seats of government, the seats of power, and embarks on a campaign, a political intimidation, in order to secure outcomes that personally benefit him. and that at the core is part of the sticks of our democracy that are before us today. because once rule of law goes out the window, it is not something that is easy to get back and it is very much a part of the decision that we have to make before us in the next few months. congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez, congressman jamie raskin, thank you for your time tonight. i really appreciate it. that is all in on this tuesday night. alex wagner tonight starts now. we have new exclusive audio from the supreme court historical society that lauren winsor has given us and we will be playing that in the hour, so stay tuned. i will pick like i said, exclusive never before heard audio recordings of justice samuel alito speaking to an undercover progressive activist. that is what we have tonight. that is in addition to the bombshell recordings that were released yesterday and we will definitely want to hear these recordings when we play them. if you have been wondering how those secret tapes were made in the very first place, how activists and judges on the highest court in this land, how they came to mingle behind closed doors? the answer to that begins almost 10 years ago to this day when the supreme court handed down a major decision. reporter: supporters of the hobby lobby cheered today s victory. the oklahoma family that owns the chain of 500 craft stores claims that providing insurance coverage for some forms of contraceptives under obamacare would be the equivalent of paying for abortion. the court called the rolling startling and said it will allow companies to opt out of any law they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs. the hobby lobby decision. the majority opinion was written by justice samuel alito and it was one of the first signs that conservatives on this court were willing to go after reproductive freedoms no matter the consequence. in the wake of the dobbs decision 10 years later, hobby lobby seemed sort of like the canary in the coal mine in more ways than one. in november 2022, the new york times offered key reporting about how the hobby lobby decision came to be. for years before the court heard the case, conservative christians have been engaged in a campaign called operation higher court. that operation was to personally court and influence the supreme court s conservative justices. that effort was spearheaded by a man named reverend robert shank who would recruit christian couples who he called stuff missionaries to gain access to the judges and to impress upon them the importance of conservative christian values. here is how the new york times described one of their strategies. reverend gave his stuff missionaries close instruction, the justices were more likely to let their guard down at the supreme court historical society annual dinners because they assumed attendees had been properly vetted. ca justice, boldly approach, schenck told the couples according to a briefing document reviewed by the times. if given the opportunity, bear witness to biblical truth, but don t push it, he said. your presence alone at the historical society events telegraphs a very important signal to the justices. christians are concerned about the court and the issues that come before it. that strategy appears to have paid off. according to the times reporting, some of schenck s stuff missionaries were able to build enough of a relationship with justice alito and his wife, martha and, that they obtained advanced notice of the court s hobby lobby decision before it came out. that breach of that unprecedented breach foreshadowed the leaked dobbs decision striking down go versus wade two years later. that specific strategy of using the supreme court s annual historical society dinners as a way to gain access to supreme court justices, it turns out that too is relevant again, just this week. they historical society dinner is a yearly event where wealthy donors give money to a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the court s history. in exchange for their money, those donors get to rub shoulders with some of the justices and their spouses. as it turns out, conservatives weren t the only ones in on this arrangement. last week, progressive activist lauren winsor who happens to be a member of the historical society, bought a ticket for the event. she got in, she pretended to be a conservative donor attending the event with her husband. ms. lender then approach some of the conservative justices and secretly recorded her conversations with them. and busyness has not heard the full tape of what is recorded so we cannot say for certain where edits were made if any were actually made. tonight we have some brand-new, never before heard audio from that event to play for you and when you hear these new tapes, he will hear something familiar to what was on the tapes released yesterday. a justice in this case, justice alito, who is aggrieved and frustrated, who is nakedly partisan and totally unconcerned by appearing to be all of those things in front of a total stranger. remember what we heard yesterday. as someone who really cherishes my face, i just don t know that we can negotiate the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end. i think it is a matter of, like, winning. i think you are 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 is difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can t be compromised. they really can t be compromised. so it is not like you are going to split the difference. and that is 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 have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of godliness. i agree with you. i agree with you. member, at this closed-door cocktail party, winsor was also able to get justice alito s wife, martha and, to explain her deeply personal motivation for flaying two insurrectionist flags in front of their homes. that is a story that has just scandalized this court and is reporting this week would seem to suggest that mrs. alito has no shame about what she has been doing , in fact, quite the opposite. after deriding who have been critical of the scandal, she made clear that these flags she flies are explicitly her form of resistance and response. i know what i want, i want a sacred heart of jesus flag because i had to look across the lagoon at the pride flag for the next month. and he is like, please don t put up a flag. i said i want to do it because i am deferring to you but when you are free of this nonsense, i am putting it up and i am going to send you a message every day, maybe every week i will be changing the flags, i made a flag in my head, this is how i satisfy myself, i made a flag, it is white and yellow and orange flames around it. in the middle is this word. in italian, it means shame. just to be clear here, justice alito has publicly stated his wife did not fly these flags to associate herself with the stop the steal movement or any other group. but it seems quite clear from the clip that his wife very much sees these flags as a form of political expression and a response to what she believes are liberal attacks. perhaps most concerning in these recordings, though, is martha-ann alito s five-year plan for revenge . it is okay because if they come back to me, i will get them. i m going to be liberated, and i m going to get them. there is a five-year defamation statute of limitations. i don t know what you mean by they. the media. okay, so martha-ann alito, the wife of a supreme court justice, that she has a plan to get back at the media by suing for defamation. and she thinks she will have the opportunity to do that in the next five years, when she is free of all this nonsense. is samuel alito s wife telling us something here about justice alito s retirement plans? and how concerned should we all be that a supreme court justices spouse is talking about the american media with open contempt? tonight we have grand brand- new audio from that same event where justice alito himself tells us what he thinks about the press. the other voice you will hear on this tape is an associate of lauren winsor s who was also at this event. i just wanted to ask you, why do you think the supreme court is so is being so attacked and being so targeted by the media these days? well, i think it is a simple reason. they don t like our decisions and they don t like how they anticipate we may decide some cases that are coming up. that s the beginning and the end of it. and there are there are groups that are very well-funded by ideological groups that have spearheaded these attacks. that s what it is. like who? propublica. propublica gets a lot of, you know, gets a lot of money, and they have spent a fortune investigating clarence thomas, for example. everything he s ever done in his entire life, and they ve done some of that to me too. but, you know, they look for any little thing they can find, and they try to make something out of it. and be seen is reached out for comment from both samuel alito and his wife, martha-ann alito, but we have not heard back. joining me now is lauren winsor, progressive activist and the executive producer of the undercurrent. thank you for being here, i know you have had a busy week so far. we are so appreciative of all that you have set this far and all you have to share with us tonight. first, start with a new sound that your organization or your colleague has given us. there are two parts of this new tape that strikes me as concerning. the first is justice samuel alito saying that the media is attacking him because the media doesn t like how they anticipate the court has decided cases and may decide upcoming cases. was that a window into what may be coming down the pipe in the next two weeks? how did you interpret that? i mean, i definitely interpreted it as being a harbinger for bad things to come. did you get the sense when he was talking about the media and specifically citing propublica, for example, and their expensive investigators reporting about clarence thomas, that these stories are very much being shared behind closed doors at the supreme court? his media awareness seemed to be relatively high. it is very high, and he already had a sense of grievance when i first spoke with him in 2023, but it was much more pronounced this year i think in the two conversations that both allie and i had with him. can we talk about the context here? the fact is, you and your colleague both had conversations with the alitos. for those who have not been to historical society of us, is this what happens at them? we know two bombshell series of reports about conversation, advocacy campaigns that are happening between attendees and the justices on the supreme court. it is interesting, i had actually read that initial report in the new york times about reverend schenck and that is part of what played into my going in the first place but i did not read that report and think i should become a member now. it really was incited by the propublica reporting on clarence thomas and it is interesting that justice alito wants to rail about the money taken by propublica for investigating public servants while clarence thomas is not disclosing millions of dollars of gifts from gop donors and i have no idea what propublica s finances are but as someone who is an independent journalist, i would imagine that the money that clarence thomas is taking probably read the budget of propublica in any given year. is such a good point, what did you hear in justice alito s explanation for that? did you hear it almost seems as if there is certainly no contrition, but there is not even an acknowledgment that there was any wrongdoing on the part of clarence thomas in accepting potentially millions of dollars in unspecified gifts from conservative donors? it is not verbatim, but it is almost for meeting verbatim, making something out of any little thing. i don t consider any little thing to be buying my mother s house or paying for my nephew s tuition or getting a free rv loan. and these are all things he has accepted from gop donors. so, it would be a much different story if this were just about vacations he was taking with his wife and the family, most people would write it off as, it was a trip. most people would not consider traveling with friends or associates as being something that is that big of a deal, that is not actually what we are talking about with clarence thomas, is it? no, it is another order of magnitude, it would seem. and it has been going on for years. i guess some part of me is surprised that you, not knowing the alito s, you re just a random member of the historical society, is able to even get within shoulder rubbing distance of a justice and then draw him into conversation about some of the most incendiary topics in this country, which is a partisan divide. how did it actually unfold when you were in the room with the justice? it should be stated that in the guidance for the events, the historical society says, if you broach topics that are before the court, it may be grounds for you to be kicked out and so there is definitely a deliberative process in, how do i approach someone that, you know, not only are judges supposed to be really the height of discretion, the height of, you know, judgment, right? this is the highest court in the land, this is the supreme court justice, so i definitely went into this assuming that i was not going to get anything newsworthy. in 2023, i did not get anything newsworthy. but, i thought, you know, throughout the year that transpired, the media s scrutiny on justice alito has intensified so much and his grievance level is probably so much more peaked, that unlike clarence thomas who did not show up to this dinner but has been reported to have shown up to it many times, and he did not show up in 2023, by the way, that justice alito would probably attend anyway, even though he was undergoing this very intense media glare and sure enough, he was there and i think, you know, it was just something that