that s going to do it for us tonight. i told you it was going to be a show and a half. now, it is time for the last word with lawrence o donnell. that evening, rachel. i listened to episode one of the new podcast today, and i ve got to ask you a favor. could you stop doing this thing where you reveal really dramatic, interesting stories about united states senators i ve never heard of? because, one of the angles of me getting a paycheck out of this place is i pretend that i m like the senate expert around here because i worked there for a while and this is not helpful, rachel. i spend the day listening to you tell me about a senator i ve never heard of and by the way, the single most dramatic thing that has ever occurred in the russell senate office building where i used to work and i did not know what happened until today listening to you, and it s not supposed to be like that. i m very sorry. i will start doing podcasts that are about like state legislatures and states you ve never been to. and rachel, i am filled with questions and possible spoiler questions that you are free to deflect, but could you possibly join me after i get a little worked on here about donald trump s probation, to talk about the podcast because there are just so many things i want to see if you can answer and then of course there are things you might not want to answer. i would love it. i look forward to answering your questions and to dodging them. all right. just get into your slippers well i do a little chat with andrew wiseman. thank you, i will see you in a minute. today was a routine workday for america s 93,900 probation officers. but, one of those probation officers had the least routine workday of that probation officers life today when that probation officer in new york city became the first probation officer in history to interview a former president of the united states. donald trump s first probation interview today is a standard and necessary part of determining what sentence donald trump should receive after a manhattan jury found him guilty of 34 felony charges of falsifying business records with criminal intent to violate new york election law and the 2016 presidential election. the probation department will use donald trump s responses to date to determine what sentence the probation department will recommend for defendant trump at his sentencing hearing on july 11th. in yet another demonstration of donald trump getting extra favorable treatment while he is complaining of being persecuted, judge merchan allowed donald trump s defense lawyer to attend the first probation meeting and allowed the meeting to take place virtually with donald trump in florida. special treatment for donald trump did not go unnoticed by the legal aid society, vermont defenders, new york county defender services and neighborhood defender services. they issued a joint statement saying all people convicted of crimes should be allowed counsel in their probation interview, not just billionaires. this is just another example of the two-tiered system of justice. presentencing interviews with probation officers influence sentencing and public defenders are deprived of joining their clients for these meetings. the option of joining these interviews virtually is typically not extended to the people we represent either. to ensure integrity and fairness, we call on nyc department of probation to ensure that all new yorkers, regardless of income, status or class, receive the same presentencing opportunities. nbc news is reporting that the interview lasted less than 30 minutes and that donald trump s probation officer is a woman. cnn is reporting that the commissioner for the new york city department of probation was present, along with general counsel for the department. joining our discussion now is martin horn, former commissioner of new york city s department of probation. thank you very much for joining us tonight. first of all, we want to get a sense of how unusual this was. we already have the sense that it was a bit unusual, but as to the presence of counsel and it being remote, you have these people representing other defendants, saying that is never available to us. that is correct. it is highly unusual. i think it is appropriate to make some accommodation and recognize the fact that when trump shows up his going to be accompanied by secret service. he s going to be accompanied by the press, and his presence might be disruptive, so the idea of doing the interview remotely doesn t trouble me that much. i think it is somewhat appropriate and certainly during covid, we made use of these remote kinds of interviews. i think you could make arguments both ways. the presence of counsel is highly unusual, and the presence of the commissioner is something i have never heard of in 40 years in this business. can you think of a reason for doing it if you are a commissioner at the time, would you do it? would you join that meeting? no. i cannot think of a reason to do it. i think it skews the interview. i think too many people in the room is distracting and disruptive and not conducive to candor, so no. i definitely would not have done it and i don t think it should ve been done in this case. 30 minutes is the report we are getting. what do you make of that? sounds abbreviated to me. usually these things take at least an hour. the content of what this interview was supposed to cover, and what the court is supposed to address is spelled out very explicitly in state regulations and it goes on in some length that it covers a wide array of issues. i don t believe they could be addressed and half hour unless mr. trump just refused to discuss all of them, which was certainly his right to do. there is reporting that he did cooperate and answer all the questions. i m not sure whether that is completely true but i m assuming that. what do you think are the most important things they should have obtained in this discussion? the judge certainly knows the defendants. he does not need to know much more. i think the important question to be addressed here was aggravating or mitigating circumstances. this was an opportunity for the defendant to set forth mitigating circumstances, and for the probation officer on behalf of the people to set forth any aggravating circumstances, but perhaps most importantly is the question of whether, if this individual is not sent to prison, but is granted probation, is this an individual who is likely to accept the terms of that probation and the supervision of a probation officer? and, what with the terms of probation be, and what would that supervision be like? all i can speak to is the typical case and obviously this is not the typical case, but typically a probationer would be expected to report to the probation office periodically, certainly no less than monthly at first, to keep the probation officer apprised of his or her comings and goings, certainly not to engage in illegal activities, not to associate with individuals engaged in illegal activities, certainly not to miss use drugs and alcohol, to fulfill his or her financial obligations both to his or her dependents, but also any fines or restitution that has been ordered. what about associating with people who have been convicted of crimes, many people around donald trump has been convicted of crimes. historically this has been discouraged by probation agencies around the country. it has been liberalized somewhat recently but i think it is something the probation officer appropriately would discuss with the individual to determine whether it is the association that is occurring for a good reason or not. thank you very much for joining us tonight and sharing your expertise. this evening in florida, donald trump s favorite federal judge whom he appointed, denied trump s request to dismiss the case against him for violations of the espionage and act and illegal possession of classified documents. she wrote checks myths prosecution or other permitted by law, raise evidentiary challenges not appropriate at this juncture and/or do not require dismissal even if technically deficient so long as the jury is instructed appropriately and presented with adequate forms as to which defendants alleged conduct. judge cannon did grant trump request to strike one paragraph of the indictment about donald trump s alleged meeting with a representative of his political action committee believed to be his campaign adviser, susie wiles, and his golf club in bedminster, new jersey in 2021. the indictment says donald trump showed that person a classified map at that time. judge cannon said that because showing that map is not one of the charged crimes in the indictment, it is quote, not appropriate to include it in the indictment. in the ongoing scandal that is the united states supreme court, now there are tapes, thanks to lauren wednesday, winsor, who was interviewed by julie reid earlier this evening. lauren windsor is a progressive activist known to approach important republican people pretending to be an hour, making flattering comments than secretly recording their responses. she is a dues-paying member of the supreme court historical society, which has corrupted itself into an organization that allows right-wing supreme court influencers to comfortably influence right- wing supreme court justices at the annual dinner of that organization. last year at the supreme court historical society s annual dinner, lauren windsor made recordings of her chats with supreme court justices that even she found so uninteresting she did not publish them. this year was different. she got samuel alito to agree on tape to the goal of returning the country to quote, a place of godliness. is a catholic and as someone who like really cherishes my faith, i just don t know that we can negotiate with the left and the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end. i think it s a matter of like winning. i think you re probably right. one side or the other is going to win. i don t know. i mean, there can be a way of living together peacefully, but it s difficult you know because there are differences on fundamental things that really can t be compromised, so it s not like we re going to split the difference. that s what i m saying. i think that the solution really is like winning the moral argument, like people in this country who believe in god love got to keep fighting for that to return our country to a place of godliness. i agree with you. by contrast, chief justice roberts responded very differently. you don t think there s like a role for the court in like guiding us toward a more moral path? no. i think the role for the court is deciding the cases. that is for the people we elect. that s not for lawyers. i guess i believe the founders were godly, like were christians, and i think that we live in a christian nation and that our supreme court should be guiding us in that path. yeah, i don t know that we live in a christian nation. i know a lot of jewish and those muslim friends would say maybe not. let s not our job to do that. our job is to decide the cases as best we can. and samuel alito made his wife very much a public figure by blaming her publicly for flying flags supportive of the january 6 insurrection at the capital at their homes, you might expect mrs. alito to have little to say to strangers about flags. and you would be wrong. what you think they re coming after you? i mean like the whole like appeal to heaven flag was like right. the other thing is feminazis believe they should be in control. feminazis was a term coined by rush limbaugh. fox news had not even been invented yet and so samuel alito s wife is quoting material from rush limbaugh that is over 30 years old. that is how long she has apparently been listening and taking direction from the likes of rush limbaugh. you know what i want? i want a sacred heart of jesus like because i have to look across the lagoon at the flag. for the next month and he s like oh, please don t put up a flag. i said i will do it because i m deferring to you but when you are free of this nonsense, i am putting it up and i m going to send them a message every day, and every week i m changing the flags. this is how i satisfy myself. i made a flag into white and it is yellow and orange flames around it and is the word for shaman italian. andrew weissmann, msnbc legal analyst and co-author of the best-selling book, the trump indictments. andrew, this is quite an interesting window of sound into the thinking of senator alito and chief justice roberts. well, the description from both of them could not be more striking in terms of where the country is, and you know, we are hearing from a man who is the principal architect for the reversal after 50 years of roe versus wade. his thinking is in that decision is, i think, just this week as his thinking that was shown in the letter he submitted trying to justify the flag incident, and you also have this dichotomy because you have the chief justice saying what is of course the correct thing to say, and we are on the eve of getting a decision on presidential immunity and it is a real sort of blot on this country and the judicial system had to be so direct that you have justice alito and justice thomas sitting on decisions that is not the way the country is supposed to be operated. it s not the way the court is supposed to be operating and their conduct is reflected on these tapes but their conduct in many ways even without these tapes is something that is really besmirching a really important branch of government in this country that we are entitled to count on and it is very hard to have faith in the system when you have that kind of conduct in these types of tape recordings coming out. we also have in these tapes now something very close to proving that samuel alito supreme court justice lied, lied publicly about the flags and the reason for the flags being up because here is the person who he is blaming on the flags being up saying she wants to do these flags just because of the flags that other people have including the pride flag that somehow is oppressive to her. absolutely. there is nothing in there about a response and we know that even that story, the timing of that story did not make any sense in terms of what it was supposed to be in response to, as we have now heard with respect to the police report and the neighbor across the way, and so what is really amazing to me is that there is just zero accountability of the supreme court and that is where chief justice roberts is much as he may be a good man personally and obviously said the right things which you don t really get credit for that for saying the right thing because that is what is expected but that is where he is to blame for not taking stronger action and there are a number of things he can do that would put more pressure on two justices who are really not upholding their oath of office in a way that helps this country , whatever side you are on. if you saw this from a so- called liberal justice i think we would be just as outraged and of course you would hear just as much but rightly from the far right that it is not appropriate behavior. you know, i will speak for me and i think this applies to you. i spent most of my life finding it inconceivable that we would be doing a story about a supreme court justice lying and lying about something important in public that affects the integrity of the courts on decisions and i am now realizing in retrospect that the reason that was inconceivable was really the supreme court justices themselves who we grew up with, who could not possibly step in these things the way samuel alito and clarence thomas have, but especially a leader with the flags and his wife making his comments to a stranger about the flags that have become something far beyond controversial. the flags that they are flying that share the spirit of the january 6 insurrection, all of that just completely inconceivable not because of any ethics enforcement body, but simply before because who was actually serving on the supreme court, whether we agree with them or not during most of our lifetimes. i want to point out one other aspect of what he was hurt now on tape saying, which is that the christian nation should be brought more to be a christian nation and as a jewish-american, that is not what our country is about. there is an establishment clause that is supposed to separate our religious beliefs which everyone is entitled to their own, but it is not established by the government, and that principal is very much under attack right now with at least five, if not six justices, but hearing that from justice alito s mouth basically just rips off any sort of pretense as to what is going on, and it really tells you very much how dishonest the dobbs decision was that reversed roe versus wade, this idea of we are sending it back to the states. that is not what is going on. this was part of a religious fervor that was animating what was going on, and you have justice alito really just saying it out loud, whether you like the idea of the tape recordings happening in the way they were done is neither here nor there, because you know, there was nothing that prevented him from responding in a way that justice roberts responded, which was entirely correct. the tape reveals the profound depths of the stupidity of samuel alito. we are out of time for this discussion. andrew weissmann, thank you very much for joining us tonight. coming up, our next guest needs either a very long introduction or no introduction. i will decide which one during a commercial break. rachel maddow joins us next. has grown me the best garden i have ever had. good soil, and you get good results. this soil will blow you away. it s the martha stewart of soil. nothing dims my light like a migraine. with 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for verizon wireless. so he sublet half his real estate office. i think some of them [ bird squawks loudly ] to a pet shop. meg s moving company uses t-mobile. so she scaled down her fleet to save money. and don s paying so much for at&t, he s been waiting to update his equipment! there s a smarter way to save. comcast business mobile. you could save up to 70% on your wireless bill. so you don t have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities. wyoming in the 1940s. wonderful wyoming, state of promise, land of far horizons. horizons, promise, also, pigeons. lots of pigeons. there was a serious infestation of pigeons. that is roger mcdaniel, a wyoming historian and author. he also served in both houses of the wyoming state legislature, and the pigeon infestation he is talking about was that his old workplace at the wyoming state capital. that is the start of season two of rachel maddow presents ultra, the broadcast in which rachel once again introduces us to a u.s. senator i have never heard of. lester hunt is the man who climbed out on the window ledges at the state capital to drop poison to kill the pigeons. lester hunt, when he did this, was the newly elected governor of the state of wyoming. it gives me pleasure to introduce to you at this time the honorable lester hunt, governor of wyoming. he set his sights on the u.s. senate and he won that race. a distinguished guest for the evening is the honorable lester c. hunt, the senator from wyoming. the most popular politician in his state. lester hunt, newly elected u.s. senator, he heads to washington to do what he has always done, to advocate for his constituents, the people of wyoming and also to try to do some good for the rest of the country. he is as poised as anyone could be for success in that job, but things are about to change for him radically. what he is about to encounter in washington will cost him his life. he will not live to see the end of even one term as a u.s. senator. joining us now is rachel maddow. you can get the first episode of ultra, second season now anywhere you get your podcast or subscribe to msnbc premium on the apple podcast up to get every episode early and add free. rachel, i can t take it. listen. we have 10 minutes. it s just us. tell me all the rest of it right now. like i can t wait for the next episode, just go. so then what happens? well, and then there is us at the end of it. it becomes the america that we know. i m not going to tell you the whole story. thank you so much for letting me come onto your show to talk about it and for listening to it and for liking it. lester hunt is i mean, he is not a completely forgotten figure, but the thing things went so badly for him very quickly after he got to washington that went i have tried to do in episode one is create the lost sense of possibility. he really did lose his life to the scandal i am writing about and working on in this podcast and it is a huge loss for the country because he did have a long, bright future ahead of him if everything leading up to his life and that moment was anything to go by and i feel like i have become really good at resurrecting old villains we had forgotten about from history, but lester hunt is one of the good guys that we need to unearth and remember his legacy, too, and the loss of him is something that went really wrong with extremism in american politics. it is something we should regret and remember and commemorate. yes, so he is a democrat getting elected in republican ohio wyoming, a difficult thing to do and impressive no matter when you hear that. he is kind of the jon tester of his time there in that situation. but, apparently very naove when he gets to washington in such a way, and i m speaking beyond what i know because all i know is episode one but clearly, he gets eaten up by washington, so this is a drama about more than him. so, what happens with him, and you will get there very quickly in the next couple of episodes, is that he is confronted in the senate with the first major thing he does in the senate. there is another senator who is in the opposite party, who