhelmed the National Interest separate from a political interest or a partys interest. It has taken over everything. Just one fact check, by the way, so President Trump actually was warned as soon as he became the nominee, he was warned about potential russian efforts to penetrate his campaign. Right. He appears to have ignored those warnings and of course this morning with the tweets on iran, its the promo for season 9 of the bachelor at the very end of season 8, hes kind of getting his timing wrong. I think, yeah, its a classic effort to distract everybody. On the other hand, if youre iran, youre probably feeling pretty good right now because the last time he threatened fire and fur troy a country, the final step was a really nice sitdown in which the other country got the better of the deal. If youre iran and youre looking at these tweets, everybody is highfiving. Back the brinks truck up to the white house because he does this fist before he gives away the bank which is exactly what he did to north korea. They wont even meet with our secretary of state. They go out and start picking potatoes with potato farmers instead of meeting with pompeo when he goes over there because trump gave them everything they wanted in the first meeting. Now, lets turn to the fisa warrants and carter page. For the first time in the history of the 40yearold secret court that was established by the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, documents that supported a warrant were released this weekend. A freedom of information act lawsuit disclosed the october, 2016, application to wiretap carter page. A Trump CampaignForeign Policy adviser. Along with several renewal applications after donald trump declassified their existence earlier this year. Among his 400 pages, many of which are redacted, the application states, quote, the fbi believes page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the russian government. And identifies page as a former Foreign Policy adviser to a candidate for president. It says, quote, the fbi believes the russian governments efforts are being coordinated with page and perhaps other individuals associated with that campaign. And the fbi believes that page has been collaborating and conspireing with the russian government. Page called the claims ridiculous and so misleading. The application used the steele dossiers that he spoke with russian officials lifting sanctions. Though the unredacted portion shows it used other materials as well. The application and its renewal show that all of the judges who signed off on the wiretapping were appointed by, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, angry republican president s. Part of Donald Trumps 13 angry people in the investigation you can 4 of those 13 you can actually put down as 4 republican judges. Theres so much to go to here, ben wittis, first of all, as a Public Service announcement to 87 Million People watching and listening on Armed Forces Radio across the world, im making that up, tell us just how dramatic a change from precedent it was to have the fisa made public and the grave risks that go along with that and then well ask you more about the carter page application. Yeah, so. I think the answer to the question, how unusual is it is that its completely unprecedented. 20 plus years ago when i was a very young reporter for a legal newspaper, i did what i think is the first sort of major story about the foreign Intelligence Surveillance court in the mid 1990s. At the time, the Justice Department made a decision to cooperate with the story, as did the court, by the way. And they all talked on the record and we had a lot of conversations about fisa. The one thing i asked for that they said no way, no how youre never going to get was the word processing template for a fisa application, that is not only were they not willing to give like a used application with everything redacted, they werent even willing to let me see the mockup that they write off of that shows the structure of it, which is if you take all the material out, essentially what this is, in addition, this has the name of a target in it, which and it has a lot of the material that they used to support the application. So its completely unprecedented. Its a huge change. And it reflects the degree to which the president has by talking about this process in a false fashion forced the release of information. And the way devin nunes has by talking about this information falsely forced the department to contemplate the release of truthful information that can itself be very damaging. And carol lee, what did we find out from the documents that were released from the Justice Department . Well, a number of things, including some of which you read, which is that there was a very clear directive there was a very clear belief that carter page was conspireing with russia to in ways that were nefarious and also that the renewals of this fisa warrant suggest that part is redacted and we dont know exactly what was learned, that led to those renewals of the fisa warrant, they show the number of pages that the application was grew each time, so there was information that clearly they had learned in surveilling him that led to renewals. So i think the main question coming out of when you look at what was released is what was that . And maybe well learn that in coming months and maybe we wont, but there was very clearly, you know, it kind of debunks what the president had said that, you know, the republican memo that was released that had exonerated him or show that there was something that this was not done in a proper way, it certainly is another instance where that is debunked and shows there was a real cause for this. Benjamin wittes, obviously the president s tweet this weekend claiming that the documents exonerated him were ridiculous, not fact based to say the least. Talk about