i can t say what was in his mind so i don t know if in 2023, he had the same level of grievance and, you know, it changed over the course of the year? there are a couple options there. did it change or was it always there and he just felt more comfortable? was it hard to get him to talk? at the very end of this conversation, he says, are you a lawyer? i think he is talking to your colleague, i am not sure if it is you or her but it wasn t like you had offered any biographical information other than you had a husband who is not in the room. and i wonder why you operate that piece of information? how did you actually get into conversation with him? did you go up to him and start talking to him? the reason why i brought up my husband was that in 2023, i came with a male friend. the context of it was, we had a conversation after dinner, in 2023, my male friend was with me , he was not with me in 2024, so when i saw justice alito solo, it was one-on-one. it was, hi, there, my husband really wants to let you know that we are rooting for you, that you really have all the grit. the reason why i said you have all the grit, if it does not stick out to people, this is because donald trump had treated something out about how , you know, there should be more justices like samuel alito , with the grit that samuel alito has, so i felt like it was kind of a flag, if you will , to justice alito, that it was a safe space for him? a safe space, yes. i was trying to signal to him very coyly without saying trump because it goes back to the way the conversation to bridge a conversation with someone who has the highest level of discretion come you can t talk about partisan politics, if i had locked up in answer to talking about joe biden or donald trump, he would have shut down. so talking about polarization was really a way into the conversation that wasn t as aggressive but also indicative of what i was really trying to get out, was, is he acting on bias? and i really do believe that the american people deserve to know, is the supreme court so compromise that we do not really have impartiality, the bedrock of our judicial system? i think hearing it from his mouth, that he cannot be impartial, there are things that cannot be compromised, that needs to be fuel for journalists and for congress to say, tell us, what are the things that can t be compromised? lauren, look. you brought us into a room that few people are ever in and i think these tapes are revelatory and they are coming at a time of crisis for this court. we are not in having this conversation, thank you for bringing some of that conversation to our air, we are really appreciative, thanks for spending some time with me tonight. thank you, alex pick coming up this hour, we have new details about donald trump s presentencing meeting with his probation officer. it turns out he is being treated differently, just maybe not in the way he would like you to believe pick for scott hunter biden today joined donald trump in becoming a convicted felon facing possible jail time. does that mean the system is now en route? we will get into the republican response, coming up next. next. chewy, a citi client, uses citi s financial expertise 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. for the love of progress. if you have chronic kidney 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we 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. president biden s son, hunter biden, was found guilty today on three felony gun charges. given this news you might have thought maybe the conspiracy about president biden rigging the justice system, maybe you thought that is going to collapse. it did not. today is the first step in delivering accountability for the biden crime family pick we have been saying two-tier system of justice for some time. the president son being convicted on three counts [ inaudible ] it doesn t, every case is different and clearly the evidence is overwhelming here. do you think the department of justice is still left nice against conservatives even though we see this verdict today? absolutely, when they tell school moms they are domestic terrorists because they don t like what is being taught in their classroom and other things, we can go into it, but we can go into it, but we want. atrial campaign statement released today callcenter better s trial nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the biden crime family. and in lockstep with the party front-runner, the chairman of the house oversight committee, republican james, said the work will not be done until the department of justice investigates everyone involved in the the biden s correct influence peddling schemes. joining me now is the cofounder and editor at large of the bulwark. thank you for joining me. this criminal conviction is apparently a distraction from the real crimes of the biden crime family pick is that strategy going to work? today s conviction was awkward, right? it is awkward for the talking point that it was all right, that biden justice department was weapon eyes only against republicans. but we live in a world in which the reality and the fact have a hard time catching up, you can see how deeply invested republicans are in there talking point about the biden crime family pick so it is not a shock that they are going to continue to repeat those talking points over and over and over again. but, i do think the contrast and the reaction to the conviction of donald trump in the conviction of hunter biden has been very, very telling here. again, it is always difficult to know how it is going to play out. we may see this at the debate. and other biden folks think this is going to come up at the debate and you know donald trump is going to try to make an issue of the fact that the president s son is a convicted felon which will be offered, being a convicted felon himself . but democrats have been making this point and let me even make the point that there are a number of democrats who are facing indictments under the biden justice department, not just the president s own son, but a democratic senator, senator menendez, henry cuellar, down in texas, these are all democrats. if the system is so rigged, how do they explain that? the answer is, they don t feel the need to explain that at all. they are just going to go with a spin. i just wonder who the spin is for, right? you talk about the reaction, this was a statement from the president of the united states after his son is convicted of felonies. as i said 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. so many families who have had loveland battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love, out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery. as i also said last week, looks at the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as hunter considers an appeal. jill and i will always be there for hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. nothing will ever change that. it is a very strong statement, it is a tough statement for a father to make, and i think [ inaudible ] whatever the republican argument here is about biden rigging the system, among the [ inaudible ] i don t think there is any reason to doubt his word at this point. and again, this creates a really significant difference between the tantrum donald trump and his supporters have thrown and the acceptance of the rule of law and the decision of a jury that was represented with all of this evidence. the point you re making is, who is this for right now? almost everything republicans say is for the audience of one, it is for donald trump. this is what the base wants to hear about that is not the group of voters who will be deciding the selection. not to ask too poetic about it but i think embedded in biden s statement is a call to empathy, right? for those who have fallen, for people who have addiction and are trying to make it through a dark period, versus trump, who is all grievance all the time, and i think we think a lot we don t know a lot about where this country is headed, but really, appealing to people s since of forgiveness and empathy does not seem like a political strategy that has an expiration date. am i being too soft here? no, again, it is a very interesting contrast. if donald trump s superpower is his shamelessness, his refusal to ever take responsibility or apologize, joe biden s superpower is his empathy. and again, republicans aren t going to give him any credit for it but i do think there are a lot of americans who are going to say, this is a tragic situation, there are questions about hunter biden s judgment and his behavior, but also what you are seeing from joe biden is, this is what a father, a father who has lost his other son, how they would react to something like that. and i think there will be a sliver of the electorate, a crucial sliver, that is going to look at that and say we understand that seems human to us. that seems like something that we can identify with and admire as opposed to the constant conspiracy theories and the victim cardplaying and really, the vicious attacks on the criminal justice system and the jury system coming from donald trump. it is a real choice i had. this is going to be very, very indicative of who we are as a country. thank you again for your time, it is great see you. thank you. still to come this evening, we have new reporting about what appears to be a coordinated effort to broadcast disinformation about this fall s election on your local newscast. when it comes to donald trump a criminal conviction, republicans need a reality check. we have one, that is next. nex. with all the money i saved i thought i d buy stilts. being so tall definitely has its advantages. oh whoa. here you go, kiddo. thanks. hi honey ready to go? 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(vo) in two seconds, eric will realize they re gonna need more space. (man) gotta sell the house. (vo) oh.open houses. or, skip the hassles and sell directly to opendoor. (man) wow. (vo) when life s doors open, we ll handle the house. i just went through a rigged trial in new york. it is a rigged system, a terrible system, actually, but it is a rigged system. the whole system is rigged. this was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. rigged, rigged, rigged, rigged. that has been donald trump by the refrain during his criminal trial in new york, the entire system is rigged against him. and yet, the system really seems to be bending in his favor lately as we saw yesterday at his probation interview. trump s interview lasted less than half an hour and trump was allowed to attend the meeting over zoom from his mar-a-lago beach club in florida. with his lawyer, seated by his side. just for perspective here, according to a statement released by multiple public defender groups in new york city, public defenders are deprived of joining their clients for these meetings, the option of joining these interviews virtually by zuma is typically not extended to the people we represent either. joining me now is duncan levin who was a federal prosecutor and served as a senior staffer in the manhattan va s office, he is now a criminal defense attorney. thank you for joining me to make sense of this madness her. first of all, the circumstances of this probation, they sound relatively easy, maybe even cushy but donald trump says that everything is rigged against him. who is right? this is something that is a routine and it typically takes hours. to the extent that there have been things that have been different for him, they have only been different in his favor. most defendants have to come there in person, it is a drab office, these things take hours, there are reports his probation interview took half an hour. this is an opportunity for probation to actually ask the types of questions that a judge might want to know on sentencing that don t come out in the trial. this defendant is somebody who is so well vetted, everybody knows everything, but for most defendants, the judge does not have a sense of who they are as a person. what their family situation is, with her immigration status is, are they using drugs? a lot of people notice about donald trump but you could say half an hour maybe all you need but the fact is, this is them doing their due diligence and to the extent that it is on zoom, the lawyer is there, it is only half an hour, to the extent it is rigged or indifferent, it is only been in his favor picked the other piece of this he likes bringing up is the presence in this case on the da side of amending matthew purkey. they were to the department of justice and now works for alvin and they have literally used matthew to be like, the missing link between job biden, the publisher of the justice department and alvin bragg, the prosecutor that has sought charges against donald trump. for people who aren t familiar with this line of attack, this is how comp talks about matthew. matthew colangelo is a radical left from the doj who was put into the state, working with lakisha james , and then was put into the district attorney s office to run the trial against trump. we will take issue with it put into passive in that statement but you have gone between the doj and the das office, so you know what it is like, i guess, to be a plant. first of all, is that a normal thing that happens? and how in line with reality is this argument? this is something that is also being jammed up on capitol hill a lot. in a letter today, the department of justice said this was conspiratorial speculation. i think it is something a lot more sinister and dark that is going on, this is an attempt to really undermine law enforcement and to so distrust of the public if enforcement function. first off, the manhattan das office and doj walk together all the time, everything today. there are joint task forces on terrorism, on hate crimes, there is a joint task force that looks the filings the banks viral, the suspicious activity reports, there have been drinking since i have been prosecuted by the department of justice and manhattan das office against banks like standard charter, hsbc, ing and barclays, there have