is his opposite number and this other senator gets involved in a nazi propaganda campaign, this dirty false conspiracy theory tale that is designed to hurt the united states, and lester hunt realizes what this other senator is doing. he is repulsed by it in the come to loggerheads in the senate over this thing the other senator is trying to advance in part of the reason i wanted to do this story is learning that while that is happening, while there becoming mortal enemies in the united states senate, they also lived next door to one another, and their backyards back up onto one in each and others houses and how they have decided they re out to destroy each other, they can see how each other is living, and that only ratchets up the revulsion lester hunt has for this other senator and he just decides you know what? i m going to take the political risk. i ve got to stand up against a monster like this and he does and it is for the good of the country and cost him his life, but what he is fighting for, and the reason he is fighting against that foreign influence operation in washington and the low down dirty depth some people were willing to go to for political gain is an inspiration to me even though it cost him his life. so, the first season of ultra taught us about the poll that fascism had in the united states, the attraction it had for some people, how far they were willing to go to advance the cause of fascism here, and that is pre-world war ii and into world war ii, that story, and this takes us to a period after world war ii where it hasn t you make the point that those people, most of them tended to disappear after pearl harbor, but that did not mean they stop thinking what they were thinking. it also did not mean they went away in politics. one of the things you and i talked about a lot with season one is that it became kind of a forgotten story, the great sedition trial, all the americans who sort of worked with a nazi agent who wanted nazis to win world work two were defeated in the united states and that means we forgot their stories and we forgot them pretty quickly. when they were all kind of let go and didn t get prosecuted for it, not successfully prosecuted for it or in the case of members of congress, none of them were prosecuted at all, their story was mostly forgotten and those of them that stayed in public life kept being the same kind of people they were before, and so, for example, one of the characters in season two is a guy who was part of the silver shirts and linked to the german-american phone that was riding for charles conklin s publication. those are all entities we learned about an altar season one. in season two, he ends up being the subject of an international years long manhunt by the united states government. they believe him to not be just an american fascist, but an american fascist and a traitor and possibly a nuclear terrorist. so, it just gets worse when these people get away and he ends up involved with a republican senator who is a sitting senator in the united states senate, so when you let these folks get away with things, it is important you at least keep tabs on them to see where else they re going to turn up, because it s never good. so, how many episodes, rachel? eight. and those of us who want 16 or 24, what do we do? so, you tell stories in your show that are similar to this. they tend to be 20 to 25 minutes, something like that. each podcast episode is significantly longer than that. what is the difference for you as a storyteller in the way you approach the podcast as opposed to the way you approach the show? very good question. so, the podcast is basically a little book. or a tv show, like if you think about it if you put of the episode links together it ends up being something that i want to be able to hold your attention for about four or five hours. in order to hold your attention for that time, it has to be well told. we use a lot of archival audio, a lot of historical audio. finding the wyoming audio archives to get the sound of lester hunt s voice was an incredible odyssey and super fun, but the idea is that this is a single story arc that cannot be told in the course of a tv show. you need to stick with it for an eight-episode arc but by the time you get to the end of it, you should ve learned a whole nothing about american history and hopefully be propelled along the way by the dramatic interest in it, so that it sticks. i want these stories to be memorable. i m not just interested in these stories because they are not well known. i think they should be well known. like, we should all remember lester hunt. we should all remember there was an internationally wanted american fascist fugitive who was involved with the republican senator at the onset of the cold war. we should understand what happens when the great sedition trial in the united states and with all of those people getting away and all of those seditionist movements effectively getting away without ever being held criminally accountable for what they ve been charged with. i want those stories to be vernacular, to be part of the way we think about our history as americans in dealing with really strong, antidemocratic challenges, because we have a strong antidemocratic challenge right now so we should do what is in our armamentarium of options for how to respond to it and what has worked well in the past and what is not. and, the key to this kind of great drama is even if you don t care about democracy, and i don t understand you if you don t, but if you don t care about democracy, this is still great drama with great characters, perfectly told by america s friendliest voice to tell you scary things. the good news is, these scary things are kind of over, except there are big threads of them still with us now. rachel, by the way, an alternative name for altar that you could have considered it s more letters, but stuff lawrence o donnell doesn t know. that could be the title but it s hard to squeeze it into a small state space. i like america s friendliest voice for telling you scary stories. i may hit you up for the copyright on that. you got it, it s yours. thank you, lawrence. thank you, rachel. can t wait for more episodes. thank you. remember, you can listen to the first episode of alters second season everywhere you listen to your podcast. coming up, there have been only two presidents in the history of the united states who have issued pardons to members of their family. president biden has promised he will not become the third as leger deliberates the case against hunter biden. that is next with andrew weissmann. is next with andrew weissmann. cologuard is for people 45+ at average risk, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for cologuard. i did it my way oh, why leaffilter? it s well designed, efficient, i appreciate that. leaffilter s technology keeps debris out of your gutters for good, guaranteed. what more could you ask for? call 833.leaf.filter today, or visit leaffilter.com. she runs and plays like a puppy again. his #2s are perfect! he s a brand new dog, all in less than a year. when people switch their dog s food from kibble to the farmer s dog, they often say that it feels like magic. but there s no magic involved. (dog bark) it s simply fresh meat and vegetables, with all the nutrients dogs need instead of dried pellets. just food made for the health of dogs. delivered in packs portioned for your dog. it s amazing what real food can do. when did i call leaffilter? when i saw my gutters overflowing onto my porch. leaffilter is a permanent gutter solution, so, you never have to worry about costly damage from clogged gutters again. it s the easiest call you can make. call 833.leaf.filter today, or visit leaffilter.com. your son is on trial and i know that you cannot speak about an ongoing federal prosecution, but let me ask you, will you accept the jury s outcome, their verdict, no matter what it is? yes. have you rolled out a pardon for her son? yes. and president bill clinton s last day in office he pardon his younger half-brother roger clinton who served one year of his prison sentence after pleading guilty to cocaine distribution charges. 138 years earlier, president lincoln parted his wife s sister, the widow of a confederate soldier, and one of the thousands of pardons issued after the civil war under the proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction. that is the entire history of pardons for family members of the president. the jury completed one hour of deliberation today in the federal case against hunter biden. the jury is considering three federal felony charges against hunter biden. count one, false statement and purchase of a firearm. count two, fall statement related to information required to be kept by federal firearms license deal. count three, possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. the washington post reports biden s lawyers argued that prosecutors have not offered evidence that their clients was on drugs when he bought the gun and signed a federal form attesting that he was not using illegal substances, or that he took drugs during the 11 days the gun was in his possession. biden family members including first lady joe biden have been in attendance at the trial. president biden did not attend or comment on the trial, but issued this written statement last week. i am the president, but i am also a dad. jill and i love our son and we are so proud of the man he is today. hunters resilience in the face of adversity and the strength he has brought to his recovery are inspiring to us. a lot of families have loved ones who have overcome addiction and know what we mean. as the president, i don t and won t comment on pending federal cases, but as a dad, i have boundless love for my son, confidence in him, and respect for his strength. our family has been through a lot together, angela and i are going to continue to be there for hunter and our family with our love and support. after this break, andrew weissmann will give us his evaluation of the evidence in the hunter biden case. that is next. have ever had. good soil, and you get good results. this soil will blow you away. it s the martha stewart of soil. want to get the most out of one sheet? grab bounty. 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well, before we get to that i want to point out that compared to the opening where we talked about justice alito and the concern about the rule of law in this country, this is an example, as was the new york criminal trial, of the rule of law working for you see the courts function even when you re dealing with the former president or in this case, the son of the current president. i think they re focusing on intent. the proof here is very strong that there was possession of the gun. there is very strong evidence of the addiction hunter biden had, and the issue is, was healed she aware during the relative time periods when he signed the form that said essentially he was not an addict, did he believe that he, at that point, was an addict and also during the time he possessed of the gun, for about a two-week period, did he believe he was an addict? in other words, there is an intent requirement. making a mistake is not for criminal law. that s for civil law but this is a criminal case so i think they re going to be focused on that. also there is sufficient proof, if the jury wants to find it, but abby lowell is an extremely good defense lawyer and we will see if he pulls a rabbit out of the hat, but i think the big picture for the public is less what happens in this case and the fact that you have a president of the united states living the rule of law in this country, and you have the rule of law working, even for the president s son. andrew weissmann, thank you very much. we will be right back. very muc. we will be right back. for pneumococcal pneumonia. i m getting prevnar 20 because there s a chance. .pneumococcal pneumonia could put me in the hospital. if you re 19 or older with certain chronic conditions. like asthma, diabetes, copd, or heart disease, .or are 65 or older, you are at increased risk for pneumococcal pneumonia. prevnar 20® is approved in adults. .to help prevent infections from 20 strains of the bacteria that cause pneumococcal pneumonia. in just one dose. don t get prevnar 20® if you ve had a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine or its ingredients. adults with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects were pain and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, fatigue, headache, and joint pain. i want to be able to keep my plans. just one dose can help protect me from pneumococcal pneumonia. that s why i chose prevnar 20®. ask your doctor or pharmacist about the pfizer vaccine for pneumococcal pneumonia. for moderate to severe crohn s disease skyrizi is the first il-23 inhibitor that can deliver remission and visibly improve damage of the intestinal lining. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. liver problems may occur in crohn s disease. control of crohn s means everything to me. ask your gastroenterologist about skyrizi. control is everything to me learn how abbvie could help you save. choose advil liqui-gels for faster, stronger and longer-lasting relief than tylenol rapid release gels because advil targets pain at the source of inflammation. so for faster pain relief, advil the pain away. chris counahan for leaffilter the permanent gutter solution that protects your home in so many ways, it takes more than one chris to explain it. but together, i think we ve got the job covered. like leaffilter s has your gutters covered. protecting you from getting up on this thing to clean out your gutters ever again. and you know how else leaffilter protects your home? 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sent to decide the fate of hunter biden, the president s son, hoping to beat three felony gun charges all right. 5:00 a.m. here in washington alive. look in new york city on this tuesday morning. good morning, everyone. i m kasie hunt. wonderful. have you with us donald trump juggling his conviction with his campaign. he helped to remote appearances on monday. one was with his probation officer, the other with a conservative christian group we can t afford to have anyone sit on the sidelines now is the time for us to all pull together and to stand up for our values and for our freedoms. and you just can t vote democrat. they re against religion there, against your religion in particular, you can not vote for democrats and you have to get out and vote the former president s probation interview. meanwhile comes one month ahead of his sentencing date. it s currently scheduled for july 11. meanwhile, president biden held eight juneteenth celebration at the white house last night dag remember the original sin of slavery and the extraordinary capacity to merge those powerful moments, painful moment with. a better vision for ourselves. a day reminds us. we have a hell of a lot more work to do. so let s keep marching today. president biden plans to speak at a major gun violence prevention conference. the appearance comes as the white house and biden campaign tried to promote the president s work to tackle gun violence his team believes that issue resonates with key voting blocs, including women, young people, and latinos. starting us off this morning. shelby talcott, she s a reporter with semaphores, shelby. good morning. wonderful to see you. let s start off with what we heard from former president trump at this event yesterday with the dan barry institute, which is a very conservative organization on abortion rights. and the bottom line seemed to be to keep from the left for showing up at all. but what he had to say wasn t good enough for the right yeah. i think this really just represents how difficult of an issue abortion is for republicans, it s essentially a lose-lose situation, and we ve seen how donald trump has struggled to grapple with that fact and figure out how to speak on it. so he faced he faced backlash from the left because of course, this is an extremely concerning derivative group that wants to ban all abortions and so their argument was, why is he showing up at all? and then he faced backlash from conservatives who argued that he sounded like a politician and his brief pre-recorded remarks, he didn t mention the word abortion at all. he didn t take pride for overturning roe as he so often does but it encapsulates how the abortion issue is really, really hurting republicans and how they ve just struggled to figure out the happy medium and how to talk about this issue. because again, i mean, this is the difference between a pre and post row america in a world where roe v wade stands, republican politicians can and would go into these groups, talked to them and say definitively, life begins at conception. this, we shouldn t be doing this, et cetera. without any actual risks that those policies are going to become the law of the land? no. yes. and i think the other thing is we ve seen how donald trump donald trump in 2016 won a lot of support from the anti-abortion movement because he promised all of these things he delivered on them. and this time around, i talked to activists in this group all the time about this issue. and throughout this entire election, they ve been really concerned that donald trump has left them by the wayside. and so to me this, these pre-recorded remarks is trump s sort of attempt at saying, i m still with you. i m still here but also trying to walk that really fine, almost impossible line to get those moderate voters over to his side as well. yeah let s talk a little bit about president biden because we are starting to see, or at least it seems like we re seeing a very small shift potentially in the polling in biden s direction. we don t want to overstate it because this race is so incredibly close, right? and we re still kind of gathering data in a post conviction world but i do feel like there are some i m picking up some more positive vibes from democrats shall we say, in the wake of this, i think they were a little reluctant to weigh in initially, what is your reporting on how this seems to be playing out so far? well, it s interesting because we still don t know exactly how the trump conviction is going to affect voters long-term. it does is you said seem to have maybe shifted things a little bit four at least the short term, who knows, in five months what s going to happen but what i think is notable as every time i talked to the biden campaign, they ve been really focused on saying throughout this entire election that they re going to focus on touting his accomplishments, focus on trying to remind voters in a very tough election cycle what he has done. and so this this gun speech is going to be one of those prime examples. it s an issue that a lot of voters care about, particularly his core base and we re going to see a lot from him about this issue and we ve already seen how there also at the same time contrasting what joe biden has accomplished in office with donald trump s policies. and so this gun speech, represents how the biden campaign is trying to run their campaigns. one other message that the biden campaign has been trying to really push. and if you know anyone that works for biden comes to the set, they will say they will make this argument that donald trump is out for himself, that he doesn t care about voters, which is why it stood out to us on the show when donalds, this is from over the weekend, donald trump rally in las vegas. here s what he said to his supporters. there. take a look. by the way, is that breeze nice? do you feel the breeze because i don t want anybody going on me. we need every voter. i don t care about you. i just want your vote. i don t care i don t care about you. i just want your vote from the man himself. yeah. and i think the big thing when i talked to voters at these events, you have to remember these events are tailored for donald trump s core base of supporters. you re not often seeing. people maybe except for the new york events that he has held which are not technically large scale rallies, but at these large-scale rallies, these are as core base. these are the people have the memorabilia and they have the t-shirts were in line for hours? exactly. so they they love those as of comments, the question is, how do those comments help the more moderate voters who are maybe on the fence unclear. shall we talk got thank you very much for that. are coming up next year. america s top diplomat in the middle east, pressure israel and hamas to agree to a ceasefire deal plus miami apartment building engulfed in flames. authority say it was no accident the most anticipated moment 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see who are the ones who are interested to see this resolution to become a reality and those who are obstructing it all right cnn s max foster joins us now, live from london at max, it s rare to hear from him from the palestinian ambassador this deal, it seems like it s going to be a three-phase thing. there s a six-week ceasefire with the release of some hostages and palestinian prisoners it s supposed to be followed by a full israeli withdrawal, release of all the hostages. and then in theory, there s a plan for a multiyear reconstruction of gaza. it s a lot the us is saying, hey, we re waiting on hamas. what, where does this stand at this point? well it s not entirely clear is that we re hearing a lot about in hamas is core. other people are saying it s in israel s court as well, hearing their from the us ambassador to the united nations saying israel has agreed to it, but has agreed to it in its current form the government that is currently in. so you have now benny gantz has left the israeli war cabinet and it s now become more right-wing. so will they agree to this deal within this broader deal, as i understand it, is the idea of a palestinian