what your main take away was from the fisa documents released this weekend. Well, i guess my main take away is that this is pretty much what i always imagined a fisa application would look like, which is to say packed with information. You know, it is not in support of a criminal conviction, right . The fact that some of the information people malater raise questions about, theyre only trying to establish probable cause for purposes of a warrant, surveillance warrant, not prove the guy guilty of a crime to lock him up, but its packed with information. Some of which we can see, some of which is redacted. Some of which involves highly sensitive intelligence sources. Some of which is so sensitive its blacked out. And i think the most important point is that there were multiple renewals. Each renewal grows in the package grows. Implying theyre getting new information along the way. At no point does either the Justice Department hierarchy or the court say, hey, wait a minute, this material isnt good enough to support the surveillance that youre requesting. So i think its it really does give the lie to both the president and the House Republicans claims that there was something fe fair mouse or inappropriate here. Yeah. John heilemann, i wanted to follow up with you about the lies from devin nunes, paul ryan, the House Republicans. Yes, please. I remember when i first ran in 1994, not only myself but probably every other republican across america was still attacking the Democratic Party because of their attacks on the Intel Community throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The church commission. You go down the line, we said the democrats were insufficiently loyal to the intel communities and damaged their ability to go out across the world and do the important work they needed to do to protect americans. Well, i just i cannot believe that what the republicans are doing now, what paul ryan has allowed to happen, what devin nunes acting as a useful idiot for the russian government, at the very least, what they did this last week trying to defend the indefensible with donald trump actually adopting soviet Foreign Policy that attempts to break up nato instead of 50, 60 years of u. S. Policy, i cant believe that doesnt stick to republicans not only in the midterms but for the next 30 years. I think maybe the next 30 years is more important thing than the midterms. I dont know how it will play out in the midterms. I want to pick up on that because what ben wittes said a second ago. Look, we know the president is a liar, he lies pathologically on a daily basis and maybe this thing im about to say is also not news, but nothing, nothing that has happened over the course of the last 18 months is more vividly demonstrated the extent to which the House Republicans on that Intel Committee and particularly devin nunes are engaged in nothing other than a transparent effort to lie, prevaricate, throw up fog, throw up smoke in order to try to protect this president rather than doing their job. This is an extraordinary thing seeing all this documentation, but it really just makes clear again if it wasnt clear enough already, the extent to which devin nunes, the chairman of that committee, a committee in the past has done great, important, bipartisan work has become completely corrupted by whatever. You can spend all day speculated about what that corruption, the source of that corruption is, but this shows the extent to which this guy, who said he hadnt read the documents he admitted at the time and yet was willing to cast aspersions on the Intel Committee and stand up and say carter page, im sure hes fine and its all about the steele dossier. All obliterated by the documents. Michael schmidt, how is it that really one of the things that most baffles me is how at this point 18 months in, given paul ryan supporting them, how is it that that committee is even a functional thing anymore or is it now just something that has no relevance whatsoever except in the political realm and has nothing do with the oversight of the Intelligence Committee or anything that touches the Intelligence Community . Well, it really isnt. And they dont Work Together on anything. They spend a lot of their time Cable Television attacking each other. Its pretty much just a political thing. Its where the political fight about the trump russia story goes on on a daily basis. I cant see any of that changes under the current circumstances. There had been some expectation after the election that there would be this bipartisan effort to get to the bottom of what happened. We see more of that on the senate side where the senate Intelligence Committee is doing an investigation far less noise, far less fighting, some more hearings, a little more transparency, a little more idea that they are working together at the same time, they have not completed their investigation. Muellers investigation goes on. We do not have a 9 11style commission that would produce some sort of large report for the public on this. So, it allows different notions, conspiracy theories, false narratives to continue especially out of that committee. Yeah, mike barnacle, it seems to me picking up on what John Heilemann just said and Michael Schmidt that where we are headed, if you are reading the tea leaves and believe that the democrats are going to take over the house of representatives, i think most people would suggest that they would, even historically if you look at the numbers of seats that a sitting president loses, democrats are going to most likely take over the house and because of the map, republicans probably will hold on to the senate, could hold on to the senate. What were probably going to see next year, if the odds play out the way most people suspect they are, is youre going to see a bipartisan, bicameral investigation into russia led by richard burr, republican from