been cases every day that rd conflicting between department of justice and the manhattan das office, they don t arrest the same person or step on each other s toes and people go back and forth, and from the manhattan das office to the aspersion of justice and back to the manhattan das office, robert morgan was the most famous manhattan da who served for 35 years from 1975 to 2010, prior to becoming elected as a manhattan da with the united states attorney for the southern district of new york. he was an obama plant quick exactly, a stooge of the ministration. it is preposterous, right? and yet there is no sense these cries of foul play are going to end anytime soon. this is all coming to a head on july 11 when there is the sentencing hearing for trump and i guess i wonder what your expectation for that is and whether there is anything to be done around the cries of foul play in a rigged system that are inevitably going to come up no matter what trump is sentenced to? this is such a hard decision for the judge and you would not wish it on your worst enemy and frankly on both sides, nobody should want him to go to jail or want anyone to go to jail, it is a sad day. that being said it is a tough decision for him to make. the prosecution is virtually going to be asking for jail time. the defense is looking for a conditional discharge saying he has been punished enough by the felony and that is it. it will be an outcry on both sides no matter what it is. this is something that is very difficult decision. i don t know that there is any way to the political thicket of it, other than to say this is a judge who has really been around the block and will be taking this seriously unfairly and i think you ll see a sentence that is free of some of those political considerations, something that he will be, maybe dom amato, but i think both sides will be able to make of it like a rorschach test, if you will, they will be able to argue around it what ever it is. that is not exactly you are not giving me the inside dope on what you think it would be and i would never put you on the spot for that, but for all the we have seen thus far it feels like the volume is only going to increase. thank you, my friend, for being here, helping us all through this. coming up, trump appointee judge eileen cannon tosses out part of trump s indictment in the classified documents case. we are going to get to that but first, some very orwellian messaging broadcast from your trusted local news station, that is next. next. at bombas, we re obsessed with comfort. softness. quality. because your basic things should be your best things. one purchased equals one donated. visit bombas.com and get 20% off your first order. when life spells heartburn. how do you spell relief? r-o-l-a-i-d-s rolaids dual-active formula begins to neutralize acid on contact. r-o-l-a-i-d-s spells relief. our greatest responsibility is to serve our treasure valley communities. eastern iowa communities. we are extremely proud of the quality balanced journalism that cbs-4 news produces. but we are concerned about a troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country. we are concerned about a troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country. do you remember that nightmare fuel from 2018? the media organization, sinclair broadcast group, which owns nearly 200 local tv news outlets, had dozens of their local anchors across the country all read the same orwellian script about bias in the media. unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think. this is extremely dangerous to our democracy. today, sinclair broadcast group was caught again, with dozens of local anchors, again, reading the same script. the newsletters public notice and popular information first brought attention to the copycat newscast, which featured a script you might say has a very clear, conservative agenda. the wall street journal calling into question the mental fitness of president joe biden. illustrate journalism with reporting calling into question the mental fitness of president joe biden. is national correspondent matt galka tells us, the issue could be an election decider. the issue could be an election decider. now, the story, these dozens of local news outlets ran with was based on a widely panned piece in the wall street journal last week, claiming that behind closed doors, president biden was showing signs of mental slippage. the only people quoted on the record in that piece to support that reporting were republican officials, including former speaker of the house, kevin mccarthy, who is not at all known for being the most reliable anything. meanwhile, several democrats including senator chris have come out publicly to say that they get quotes to the wall street journal for that piece and the paper chose not to include them. include them. chose not to include them. said he told the journal that biden is someone who is sharp, engaged, and leads the conversation. on aside from the clear partisan edge to all of this, recent polling from gallup says that americans have very low trust in media outlets. just 32% of the country trust the media. but, that is not true when it comes to local news. pew research polling from earlier this year showed that 71% of americans trust their local news outlets. which is what makes what sinclair is doing here snow so nefarious. maybe you don t trust the wall street journal or cable news, but it might trust the station that gives them the weather, and that is the real issue. that issue could be an election decider. election decider. because there are places you d like to be. farxiga can cause serious side effects, including ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration, urinary tract, or genital yeast infections, and low blood sugar. a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking farxiga and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this infection, an allergic reaction, or ketoacidosis. far-xi-ga they say we should stop eating so much meat. an allergic reaction, or ketoacidosis. so we made meat out of plants. because we aren t quitters. impossible. we re solving the meat problem with more meat. if you have generalized myasthenia gravis, picture what life could look like with. vyvgart hytrulo, a subcutaneous injection that takes about 30 to 90 seconds. for one thing, could it mean more time for you? vyvgart hytrulo can improve daily abilities and reduce muscle weakness with a treatment plan that s personalized to you. do not use vyvgart hytrulo if you have a serious allergy to any of its ingredients. it can cause serious allergic reactions like trouble breathing and decrease in blood pressure leading to fainting and allergic reactions such as rashes, swelling under the skin, shortness of breath, and hives. the most common side effects are respiratory and urinary tract infections, headache, and injection site reactions. it may increase the risk of infusion-related reactions and infection. tell your doctor if you have a history of infections or symptoms of an infection. talk to your neurologist about vyvgart hytrulo for gmg and picture your life in motion. 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. in an order that otherwise denied yet another attempt to end the criminal prosecution of donald trump over his handling of classified documents, judge aileen cannon has given trump a partial win. she decided to strike one incident from special counsel jack smith s indictment, the paragraph describing that after he left the presidency, trump allegedly showed a classified map of a foreign country to a representative of a political action committee while saying that an ongoing military operation in the country was not going well. trump allegedly admitted at the time that he shouldn t be showing the map to someone without security clearance, and told the person not to look too closely at it. but, while the incident illustrates how allegedly cavalier trump was with classified information, prosecutors never charged trump with crimes involved with sharing classified information, and now the judge has struck it from the indictment. joining me now is bradley moss, a national security attorney who routinely represents national officials and members of the military in matters pertaining to classified documents. how big of a deal of it is it for prosecutors that this has been struck from the indictment? it is certainly not a critical factor. all this means is that it is not sitting in what is otherwise known as a speaking indictment. it is still information prosecutors can bring out at trial, and almost certainly will litigate to make sure they can bring it out, as evidence of a prior bad act strictly in the context of mr. trump s intent, his motive, his desire, his willingness to conceal this information that he knew he knew he had classified documents, he knew he wasn t authorized to have them and he was retaining them at mar-a- lago. this is a minor, little victory for mr. trump. otherwise, the motion was denied. otherwise, the issue, of course, is that it just took so long. this could have been resolved weeks ago. it never needed to take this long. if it is not a significant win for trump, is it indicative, though, of a broader tension between the special counsel s office and this judge? because throughout this case and it seems like it has ratcheted up in recent months there is maybe not a volley because it seems like it is coming from one side, the judge does not seem happy with jack smith or his team. yes, certainly the tensions continue to boil and they have reached the point where in a hearing just a few weeks ago, prosecutors were so upset and frustrated with their attempts to try to explain to judge cannon their view on the case law and how certain legal precedents apply that the judge had to basically counsel them to calm down. none of us were there, i don t know how badly that got out of hand, but it is never a good sign when you are a lawyer and the judge is telling you to calm down. but, let s be honest about where this is going. judge cannon, for whatever reason, has chosen to take a slow and methodical approach. she hasn t granted donald trump anything of substance, yet, at any point in this case. but because of how she has dragged it out, because she is making sure the classified portions in particular are taking forever, it is almost guaranteed this will never see the light of day, it will never go to trial before people go to the voting booth in november. that seems guaranteed, there seems to be a question about whether we will see the trial, period. but, that seems to be based on politics. trump filed another motion to dismiss today, this one says that the fbi destroyed evidence by not preserving exactly where the classified material was in proximity to nonclassified material and trump is arguing he didn t pack the boxes, he didn t know what was in there. how substantive is this? or, does it matter, is it just more delay, delay, delay? i think it is largely a delay tactic, but the hope is that they might get an evidentiary hearing, something big mentioned in the motion, they want a hearing to probe into how this was conducted, how the boxes were organized, this way whether or not there is something to whether there are allegations of bias or improper storage. on the merits, it s garbage. it has nothing to do with anything in terms of destruction of evidence, and it doesn t absolve trump of the idea that he willfully retained the documents. he knew he had them in 2022, when he turned stuff over to the archives. they told him, hey, there s classified documents in this stuff. they knew he had them over the course of the next year, talking to his lawyers telling him, turn them over. and the fbi kept funding stuff in what you are turning over. it will ultimately not change anything, but quite possibly with the way judge cannon handles things, it could drag it out just a little bit more. just a little bit more. we are now at the first anniversary of the mar-a-lago case, the grand jury and bob dikeman came down on june 8th, 2023. anyone s guess if we get to the second anniversary. bradley moss, thank you, sir, for your time tonight. have a good night. that is our show for this evening. now, it is time for the last word , with jonathan k part. lawrence o donnell come in for jonathan.