state in future. and that is something that the right wing of the israeli government won t agree to. so i think clarity is needed on whether the us ambassador to the un is right. is that israel, the current israeli government, whether or not it actually supports this deal, then of course yes, the question about whether or not hamas some supports the deal as well, and whether or not even if they get to the point of negotiation, whether it holds but i think that that clarity on both sides is needed. but as you say, we don t often hear from that palestinian ambassador in the us max. we re, we re also getting some reporting in the wall street journal about yahya sinwar is the head of hamas his correspondence with his compatriots, but also with mediators who are going back and forth trying to get this deal. and the way that he frames this, he says, quote, we have the israelis, right where we want them and then he goes on to say in another message that he cited civilian losses in national liberation conflicts in places like algeria, where hundreds of thousands of people died fighting for independence from france. and he said, quote these are necessary sacrifices. and quote, so we ve kinda east talking about these people who are dying in gaza as a way to pressure the israelis. it s a pretty stark and difficult way of looking at things and this is something that when people who are supportive of the israeli is trying to recover their hostages, et cetera. they point to this and they say, look, hamas uses its people this way well, i think a lot of the quotes open to interpretation on such a divisive issue. and i know the article makes the point, but his ultimate goal is to appear to win a permanent ceasefire that allows hamas to declare victory by outlasting israel. so i think there s a real awareness within israel in many parts of israel that, that might be the strategy here on the her mass sayyed, there will be people saying that this is a fight we can t we have to outlive it and then you have these quotes which do seem ruthless another one says you ll remember when the political leader, ishmael hernia, his sons were killed. and there s a message apparently, these messages are coming from people have different views on sinwar as we said, he wrote that the deaths and those of other palestinians would infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise up rise to his glory and honor. was he making the best of a bad situation there or is it as you suggested? within this article that the bloodshed actually works for the palestinian cause i think a lot of it s open to interpretation. a lot of people would have issues with this article. lot of people who are also say, this says an awful lot about the current leadership of hamas. obviously yeah, very bottom line is, is very difficult. reality for palestinian civilians who are caught in a horrible across fire at this point, max foster for us in london, max, thank you. i really appreciate it coming up next here for american college instructors injured in a stabbing attack in china plot more arrests on the campus of ucla older chains is cold calculating, cynical, and needs the money not only was the cia compromise, he also was compromised secrets and spies. a nuclear games sunday at ten on cnn. i have moderate to severe crohn s disease. now, they re sky-high rozi things are looking up against symptoms control macron s means everything to me feel significant symptom relief at four weeks with hi rosie, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements sky rosie is the first il-23 inhibitor that can deliver remission and visibly improved damage of the intestinal lining and the majority of people experienced long-lasting remission at one year serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections 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a new alzheimer s drug is one step closer to approval. an independent advisory panel to the fda voting unit animus lead to endorse eli lilly s drug. it s slows cognitive decline. and maybe given the green light later this year and time now for whether a flood threat is ramping up for parts of southern florida this morning while in a oppressive heat dome settles down over the west our weatherman, derek van dam tracking all of it for us, derek, good morning. what are you seeing good tuesday morning, the heat wave because of this heat dome is all located across the southwestern us. so parts of texas into the great basin and the central valley of california more on that in just a moment. but notice this line here. it s a mixture of a warm front and a cold front that s a stalled, stationary boundary. and that is going to produce our rainfall threatened the flood threat across the southern florida peninsula. in fact, it already is so because the radar is just basically lighting up like a christmas tree, pulses of rain that has lots of moisture from the gulf of mexico, just moving in south of tampa impacting places like fort myers and naples region that s where we currently have a flood watch that last right through wednesday evening, including the miami dade region. look at this. there s a stalled boundary. look at the several rounds of rainfall that will move across the southern portions of florida right through thursday and then it continues on from there. just can t showed because are forecast radar doesn t go that far. so weather prediction center has a slight risk of flash flooding. this includes fort myers, miami through a better part of the workweek. so do take care. keep in mind it doesn t take much to flood some of those roads very low elevation part of the state, some of our rainfall totals exceeding a foot over the course of the rest of the week, especially over southwestern florida. now there is a bright side of this because 41% of the state experiencing drought conditions, but with that amount of rain in such a short period of time, of course, that piles up too quickly and we could see the rain. there s heat dome. this heat will be dangerous. in fact, some of the authorities in phoenix recommending that you avoid sun exposure from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. today okc. all right. or whether man derek van dam, derrick. thank you. i really appreciate it. coming up next here. we ve got new details about donald trump s demeanor during his first interview with a probation officer? sorry that he had as a convicted felon plus kevin mccarthy looking to oust his ouster we got john the gag keith, we got sick you up it s going to be doggy dog out there the king crab, there s your man that s what everyone wants to be it s precious. this is yeah, that looks totally safe brief, first timer. he let s was sure it looks safe, but like nearly half of all us cars, it s been in an accident with car facts.com. you see how accidents impact price. see you don t 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answered all the questions he was polite, respectful and accommodating to the probation officers telling them to be safe with the conclusion of the session. this routine interview lasted just 30 minutes. may source tells cnn there could be a follow-up meeting. here s a former new york city, the former new york city corrections commissioner, who it s just explaining a little bit here. this could be an is usually a drawn-out process it s just the beginning of what can be a pretty long and sometimes intrusive process. so you shouldn t take too much that it was just a first polite interview that a probation officer has wide berth here so this was the start of something that certainly not the end not the end, joining me now, cnn legal analyst, joey jackson. joey. good morning to you. it sounds like we got a slightly different version of donald trump than we often see on the campaign trail when he talks talk to his probation officer. i m still working on getting over the fact that this is the reality that we re living in, that this is what we re covering day in and day out considering he is the republican presumptive republican nominee for president. but what do you take away from what unfolded here? jc, good morning to you. it is a very pleasant surprise and quite unusual from what we re used to in terms of rashness, in terms of making statements about the system and being a victim in an injustice. and so yes, it isn t surprised. but remember we re big picture what this is about, right? there s something called a psi. what is a psi pre-sentence investigation and pursuant to that investigation, a defendant, as we look at here, now, a convicted felon is provided with the opportunity to give information with respect to things that are relevant about you. like what like your family background, like your mental health history and status, like the nature of the conviction and how it affected your ability to support and otherwise provide for your family? generally not getting into the facts and circumstances the case itself, which is why counsel generally doesn t even appear or need to for that matter. and the whole reason for that case, he of course, is that then you go from a psi pre-sentence invented that s the patient to a psr, right? lot of acronyms, pre-sentence report and that report is certainly helpful for a judge to provide sentencing to the defendant, having learned more about them, and then of course this comes with and along alongside what your attorneys will give, which is their recommended condition with respect to the sentence. and then prosecutors will weigh in and then the judge will certainly look at all of it and render a fair and just determination as to what sentencing should look like joey is plausible here. mean like i completely understand why this process exists for your average defendant who is not known to any of these officials in this system, right? i mean, how ever many cases come before them day in and day out. this is typically pretty routine thing. this is not a routine situation like if you re the judge here how much does this actual process do you think? do you think judge machinery knows what he s gonna do three parts to the question. i think number one, in terms of the nature and typical illness of this for mr. trump, it s not right. we know i think people in general about him. he s run for president before he served as president for he ran again for president. and he s running again. and so i think generally the typical defendant to your point, is not someone who s known to the judge and the judge is trying to get a broader perspective with regard to who you are, what you do. number two, in terms of the process itself, it s helpful and important for a judge in general because it does give a deep dive into who the particular person is, what their families about, what their mental health history, about who they are about what their thoughts in nature of the system are about to give you a better rendering of a decision number three, in terms of the judge, i don t think so. okay. see, i don t think judge machine has made up his mind you know, and i know that by nothing in terms of having spoken to him or knowing anything about it. but i think that the process provides for the nature of what happens and what does happen. what happens is, is you re attorneys provide their view defense attorneys with respect to what they fair. and justin appropriate prosecutors way in the department of probation can ways in because they will give casey they the department probation the essence of why he gave this interview a recommendation and i think the judge takes all that into account and let s not forget when you re attorney he s provide their memorandum. it s accompanied by all kinds of letters and documents and things about who you are, what you re about, the redeeming qualities you have and all the factors that talk about the aspirational nature of the actual in most instances, the aberration on nature. it s not typically who the defendant is, judge, this is something that was a one-off, your honor. whatever arguments you make, but there are multiple letters that come with that. and then of course, at the sentencing itself, casey very briefly, the attorneys are afforded an opportunity to make oral argument with regard to what they think it should be added. the defendant, him or herself, in this case, the former president has an opportunity to render some kind of public statement about how they feel. and then oftentimes you get victim impact statements two and so i think because of all that it would really be a disappointment and i m sure that s not what judgment shot is doing to say i ve got my mind made up, i m just going to render a decision. i don t need any of this. all of it is important i mean, sometimes come game de the sentencing day judges do change their mind right then and there. so see what happens here. very interesting, very briefly, joey, let me ask you about the other case that s unfolding. and that s a hunter biden the jury has this case. how long do you expect it to take for them to reach a verdict on something like this so you know, casey, that s always the wildcard in terms of the timeframe and i don t think we could draw anything into the time frame, of course, deliberation, just having begun yesterday, of course, this dealing with three different counts, did he lie to a federally licensed firearm dealer that he lie on the form with regard to the purchase of the weapon or did he illegally possess it? so those are the issues i think they re very clearly defined. what s a bit murky is whether or not there s really, was he addicted at the time, whether he thought he was addicted at the time, was he deceiving himself? what this evidence of that regard and let s not forget, he s got home-court vantage has families pretty popular in delaware? it matters. i think you have an african-american jury that is pretty intuned to what s appropriate, what s in just et cetera and so let s see whether or not we get a hung jury for finally, jury nullification, whether the jury says, you know what, perhaps it s something you did i think there s shaming addiction. we re not going to do that and then let s throw it out. courts has been arguing that, but the prosecution saying it s about line let s see what narrative the jury comes up with. well, know, sue. all alright. joey jackson for us this morning. joey thanks very much the story. the former house speaker kevin mccarthy, reportedly planning a revenge tour. nbc news reporting mccarthy is seeking to retaliate against republicans who voted to oust him last year. this has really been an ongoing thing, but it s starting with republican congresswoman nancy mace of south carolina, cobo, an nbc operatives aligned with mccarthy are directing big money into these races through outside groups. tuesday s challenge to mace is the first test, and then we ll see house freedom caucus chair bob good, who faces a primary in virginia next week two other anti mccarthy voters representatives, eli crane of arizona, matt gaetz of florida, also have primary challenges. this summer mccarthy denies it s a revenge mission and says he s not targeting anyone these are the eight republicans that you mentioned. you see them on your screen what s the first thing that comes to your mind when you see them just function, are you on political vengeance store? no no, i know you guys tried to say that. now, last week i went to los angeles, orange county, san diego raising money for the republican party are you okay. joining me now, senior congressional reported for punchbowl news. andrew does siderio andrew, this is revenge tour. this is the revenge tour. one to the tune of enantiomers, this case, $9 million in outside spending against her in the single house race and a single single house primary? yeah. yeah. it s that s wild. yeah. what are what is the likelihood that any of these folks are going to lose their primaries? well, look, i think it s very possible that nancy mace loses her primary, for example, today, i think that s the big race that everybody is going to be tuning into those other ones you mentioned probably not. but kevin mccarthy is very much interested in toppling the people who were sort of orchestrating the push to oust him from the speakership so andrew can you walk me through also the dynamics in the bob good house race in virginia because that one is really interesting. he is the freedom top of the freedom caucus. he is someone who has, it s not just kevin mccarthy. he s made angry. what s going on with that, right? so donald trump hasn t endorsed his his primary opponent, for example, which was quite stunning to learn, especially given that bob good is, as you said, the chair of the freedom caucus, and he s got a lot of conservatives both movement conservatives and conserve as on capitol hill, who are very much behind him and trying to make sure that he wins his race. he was one of the aid, of course, who voted to oust kevin carvey. so there s that dynamic there as well. i will tell you a lot of freedom caucus members are a little bit upset with donald trump and his political operation at the level at which he s, he s gone in terms of the intensity of trying to endorse me it s primaries. they think it s not productive, not helpful or not helpful to the conservative cause. in particular to be endorsing against these members particularly when you have bob good, who someone when who is the chairman of the freedom caucus, the freedom caucus have ten years ago is not the freedom caucus of today. it s basically a devotion to donald trump, right and bob good is especially so circumstance because he endorsed ron desantis early on in the presidential campaign. so there might be some bad blood there between him and donald trump, and that might have led to the endorsement of his primary opponent. but it s definitely an interesting dynamic to watch it multiple revenge tour is kind of taking their way through his district exactly how i would say it. so this is something that we ve been found how in closely on the show, different, different topic the questions about chatgpt the new kind voice of chatgpt and scarlet johanson, who is very upset about that to the point where she sued over the fact that there was a very uncanny similarity to her voice in this movie. watch good morning. good morning. e of a meeting in five minutes. you want to try getting too funny get good. i m funny learn everything about everything and of course, sam altman, the head of chatgpt tweeted her just one word before he rolled out this new ai. now congress says they want scarlet johanson to come testify. what s that about? well, speaking of nancy mace, it s actually her subcommittee on the house oversight committee that s requested seeing this interview with scarlet johanson. a. tried to schedule it for next month, but apparently it s not going to happen until later this year, maybe not even till october i think this is an example of the legislative process in congress not moving as fast as ai is moving both the development of the technology as well as these moves that are happening private industry like places like openai, like the organization that sam altman leads that s gonna be a struggle for congress as they try to address a very complex topic like this. and we ve talked about this before. but when you see a request for testimony that doesn t actually come to fruition for another four or five, maybe even six months the technology looks very different next week compared to now write much less five or six months from now. yeah. and that s something that congress is going to have to contest with, is making sure that they are moving at the speed, not of congress, but of the technology which is difficult. i mean, we re still waiting on them to do something comprehend hands up on social media has been around now for years alone, ai. all right. andrew does siderio force andrew. thank you. thank you. really appreciate it. are coming up next here. secretary of state antony blinken continues attempting to break broker an end to the war in gaza, plus the panthers take a commanding lead in the stanley cup finals are bleacher report s up next 19th cnn celebrate juneteenth we especially deformities by john legend, hadi lewbel, smokey robinson. we still have a lot of work to do. juneteenth celebrating freedom and legacy wednesday, june 19, on cnn, suffering from arthritis, muscle and joint pain, get relief finally, with magna life onika pain relief gel with eucalyptus, an email oil ease stiffness, inflammation and soreness naturally available at your local retailer the darkness of bipolar depression make me feel like i was losing interest in the things i love. then i found a chance to let in the light discover, capitalize unlike some medicines that only treat bipolar one capital ada is proven to deliver 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with hamas today, blinken met with benny gantz. he had resigned from the israeli war cabinet on sunday after criticizing netanyahu s strategy in gaza yesterday, blinken met with prime minister benjamin netanyahu and with israel s defense minister pressing them to commit to the proposed deal and asking countries in the region to put the same pressure on hamas joining me now to discuss as cnn national security analyst shawn turner, shawn, good morning to you let s just dig in a little bit at to what blinken is doing here. the way that american officials are framing this in public is that they are waiting on hamas, that israel is on board with this american plan, but there does seem to be some murkiness around it. how do you see this playing out? especially in the wake of this very high-profile hostage rescue that also of course led to the deaths of scores of palestinians good morning, case you it s good to be with you when you he listened to israel s response to the biden ceasefire plan. i think that would most people are hearing is you re hearing comments like israel accepts the plan, urine comments like israel believes that this is a good first step, but we re not hearing a full-throated endorsement of the plan and i think that while that a lot of people are cautiously optimistic that this is the plan that will achieve a ceasefire. there s still a lot of unknowns here. look, i think that what i see here is a fact that israel this feeling, increasing pressure from the international community. it goes without saying that this is no longer a localized or regional issue for israel, that the pressure is intense and they re being criticized by all sectors of the globe so i think that what we re going to see here is we re going to, we re going to see the support of this plan continued to strengthen or going to see israel wait this out, and we re going to see hamas as we always see with hamas, try to leverage this plants to get as much as they possibly can. i think this is the best possible option that we ve had in a long time. so i m cautiously optimistic that this is going to work out shawn there s some reporting in the wall street journal about messages from mr. sinwar, who is the head of hamas, who has been messaging with hamas officials that the qatari and egyptian emissaries, and it s reported that he said, we ve the israeli he s right where we want them. and then he also compared what s going on with palestinian civilians to national liberation conflicts in say algeria end. he said, quote, these are necessary sacrifices and quote, how do you think that illuminates the thinking of hamas at this point? you, at this point 0.1 of the big concerns that we ve all had is the fact that hamas continues to use civilians to achieve their objectives. i mean, when we look at the number of palestinians who have been killed, it s, it s astronomical i think that what this does a message like that i think it s obviously not constructive, casey, because there is a deal that s on the table. and what hamas needs do if you read the language of a deal, it s very clear in terms of what hamas needs to do. there s no wiggle room for hamas. and so a message like that suggests that there is wiggle room at that there s some negotiation that can or should happen with israel, and that s simply not the case. this is a deal that lays out what hamas should do. and i think that the challenge punch that we see with hamas is that even though we see a message like that, hamas is not always in control you have a number of different groups and factions that be maybe making decisions that are not necessarily in line with with what the negotiators want to do so it s not helpful. but again, i think that that s the kind of rhetoric we oftentimes i m see. this is a good deal and there s a real opportunity here to really some of the pressure and two, and the humanitarian crisis in gaza all right. sean turner for us it s morning. i serve a much appreciate your time. thank you for being here thanks, casey all right. time now for sports, the florida panthers are two wins away from hoisting the stand can we cup for the first time in franchise history if they get there are andy scholes has this morning s bleacher report, andy, good morning. good morning. cases. so edmonds and they really wanted to win this series that only for there fans, but for all of canada, canadian team has not won the stanley cup since 1993. state of florida. meanwhile, laken when it off for the third time in five years, but this wouldn t be the first for the panthers. now the oilers striking first in game two, mathias et calm putting this one past survey, row barofsky there, but that would be the oilers only goal of the knife fast-forward to the third period panthers. now up to one, edmonds is leon dry side hi, idle elbows, alexander barkat in their head right there that really fired up the panthers even more. barkov, he needed help get into the bench, did not return to this game. panthers would score two more, to win this one 14 to one to take a 2-0 lead in the series after the game, panthers head coach paul maurice, he was asked about that hit on barkov quickly because i think you re holding back how do you feel about the hit on barkov? this isn t the oprah winfrey show my feelings don t matter. all right. oilers, they re not good at o2 holes. they ve done it ten times in their history. they lost nine of those series game three it s going to be thursday in edmonton. all right. caitlin clark, meanwhile, back on the court last night, frehse off being left off the olympic team rough night for the first overall pick scored just ten points in 22 minutes. all tentative points coming in the first half, clark didn t play at all in the fourth, leaving the fans in connecticut you chant. we want kaitlan, the sun beat the fever and that went 89 to 72 indiana, just three and ten. now, on the season i los angeles lakers search for a new coach, is now back act two square one uconn s dan early announcing he is staying at the school instead of making the jump to the mba to coach lebron, according to espn s adrian wojnarowski, the lakers offered hurley next year $70 million deal to be their coach. hurley though, turning that down to try to go for a third straight title with the huskies, no one has one three-straight intuitively titles since john woods, bruins. in finally, check this out. blue jays, vlad guerrero, junior faculty pulling off the pitch of the fourth ed, bad goes with it and look where it gets stuck its way up in the netting and it would stay up there for another two innings. everyone putting the duck out, a dugout working for figure out a way to get that bat down and listen to how that saga in ensures in science continues at american family feels they ve added or removed trying dislodge this bad they got an a round. it trying to pull the band down the haven t secured right now it s a finish on a line redemption blue jays pitcher chris bassett was the hero and the end isn t that big cheer from the graph here in milwaukee of the case he, as you can see, it took a whole team effort. they had the poll with just a hooked and they figured out, let s put a ring on it. is that pole like what where does that why is that in a baseball dugata. dugata attended apparently went and found the poll that they had in the back i ve told you know, and i ve got the fans are grateful that the net was there in the first place. who knew it was going to be a bat flying their way. all right. andy, thank you. i appreciate it coming up next here, supreme court justice samuel alito secretly recorded discussing questions about his own ethics plus new reporting on donald trump s demeanor during interview with his new york probation officers trump met with his probation officer over zoom, which was great because trump s laurie could hit mute whenever you started talking devastating and sudden power of tsunamis, it happened in faraway lands and it s easy 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that will do it for us tonight. i told you that tonight would be a show and have. now it s time for the last word with lawrence o donnell. i listened to episode one of the new podcast today. i got to ask you a favor. okay. did you stop doing this thing where you reveal really dramatic interesting stories about united states senators i ve never heard of? because one of the angles on me getting a paycheck out of this place is i pretend that i m like the senate expert because i worked there for a while. this is not helpful, rachel. i spend the day listening to you telling me that a senator i ve never heard of, and, by the way, the single most dramatic thing that has ever occurred in the building where i used to work at i did not know it happened until today listening to you, and it s not supposed to be like that. i will start doing podcasts that are about state legislatures in states you never been to. rachel, i am filled with questions and possible spoiler questions that you are free to deflect, could you possibly join me after i get a little work done here about trump s probation to talk about the podcast because there are so many things i want to see if you can answer, and then, of course, there might be things you don t want to answer. i would love that. i look forward to answering your questions and dodging them? getting your slippers while i chat with andrew weissmann and we will do that. thank you. today was a routine workday for america s probation officers. one of those probation officers had the least routine workday of that probation officers life today when that probation officer new york city became the first probation officer in history to interview a former president of the united states. his first probation interview today is a standard and necessary part of determining what sentence donald trump should receive after a manhattan jury found him guilty of 34 felony charges of falsifying business records with the criminal intent of violating new york election lot in the 2016 presidential election. the probation department will use his responses today to determine what sentence the probation department will recommend for defendant trump at his sentencing hearing on july 11th. in another demonstration of donald trump getting extra favorable treatment, while he is complaining of being persecuted, judge juan merchan allowed his criminal defense lawyer to attend his first probation meeting and the probation department allowed it to take place virtually with donald trump in florida. a special treatment for trump did not go unnoticed by the legal aid society, the bronx defenders, new york county defender services and neighborhood defender services. they issued a joint statement saying all people convicted of crimes should be allowed counsel in their probation interview not just billionaires. this is another example of the two-tiered system of justice. presentencing interviews with probation officers influence sentencing, and public defenders are deprived of joining their clients for these meetings. the option of joining these interviews virtually is typically not extended to the people we represent either. to ensure integrity and fairness, we call on nyc department of probation to ensure that all new yorkers, regardless of income, status, or class, receive the same presentencing opportunities. nbc news is reporting that the interview lasted less than 30 minutes and that trump s probation officer is a woman. cnn is reporting that the commissioner for new york city department of probation was present along with the general counsel for the department. joining our discussion is the former commissioner of new york city s department of probation. thank you for joining us tonight. first of all, we want to get a sense of how unusual this was. we already have a sense that it was a bit unusual. as to the presence of counsel and it being remote you have these people representing other defendants saying that is never available to us. that is correct. it is highly unusual. i think it is appropriate to make some accommodation and recognize the fact that when trump shows up he will be accompanied by the secret service, he will be accompanied by the press, and his presence may be disruptive. the idea of doing the interview remotely does not troubled me that much. i think it is somewhat appropriate. and certainly during covid probation made use of these kind promote interviews. i think you can make arguments both ways. the presence of counsel is highly unusual and the presence of the commissioner is something i ve never heard of in 40 years in this business. can you think of a reason for doing it? would you have done it. would you join that meeting? no. i cannot think of a reason to do it. i think it skews the interview. i think too many people in the room is distracting and disruptive and not conducive to candor. i definitely would not have done that and i don t think it should be done in this case. 30 minutes is the report we are getting. what you make of that? it sounds abbreviated to me. usually these things take at least one hour. the content of what this interview is supposed to cover and what this report is supposed to address is spelled out very explicitly in state regulations, and it goes on in some link that covers a wide array of issues. i don t believe they could be addressed in a half hour unless mr. trump just refused to discuss all of them, which is his right to do. there is reporting that he did cooperate and answer all the questions. i m not sure whether that is completely true. assuming that, what you think the most important things aren t that they should have obtained in this discussion? i think that the judge certainly knows this defendant. he does not need to know much more. i think the important question to be addressed here was aggravating or mitigating circumstances. this was an opportunity for the defendant to set forth mitigating circumstances and for the probation officer, on behalf of the people, to set forth aggravating circumstances. but most importantly of all is the question of if this individual is not sent to prison but is granted probation , is this an individual who is likely to accept the terms of that probation and the supervision of a probation officer. and what would the terms of probation be and what would that supervision be like? all i can speak to is the typical case, and obviously, this is not a typical case. typically, a probationer would be expected to report to the probation office periodically. certainly no less than monthly at first. and to keep the probation officer apprised of his or her comings and goings, certainly not to engage in illegal activities and not to associate with individuals engaged in illegal activities. and not to misuse drugs or alcohol. to fulfill his or her financial obligations both to his or her defend dependence or any fines or restitution that has been ordered. what about associating with people who have been convicted of crimes? many people around donald trump have been convicted of crimes. historically this has been discouraged by probation agencies around the country. it has been liberalized somewhat recently, but i think it is something that the probation officer appropriately would discuss with the individual to determine whether the association is occurring for a good reason or not. martin horn, thank you very much for sharing your expertise. you are welcome. this evening in florida, trump s favorite federal judge denied his request to dismiss the federal criminal case against him for violations of the espionage act and illegal possession of classified documents. the judge said that the prosecution documents are permitted by law, raise evidentiary challenges not appropriate for disposition at this juncture, and/or do not require dismissal even if technically deficient, so long as the jury is instructed appropriately and presented with adequate verdict forms as to each of defendant s alleged conduct. the judge did grant the request to strike a paragraph of the indictment about his alleged meeting with a representative of his political action committee believed to be his campaign advisor, susie wiles, at his golf club in new jersey in 2021. it says that trump showed that person a classified map at that time. judge cannon said because showing that map is not one of the charged crimes in the indictment, it is not appropriate to include it in the indictment. in the ongoing scandal that is the united states supreme court, now there are tapes thanks to warren windsor. lauren windsor is an activist known to approach important republican people attending to be an ally and making flattering comments and secretly recording the responses. she is a dues paying member of the supreme court historical society, which has corrupted itself into an organization that allows right-wing supreme court influencers to comfortably influence right- wing supreme court justices at the annual dinner of that organization. last year at the supreme court historical society annual dinner, lauren windsor made recordings of her chats with supreme court justices that even she found so uninteresting she did not publish them. this year was different. she got samuel alito to agree on tape to returning the country to a place of godliness. as a catholic and as someone who really cherishes my faith, i just don t i don t know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end. i think it s a matter of, light, winning. i think you re probably right. on one side or the other, one side or the other is going to win. i don t know. i mean, there can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully. but it s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can t be compromised. so it s not like you re going to split the difference. that s what i m saying. it s just i think that the solution really is like winning the moral argument. like people in this country who believe in god have got to keep fighting for that to return our country to a place of godliness. i agree with you. and by contrast, chief justice roberts responded very differently. but you don t think there s a role for the court in guiding us toward a more moral path? no. i think the role for the court is deciding the case is. if i start would you want me to be in charge of guiding morals? i believe that the founders were godly, like were christians, and i think that we live in a christian nation and that are supreme court should be guiding us in that path. i don t know if that s true. i don t know that we live in a christian nation. i had jewish and muslim friends that would say maybe not and it s not our job to do that. it is our job to decide the cases as best we can. and since justice alito made his wife a public figure by blaming her publicly for flying flags supportive of the january 6th insurrection, you might expect her to have little to say to strangers about flags. and you would be wrong. why do you think they are coming after you? i mean like, the whole appeal to have have been flag the other thing is they believe rush limbaugh coined the term when he was not just the center of right-wing media, he was the only real national right-wing media. fox news was not invented yet so samuel alito s wife is quoting material from rush limbaugh that is over 30 years old that s how long she has apparently been listening and taking direction from the likes of rush limbaugh. you know what i want? i want a sacred heart of jesus flag because i have to look across the lagoon at the pride flag for the next month. and he s like, oh please don t put up a flag. but when you are free of this nonsense, i m putting it up and i m going to send the message every day. maybe every week i ll be changing the flags. i made a flag in my head. it s white and has yellow and orange flames around it and in the middle is the word shame in italian. joining us now is andrew weissmann. he is co-author of the best- selling book, the trump indictments. andrew, this is quite an interesting window of sound into the thinking of justice alito and chief justice roberts. well, it could not be more striking from both of them of where the country is and we are hearing from a man who is a principal architect for the reversal, after 50 years, of roe v. wade. his thinking is in that decision is just as weak as his thinking that was shown in the letter he submitted trying to justify the flag incidents. and you have this dichotomy because you have the chief justice saying, what is the correct thing to say. we are on the eve of getting a decision on presidential immunity. it is a real lot on this country and the judicial system and i hate to be so direct that you have justice alito and justice thomas sitting on those decisions. that is not the way the country is supposed to be operated and not the way the court should be operating. their conduct as reflected on these tapes but their conduct in many ways without these tapes is something that is besmirching an important branch of government in this country that we are entitled to count on and it s hard to have faith in the system when you have that kind of conduct in these tape recordings coming out. we also have in these tapes, something very close to proving that justice alito lied publicly about the flags and the reason for the flags being up because the person he s blaming saying she wants these flags because of the other ones people have including the pride flag that somehow is oppressive to her. absolutely. there is nothing in there that i did it just in response. and even that story, the timing of that story did not make any sense in terms of what it was supposed to be in response to. as referred with respect to the police report and the neighbor across the way. so what is just amazing to me is there is zero accountability of the supreme court. and that is where chief justice roberts, as much as he might be a good man personally and he obviously said the right things. you don t really get credit for that because that is what is expected, but that is where he is to blame in part for not taking stronger action and there are a number of things he can do that would put more pressure on two justices who are not upholding their oath of office and away that helps this country at large, whatever side you re on. if you saw this from a liberal justice, we would be just as outraged and, of course, you would hear just as much, but it s not appropriate behavior. you know, andrew, i will speak for me. i spent most of my life finding inconceivable that we would be doing a story about a supreme court justice lying. and lying about something important that affects the integrity of the course own decisions. and i am now realizing in retrospect that the reason it was inconceivable was the supreme court justices themselves who we grew up with who could not possibly step in these things the way that samuel alito has or that clarence thomas has but especially justice alito with the flags and his wife making these comments to stranger about the flags that have become something far beyond controversial. the flags that they are flying that shared the spirit of the january 6th insurrection, all