you have donald trump who takes and weaponize is the seats of government, the seats of power, and embarks on a campaign of political intimidation in order to secure outcomes that personally benefit him. that at the core is part of the stakes of our democracy that are before us today. once rule of law goes out the window, it s not something that is easy to get back. it s very much a part of the decision we have to make in the next few months. thank you for all your time tonight. that s all in on this tuesday night . night . tuesday night. good evening, alex. we have some new exclusive audio from the supreme court historical society that lauren windsor has given us and we ll be playing that in the hour so stay tuned. will. like i said exclusive never before heard audio recordings of justice samuel alito speaking to an undercover progressive activist. that s what we have tonight. that is in addition to the bombshell reportings that were released poyesterday, and you l definitely want to hear these recordings when we play them. if you ve been wondering how those secret tapes were made in the very first place, how activists and judges on the highest court in this land, how they camehi to mingle behind closed doors, well, the answer to that begins almost ten years ago to this day, when the supreme court handed down a major decision. supporters of the hobby lobby cheered today s victory. the oklahoma family that owns the chain of 500 craft stores claimed that providing insurance coverage for some forms of contraceptives under obamacare would be the equivalent of paying for abortion. the court called the ruling startling. the hobby lobby decision. the majority opinion was written by justice amsl alito, and it was one of the first signs that conservatives on this court were willing to go after reproductive freedoms no matter the consequence. now, in the wake of the dobbs decision ten years later hobby lobby seems like the canary in the coal mine in more ways than one. in novemberys 2022 the new yor times offered key reporting about how the hobby lobby decision came to be. for years before the court heard the case, conservative christians have been engaged in a campaign called operation higher court. that operation was to personally court and influence the supreme court sth conservative justice. the effort was spearheaded by a man named reverend robert shank, who woulder recruit christian couples, who he called stealth missionaries, to gain access to theto judges and to impress upo themes the importance of conservative christian values. here s how the new york times described one of their strategies. reverend schenk gave his stealth missionary close instruction. the justice were more likely to let their guard down at the supreme court historical society s annual dinners because they were sure they d be properly vetted. see a justice, boldly approach, he told the couples. if given the opportunity bear witness to biblical truth but don t push it, he said. your presence alone at had historical society h events telegraphs a very important signal to the justices christians are concerned about the court and the issues that come before it. that strategy appears to have paid off. according to the times reporting some of schenk s stt missionaries were able to build enough of a relationship with justice alito and his wife, marketa anne, that they obtainea advanced notice of the court s hobby lobby decision before the camebb out. that breach, that unprecedented breach foreshadowed the leaked dobbs decision striking down roe eight yearswn later. and that specific strategy of using the supreme court s annual society historic dinners as a way tost gain access to supreme court justices, well, it turns out that, too, is velerant again just this week. it s a yearly event where wealthy donors give money to a non-profit dedicated to preserving the court s history, and in ouexchange for their mon, those donors get to rub shoulders with some of the justice and their spouses. as it turns out, conservatives weren t the only ones in on this tidy little arrangement. last week progressive activist lauren winder who happens to be a member of the historic society bought a ticket for the event. when she got in, she pretended to be a conservative donor, attending the event with her husband. ms. windsor approached some of the supreme court justices and secretly recorded her conversations with them. nbc news has not heard the full tape of what was recorded so we cannot say for full certain if edits were made if any were actually made. tonight we have some brand new audio from that event to play for you. and when you hear these new tapes, you will hear something familiar to what was on the tapes released yesterday. a justice, in this case justice alito, who is aggrieved and frustrated, who is nakedly partisan and totally unconcerned by appearing to be all those things in front of a total stranger. remember what we heard yesterday. as a catholic and as someone who, like, really cherishes my faith, i just don t i don t know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that, like, needs to happen for the polarization to end. i think that it sti a matter of like, winning. i think you re probably right. on one side or the other one side or the other is going to win.oi i don t know. i mean, there can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can t be compromised. they really can t be compromised, so it s not like you re going tomi split the difference. and that s what i m saying. it s just, i think that the solution really is, like, winning the moral argument. like people in the country who believe in god have got to keep fighting for that to return our country tot a place of godline. i agree with you. i agree with you. remember at this closed door cocktail party ms. winder was also able to get justice alito s wife, martha anne, to justify flying the two flags in front of their homes. these recordings this week would seem to suggest mrs. alito has no shame about what she be been doing here, in fact quite the opposite. she made clear these flags she flieshe are explicitly her formf resistance and response. you know what i want?at i want a sacred heart of jesus flag because i have to look across the lagoon at the pride flag next month. exactly. and he s like oh, please don t put up a flag, and i said i won t do it because i m deferring to you. but when you re free of this nonsense, i m putting it up. i made a flag in my head, this is how i satisfy myself. i made a flag, it s white and it s yellow and orange flames aroundd it, and in the middle the word vergonia. vergonia in italian means shame. just to be clear justice alito hasr publicly stated his wife did not fly these flags to associate herself with the stop the steal movement or any other group, but it seems quite clear from that clip haze wife very much sees this flags as a form of political expression and a response to what she believes are liberal attacks. perhaps most concerning in these recordings, though, is martha-ann alito s five year plan for revenge. there s a five year defamation statute of limitations. i don t know what you mean by them. the media. martha-ann alito says she has a plan to get back at the media by suing for defamation and she thinks she ll have an opportunity to do that in the next five years when she s free of all this nonsense? is she telling all of us here about justice alit opg s retirement plans? and how concerned should we be a supreme court justice s spouse is talking about the american media with open contempt? tonight we have brand new audio from that same event where justice alito himself thinks what he thinks about the fourth estate, the press. the other voice you ll hear on this tape is an associate of lauren windsor s who was also as this event. i justis wanted to ask you w do you think the supreme court is so is being so attacked and being soso targeted by the media? well, i think it s a simple reason. theyle don t like our decisions and they don t like how they anticipate we may decide some cases that areom coming up. that s the beginning and the end of it, and there are there are groupst, that are very well-funded by ideological groups that haveic spearheaded these attacks. that s what it is. like who? propublica. propublica, gets a lot of you know, gets a lot of money. and they have spent a fortune investigating clarence thomas, for example. but they you know, they look for any little thing they can find, and they try to make something out of it. nbc news reached out for comment from both samuel alito and his wife martha-ann alito but we ve not heard back. lauren, thank you for being here. i knowk r you ve had a busy weo far. we re so appreciative of all that you ve said thus far and all that you have toou share wi us tonight. let me first start with the new sound your organization or your colleague has given us. there are two parts of this new this new tape that strike me as concerning. the first is justice samuel alito saying that the media is attacking him because the media doesn t like how they anticipate the court has decided decided cases and may decide upcoming cases. was that a window into what may be coming down the pike in the next two weeks? how did you interpret that? te i mean i definitely interpreted it as being a harbinger for bad thing tuesday come. did you get the sense when he was talking about the media and thenou specifically citing propublica, for example, on their extensive investigative reporting about clarence thomas alito is reading that these stories are very much beingor shared behind closed dos at the supreme court? i mean his media awareness seemed to be relatively high. oh, it s very high. and he already had a sense of grievance when i first spoke with him in 2023, but it was much more pronounced this year in the two conversations that both ali and i had with him. i k we talk about the context here? the fact is you and your colleague both had conversations with the alitos. for those of us who haven t been to the supreme court historical society events, is this what happens at, them? we now have two bombshell reports about conversations, advocacy campaigns happening between attendees andpp justices on the supreme court. it s interesting. i actually read that initial report in the the new york times about reverend schenk, and that s part of what played into my going in the first place, but i didn t read that report and think i should become a member now. it really was incited by the propublica reporting on clarence thomas. andngcl it s interesting that justice alito wants to rail about theha money taken by propublica for investigating, you know, public servants why clarence thomas is not disclosing millions of dollars in gifts from gop donors, and i have no idea what propublica s finances are, but as someone who is an independent journalist, i would imagine that the money that clarence thomas has taken probably rivals the budget of propublica in any given year. yeah, i mean it s such a good point. what did you hear in alito s sort of explanation for that? did you hear it almost seems as if there s certainly no contrition, but there s notce en ant acknowledgement that there was any wrongdoing on the part of clarence thomas in accepting potentially millions of dollars in unspecified gifts from conservativepe donors. i mean, you know, it s not verbatim but it s almost verbatim. making something out of any little thing i don t understand any little thing to be, you know, buying my mother s house or paying for my nephew s tuition or getting a free rv loan. and these are all things that he s accepted from gop donors. so it would be a much different story if this was just about vacations he was taking with harlan crow and his wife and family. most people would write it off as, oh, it was a trip. most people would not consider traveling with friends or associates as being something that s that big of a deal, but that s not actually what we re talkingot about with clarence thomas, is it? no, it s other order of magnitude we ve seen and it s been going on for years. you just a random member of the historical society is able to get even within shoulder rubbing distance of a justice and then grow him into conversation about some of the most incendiary topics of this country, which is the c partisan divide. how did it actually unfold when you were in the room with the justice? so it should be stated that in the guidance for the event thate historical society says you broach topics gnat are before the court, it may be grounds for you to be kicked out. so there was definitely a deliberative process in how do i approach someone in that you know, not only are judges supposed to be really the height of discretion, the height of, you know, judgments, right, this is the highest court in the land. this ishe aou supreme court jus, so i definitely went into this assuming i was not going to get anything newsworthy. in 2023 i did not get anything newsworthy, but i thought, you know, throughout the year that transpired, the media scrutiny on justice alito has intensified so much, and his grievance level is probably so much more peaked that unlike clarence thomas who did not show up to this dinner but has been reported to have shown up to it many times, and he didn t show up in 2023, by the way, that justice alito would probably attend anyway even though he was undergoing this very intense media glare, and sure enough he was there. and i think it was just something that i can t say what was in his mind, so i don t know if in 2023 he had the same level of grievance and, you know, it changed over the coursg of the year. sure. there s a couple options there. you know, did it changeorally was it always there and he just felt more comfortable? was it hard to get him to talk? at the very end of this conversation he says are you a lawyer? i think he s talking toou ali, yourki colleague. i mle not sure if it s you or h, but it s not as if you offered any biographical information other than you had a husband who s in the room. and i wondered how you got that piece of information. did you go up to him and start talking tort him? so the reason why i brought up my husband is that in 2023 i came with a male friend, so the context of it was we had a conversation after dinner in 2023 my male friend was with me, he was not with me in 2024, so when i saw justice alito solo it was one-on-one, it was, hi there, my husband really wants to let you know that we re rooting for you, you know, that you really have all the grit. and the reason why i said you have all the grit if it doesn t stick out tot people, this is because donald trump had tweeted something out about how there should be more justices like samuel alito with the grit that samuel alito has. and so i felt like it was kind of a flag, if you will to alito, that it was a safe space for him. a safe space, yes. i was trying to signal to him very coyly without saying trump because itit goes back to the w to broach a conversation with someone who has the highest level of discretion, you can t talk about partisanis politics. if i had walked up to him and started t talking about joe bid or donald trump, he would have shutdown. so talking about polarization was really a a way into the conversation that wasn t aggressive but also t indicativ of what he s really trying to get at, which is he acting on bias? and ie really do believe that e american peopleo deserve to kn is the supreme court so compromised that we do not really have impartiality, the bedrock of our judicial system. i think hearing it from his mouth that he cannot be impartial,nn that there are this that cannot be compromised. that needs to be fuel to tell us, look, what is it that can be compromised? you brought us into an environment and these tapes are regulatory and coming at a time of crisis for this court. it is we re not done having this conversation. thank you for bringing some of that conversation to our air. we re really