of that completely inconceivable not because of any ethics enforcement body but because, who was actually serving on the supreme court, whether we agreed with them or not during most of our lifetimes. i just want to point out one other aspect of what he was hurt on tape saying is that this is a christian nation and should be brought more to be a christian nation. and is a jewish american, that is not what our country is about. there is an establishment clause that s is supposed to separate the religious beliefs, which everyone is entitled to their own, but it s not established by the government. and that principal is very much under attack right now. with at least five if not six justices. hearing that from justice alito s mouth basically rips off any sort of pretense as to what is going on and it really tells you very much how dishonest the dobbs decision was that reversed roe v. wade. the idea that we are just sending it back to the states. that is not what is going on. this is part of a religious fervor and you have justice alito saying it out loud and whether you like the idea of the tape recordings happening in the way they were done is neither here nor there because there was nothing that prevented him from responding the way that justice roberts responded, which was correct. and it reveals the profound depths of the stupidity of samuel alito. andrew weissmann, thank you very much for joining us tonight. you are welcome. coming up, our next guest needs either a long introduction or no introduction. i will decide which one during the commercial break. rachel maddow joins us next. this soil 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[ bird squawks loudly ] to a pet shop. meg s moving company uses t-mobile. so she scaled down her fleet to save money. and don s paying so much for at&t, he s been waiting to update his equipment! there s a smarter way to save. comcast business mobile. you could save up to 70% on your wireless bill. so you don t have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities. wyoming in the 1940s. horizons, promise, also pigeons. lots and lots of pigeons. there was a serious infestation of pigeons. that s roger mcdaniel, a wyoming historian and author. he served in both houses of the wyoming state legislature, and the pigeon infestation he s talking about was that his old workplace at the wyoming state capital. that is the start of season 2 of the podcast in which rachel once again introduces us to a u.s. senator i ve never heard of. lester hunt is the man who climbed out on the window ledges at the state capitol to drop poison to kill the pigeons. lester hunt, when he did this, was the newly elected governor of the state of wyoming. it gives me pleasure to introduce you at this time, the honorable lester hunt. he set his sights on the u.s. senate, and he won that race too. our distinguished guest this evening is the honorable lester c hunt. the most popular politician in his state, lester hunt, newly elected u.s. senator, he heads to washington to do what he has always done, to advocate for his constituents for the people of wyoming. and to do some good for the rest of the country through service in the u.s. senate. he is as poised as anyone could be for success in that job, but things are about to change him radically. what he is about to encounter in washington will cost him his life. he will not live to see the end of even one term as a u.s. senator. joining us now is rachel maddow. you can get the first episode anywhere you listen to podcasts. and you can subscribe to msnbc. him and get every episode. rachel, i cannot take it. listen. we have 10 minutes. tell me the rest of it right now. i cannot wait for the next episode. well, i mean, and then there is us. it becomes the america that we know. i will not tell you the whole story. thank you for letting me come to show and talk about it. lester hunt is i mean, he stopped completely forgotten figure, but things went so badly for him very quickly after he got to washington that what i was trying to do in episode one was create the sense of the lost possibility. he really did lose his life to the scandal that i am working on in this podcast. it is a huge loss for the country because he did have a bright future ahead of him and everything else in his life leading up to that moment was not anything to go by. and i think i ve become good at resurrecting old villains who we forgotten about from history, but lester hunt is one of the good guys that we need to remember his legacy and the loss of him to something that went wrong with extremism in american politics and it is something we should regret and remember and commemorate. he s a democrat getting elected in republican wyoming. a difficult thing to do and impressive no matter when you hear that. he s like the jon tester of his time in that situation. but apparently, very naove when he gets to washington in such a way and i m speaking beyond what i know. but clearly he gets eaten up by washington and this is the drama about more than him. so what happens with him, and you will get there very quickly in the next few episodes, is that he s confronted in the senate with the first major thing he does in the senate. there is another senator in the opposite party who is his opposite and this other senator gets involved in a propaganda campaign . a foreign influence operation, which is an outrageous, like, dirty, false conspiracy theory tale designed to hurt united states. and lester hunt realizes what the other senator is doing. he s repulsed by it, and they come to loggerheads in the senate over this thing that the other senator is trying to advance. part of the reason i wanted to do this story is that while this is happening and while they are becoming mortal enemies in the senate, they lived next door to one another and their backyards backup to each other s houses. and while they have decided they are out to destroy each other, they can see how each other are living. and it only ratchets up the repulsion that lester hunt has and he decides on to take the political risk and i have to stand up against a monster like this and he does. and it is for the good of the country and it costs him his life. what he is fighting for and the reason he s fighting against that foreign influence operation in washington and the lowdown depth that some people will go to for political gain is an inspiration to me, even though it cost him his life. the first season talks about the poll that fascism had in the united states. the attraction it had for some people, how far they were willing to go to advance the cause of fascism here, and this and that is pre-world war ii and into world war ii. and this takes us to a period after world war ii. those people, most of them disappeared and one of the things we talked a lot about was that it became a forgotten story. the great sedition trial and the americans that worked with a asian they were defeated one way or another. and that means that we forgot their stories. and it means we forgot their stories pretty quickly. when they were let go and didn t get prosecuted for it and in the case of members of congress, none of them were prosecuted at all. their story was mostly forgotten and those of them that stayed in public life kept being the same kind of people they were before. for example, one of the characters in season 2 is someone who was part of the silver shirts and was writing for and in season 2 he ends up being the subject of an international years long manhunt by the u.s. government as, they believe him not just to be an american fascist, but a traitor and a nuclear terrorist. so this stuff gets worse. and he ends up involved with the republican senator who is a sitting senator in the u.s. senate. so when you let these folks get away with things, it is important that you please keep tabs on them to see where else they re going to turn up because it is never good. how many episodes, rachel? there are eight. and those of us who want 16 or 24, what do we do so you tell stories in your show that are similar to this and they tend to be 20 to 25 minutes. each podcast episode is significantly longer than that. what is the difference for you, as a storyteller, in the way you approach the podcast as opposed to the way you approach the show? a very good question. the podcast is basically it s a little book. it s a tv show. if you put all the episode legs together it s something that i want to hold your attention for about 4 to 5 hours. so in order to hold your attention for that time, it has to be well told. we use a lot of archival audio and historical audio and the wyoming audio archives to get the sound of lester hunt s voice was an incredible odyssey and superfund. but this is a single story arc that cannot be told in the course of the tv show. you have to stick with it. but by the time you get to the end, you should ve learned a new thing about american history and be propelled along the way by the dramatic interest in it so it sticks. i want these stories to be memorable. i m interested in these stories because i think they should be well known and we should all remember lester hunt and we should remember there was an internationally wanted american fascist fugitive who was involved with the republican senate at the onset of the cold war. we should understand what happens when the great sedition trial of the united states and with all of those people getting away and those seditionist movements getting away without ever being criminally held criminally accountable for what they ve been charged with. i want those stories to be vernacular and be a part of the way we think about our history as americans in dealing with a really strong anti-democratic challenges. we have a strong anti- democratic challenge right now, so we should know what are the options for how to respond to it and what has worked well in the past and what has not. the key to this great drama is, even if you don t care about democracy, and i don t understand you if you don t, if you don t care about democracy, this is still great drama with great characters just perfectly told by america s friendliest boys to tell you scary things. the good news is these scary things are kind of over, except there are threads of them that are still with us now. an alternative name for ultra you could ve considered, but stuff that lawrence o donnell does not know. that could be the title. it s hard to squeeze it into that small space. but what did you say? the friendliest boys? i might hit you up for that. thank you. i cannot wait for more episodes. thank you. you can listen to the first episode of the second season everywhere you listen to podcasts. coming up there have only been two presidents in the history of the united states who have issued pardons to members of their family. joe biden has thomas he will not become the third as a jury deliberates a case against hunter biden. that is next with andrew weissmann. to help drive its growth and keep its supply chain moving, so more pet parents can get everything they need. right when they need it. keeping more pets, and families, happy. for the love of moving our clients forward. when did i call leaffilter? for the love of progress. when i saw my gutters overflowing onto my porch. leaffilter is a permanent gutter solution, so, you never have to worry about costly damage from clogged gutters again. it s the easiest call you can make. call 833.leaf.filter today, or visit leaffilter.com. limu emu. and doug. 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(thinking: eddie, no frasier, frank. frank?) fred! how are you?! fred. fuel up to 7 brain health indicators, including your memory. join the neuriva brain health challenge. ed gutters. including your memory. call leaffilter today. and never clean out clogged gutters again. leaffilter s technology keeps debris out of your gutters for good. guaranteed. call 833.leaf.filter today, or visit leaffilter.com. i know that you cannot speak about an ongoing federal prosecution. let me ask you, will you accept the jury s outcome, the verdict, no matter what it is? yes. have you ruled out a pardon for your son? yes. i m president the clintons last day in office, he pardoned his brothers sentence after pleading guilty to cocaine distribution charges. 138 years earlier president abraham lincoln pardoned his wife s sister. in one of the thousands of pardons issued after the civil war under the proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction. that is the entire history of presidential pardons for family members of the president. the jury completed one hour of deliberation in the federal case against president biden son and they are considering three felony charges. count one, false statement in the purchase of a firearm. count two, false statement related to information required to be kept federal firearms license delay. count number three, possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user or addicted to a controlled substance. biden s lawyers argued that prosecutors have not offered evidence that their client was on drugs when he bought the gun and find a federal form attesting that he was not using illegal substances, or that he took drugs during the 11 days the gun was in his possession. biden family members, including first lady joe biden have been in attendance at the trial in support of hunter biden. president biden did not attend or comment on it but he issued this written statement last week. i am the president, i am also a dad. jill and i love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. huntress resilience in the face of adversity and the strength he has brought to his recovery are inspiring to us. a lot of families have loved ones who have overcome addiction and know what we mean. as the president, i don t and won t comment on pending federal cases, but as a dad, i have boundless love for my son, confidence in him, and respect for his strength. our family has been through a lot together, and jill and i are going to continue to be there for hunter and our family with our love and support. after this break, andrew weissmann will give us his evaluation of the evidence in the hunter biden case. that is next. breze has a microcp to control scent release so it smells first-day fresh for 50 days. 50 days!? 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well, before i get to that, i want to point out that compared to the opening where we talked about justice alito and the concern about the rule of law in this country, this is an example of the criminal trial of the rule of law working where you see the court functioning, even when you re dealing with a former president, or, in this case, the son of a president. there focusing on intent. the proof here is very strong that there was possession of a gun. there is very strong evidence that the addiction that hunter biden had and the issue is, was he aware during the relevant time periods of when he signed the form that said that essentially he was not an addict and did he believe at that point that he was an addict. and at the time that he possessed the gun for that two- week period, did he also believe that he was an addict. there is an intent. making a mistake is not for criminal law. this is a criminal case and they will be focused on that. there is sufficient proof if the jury wants to find it. it is very strong case. but abby lowell is an extremely good defense lawyer and we will see if he pulls a rabbit out of the hat. the big picture for the public is less of what happens and the fact that you have a president of the united states living the rule of law in this country and you have the rule of law working for the president son. andrew weissmann, thank you very much. we will be right back. what causes a curve here? 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all russian and soviet dictators, their problem is they always think that they re the last line of defense. you are in power. you have the right to, if you decide, to destroy it so nobody else will get it. the united states doesn t even notice that the soviets are on edge. they didn t even put the soviet reaction into ronald reagan s presidential daily brief. [indistinct radio chatter] [narrator] before andropov can act, the able archer operation wraps up on schedule. [pilot] roger that. [narrator] andropov is finally persuaded that this really was just an exercise. this time. [tim] the united states didn t know to ratchet down the tension when it really mattered. that is an indicator of just the lack of understanding that the united states and the soviet union had of each other. but in a nuclear confrontation, lack of understanding can have catastrophic consequences when adversaries have nuclear weapons pointed at each other and don t understand each other. every day in every state across the country, our political system is bankrolled by an army of fund-raisers, pulling in millions of dollars a race. sometimes it looks like you might imagine knocking on doors, calling every name in the phone book, and emails so many emails. but for all those little fish throwing $100 to their local race, it s the whales those campaign fund-raisers really need powerful, rich individuals and companies. and when they donate $25,000, $100,000, a million dollars, they want a favor.or 10. it should be obvious that s corrupt, but with a wink and a nod, political deals toe the bribery line every single day. and we may never have noticed that if a certain illinois governor hadn t flung back the curtain with an unrepentant ego, a political corruption crime spree, and a set of unprecedented audio recordings that shined a bright light on the inner workings of american political power. ladies and gentlemen, meet rod blagojevich. it was early morning, cause i used to get up every morning and turn on the 6:00 news, and, you know, like, you re kinda waking up, and then you re like, well, wait, what? [helicopter whirring] oh, sh , they outside of blagojevich s house! they got cameras, they got cars, and then they march him out. and you re like, that s our governor, joe. breaking news the illinois governor, rod blagojevich, charged with plotting to sell barack obama s former senate seat. tapper: remember this guy? he sure hopes you do. governor rod blagojevich went down in a blaze of infamy for one of the largest political corruption scandals of our time. the governor was allegedly trying to sell the illinois senate seat vacated by president-elect obama. in fact, part of the governor s sales pitch was that the seat still had that new obama smell. [audience laughter] appointing someone to the senate is a rare opportunity when the will of the people is swapped wholesale for a gubernatorial power trip. blagojevich had the sole authority to place whomever he wanted straight into the halls of the u.s. senate, and he was not shy about wanting a little something in return. with the fbi recording his phone calls, for the first time since nixon, the public was able to listen in on raw backroom politics, and there s nothing quite like hearing it from the horse s mouth. reporter: the criminal complaint quotes blagojevich as saying the senate seat was a valuable thing. you just don t give it away for nothing. another quote i ve got this thing, and it s bleeping golden. [blagojevich speaking] i ve got this thing, and it s [bleep] golden. -yeah. -[audience laughter] and i m not just giving it up for [bleep] nothing. [laughter] was there a second [bleep] in there? tapper: racking up a staggering 24 criminal charges, governor blagojevich s actions essentially boiled down to four things extortion, bribery, corruption, and wire fraud. and it wasn t just about the senate seat. blagojevich was also found guilty of extorting a children s hospital. you can t write this stuff. he s an arrogant punk who thinks that, you know, he s bulletproof. well, he s not. he was convicted on 18 total charges and sentenced to 14 years, the longest sentence ever handed down to a governor. people loathed blagojevich for the way he politicked, but was what he did so blatantly criminal? cause the truth is that the line between what s illegal and what s allowable is much murkier than we d like to think, and this is where the rod blagojevich story gets interesting. let me reassert to all of you once more that i am not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing. [camera shutter clicks] was rod a corrupt politician or just a politician operating in a corrupt system that still thrives to this day? so, governor, thanks for doing this. thank you. so you ve been out of prison now for almost two years. a little over two years. and you re still very outspoken about how you feel like the case against you was unjust. there isn t really an argument about what you said. -right. -it s on tape. right. the question is whether it was illegal and whether it was morally wrong. look, if you re saying, do we have a fund-raising system in america that you can arguing is legalized bribery? i think there s truth to that. but did i do anything other than that standard that every other person in politics does, from president biden on down? i did the same as them and nothing worse. there is this real problem in american politics today where prosecutors are weaponizing themselves, criminalizing routine illegal practices in government politics, and i think it s wrong when they do it to bill clinton. it s wrong, i think, when they did it to president trump cause i have strong views on that, and i know it was wrong when they did it to me. okay, lot to unpack there. let s talk about the chicago and illinois system, because you re hardly the first governor in history, even in recent history, to to go to prison. what s the situation here that causes this to happen? well, i think it s time-honored here, and there s a long history in chicago politics, illinois politics, where pretty much everybody gets rich. ah, chicago politics. it s like going to a pay pond when