appreciative. thanks for spending some time with me tonight, lauren windsor. thank you, alex. coming up this hour we have new details about trump s presentencing meeting with his probationth officer. turns out he is being treated differently, just maybeea not i the way he d like you to believe. but first hunterto biden joined donald trump in becoming a convicted felon facing possible jail time. does that mean the system is now unrigged? we ll get into n the republican response coming up next. get int response coming up next. president biden s son, hunter biden was found guilty today on three federal gun charges. you may think the maga conspiracy about president biden rigging the justice system, maybe you thought that s going to collapse. it did not. today is the first step for delivering accountability for the biden crime family. you ve been saying two tier system of justice, and here is the president s son being convicted. it doesn t. every case is different, and clearly the evidence is overwhelming here. do you think the department of justice is still weaponized against conservatives even though we still see this verdict here today? absolutely. when they tell there are school moms they re domestic terrorists because they don t like what s being taught in their classrooms and others things we can go into it but we can go into it, but we won t. a trump s campaign statement said hunter biden s trial nothing but a distraction of the real crimes of the biden crime family. republican james comer said the work will not be done until the department of justice investigates everyone involved in the biden s corrupt influence peddling schemes. this conviction is apparently a distraction from the real crimes of it biden crime family. is that strategy going to work? today s conviction was awkward. it was awkward for the talk this was all rigged, the biden justice department is rigged only against republicans, but we live in a world in which the reality and the facts have a hard time catching up with the spin. and you can see how deeply invested the republicans are about talking about the biden crime family. so it s not a shock they re going to continue to repeat those talking points over and over again, but i do think the contrast and reaction to the conviction of donald trump and the conviction of hunter biden has been very, very telling here. and, again, it s always difficult to know how it s going to play out. we may see this at the debate. i know the biden folks think this is going to come up at the debate. again, democrats have been making this point and the media have been making the point that, you know, there are a number of democrats who are facing indictments under under the biden justice department, not just the president s own son by a democratic senator, senator menendez, henry quer down in texas. if the system is so rigged, how do they explain that and the answer is they don t feel the need to explain at all, they re just going to go with the spin. when you talk about a reaction this was the statement from the president of the united states after his son is convicted of felonies. as i said last week i am the president but i m also a dad. squill and i love our son and we re so proud of the man he is today. so many families who have had loved ones battle adekz understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery. as i also said last week i ll respect the outcome of this case and continue to respect the judicial process as hunter continues to appeal. jill and i will always lead our family with our love and support. nothing will change that. that a strong statement, a tough statement for a father to make, and i feel that undercuts whatever the republican argument is here about biden rigging the system among the voters that will actually matter this next election. well, there are three things there. number one, the conviction of hunter biden shows the system is not rigged. it also shows this is the way the rule of law looks. and president biden has also said you know, has said on the record he ll not use his pardon power if to free his son if hunter biden gets a prison sentence. and some people were skeptical about that, but i don t think there s any reason to doubt his word at this point. and again, this creates a really significant difference between the tantrum that donald trump and his supporters have thrown and the acceptance of the rule of law and the decision of a jury that was presented with all this evidence. the point you re making is who is this for right? almost everything republicans say is for the audience of one is for donald trump. this is what the base wants to hear, but that is not the group of voters who will be deciding this election. and i think embedded in biden s statement is a call to empathy, right, for those who have fallen, for people who have addiction and are trying to make it through, you know, a dark, dark period versus trump who is all grievance all the time. and, you know, i think we think we don t know a lot about where this country is headed, but really appealing to people s sense of forgiveness and empathy doesn t seem like a political strategy that has an expiration date. i don t know, am i being too soft here? no. and again, it s a very interesting contrast. if trump s super power and his shamelessness, his refusal to ever take responsibility or apologize, joe biden s super power and his empathy. and again, republicans aren t going to give him any credit for it, but i do think there are a lot of americans who are going to say this a tragic situations. there are questions about the hunter biden judgment and his behavior, but also what you re seeing from joe biden is this is what a father, a father who has lost his other son, how they would react to something like that. and i think there will be a sliver of the electorate, a crucial sliver going to look at that and say we understand that seems human to us, that seems like something we can identify with and admire as opposed to the constant conspiracy theories and the victim card playing and the really vicious attacks on the criminal justice system and the jury system coming from donald trump. yeah, it s a real choice ahead, and this is going to be very, very indicative of who we are as a country. charlie sykes, thank you again for your time, my friend. it s great to see you. thank you. still to come this evening we have some new reporting about what appears to be a coordinated effort to broadcast disinformation about this fall s election on your local newscast. plus, when it comes to trump s criminal conviction, republican need a reality check. we have one. that s next. d a reality check. we have one. that s next. are you still struggling with your bra? it s time for you to try knix. makers of the world s comfiest wireless bras. for revolutionary support without underwires, and sizes up to a g-cup, find your new favorite bra today at knix.com norman, bad news. i never graduated andfrom med school.-cup, what? -but the good news is. xfinity mobile just got even better! now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal. i know. faster wifi and savings? .i don t want to miss that. that s amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc? i just went through a rigged trial in new york. it s a rigged system, and it s a terrible system, actually. but it s a rigged system. it s all rigged. the whole system is rig. this was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. rigged, rigged, rigged, rigged, rigged, rigged. that s been donald trump s refrain during his criminal trial in new york. the entire system is rigged against him. and yet the system really seems to be bending in his favor lately as we saw yesterday at his probation hearing. trump s interview lasted less than half an hour, and trump was allowed to attend the meeting over zoom from his mar-a-lago beach club in florida with his lawyer seated by his side. just for perspective here according to a statement released by multiple public defender groups in new york city, public defenders are deprived of joining their clients for these meetings. the options of joining these meetings virtually by zoom is typically not extended to the people we represent either. joining me now is duncan levine. he s now a criminal defense attorney. duncan, thanks for joining me to make sense of this madness here. first the circumstances of this probation interview. they sound relatively easy, maybe even cushy, but donald trump says everything is rigged against him. who s right? this is something that is so routine, it typically takes hours. and to the extent there s been things that have been different for him, they ve only been different in his favor. most defendants have to come there in person. it is a drab office. these things take hours. there are courts probation interviewed that took half an hour. this is the opportunity to ask on sentencing that don t come out in the trial. this is defendant so well vetted, but for most defendants the judge doesn t have a sense who they are as a person, what their family situation is, what their immigration status is. are they using drugs, who are they covorting with? so a lot of people know this about donald trump. you could say, well, half an hour maybe all you need, but the fact is this it is them doing their due diligence. to the extent it s all zoom, the extent it s rigged or different, it s only been in his favor. the only piece of this he likes bringing up is the presence in this case on the d.a. s side of a man named matthew colangelo. they ve used him to be the missing link between joe biden, the puppeteer of the justice department and alvin bragg who sought criminal charges against donald trump. this is how trump talked about michael. colangelo is a radical left from the doj who was put into the state working for litigious james and was then put into the district attorney s office to run the trial against trump. we ll take issue with the put into passive in that statement, but you have gone between the doj and the d.a. s office so you know what it s like i guess to be a plant. first of all, is that a normal thing that happens, and how in line with reality is this argument? yeah, and this is something that s also being ginned up on capitol hill a lot. and in a letter just today the department of justice said this was conspiratorial speculation. this is an attempt to undermine law enforcement and to sow distrust of the public and law enforcement function. first off manhattan d.a. s office and doj work together every single time. there are joint task forces on terrorism, on hate crimes. there are joint task forces that looks banks file of suspicious activity reports, and joint cases such as standard charter and ing and barclays. there are cases every day deconflicted between the department of justice. on the manhattan d.a. s office they don t arrest the same person or step on other s toes. robert, the most famous manhattan d.a. who served for 35 years from 1975 to 2010 prior to becoming elected as the manhattan d.a. was the united states attorney for the southern district of new york. so he was an obama plant. exactly. a stooge for the administration. this is all coming to a head on july 11th when there is the sentencing hearing for trump. and i guess i wonder what your expectation for that is and whether there s anything to be done around the cries of foul play and a rigged system that are inevitably going to come up no matter what trump is sentenced to. it s just such a hard decision for judge merchan, and you wouldn t wish it on your worst enemy. that being said it s a tough decision for him to make. the prosecution is definitely going to be asking for jail time. the it was is going to be asking for a sentence of the conditional discharge thing. there s going to be outcry on both sides no matter what it is. this is something a very difficult decision and i don t know there s any way through the political thicket of it other than to say this is judge who s really been around the block and he s going to be taking this seriously and fairly, and i think you ll see a sentence free of some of those political consideration, and it may be down the middle, but i think both sides will be able to make like a rorschach test, if you will, and they ll be able to argue around it, whatever it is. you re not giving me the inside dope on what you think it would be. i would never put you on the spot for that, duncan. but for all the cry we ve seen thus far it seems it s only going to increase heading up to july 11th. thank you for being here. it s helping us all through this. coming up trump appointee aileen cannon tosses out trump s appointment in the classified documents case, but first some orwellian messaging being broadcast from your local news station. that s next. broadcast from yours station. that s next. oooh! i can t wait for this family getaway! shingles doesn t care. shingles is a painful, blistering rash that can last for weeks. ahhh, there s nothing like a day out with friends. that s nice, but shingles doesn t care! 99% of adults 50 years or older already have the virus that causes shingles inside them, and it can reactivate at any time. a perfect day for a family outing! guess what? shingles doesn t care. but shingrix protects. only shingrix is proven over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. shingles doesn t care. but shingrix protects. ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today. our greatest responsibility eastern with you communities. mid-michigan communities. we re extremely proud of the quality that cbs 4 news produces. we are concerned about a troubling trend of irresponsible one-sided news stories plaguing our country. do you remember that nightmare fuel from 2018? the media organization sinclair broadcast group, which owns nearly 200 local tv news outlets had dozens of their local anchors across the country all read the same orwellian script about bias in the media. today sinclair broadcast group was caught again with dozens of local anchors again reading the same script. the newsletter s public notice and popular information first brought attention to the copycat newscasts which featured a script you might say has a very clear conservative agenda. the wall street journal calling into question the mental fitness of president joe biden. the wall street journal is out with reporting calling into question the mental fitness of president joe biden. as national correspondent matt galka tells us, the issue could be an election decider. the election could be an election decider. now, the story these dozens of local news outlets ran with was based on a widely panned piece in the wall street journal last week claiming that behind closed doors president biden was showing signs of mental slippage. the only people quoted on the record in that piece to support that recording were republican officials including former speaker of the house kevin mccarthy, who is not at all known for being the most reliable anything. meanwhile, several democrats including senator chris coons have come out publicly to say they gave quotes to the wall street journal for that piece and the paper chose not to include them. coons says he told the journal biden is someone who s sharp, engaged, and leads the conversation. now, aside from the clear partisan edge to all this, recent polling from gallop shows americans have very low trust of national media outlets. just 32% of the country trust the national media outlets, but that is not true when it comes to local news. pew research polling from earlier this year showed that 71% of americans trust their local news outlets, which is what makes what sinclair is doing here so nefarious. maybe your neighbor doesn t trust the wall street journal or cable news, but they must trust the station that gives them the weather, and that is the real issue. that issue could be could be an election decider. be an elr a slow network is no network for business. that s why more choose comcast business. and now, we re introducing ultimate speed for business our fastest plans yet. we re up to 12 times faster than verizon, at&t, and t-mobile. and existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds. at no additional cost. it s ultimate speed for ultimate business. don t miss out on our fastest speed plans yet! switch to comcast business and get started for $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. call today! in an order that otherwise denied yet another attempt by the defense the end the prosecution of donald trump by the handling over his classified documents, judge aileen cannon has given mr. trump a partial win. judge cannon agreed to strike one incident from special counsel jack smith s indictment. the paragraph describing after he left the presidency trump allegedly showed a classified map of a foreign country to the representative of a political action committee while saying that an ongoing military operation in that country was not going well. trump allegedly admitted at the time he shouldn t be showing the map to someone without security clearance and told the person not to-look too closely at it. while the incident illustrates how allegedly cav clear trump was with classified information, prosecutors never charged trump with crimes involving sharing classified information, and now the judge has struck it from the indictment. joining me now is bradley moss, a national security attorney who routine lee represents federal officials and members of the military in matters pertaining to classified documents. bradley, how big of a deal is it for prosecutors that this map incident has been struck from the indictment? it s certainly not a critical factor. all this means is it s not sitting in what is otherwise known as a speaking indictment. it is still information that prosecutors can bring out at trial and almost certainly will litigate to ensure they can bring it out as sort of the evidence of a prior bad act strictly in the context of mr. trump s the intent, his motive, his desire, his willingness to conceal this information, that he knew he had these records, he knew he had classified documents. he knew he wasn t authorized to have them, and he was retaining them at mar-a-lago. this was a very minor victory for mr. trump, otherwise the motion was dismissed i m sorry, denied by judge cannon. the issue, of course, is that it took so long. this could have been resolved weeks ago. it never need today have taken this long. if it s not a significant win for trump is it indicative, though, of a broader tension between the special counsel s office and this judge? because throughout this case, and it seems like it s ratcheted up in recent months, there s maybe not a volley because it seems like it s coming from one side. the judge does not seem happy with jack smith or his team. yes, certainly the tensions continue to boil, and they ve reached the point that in a hearing just a few weeks ago it got to prosecutors were so upset and frustrated with their attempts to try to explain to judge cannon their view on the case law and how certain legal precedents applied, that the judge had to basically counsel them to calm down. none of us where there, i don t know how badly that got out of hand. but it s never a good sign if you re a lawyer if the judge is telling you to calm down. let s be honest where this is going. judge cannon for whatever reason has chosen to take a slow and methodical approach here. she hasn t granted donald trump anything of substance, but because of how she s dragged it out and how the classified portions of in particular are taking forever, this is guaranteed it never see the light of day, will never get to trial before people go to voting booth in november. that seems a guarantee. there s an open question whether we ll see the trial period but that s going to depend on politics. trump filed another motion today. this one says the fbi destroyed exculpatory evidence but not describing what the classified material was in proximity to nonclassified material and trump argued he didn t pack the boxes, he didn t know what was in there. how substantive is this? does it matter? i think it s a delay tactic at best they might get an evidentiary hearing. they want to have an evidentiary hearing to probe into huthis was conducted, how the boxes were organized this way, whether or not there s something to their allegations of bias and improperly storage. on the merits, it s garbage. it has nothing to do with terms of spoilation of evidence or obstruction of evidence, and it doesn t absolve trump of the idea he willfully retained the documents. he knew he had them in 2022 when he turned stuff over to the archives and they told him, hey, there s classified documents in this stuff. he knew he had them over the course of the next year talking to his lawyers and they told him to turn them over. he knew it when the fbi told him we keep finding stuff in the stuff you re turning over. it will in the way judge cannon handles things drag it out just a little bit more. a grand jury indictment came down on june 8, 2023. anyone s guess whether we get to the second anniversary. bradley moss, thank you so much for your time tonight. have a good night. that is our show for this evening. way too early with jonathan lemire is coming up next. this case was about the illegal choices the defendant made while in the throes of addiction, his choice to lie on a government form when he bought a gun and the choice to then possess that gun. no one in this country is above the law. everyone must be accountable for their actions, even
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uncalled for. and on that note, i wish you a very, very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late. i ll see you at the end of tomorrow. exclusive never before heard audio recordings of justice samuel alito speaking to an undercover progressive activist. that s what we have tonight. that is in addition to the bomb shell recordings released yesterday and we will definitely want to hear these recordings when we play them. if you have been wondering how those secret tapes were made in the very first place, how activists and judges on the highest court in this land, that begins almost ten years add to this day when the supreme court handed down a major decision. supporters of the hobby lobby cheered today s victory. the oklahoma family that owns the chain of 500 craft stores claimed providing insurance coverage for some forms of contraceptives under obama care would be the equivalent of paying for abortion. that will allow companies to opt out of any law they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs. the hobby lobby decision. the majority opinion was written by justice samuel alito and one of the first signs that conservatives on this court were willing to go after reproductive freedoms no matter the consequence. in the wake of the dobs decision, hobby lobby seems like the canary in the coal mine in more ways than one. november of 2022, the new york times offered key reporting about how the hobby lobby decision came to be. for years, conserve tiff christians had been engaged in a campaign called operation higher court. that operation was to personally court and influence the supreme court s conservative justices. it was spearheaded by a man named reverend robert shank who would recruit christian couples he called stealth missionaries to gain access to the judges and impress upon them the importance of conservative christian values. the justices were more likely to let their guards down at the historical genders. see a justice, boldly approach, he told the couples. if given the opportunity, bear witness to biblical truth, but don t push it. he said. your presence alone at the historical society events telegraphs a very important signal to the justices. christians are concerned about the court and the issues that come before it. that strategy appears to have paid off. some of shank s stealth missionaries were able to build enough of a relationship with justice alito and his wife martha anne they obtained advance notice of the hobby lobby decision before it came out. that breach, that unprecedented breach foreshadowed the leaked dobbs decision striking down roe eight years later and that specific strategy of using the supreme court s annual historical society dinners as a way to gain access to supreme court justices, turns out that, too, is relevant again just this week. the dinner is a yearly event where wealthy donors give money to a non-profit dedicated to supporting the court s history in exchange for their money, the donors get to rub shoulders with the justices and their spouses. as it turns out, conserve tiffs weren t the only ones in on this little arraignment. last week, lauren winsor who happens to be a member of the historical society bought a ticket tothe event. when she got in, she pretended to be a conservative donor. she approached some of the conservative justices and secretly recorded her conversations with them. nbc news has not heard the full tape of what was recorded so we cannot say for certain where edits were made if any were actually made. tonight, we have some brand new never before heard audio from that event to play for you. you will hear something familiar to what was on the tape s release yesterday. justice alito who is aggrieved and frustrated. who is nakedly partisan and totally unconcerned by appearing to be all of those things in front of a total stranger. remember, what we heard yesterday. 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 a way that like needs to happen for the polarization to end. i think that it is a matter of like 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 together or living together peacefully. but it is difficult. there are differences on fundamental things that can t really be compromised. they can t really be compromised. so it s not like you re going to split the difference. that s what i m saying. i think the solution really is like winning the moral argument. people in this country who believe in god have got to keep fighting for that to return our country to a place of godliness. well, i agree with you. i agree with you. remember, at this closed door cocktail party, windsor was able to get justice alito s wife to explain her deeply personal motivation for flying two insurrectionist flags in front of the alito homes. that is a story that had just scandalized this court and these recordings this week would seem to suggest mrs. alito has no shame about what she has been doing here. in fact, quite the opposite. after deriding feminazis who have been critical of the scandal engulfing her husband, she made clear these flags are explicitly her form of resistance and response. 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. exactly. and he s like oh, please don t put up a flag. i said i won t do it because i m deferring to you, but when you are free of this nonsense, i m putting it up and i m going to send them the message every day. maybe every week i will change the flags. i made a flag in my head. this is how i satisfy myself. i made a flag. it is white. it is yellow and orange flames around it. and in the middle of is word vergogna. it means shame. just the be clear here, justice alito has publicly stated his wife did not fly the flags to associate herself with the stop the steal movement or any other group but it seems clear his wife very much sees the flags as a form of political expression and a response to what she believes are liberal attacks. it s okay. when they come back to me, i ll get them. i m going to be liberated and i m going to get them. what do you mean by they? there is a five year defamation statute of limitations. i don t know who you mean by they. get them. the media. okay. so, martha anne alito, the wife of a supreme court justice say she has a plan to get back at the media suing for defamation and thinks she will have the opportunity to do that in the next five years when she is free of all this nonsense. is sam alito s wife telling us something about justice alito s retirement plans? how concerned should we be that a supreme court justice s pows is talking about the american media with open contempt? tonight, we have brand new audio from that same event where justice alito himself tells us what he thinks about the fourth estate. the press. the other voice is an associate of lauren windsor s who was also at this event. i just wanted to ask you why do you think the supreme court is being so attacked and being targeted by the media these days? it is a simple reason. they don t like our decisions and they don t how we anticipate we may decide some cases coming up. that s the beginning and the end of it. and there are groups of very well funded by ideological groups that have spearheaded these attacks. that s what it is. gets a lot of money. and they have spent a fortune investigating clarence thomas for example. you know everything he has ever done his entire life. and they ve done some of that with me too. but you know they look for nit little thing they can find and try to make something of it. nbc news reached out for comment from samuel alito and his wife but have not heard back. joining me now is lauren windsor. progressive activist. lauren, thank you for being here. i know you have had a busy week so far. let me start with the new sound your organization, your colleague has given us. there are two parts of this new tape that strike me as concerning. alito says the media has not liked how the court has decided cases and may decide upcoming cases, was that a window into what may be coming down the pike the next two weeks? how did you interpret that? i interpret it as a harbinger of bad things to come. did you get the sense when he was talking about the media and specifically citing propublica and their extensive investigating about clarence thomas. that these stories are very much being shared behind closed doors of the supreme court. his media awareness seemed to be relatively high. oh it s very high. he already had a sense of grievance when i first spoke with him in 2023. but it was much more pronounced this year. two conversations that ali and i had with him. can we talk about the context here? for those of us who have not been to supreme court historical society events, is this what happens at them? we have two bomb shell series of reports about conversations, advocacy campaigns and attendees from the supreme court. i initially read the report in the new york times about reverend shank. that played into my going in the first place. but i didn t read that report and think i should become a member now. it really was incited by the propublica reporting on clarence thomas. justice alito wants to rail about the money taken by propublica for invest good faithing public servants while clarence thomas is not disclosing millions of dollars of gifts from gop donors. i have no idea what propublica s finances are, but as someone who is an independent journalist, i would imagine that the money that clarence thomas has taken probably rivals the budget of propublica in any given year. it is such a good point. what did you hear in alito s explanation for that? did you hear, it seems there is no contrition. but is not even an acknowledgment there was any wrong doing on the part of clarence thomas in accepting potentially millions of dollars in unspecified gifts from conservative donors. i mean, you know, it is not vergogna bay verbatum. i don t consider that paying for tuition or getting a free rv loan. these are all things he has accepted from gop donors. it would be a different story if this was just about vacations he was taking with harlan crow and his wife and family. most people would write it off as oh, it was a trip. most people would not consider traveling with friends or associates as being something that is that big of a deal. but that is not what we are talking about with clarence thomas. it is another order of magnitude and it has been going on years. i guess some part of me is surprised that you not knowing the alitos, you are just a random member of the historical society is able to even get within shoulder rubbing distance of a justice and draw him into conversation about some of the incendiary topics in the country. the partisan divide. how did it unfold when you were in the room with the justice? it should be stated in the guidance for the events, the historical society says if you broach topics that are before the court, it may be grounds for you to be kicked out. so there is aprocess. how do i approach someone with that not only are judges supposed to be really the height of discretion. the height of you know, judgments. right? i definitely went into this assuming i was not going to get anything news worthy. in 2023, i did not get anything news worthy. the scrutiny has intensified so much and his grievance level is much more piqued that unlike clarence thomas who did not show up to this dinner. but has been reported to have shown up to it many times, and he didn t show up in 2023 by the way. that alito would probably attend anyway though he was undergoing this intense media glare. sure enough, he was there. and i think it was, i can t say what was in his mind so i don t know if in 2023, he had the the same level of grievance and it changed over the course of the year. there s a couple of options there. did it change? was it hard to get him to talk? at the very end of this conversation, he says are you a lawyer? it wasn t like you had offered any biographical information other than having a husband who was not in the room. how did you actually get into conversation with him? did you just go up to him and start talking to him? so the reason i brought up my husband was that in 2023, i came with a male friend. so, the context of it was we had a conversation, after dinner in 2023, my male friend was with me. he was not with me in 2024. so when i saw justice alito solo, it was one on one. it was hi there, my husband really wants to let you know we are rooting for you. you have all the grit. the reason i said you had all the grit, this is because donald trump had tweeted something out about how you know, there should be more justices like samuel alito with the grit samuel alito has so i felt like it was flagged if you will. to alito. that it was. a safe space for him. a safe space, yes. i was trying to signal to him coyly without saying trump. because it goes back to the way to broach who has the highest level of discretion. you can t talk partisan politics if i walked up to him and talked joe biden or donald trump, he would have shut down. so talking polarization was a way to, a way into the conversation that wasn t as aggressive. but also indicative of what we were trying to get at. was he acting on bias. and i do believe that american people deserve to know. is the supreme court so compromised that we do not really have impartiality that bedrock of our judicial system. i think hearing it from his mouth that he cannot be impartial that some things cannot be compromised, that needs to be fuel for journalists and congress to say what are the things that cannot be compromised? look, you brought us into a room that few people are ever in. these tapes are revelator. it is, we are not done having this conversation. thank you for bringing some of that to our air. we are really appreciative. thanks for spending some time with me tonight lauren. thanks alex. coming up this hour, we have new details about donald trump s presentencing meeting with his probation officer. turns out, he is being treated differently. just maybe not in the way he would like you to believe. the first hunter biden today joined donald trump in becoming a convicted felon facing possible jail time. does that mean the system is now unrigged? we ll get into the republican response coming up next. epubli response coming up next. missing out on the things you love because of asthma? get back to better breathing with fasenra, an add-on treatment for eosinophilic asthma that is taken once every 8 weeks. fasenra is not for sudden breathing problems or other eosinophilic conditions. allergic reactions may 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( ) ok, someone just did laundry. no, i add downy light so the freshness really lasts. yeah, most scented stuff gives me a headache, but this is just right. and i don t like anything. but i like this. get a light scent that lasts with no heavy perfumes or dyes. ( ) president biden s son hunter biden was found guilty on three felony gun charges and given this news you might have thought the maga conspiracy about president biden rigging the justice system, maybe you thought that is going to collapse. it did not. today is the first step in delivering accountability for the biden crime family. you have been saying two tiered justice system some time. the president s son being convicted three counts. every case is different. and clearly the evidence was overwhelming here. do you think the department of justice is still weaponnized against conservatives though we see this verdict? when they tell school moms they are domestic terrorists because they don t like what is taught in the classrooms. we could go into it but we won t. a trump campaign statement released today calls hunter biden s trial nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the biden crime family. and in lock step with the party front runner, the chairman of the house oversight committee said the work will not be done until the department of justice investigates everyone involved in the biden s corrupt influence peddling schemes. joining me now is charlie psychs. charlie, thank you for joining me. this criminal conviction is a distraction from the real crime family. is this going to work? it was awkwardment it is awkward for the talking point it was all rigged. that the biden justice department was weaponnized only against republicans. but, we live in a world in which the reality and the facts have a hard time catching up with the spin. and you can see how deeply invested republicans are in their talking point about the biden crime family so it is not a shock they will continue to repeat those talking points. over and over and over again. but i do think the contrast and the reaction to the conviction of donald trump and the conviction of hunter biden has been very, very telling here. this will come up at the debate and you though donald trump will try to make an issue of the fact that the president s son is a convicted felon which will be awkward being a convicted felon himself. but democrats have been making this point. and the media have been making the point that there are a number of democrats facing indictments under the biden justice department. not just the president s own son. they don t feel the need to explain that at all. they will just go with the spin. i wonder who the spin is for. you talk about the reaction. this was the statement from the president of the united states after his son is convicted of felonies. as i said 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. so many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be strong and resilient in recovery. as i also said i will accept the outcome of this case and continue to respect the judicial process as hunter considers an appeal. jill and i will always be there for hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. nothing will change that. i mean, that just, it is a very strong statement. it is a tough statement for a father to make. and i feel like that just undercuts whatever the republican argument is of the rigging of the system. among the voters that matter. the conviction of hunter biden shows the system is not rigged. it also shows this is the way the rule of law looks. this is what it looks like when no one is above the law. and president biden is also said, you know, has said on the record, that he will not use his pardon power to free his son if hunter biden gets a prison sentence. now, there are some people skeptical about that. but i don t think there is any reason to doubt his word at this point. and again, this creates a really significant difference between the tantrum donald trump and his supporters have thrown and the acceptance of the rule of law and the decision of a jury presented with all of this evidence. the point you are making is who is this for right now? almost everything republicans say is for the audience of one is for donald trump. this is what the base wants to hear. but, that is not the group of voters who will be deciding this election. and not to wax too poetic about it charlie. but embedded in biden s statement is a call to empathy. right? for those who have fallen for people who have addiction and are trying to make it through a dark, dark period. versus trump who is all grievance all the time. and i think we think a lot of things. we don t know a lot about where this country is headed but appealing to people s sense of forgiveness and empathy doesn t seem like a political strategy that has an expiration date. am i being too soft here? no. again it is an interesting contrast. joe biden s superpower is his empathy. and republicans are not going to give him any credit for it but a lot of americans will say okay. this is a tragic situation. you know, there are questions about hunter biden s judgment and his behavior. but also, what you are seeing from joe biden is, this is what a father, a father who has lost his other son, how they would react to something like that. and there will be a sliver of the electorate with crucial sliver that will look at that and say we understand that seems human to us. something we can identify with and admire in opposition to the conspiracy theories and the victim card playing and the really vicious attacks on the criminal justice system and the jury system coming from donald trump. yeah. it is a real choice ahead. and, this will be very, very indicative of who we are as a country. charlie, thank you for your time. it is great to see you. thank you. still to come this evening we have some new reporting about what appears to be a coordinated effort to broadcast disinformation about this fall s election on your local newscast. plus, when it comes to donald trump s criminal conviction, republicans need a reality check. we have one. that s next. eality check. we have one. that s next. 