you go fishing. like, if you are a prosecutor, you cannot be in illinois and not get something. illinois is steeped in a rich history of political corruption that dates back a century to the prohibition era, when bootlegging gangsters such as al capone bought off politicians and police departments, keeping them drunk on power and.also just drunk. in rod s lifetime, illinois has developed a rap sheet that any mobster would be proud of more than 1,700 convictions for corruption, including nearly 30 chicago aldermen, eight stage legislators, two u.s. congressmen, and before rod came onto the scene, three governors. in an odd way, the very people who should hate the idea of corruption are kind of proud that this is al capone s illinois. chicago is a wink and a nod town. -it s a shot and a beer town. -[clink] lot of it has to do with family relationships, because a lot of the political leadership in chicago and illinois are family-related. there s the daley family, the madigans. all of these families sort of become part of this mafia. -yeah. -a political mafia, and they re the ones who make the rules. i didn t come from that. i had to marry into it. i met a girl on the 6th of march, 1988. she was wearing a red dress, and she happened to be the daughter of an old-fashioned chicago political war boss. and she s my wife patti. we fell in love. patti blagojevich is a loyal wife, she is a tough customer, and she s the daughter of dick mell. she s complicated. that budding relationship between those two is how rod goes from this nobody politically, finding a way to kind of imbed himself into one of these big political families in chicago. they have so much power. i don t think it was, you know, some great surprise that, like, you know, when it comes time to meet the parents, that dick mell was the father-in-law and the the powerful city council chieftain. we re gonna try to work together to put this great city back together so that we re all part of it and we all feel free. dick mell was a guy who always had the voice in the backrooms. he was a power broker in that kind of chicago classic sense. before politics, it was a nice relationship, but for the most part, respectful. and then because i was in the family, and i was actually pretty good at helping her dad, local politics, knocking on doors and trying to get him votes, there was an opportunity to run for office. in rod blagojevich, mell could see a guy that eventually, if he does it right, i could sort of pass the mantle toward. rod was an immediate hit with illinois voters, who sent him first to the state house in 1992 and then to the u.s. congress in 1996. dick mell says, i can see you being governor. and i gotta be honest, i m sure if i m looking at it from dick mell s position, he s saying, man, if i can elect this guy governor, i can run the whole state. reporter: the campaign for illinois governor has gotten pretty lively. you ve got chicago congressman rod blagojevich. what s that name again? -bala-jo-vich. -reporter: bala-jo-vich, huh? -bala-jo-vich. -you sure? positive. tapper: during rod s 2002 governor s campaign, dick mell s membership in the old school chicago elite was a definite bonus, but it was rod s working class bonafides and people skills that did all the rest. coming from the family he did, he had a real working class chip on his shoulder, and his two heroes were elvis and richard nixon, both because they were guys who came from the wrong side of their tracks and fought their way up and were kind of disdained by the elites. in fact, if those two gritty 20th century icons fought their way into a single person, you might actually end up with rod blagojevich, for better and for worse. the rod blagojevich that i first met was youthful. he was energetic. he had this kind of mane of black hair that was super thick, and you could tell it was filled with hair product. the hair so iconic in its own right, that it became a comedy staple on every late night show. -the hair. -the hair. really, it looks like you re wearing a toupée that s also wearing a toupée. [audience laughter] he had a huge infatuation with elvis presley. his charisma was disarming. [cheers and applause] [amplified voice] thank you. thank you very much. [cheers, whistles, and applause] but the elvis of illinois was itching to lose his colonel parker, because despite the many benefits of dick mell s patronage, rod was still in his shadow. you know, he really became known as dick mell s son-in-law first. and i know he hated that. he didn t know how to both be his own man and not let dick mell foreshadow him. the only way for rod to survive outside of his father-in-law s machine was to create his own cash flow. so his first step was to hire two of chicago s most bare-knuckled political fund-raisers, chris kelly and tony rezko. chris kelly and tony rezko could generate big bucks. they were fund-raisers. they were donors. you know, let s just call em what they were. they were influence peddlers. they wound up being able to shake the bushes here and help rod raise money. they promised access and favors if blagojevich won, and they got results. where dick mell s good old boys would fetch $2,000 at a time, kelly and rezko would shake loose 50 grand. all that money plus rod s appeal to voters who had felt ignored by the entrenched chicago political dynasties well, it proved to be an unstoppable combination. he ran on some things that were uniquely important to black people. healthcare for kids is a good idea. when he said, free rides for seniors on public transportation, that resonated with black people specifically. blagojevich became governor in 2003. -congratulations, governor. -thank you. may god bless you. [cheers and applause] how do you view your your time as governor apart from the scandals? how do i say this in a way where i don t sound like a guy without any humility? but i truly believe i was a great governor. i can t think of any governor in my life that did anything for anybody i knew that can walk around and say, you know what? thank you, governor. my daughter had healthcare through you. free public transportation for seniors and the disabled? i did that cause they raised the sales tax, which hurts working people and poor people and seniors. with the legislature raising taxes that hit lower-income illinoisans hardest, and rod striking back with policies to offset that, it s no surprise that his populist agenda made him a lot of enemies amongst the big political families. to the people and the masses, he was on our team, and to the aristocracy and to the political elites, he was this guy that was taking their resources and giving em to the peasants, and so he became robin hood. i knew the reality that i m gonna have resistance from the old guard, the old ward bosses, the madigans, daley to some extent, my father-in-law, and so the goal was raise money now and raise a lot of it so that you can afford to make enemies, and you can afford to lose support. right, but some of these people that you were that you were relying on like chris kelly were were corrupt. -right? -turned out that chris had problems in his own personal business, and he was found guilty of those things. had nothing to do with me. but, like, a lot of the people in the world of fund-raising are not necessarily. -they are not. -.upstanding individuals. -no, they re not. -yeah. -no, they re not. what s the saying? ignorance is not a defense ? tony rezco and chris kelly they started compiling this list of different entities that were state contractors, and they hit all those people up for money, probably with rod s assistance. hey, you got a contract? you wanna keep it? or you want to get more? you gotta pony up. a lot of people in play have scalpel-like tendencies when they fund-raise, and rod was probably more of a meat cleaver. [beeping] -[telephone rings] -kelly and rezco were using government levers to squeeze anyone they could for a campaign contribution kickbacks like a cushy job or a fat contract, a little light extortion such as holding up teachers funds. they had deep pockets to fill and a financial machine to do it. you can t trade official actions as a governor in exchange for campaign contributions or jobs. i mean, there is one simple word for that. it s called graft. graft is simply the use of political power and authority in exchange for personal gain. to state the obvious, appointing unqualified people to state positions because you wanna use the government as a vending machine for your political campaign that s completely illegal. the m.o. was to make money from every state petitioner possible, and small-town hospital ceo pam davis looked like just another easy mark. but in this case, the whole shakedown process is recorded by the hospital executive who was getting shaken down. [laughs] woman: he needs to reset your wire. [laughs] oh, god, another wire. sorry for, uh. -i don t care. -just in here. uh, the governor really wasn t on my radar, um, at all until i experienced an extortion attempt through one of his, um, colleagues. pam s hospital system wanted to build a new facility in plainfield, illinois. seems pretty straightforward, but there were red flags right away when she went to get government approval for the project. davis: in my case, the governor had appointed individuals to this board who had either contributed money to his campaign, so they bought their way on, or individuals that were controlled by the governor and other individuals and would approve only those projects where a kickback was going to be given. turns out the board was willing to approve the hospital. all she had to do was use builders and lenders who were in their pocket and pad the contract so the board could take. let s call it a transaction fee for their trouble. it became clear to me that this was a major extortion attempt, and i was furious. so i called the fbi. the feds set her up with a wire so they could listen in on her meetings with board members and get the dirt straight from the source. she d be meeting with these players, and they would be basically laying out the whole scheme to her. davis: the contract would be padded, um, by roughly $10 million so that that money would go then to the various players. at one point, i decided, i wonder if this goes up to the governor, because the governor appoints these individuals to the various boards. the feds were wondering the same thing, and over the course of their investigation, their suspicions proved to be spot on. out of the public eye, rod s fund-raising goons, chris kelly and tony rezko, felt safe to strong-arm money from donors across illinois. but unbeknownst to them, the fbi was following their every move as part of a far-reaching corruption investigation into the blagojevich administration. as the money rolled in, their role in rod s administration only grew, which had his father-in-law, dick mell, feeling as though he d been served divorce papers. as dick mell famously said, he got replaced by a trophy wife or trophy wives. those were the people who were getting the love that he should have gotten and wasn t getting. we all know that you got here because of dick mell. rod says, i got my own team, and so don t talk to dick mell. not only does he not do what you wanna do, but he said, don t talk to my boss. i m the boss now. well, dick mell ain t feeling that, and dick mell is not the type to be like, so, may i talk to you privately? mell wears his heart on his sleeve, his anger on his sleeve. .leave me out! he can love you today, and if he starts hating you tomorrow, he can, you know, pull the switch just like that. and mell becomes more and more resentful of being cast aside, and so that fueled this tension in that family to the point where it eventually exploded. [explosion] that explosion came in 2005, and though it may not have aired on reality tv, it was still inextricably linked to garbage. rod blagojevich closed down this landfill which dick mell was a part owner of. rod said that this was for environmental issues. tapper: what did he want you to do? leave it alone, and i had learned that it was operating in violation of the environmental laws. i had knowledge of that. uh, ultimately, i decided i had a duty, that i had to shut it down, and then he made some accusations that really unleashed the furies. dick mell called a press conference and basically accused rod blagojevich of selling board and commission seats within state government. reporter: mell has had a falling out with his son-in-law, the governor. this is a family at war. so your father-in-law, dick mell, accused chris kelly of selling political favors for campaign contributions of $25,000 to $50,000 at a time. tell me about where were you when you heard that he was leveling this accusation. i remember vividly. it was early january of 2005, and this was the consequence of me shutting down his landfill. the very next day, he called a press conference, and he was clever enough to accuse chris kelly, not directly me, but that s me. i don t think he envisioned that it would turn into something that would ultimately land me in prison, but i know he did this to hurt me politically and cause me problems with the fbi. tapper: mel s allegations backed rod into a corner, giving the fbi room to prosecute his inner circle, until in 2008, the feds secured a secret wiretap on the governor himself. feeling the squeeze, rod started looking for some kind of escape route, and then a golden opportunity landed right in his lap. at this defining moment, change has come to america. [cheers and applause] now that senator barack obama is president-elect barack obama, someone will have to take over his senate seat. this is the governor s decision. uh, it is not my decision. the criteria that i would have for my successor would be the same criteria that i d have if i were a voter. senator obama becomes president obama. he resigns his senate seat. according to the law here in illinois, you as the governor get to name his replacement. now you re excited about this, and you say on tape, i d like to get the [bleep] out of here, and you re talking about options for yourself. does that mean, i d like to get the [bleep] out of here, you were sick of being governor? that s absolutely the things i was saying, of course, and i was looking at all kinds of options. so he attempted to trade obama s seat for a golden parachute. he begins to be heavily courted by all sorts of people who would love to be that u.s. senator. they saw something really valuable here a very valuable bargaining chip that could elevate his power in some way or or benefit them monetarily. when i said i wanted to get the eff out of here, it s because the fbi people and my persecutors were all over me, and it s the sort of thing, when that stuff s swirling around you, you know that stuff s swirling around you. -right. -and it s there. it s everywhere, and it and it was just very clear to me that they were determined to get me no matter what. i guess one question i have is knowing that they were looking at you, why did you talk about this stuff that way? look, i had 2,896 days in prison to ask myself a thousand questions, including that. but you know what? what s the alternative? i have all my staff and lawyers. we all go to saunas and get naked and talk to each other so nobody s got wires on em? -no, or -what s the alternative? or you just don t say anything, or you just say, like, this seat is very important, and we wanna make sure the best person gets it. and separately, i am thinking that i d like to not be governor of illinois anymore. well said. i don t make a habit of telling politicians how to avoid jail time, but here s the thing. being more cautious could have gotten rod everything he wanted and kept him out of prison, but caution is not really in rod s dna. [blagojevich speaking] [line disconnects] jackson: you know they taping you, so you can t say that out loud, right? breaking news the illinois governor charged with plotting to sell barack obama s former senate seat. reporter: illinois rod blagojevich was arrested tuesday morning by federal authorities and charged with corruption. dude. dude! dude. you know they trying to get you, dawg. but why? why? reporter: the day after being arrested on corruption charges, illinois governor rod blagojevich walked out of his house and headed back to work. -[camera shutter clicks] -tapper: all in all, rod blagojevich was facing 24 charges connected to four specific events the attempted sale of obama s senate seat, withholding legislation that would benefit a children s hospital and racetrack in an attempt to get political contributions, and the attempted extortion of a highway contractor. [amplified voice, chanting] 2, 3, 4, blago must go! i personally think he should at least step aside if not resign. my husband is an honest man, and i know that he s innocent. jackson: he thought that he had the moral high ground. i don t believe there s any cloud that hangs over me. -man: governor, governor -well, getting back to that, can we discuss your i think there s nothing but sunshine hanging over me. he didn t show any of the humility or anything. you just can t stick your finger in the eye of the federal government. let me reassert to all of you once more that i am not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing, that i m confident that at the end of the day, i will be, uh, properly, uh, exonerated. [reporters speaking at once] i represented rod blagojevich in two of his criminal trials. i mean, he wanted to fight his case. he believed he was innocent, and he was working to that end to try and prove his innocence. anyone who believes that this was a selling of some senate seat doesn t understand politics. every single day in politics, that is what happens, is this horse-trading. and if you really listen to this in context, what you heard was talking with various people, getting annoyed, talking about nonsense, and then the end. nothing really that was ever acted on. later, rod blagojevich s lawyers would argue that what rod did specifically with the senate seat was no worse than when president eisenhower appointed earl warren as chief justice of the supreme court. back in 1952, dwight eisenhower s about to win the nomination to become the republican president. earl warren, the governor of california, is withholding the delegation s votes. governor warren tells eisenhower, i ll deliver the delegation for you on one condition. i wanna be the next chief justice of the supreme court. ike, the great war hero, shakes hands, says, you got a deal. he wins. one year later, earl warren is the chief justice of the united states supreme court. rod wanted a political appointment from obama, and for that, he was prepared to trade obama s old senate seat, which is actually legal. otherwise, eisenhower would have gone to jail, and americans would not have liked ike. do you see yourself as somebody who was just trying to function in perhaps an inherently corrupt but legal system, and that theoretically almost any politician could be snagged the way you were? absolutely. of course i do, except i m giving me higher marks. because i was using that money that that and that power gave me to fight an established system that served itself on the backs of the people, and when you do that, you piss a lot of people off, and they wanna get rid of you. but do you think that you re earthier about it? like, more outspoken about it? well, i wasn t hiding any of it, but these because it s legal, and that s how you govern. abraham lincoln was able to get the 13th amendment passed at congress, which ratified the emancipation proclamation, freeing slaves. he had to make political deals with members of congress to get the votes to pass it. -that s how you get things done. -you re not comparing yourself to abraham lincoln. -by no means. -okay. -and please say that. i m not comparing myself to abraham lincoln. you re not or the emancipation proclamation. okay, right. he s a lot taller than me, and i never did anything as great as that, of course not. -but you re also not talking about the i mean, the emancipation proclamation of course i m not. governor blagojevich tried to sell the appointment to the senate seat vacated by president-elect obama. the conduct would make lincoln roll over in his grave. you re very critical of pat fitzgerald. yeah, he s an evil guy. he s a wicked guy. he s a scoundrel, and he deserves to get an ass kicking. you know? and he s a big coward. anyway, go ahead. sorry. well, i think he would take issue with everything you just said. you know, he has a reputation for being the choirboy, for being, you know, an upstanding, moral person. he sees himself as, i am trying to uphold some basic standards for our politicians. that s how he views it. governor blagojevich has been arrested in the middle of what we can only describe as a political corruption crime spree. we had a political and public narrative that we had to overcome, and when the entire potential jury pool believes that your client is guilty before they ve even heard the evidence, you re going into the trial like if it s a basketball game, you re losing 100 to nothing. or it s like if you re a governor, and you re getting impeached 114 to 1, and the lone vote in rod s favor his sister-in-law, deb mell. done from office and eager to prove he was not a crook, rod knew exactly where to plead his case. please welcome to the program governor rod blagojevich! [applause] you are a charming dude with the best set of hair i ve ever [bleep] seen. [audience laughter] so i want this to be real. got some challenges ahead, but, uh, i m gonna trust in the truth and as it says in the bible, the truth shall set you free. rod blagojevich just.kept.talking. how are you? you wanna get on tv? come on in. i think he was able to warm himself a little bit with the public. better to be seen as a klutz than a crook. sure, everyone loves a good laugh, but oversaturating the talk show circuit may have had unintended consequences, as david letterman told rod when he appeared on the late show in 2009. the more you talked and the more you repeated your innocence, the more i said to myself, oh, this guy s guilty. [laughter] so during the period from your impeachment to your trial and your sentencing, you did a lot of media appearances. what was the strategy behind that? my feeling was like, look, i didn t do any of that stuff, and what does somebody do who s being lied about? but you have a tremendous desire to get out at the highest mountain and yell out, i didn t do it. well, letterman said that the louder you yelled it, the more it made him think you were guilty. yeah. yeah, i mean, i didn t i didn t convince him, but, uh, i think i convinced donald trump. that s why i got invited on celebrity apprentice, right? i have great respect for your tenacity, for the fact that you just don t give up. but, rod.you re fired. what i saw over the course of rod s career was a guy who started off as kind of a charming rogue and a guy who really did give voice to concerns that people had to someone who became almost a parody of himself. and by the time that trial came around, he really was his own worst enemy. see you in court. he thought that the court of public opinion could save him, but he had disturbed forces that decided, it was a wrap for you, dude. don t poke the feds, fam. just don t do it. man: blago, can i get your autograph? reporter: at verdict today, in a notorious case that federal prosecutors did not want to hear, rod blagojevich was convicted today on only one count. -see you guys! -man: way to go, baby! tapper: the jury was hung on all but one of the charges against blagojevich, and without unanimous consent, the result was a mistrial on the remaining 23 charges. the jury, like a lot of people to this day, just could not agree on whether what he d done was actually illegal. in that first trial, the jury deadlocked on everything except for lying to the fbi. -right. you were convicted of lying to the fbi. -right. -do you acknowledge that you lied to the fbi? -no. no. i don t. i ll tell you about that. it was about how much of your associates that were fund-raising for you, the degree to which you knew what you were doing. yeah, it was the issue was i said, i didn t, as a practice, track fund-raising. and who got contracts? i didn t. i didn t look into who got contracts. i wasn t interested in that. i had 27,000 contributors. i wasn t tracking who gave me money, who got what. the first trial was too confusing for the jury, and they had a lot of paper documents. it was a lot of witness testimony. man: governor, are you anxious for this to begin? i feel great. absolutely. what the government did in the second trial is they pared down their their case, and they believed that everything was in the tapes and they needed to make this trial a lot simpler. [blagojevich speaking] he was swearing a lot. .and upset and not appreciative of the position that he had. and i think that was more influential in the jury s decision than than anything. it made him look bad. breaking news right now the jury has reached a decision, convicting blagojevich on 17 counts of corruption. -reporter: wire fraud. -bribery. blitzer: attempted extortion. solicitation of a bribe. blitzer: racketeering. conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit extortion. rod blagojevich was convicted on almost all counts and sentenced to 14 years. patti and i are obviously very disappointed, uh, in the outcome. i, frankly, am am stunned. when did you realize, oh, shit, i might actually be going to prison ? -from the beginning. -really? -i knew i was a dead man. -really? -yeah. -why? cause they have so much power and resources, and i, you know, wasn t really surprised when i got 14 years. the justification for the judge was, you treated this like a golden glove boxing match, but those corrupt liars are lucky dueling is outlawed, cause i d have challenged them to a duel. rapists and murderers get so much less time? that s why this system is so wrong and so broken. let me offer you an alternate theory. sure. my alternate theory is that the entire system of justice that we have in this country depends on prosecutors and police who are incentivized to get convictions. -mm-hmm. -period. what do you think of that? well, i think you re almost right. [laughs] i never took a penny. no one says i did. i keep saying that cause that s so important to me. i don t want people to think that i was some one of these corrupt politicians that was taking cash. tapper: but remember, even though he never actually got that envelope full of money, that was because the feds closed in before the senate deal was done. the offers being considered, campaign contributions or a lucrative job in a nonprofit, the fact of accepting them that would have been simply illegal, hence, the charge of conspiracy to commit bribery, which he was definitely guilty of. rod s argument is no cash changed hands, but prior to that, there had been plenty of money changing hands. there s ample evidence these government positions, these government contracts they were effectively for sale. it does not matter if rod blagojevich actually won the argument and got the money or the donations he was seeking. it s the ask. if something goofs it up, but the burglary or robbery s interrupted, it doesn t make it less of an intended burglary or robbery, right? he had his day in court. that 14 years was what the system gave him. so you went to prison for almost eight years? 2,896 days. and let me tell ya what gets you through prison when you have to face something like that. it s love and it s faith love for my daughters and my wife. you know, when i was arrested, within days, the vegas oddsmakers had it 9 to 1 that she was leaving. so in that sense, i ve been so lucky and blessed. after he was sent to prison, patti proclaimed his innocence, and she did try and go to any leader that she could find to have him either pardoned or commuted. and when all else failed, patti blagojevich knew exactly who to appeal to next. after rod goes to prison, patti was essential in keeping their life together. more than anything else, maybe, she got in donald trump s ear. trump had a connection with blagojevich cause rod was on the apprentice, and patti blagojevich was on fox news every day. you know, we know that president trump is a kind man, and he s compassionate. he s always been kind to my family. and when you speak on fox news, you have a direct connection with donald trump. today the president sprung from prison former illinois governor rod blagojevich, who was convicted after attempting his own quid pro quo. yes, uh, we have commuted the sentence of rod. i watched his wife on television. quote, um, i watched his wife on television. -yes. -end quote. how did how did that happen? i think he just saw he he would tell me he liked the fact that i was fighting back. i remember him saying something like, uh, you know, i have friends that go through what you re going through, and they re in a corner. they can t even move, and you re out there throwing punches. i think he liked that. i m so grateful to him. sometimes things happen in life where god intervenes in the most unbelievable ways. trump, blagojevich, fox news? i m not sure how much god played a role in any of this. when rod came home from prison after eight years, his daughters had grown up. how are your relationships with them? they re good. i m i m getting to know them. our family was broken for a long time. the difficulties that i talked about with my father-in-law, those were heartbreaking, because in spite of everything, i love him, and he s been good to me in so many ways. and, uh, you know, it s been a tough road for my wife. our lives could have been so much simpler, so much better. understandably, rod looks back on the time away from his family with regret, not for what he did, of course, but that he was sent to prison in the first place. but what else would you expect from rod? i am a political prisoner. i was put in prison for practicing politics. wait a minute. you re a political prisoner? nelson mandela was a political prisoner. political prisoners have no due process. i was thrown in prison and spent nearly eight years in prison for practicing politics, for seeking campaign contributions without a quid pro quo. you do have an obligation to at least admit what you did wrong, and you refuse to do that, and you re creating a whole new alternate universe of facts, and that may be big in politics today, but it s still, frankly, just bullshit. a reporter, uh, asked you if you wanted to say sorry to the people of illinois, and you said, sorry for what? -do you still feel that way? -very much so. i ve done a lot wrong. criminal? none. you and your defenders argue that the persecution, prosecution of you is about the criminalization of politics. in other words, there is horse-trading that goes on in politics. you do me this favor. i ll do you this favor, and that s all you were doing, and that it s legal, but they made it out to be illegal. well, first of all, it s not illegal. now you can argue whether we should improve our laws. that s a valid thing. i would think there s a lot of room to improve the fund-raising laws, but that s not illegal at all, and it s a common practice. now ultimately, after i ve been in prison for four years, the appellate court reverses that big lie of the sale of the senate seat, and they said it s routine political logrolling. and look, that s partially true. the court did vacate the conviction related to obama s senate seat, but they never said he did nothing wrong. the court said there was a jury instruction issue, and they upheld the remaining 13 counts. so contrary to his claim, he has not been exonerated. and for the love of elvis, we can only hope that rod s crimes are not routine. if there is a big lie, it s that he s a victim, especially since every other charge was upheld, including the extortion of a children s hospital. gandhi, he ain t. this isn t some sort of mystery, that, gosh, i didn t know. i had no idea. it s so gray. really? i think most of us have some gut sense of when we re beginning to get in trouble. i don t believe blagojevich has ever done any reflection on right and wrong. extorting a hospital never occurred to him that that might harm the citizens that he was elected to protect. he he has no ability to look at anything but himself. that s it. that s it. what s the worst thing that can be said about you that s accurate in your view, other than you were stupid to say that stuff? sure. look, i ve been accused of being a narcissist. i might plead to a misdemeanor on that, okay? um, i think i my judgment of some people was way off. i think i should have been a lot more vigilant and see some of the warning signs. i knew they were aggressively out there raising money, and i didn t slow it down because i wanted to raise the campaign money. i could have been more vigilant on that in retrospect. close, but no cigar. whether or not rod trusted the wrong people, he set them loose on illinois because they brought him the most money. whether the rules on political fund-raising are flimsy guardrails at best,
you re still at the mercy of what these storms decide to do. autumn kirks: i have a very healthy respect for mother nature and tornadoes and what they can do. it can ruin your entire life. it can destroy everything you know. in 2011, after the joplin tornado, amber munson had lost her house, most of her possessions, and all of her treasured photographs. but months later, a miracle. there was a craigslist post from a stranger over 50 miles away who had found a photograph in their yard. it was a picture sucked up by the tornado. a baby photo of amber. the only one to survive. the woman mailed it back to amber along with $5, all she could afford, but wanted to give to help amber start her life over. and with $5, well, she could afford it, wanted to give to help amber start her life over for more information on what you can do in a tornado and what you can do to help combat the growing climate crisis go to cnn.com violent earth i m liev schreiber. thanks for watching. goodnight the listeners as it were the kgb, who had pulled the surveillance equipment lived on the floor above us. and in moscow and you knew they were then on the whole ones just intuitive i mean, i remember my wife and i had some kind of argument about where we could take the children for a weekend picnic in another and manly were, hey, i addressed the silina said, well, you up there, which we agree. and to my amazement, within about two or three hours, somebody had slipped in a note under our front door saying, well, you had agreed on costco vogue or cheerios over whatever was erase some some picnic place i felt that was a kgb surveillance who had a good sense of humor actually this is the unseen story of the cold war but not by politicians that by secret agents there was complete misunderstanding on either side. it s very difficult to determine whom you can trust as the soviet union faces off with the west in the early 1980s to spies play a dangerous game from the shadows they seek to win the upper hand while the world stands on the brink of nuclear war these are their stories in their own words testimony piece together from interviews over the years after 11 years of sigurd worth maybe i developed paranoia and never before heard recordings molten five go up adapting mod getter has been in service i understand the two nadh while catch-all that reveal the deadly intrigues at the heart of the battle between east and west look this is a war a secret war meant at tool was a time when people in soviet union s still believe reality of nuclear war confrontation between west and east was very serious sometimes it was not only iron curtains, it was like iron sphere this is a dangerous moment for the soviet union. almost 40 years into the cold war their economy is overstretched. the military entrenched in afghanistan, and support for communism in decline. the soviet leadership led by leonid brezhnev stockpiles nuclear arms in a show of strength against the west but there s a much subtler weapon to secret intelligence yuri andropov is the head of the soviet intelligence service. the kgb kgb have been running the rational life for years under opa was getting more and more convinced of the menacing was he was a full-blown kgb person who thought that it s either us or them. and basically better be your and drop-off concludes that the superpowers are on the verge of a nuclear war and so he begins a process of collecting information there would be indicators of the approach of nuclear war. this running tally of signs is called operation riyadh and every time andropov gets new intelligence, he takes note there was a chart four american said this the breadths said that somebody was caught here and the plane cross that border and i think and then drop up his mind. he was absolutely convinced nuclear confrontation is coming once this chart is full, andropov is convinced the soviet union should strive and so he uses every resource to keep close watch on his adversaries. being a skilled intelligence officer a spike the life was exciting it for thrilling it was romantic i was thrilled by being involved in specific kgb operation. so like a dead letter boxes or leg, or dsk are very high qualification intelligence officer he was born in a family working for kgb. his brother working for kgb i think was a good example of soviet intelligence service so get tenure on august keen to put agent or the rounds of all the kgb never sent abroad unmarried man there was married to my second wife later as we helped to children i wanted to participate some daring operation i wanted to get a broad as soon as possible in 1982, the kgb sends gordy fc to the uk disguising his identity as a soviet diplomat his posting comes at a tense time relations between east and west are at a knife s edge in december of 1979, the soviets had invaded afghanistan. soviet allies in central america. we re making gains nicaragua and we re trying to make gains in el salvador. meanwhile, on africa soviet allies were fighting in angola. and we re making new friends in other parts of sub-saharan africa. this picture seemed to contradict soviet commitment to better relations with the united states why are they behaving this way? if they really want better relations with us? why are they on the march in what was then called the third world? but we now call the global south there s a political standoff, and neither side shows any signs of backing down the cold war was a view of the world where you had a communist, totalitarian empire run out of moscow. and western countries led by the united states, but including western europe and britain, facing off against each other you have the soviet union, which is at this point a i ll minute superpower, nuclear leader, neck and neck with united states in terms of innovation and development but at the core their ideologies as we know, are completely different democracy versus communism what began as an ideological conflict has escalated into a terrifying nuclear arms race. and neither side wants to appear weak the soviet union had something like 33,000 nuclear weapons. we had something like 22,000 way too many and way too scary. the cold war was an existential struggle over the future of world civilization and that s what makes this moment in history so dangerous is you have both sides completely misunderstanding both the power of their adversary and the intentions of their adversaries assignments are going off. the tornado here you cannot it s one you cannot outrun it it really is a terrifying experience. it is a stuff of nightmares. you just hear it and feel it is o brien. i m thinking i m going to die and i thought that was it. along with earth, with liev schreiber tomorrow at nine on cnn imagine a future where plastic is not wasted. but instead remade over and over into the things that keep our food fresher our family safer and our planet cleaner to help us get there. america s plastic makers are investing 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everything the soviet union stands for and he s not alone president reagan s vast limousine has just drawn up here outside the normal porch of income from buckingham palace there s going to be the first time that an american president has addressed both houses of parliament here in westminster run reagan, that maggie thatcher in was amazed that they thought alike right mr. thatcher really did, despite her uptight bearing and her hairdo really loved to be row with or i ll reagan, there s certain magnetism, there s certainly laurie to him and she she felt that tingling i don t want chancellor speaking for all americans. i want to say very much at home we feel in your house ronald reagan said that soviet communism will lie, cheat still to advance its mission around the world. that was the idea that ronald reagan had to delegitimized the soviet union. the decay of the soviet experiment should come as no surprise to us. we see totalitarian forces in the world who seek subversion and conflict around the globe to further their barbarous assault on the human spirit even before he became president ronald reagan said the cold war will end. and i know how it s going to end we win, they lose and he s about to ramp up the rhetoric even further the march of freedom and democracy will leave marxism-leninism on the asieh history. as it has left other trnas, which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people ronald reagan is rallying the troops. is rallying the nato alone, trying to send a signal that the united states should be respected and even fear the america of the 1970s, which was licking its wounds after losing the vietnam war. that s over. we re back, we re strong, and we should be fear making america great again, if you will. we re going to win in the end. we will outlast them people like me, hardliners stopped. that was terrific most of the people in attendance of the speech didn t think it was to serve him think at all why? because he was too radical it did cause a reaction so that speech, it was offensive and was actually offensive to a lot of people. a lot of people i remember saying while the who the hell are you to? to tell us that we are be people who had streaked that fed into the sense in moscow that ron reagan was account boy and he intended to use nuclear weapons against the soviet union in a war that is really thought psychologically, it is think about how dangerous that is closer cooperation between the uk and the us is exactly what andropov fears and in this cold war, andropov looks to his agents for proof what intelligence did in those days where he gave us details of the overall picture we could follow the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles that they had deployed. we could follow the number of new submarines who could follow the number of new tanks you could follow all these things that you could see from the satellite and we could hear about rumblings from poland or texas czechoslovakia hungary, or bulgaria are the unit to russia this is very typical. one of my wife and my arms eating ice cream in the snow i ve cited the bolshoi that s i was head of sas station in moscow in 19, early 1980s, the civil servants old signatures of official secrets act and set what s not in the public domain is rarely not for discussion by bias station and moscow was quite a small one. the whole apparatus of control and surveillance is very sophisticated than they used to paint radioactive paint on the bottom of our cars i know trackers we were thin on the ground, rarely it is extremely hard for outsiders to discover anything significant about the soviet political intentions while british agents seek a foothold in moscow in london, all or gordy ascii joins his fellow spies london was one of the major cities where serwer bianna is going on the kgb quarters and london, it s called station because you get station it s located in the russia membership that london job was extremely advantageous for gerd gsk it means that he was trusted and that he was decent cooperative, and it was good for him at the kgb station in london, there are two agents above gordy ascii in the hierarchy one of them is the kgb station chief are cati good general beep, fat he was not able to speak good english so he could not do anything. he could not write. he only was able to sign guard duty. sql was supposed to spend most of his time nine to five in the embassy doing she s official job being a diplomat and then during the evening on weekends, she became a spy their job was to get british secrets especially sucrose concerning britain s foreign policy gardi ascii is under pressure to send intelligence to moscow that validates operation rayon at the same time, he s had to hide the fact that he is a kgb spy from the british in their eyes, he s just a diplomat if he blows his cover or fails to feed the soviet leadership with good intel, he ll be on the next plane to moscow boards are very good career move for gorgias by the british counter intelligence service by far, phrases considered one of the most professional services in the world i m purchase sure. she knew that wouldn t be a picnic for him the ceo is about to take off. there s no one that goes the things i do we are personnel in what, four wrestling can be we wednesday night dynamited aid on tbs if advanced lung cancer has you searching for possibilities discover a different first treatment. immunotherapies work with your immune system to attack cancer, but up devo plus your voice is the first combination of two immunotherapies for adults, newly diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer but to spread tests positive for pd-l1 and does not have an abnormal egfr or alk gene up devo plus your voice is not chemotherapy. it works differently it helps your immune system fight cancer. and two from ways up, devo and year s way can cause your immune system to harm healthy parts of your body during and after treatment, these problems can be 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could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that s uncalled for. doctors preferred better science, better results. i m katelyn polantz at the federal courthouse in washington. and this is cnn close captioning brought to you by guilt visit guilt.com today for up to 70% off designer brands, it has a design is like your heart racing had inside a prices new every day, hurry. there ll be gone in a flash. designer sales that up to 70% shop guilty.com today well, i ve got various newspaper cuttings, but also photos with mrs. t log, with actually was uncompromising in her dislike of socialism and communism and that s what drove her. it look so young and innocent. my job was really to make sure that ten downing street worked well for the prime minister maga margaret thatcher knows that it s not just politics that dictates the key moves in the cold war margaret thatcher was fascinated by intelligence part of it was the glamour but also she d liked to collect as much information as possible and intelligence was one of the sources when the government, there was a special box in number ten in which there would have been regular reports of anything which became known about soviets activity in uk mi6 has a very big secret. they re keeping from the prime minister in britain. i was supposed to be just an official civilian official of the soviet state. but zervos, a number of secrets in my life i was a kgb spy, spying against britain but he isn t just a kgb spy pretending to be a soviet diplomat when the telephone call to business intelligence service that s what you hear welcome. orleck, london. we ve been waiting for you i ll let go ascii is a double agent i became secret agent for the british intelligence in the 60s and 70s, gordy fc was based in denmark as a loyal and dependable kgb agent and it s there that he begins to see things in a different light. a turning point for him was that the soviet decision to crush the prague spring and attempted liberalizing the soviet style regime in czechoslovakia in 1968 gardi f ski katz had an internal personal shift he recognizes the inherent repressive snus of the soviet system, which as a kgb officer, he sworn to defend this is an ideological decision for him if this photo government or security services realized that i was spying for britain, i would have been dead it is not betraying. my country, russia i hated the communist system. i wanted to fight against it i simply would have regarded myself as not an honest person. if i wouldn t be fighting against that system there are some things that i really cannot going to i know you ll understand the nature of what we re talking about. when all lag arrived in london in 1982 it was invaluable to have the views of an insider in the russian embassy in london, who use the meaning of everything that was happening only eight people in the country know about this highly sensitive operation at a highly sensitive time it would be very, very few people anywhere you about all you. don t want anybody at any stage. so betrays a source because accidents happen usually things are very, very carefully contained only people who need to know as a great principal to know you have to keep completely tight to a very few people especially extended 9:00 news with michael president brezhnev, ruler of russia for nearly two decades is dead. so the soviet people tonight, five days of mourning begin the leaders who ve grown old in his shadow, the chance of ultimate power who will take over administration officials so there will be no change in us foreign policy toward the soviets until there is a change in soviet policy the soviet union finds reagan s aggressive tone not just insulting but an existential threat right now, the last thing the communist party wants is to be seen as weak so it decides to promote someone with a very clear agenda one adviser, calm front lawn or yuri andropov, a hard line man who would be we ve talked to deal with hey, mom, how many should i decorated? have ran have blue. that s a really tough call for you. that s john king from cnn. let s look at the data your county leaned red eye 15 points in the last presidential election however looking at the latest polling, you re going to need a lot of those purple sprinkles how this guy really knows his stuff $5 a cupcake, you know, the average cost of a cupcake around here is $3 no comment i m getting vaccinated and pfizer s pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine because i m at risk for pneumococcal pneumonia already gotten pneumonia vaccine. but i m asking about the added protection of krever, not 20. if you re 19 or older with certain chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes, copd, or heart disease, or are 65 or older, you are at increased risk for pneumococcal pneumonia, prevnar 20 is approved in adults to help prevent infections from 20 strains of the bacteria that caused me cockle pneumonia in just one dose, don t get prevnar 20. if you ve had a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine or its ingredients adults with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects for pain and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, fatigue headache, and joint pain. i want to be able to keep my plans. i don t want to risk ending up in the hospital with pneumococcal pneumonia. that s why i chose prevnar to ask your doctor or pharmacist? about the pfizer vaccine for pneumococcal pneumonia new group does assignments get my bag like a bunch of groceries, alice cheese and greens, just contemplate freedom. you can take your eyes off the new 2024 jeep wrangler in gladiator jeep, there s only one during the jeep make this the summer event, get 2000 bonus cash allowance plus no monthly payments for 90 days on the 2024 gop-led ear. and most 2024 jeep wrangler gas-powered models yeah, introducing ned s plaque psoriasis. he thinks is flaky red patches are all people see. oh, tesla is the number one prescribed pill to treat blacks psoriasis oh, tesla can help you get clears don t use a tesla if you re allergic to it, serious allergic reactions can happen. oh, tesla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting some people take new tesla had depression, suicidal thoughts, or weight loss upper respiratory tract infection, and headache may occur 242424 new cnn original series new episodes tomorrow would nine just two days after leonard brezhnev death, the head of the kgb hard line or yuri andropov, is promoted to the top job and drop was quite a terrifying man. he came out of the apparatus of control and he event, ran the soviet union as a very controlled environment. the moral vice president bush arrived or also secretary of state show pushes visit is intended as a gesture of conciliation according to western diplomats here he s diplomats worried that new communist party chief yuri andropov may have had to pledge a tough anti washington line and big weapons buildup to win military support. they would like the american delegation to meet with andropov after the funeral monday, but have no assurance the meeting will be arraigned here was a guy who came out of the soviet intelligence community you had the feeling during and drop-offs period that, you know, things were really inert. and the old generation was still still running the country my family was simply terrified. a great grandfather was crews shift. it was said the general secretary of the communist party of the soviet union khrushchev dismantled or as much as he could, he dismantle the kgb after stalin s death. so i m drop-off as my mother was convinced, was going to come back at us and the family with a vengeance. and there was even a talk that the gulags are going to be reinstated he is going to push forward certain policies including international policies as leader of the soviet union. andropov takes his operation rayon charts from the kgb back rooms to the heart of soviet policy you re andropov is a very conspiratorial figure. he is convinced that the united states is seeking domination over the soviets and ultimately a nuclear victory and then so the soviet union has to be completely and utterly prepared to push that button all eyes are now on reagan in this uncharted new landscape reagan was adamant that he is not going to deal with this red, red and for and rope of reagan, was that cow boy who s going to destroy the soviet union because he was playing an oldest films like john wayne reagan, and drop him always found each other neither of them would be a cough this was moment when we were really scared of the nuclear war that really stayed with me as the scariest time that i ve ever experienced in my life. and the soviet union the opposing sides and the cold war could not be further apart britain s double agent is now vital to understanding the level of andropov his paranoia he s got access to the operations being were on against the united kingdom by intelligence officers in the embassy and he s got a knowledge of the politics of moscow god, yes, get of course was able to brief his handlers on the gossip he knows a lot of people in the system and therefore, he s got this unrivaled insight into how decisions are taken, how they think in the senior reaches of the politburo he would be able to leave the embassy on a regular basis and to a safe house where he would be debriefed and if he could smuggle documents out of the embassy so much the better and the b arrangements for copying those in the safe house gordy? yes. skis actions make him so valuable. mi6 decides to inform ten downing street in? december. 1982 margaret thatcher is told that a highly placed kgb spy now works as a double agent for the british but she isn t told his name two months later, gordy ascii provides crucial intelligence operation. reihan is now official soviet policy what the soviets didn t understand is that there was a possibility that operation reihan could be a self-fulfilling prophecy operation reihan was perfect example of starting with a conclusion and then looking for justification for that conclusion. agents were asked are the americans and the british on the verge of nuclear war they were asked, proved to us find the evidence that they are, so that we re be ready for it. and that was the fundamental flaw with operation rayon we were instructed to watch for signs of special activities greetings within particularly by night. blitz, windows of the means of defense, and 40 law office. the american embassy, wrecking overtime until early morning hours what you like that jeff skate really brought was an insight, understanding of what operation rayon was really about it we re showing a paranoia but the paranoia was real asu, they very seeing reports the number of clauses was slowly, slowly growing visuals lucky the point, yes they re preparing when two sides don t know one another, they both misread signs you can see how dreadful things can happen by that kind of misunderstanding gardi of skis intel on the deepening soviet paranoia is so vital to the british that they must conceal their source even from the american the reason the british did not want the americans to know who gordy xq was, was the more people who know the name of a source the more imperiled the source becomes. reagan doesn t have the luxury of the brits inside knowledge. he feels the most effective approach is to scare the soviets into backing down he takes a brazen and terrifying new stands cnn special event. it s time to celebrate freedom progress and the trail blazers. he paved the way this is a festive day for all black americans. we still have a lot of work to do joins cnn s victor blackwell for a native interviews and performance is by john legend smoke robinson and so much more cnn special event, june celebrating freedom and legacy. wednesday, june 19 at ten when cnn i have relapsing a mess but i still want to spend my time my 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blamed for the cold war. they re both to be blamed for all these nuclear weapons. there s an moral equivalence between the two. ronald reagan was saying there s no moral could lead us, pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness. they are the focus of evil in the modern world everybody suggest this was, and how inflammatory this was. people worried that this cowboy from the west was irresponsible and he could blow us all on reagan s approach is to aggressively arm europe as a way to force the soviets to back down the whole idea of whether you were taught tough or soft on communism was still very much part of our political landscape. he decided to assure the right wing of the republican party that he was tough on communism. and i was dismayed because what is the strategy to call somebody? the global center of evil, if you insult people publicly, you ll have a hard time getting cooperation out of them. reagan also promotes a defense system nicknamed star wars these space lasers would identify and prevent incoming nuclear missiles its critics ridiculed it as unrealistic but the prospect of taking the nuclear arms race to space terrifies andropov there s the idea that we need to be very strong the only way to deter the soviet union from any kind of regression is to show them that they cannot win. and anything second thing that was going on was that we re going to increase our defense spending quite a bit in the soviet unique can t do that. they can t keep up with us. so we re going to spend them into oblivion. as reagan ramps up his rhetoric, a drama unfolds on the other side of the world that threatens to push the cold war over the edge governments around the world have expressed indignation over the soviet union s action and shooting down a korean jumbo jet over the cluster and pacific. the un security council will take up that incident later today. that tragedy later today, it s now reported that at least 50 of the 269 people on that jet were americans. the search goes on for the planes wreckage the crisis of our flight deck below seven just about half were korean, japanese, and taiwanese the free world was outraged once it s no exaggeration to say that western governments have been stunned and evening little frightened what s the news comes at a soviet had shut down the korean airliner, ronald reagan mediately goes on national television and uses every dirty word for their behavior that he can find. the source what can be said about soviet credibility when they so flagrantly lie about such a heinous act the soviet union becomes very defensive, very quiet, and makes no apologies at all. the military in moscow explain the korean jumbo was spying. so our missiles brought it down hi, my name s is robert mental cable news network. wondering if you will be having any type of statement not to say about the carolinas, not thank expect one soon. so that drove people in the west, especially conservatives like me, to think, boy, they are even worse than we thought they were. the incident raises the frightening thought that the finger on the soviet nuclear trigger could be as unstable as the individual who gave the order to shoot down the korean airliner it sparks protests and condemnation around the world i mean, there was really significant fear that this was going to lead to something big and extremely, extremely dangerous when the competition is a nuclear competition spying is extraordinarily important the russians were trying to spy on us we were spying on them it s very difficult to determine whom you can trust i was telling frank everything got that a control this is a war. the secret was secrets and spies, a nuclear game. sunday at ten on cnn, apartments.com. let s any landlord find qualified renders and signed leases and collect payments from any place even here and whirs here, he sled dave and ada apartments.com, the place to list of place every time i need a new phone, i had to switch carriers. 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questions. so we have answers like how to keep your yard looking, luck bush, which paint color matches your bold style with my lows rewards credit card, you can say 5% every day. you got this and we got, you doctors preferred better science, better results. chasing life with dr. sanjay gupta. listen wherever you get your podcasts in late 1983 piece hangs in the balance between the east and the west in a bid to be ready for soviet nuclear attack west launches able archer it s an annual military operation. but this year s exercise is more realistic than before 40,000 us and nato troops gather across europe right on the ussr s border. april archer was a normal military exercise by dado command to prepare naval forces in europe for an attack from the soviet union. but the way it was done was not normal at all the nuclear component of the exercise was hyped up the idea of it was make this as realistic as you could possibly make it the western powers show an almost naive ignorance of how this huge training exercise will be received in the ussr for andropov, it looks like his operation rayon prophecy is coming true they really see much more cables payable agile i knew, it wasn t dramatic moment i knew moscow was nervous and it came i m at a very sensitive moment for moscow that it had been humiliated on the global stage following the downing of that jet in particular. so every move was interpreted probably to a larger degree than it should have. b52 bombers with nuclear capabilities now arrive at the us airbase in germany andropov watches everything unfold from his hospital bed the soviet people are unaware of their leaders declining health as he keeps his hands firmly on the reins of power they re all puffy is dying, but he s clutching that red button. she really thinks if it s not him, who else he s in charge the soviet scrambled to respond nuclear submarines are primed and ready soviet troops are put on a 15 combat standby oh, ola go dfc probably was the one person who could convey to western sources what was going on inside the mind of soviet leadership at the time of able archer ascii helps his handlers realize that they re dealing with sheer paranoia at the hands at the top leadership in the soviet union. now unfortunately, it didn t come in time enough for this exercise to be canceled the exercise continues oblivious that a nuclear confrontation is now just a phone call away. but it s again, but i mean, it but it s not a game too. and i think what happened is that everything got out of control. this is just something that people can t comprehend that human error could bring the end of the world people just can t absorb that ultimately, you i kind of have this mid udacity. you believe in you own propaganda of your own greatness. you re in the control of the state all russian and soviet dictator s the problem is they always think that the, the last line of defense you are in power you have the right to if you decide to destroy it. so nobody else forget the united states doesn t even notice that the soviet der, on edge. they didn t even put the soviet reaction into ronald reagan s presidential daily brief before andropov can act, the able archer operation wraps up on schedule andropov is finally persuaded he that this really was just an exercise. this time life contribution was explained that this is dangerous you ll playing with fire the liver simply daughter the stands and intelligence. old russian leaders they able archer exercise world came very close to nuclear war the united states didn t know the ratchet down the tension when it really matter that is an indicator of just the lack of understanding that the united states and the soviet union headed each other. but in a nuclear confrontation, lack of understanding can have catastrophic consequences when adversaries have nuclear weapons pote