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(inaudible sounds) (elevator doors opening) wait, there s an elevator? only pay for what you need. liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. right now across the u.s., people are trying to ban books from public schools and public libraries. yes, libraries. we all have a first amendment right to read and learn different viewpoints. that s why every book belongs on the shelf. yet book banning in the u.s. is worse than i ve ever seen. it s people in power who want to control everything. well, i say no to censorship. and i say yes to freedom of speech and expression. if you do too, please join us in supporting the american civil liberties union today. for over 100 years, the aclu has fought for your rights and mine. including the right to read all manner of books. so please call or go online to myaclu.org. for just $19 a month, only $0.63 a day. you can become a guardian of liberty and help protect all the rights promised to us by the u.s. constitution. make no mistake, this move to ban books is a coordinated attack on students right to learn. this is a clear violation of free speech. that s why the aclu is working to fight against censorship in all its forms. it is so important now more than ever. so please call or go to myaclu.org and become an aclu guardian of liberty, for just $19 a month. use your credit card and you ll get this special we the people t-shirt and more to show you re helping to protect the rights of all people. the aclu is in all 50 states, d.c. and puerto rico defending our first amendment right of free speech and all of your constitutional rights. because we the people, means all of us. so please, call or, go online to myaclu.org today. but st. jude has gotten us through it. st. jude is hope for every child diagnosed with cancer because the research is being shared all over the world. i just went through a rigged trial in new york. a rigged system. it is a terrible testimony actually. but it is a rigged system. the whole system is rigged. this was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. rigged, rigged, rigged, rigged. that s been donald trump s refrain during his criminal trial in new york. the entire system is rigged against him. and yet, the system really seems to be bending in his favor lately as we saw at his probation interview. it lasted less than half an hour and he was allowed to attend over zoom from his mar-a- lago beach club in florida with his lawyer seated by his side. just for perspective here, according to a statement released by multiple public defender groups in new york city, public defenders are deprived of joining their clients for these meetings. the options of joining them virtually by zoom is typically not extended to the people we represent either. joining me now is duncan levan who served as a senior staffer at the manhattan da s office. he is now a criminal defense attorney. thank you for joining me to make sense of this madness here. first of all, the circumstances of this probation interview. they sound easy. but donald trump says everything is rigged against him. who is right? this is something that is so routine and it typically takes hours. to the extent there have been things that have been different for him. they have only been different in his favor. most defendants have to come there in person. it is a drab office. these things take hours. there are reports his probation interview took half an hour. this is an opportunity for probation to ask the type of questions that a judge might want to know on sentencing that don t come out in the trial. so this is somebody obviously, this defendant is somebody who is so well vetted everybody knows everything. but for most defendants, the judge doesn t have a sense of who they are as a person. what their family situation is. their immigration status is. are they using drugs so a lot of people know this about donald trump. but, so you could say well, half an hour, maybe all you need. but the fact is this is them doing their due diligence. to the extent it is on zoom. the lawyers there. it is only half an hour to tex tent that it is rigged or different, it has only been in his favor. the other piece of this that he likes bringing up is the presence in this case on the da side of matthew calangalo. he previously worked at the department of justice and now works for alvin bragg and they have literally used him as the missing link of joe biden and alvin bragg. let me say for people who are not familiar, this is how trump talks about him. he is a radical left from the doj who was put into the state working with letitia james and put into the district attorney s office to run the trial against trump. we will take issue with it. put into? passive in that statement. but you have gone between the doj and the doj s office. is that a normal thing that happens and now in line with reality is this argument? in the letter, just today, the department of justice said this was conspiratorial speculation. i think it is something a lot more sinister. it is an attempt to undermine law enforcement. first off, the manhattan da s office and doj work together all the time. there are joint task forces on terrorism. on hate crimes. there is a joint task force that looks at the filings that banks file. the suspicious activity reports. there have been joint cases prosecuted by the department of justice and the manhattan da s office against banks like standard charter, ing. there have been cases every day that are deconflicted between the department of justice. they don t arrest the same person. people go back and forth. i went from the manhattan da s office and back. robert morgan, the most famous manhattan da who served for 35 years from 1975 to 2010, prior to becoming. he was an obama plant. is that you are telling me? a stooge of the administration. it is preposterous, there is no sense these cries of foul play will end any time soon. this is all coming to a head on july 11th when there is the sentencing hearing for trump and i guess i wonder what your expectation for that is. and whether there is anything to be done around the cries of foul play in a rigged system that are inevitably going to come up no matter what he is sentenced. it is such a hard decision for the judge and you wouldn t wish it on your worst inny or both sides. nobody should want him to go to jail or want anyone to go to jail. it s a sad day. the prosecution is virtually going to be asking for jail time. the defense is virtually going to be asking for a sentence of a conditional discharge saying he has been punished enough by the felony. and there will be outcry on both sides. i don t know there is any way through the political thicket of it other than to say this is a judge who has been around the block. he will be taking this seriously and fairly and i think you will see a sentence that is sort of free of some of those political considerations. something that he will be, maybe down the middle. both sides will be able to make of it like a rorschach test and they will be able to argue around it. well, that is not exactly, you are not giving me the inside dope on what you think it would be. but look. for all of that we have seen, it feels like the volume will only increase into july 11th. thank you for helping us through this. coming up, trump appointee judge aileen cannon tosses out part of trump s indictment in the classified documents case. but first, some very orwellian messages being broadcast from your local news stations. that s next. your local news stations. that s next. i m out of breath, and often out of the picture. but this is my story. ( ) and with once-daily trelegy, it can still be beautiful. because with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open for a full 24 hours and prevents future flare-ups. trelegy also improves lung function, so i can breathe more freely all day and night. trelegy won t replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. what a wonderful world [laughing] ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for copd because breathing should be beautiful, all day and night. it s time. yes, the time has come for a fresh approach to dog food. everyday, more dog people are deciding it s time to quit the kibble and feed their dogs fresh food from the farmer s dog. made by vets and delivered right to your door precisely portioned for your dog s needs. it s an idea whose time has come. your best defense against erosion and cavities is strong enamel. nothing beats it. i recommend pronamel active shield because it actively shields the enamel to defend against erosion and cavities. i think that this product is a game changer for my patients. it really works. our greatest responsibility is to serve our treasure valley communities. eastern iowa communities. mid michigan communities. we are extremely proud of the quality, balanced journalism that cbs4 news produces. but beare concerned about a troubling trend of one sided news stories plaguing our country. we are concerned about a troubling trend of irresponsible one sided news stories plaguing our country. do you remember that nightmare fuel from 2018? the media organization sinclair broadcast group which owns nearly 200 local tv news outlets had dozens of their local anchors all read the same orwellian script about bias in the media. unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think. and this is extremely dangerous to our democracy. today, sinclair broadcast group was caught again with dozens of local anchors again reading the same script. the newsletter s public notice and popular information brought attention to the copy cat newscast which might have a very clear conservative agenda. the wall street journal calling into question the mental fitness of president joe biden. the issue could be an election decider. the issue could be an election decider. now the story these dozens of local news outlets ran with was based on a widely panned piece in the wall street journal last week. claiming that behind closed doors, president biden is showing signs of slippage. the only people quoted on the record to support that recording were republican officials including former speaker of the house kevin mccarthy who is not at all known for being the most reliable anything. meanwhile, several democrats said they gave quotes to the wall street journal for that piece and the paper chose not to include them. he told the journal biden is someone who is sharp, engaged and leads the conversation. now aside from the clear partisan edge to this, gallop shows that americans have low trust of national media outlets. but that is not true when it comes to local news. pew research polling showed that 71% of americans trust their local outlets. maybe your undecided voter neighbor doesn t trust the wall street journal but they might trust the station that gives them the weather. and that is the real issue. that issue could be an election decider an election decider [music playing] tiffany: my daughter is mila. she is 19 months old. she is a little ray of sunshine. one of the happiest babies you ll probably ever meet. [giggles] children with down syndrome typically have a higher risk for developing acute myeloid leukemia, or just leukemia in general. and here we are. marlo thomas: st. jude children s research hospital works day after day to find cures and save the lives of children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. tiffany: she was referred to st. jude at 11 months. they knew what to do as soon as they got her diagnosis. they already had her treatment plan drawn out. and they were like, this is what we re going to do. this is how long it s going to take. this is how long in between. this place is like a family to us now. like, i can t say enough how grateful we are to be here. medical bills are always a big thing to everybody because everybody knows that anything medical is going to be expensive. we have received no bills since being at st. jude. we have paid for nothing. marlo thomas: thanks to generous donors like you, families never receive a bill from st. jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food so they can focus on helping their child live. for just $19 a month, you ll help us continue the lifesaving research and treatment that these kids need now and in the future. join with your credit or debit card right now, and we ll send you this st. jude t-shirt that you can proudly wear to show your support. tiffany: anybody and everybody that contributes anything to this place, no matter if it s a big business or just the grandmother that donates once a month, they are changing people s lives. and that s a big deal. [music playing] a slow network is no network for business. that s why more choose comcast business. and now, we re introducing ultimate speed for business our fastest plans yet. we re up to 12 times faster than verizon, at&t, and t-mobile. and existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds. at no additional cost. it s ultimate speed for ultimate business. don t miss out on our fastest speed plans yet! switch to comcast business and get started for $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. call today! in an order that otherwise denied yet another attempt by the defense to end the criminal prosecution of donald trump over his handling of classified documents, judge aileen cannon has given trump a partial win. the paragraph describing after he left the presidency, he allegedly showed a classified map to to someone. he admitted at the time he shouldn t show the map to someone without security clearance and told the person not to look too closely at it. while it illustrates how allegedly cavalier he was with classified information, prosecutors never charged trump with crimes involving sharing classified information and now the judge has struck it from the indictment. joining me now is bradley moss. bradley, how big of a deal is it for prosecutors that this map incident has been struck from the indictment? it certainly is not a critical factor, all this means is it is not sitting in what is otherwise known as a speaking indictment. it is still information that prosecutors can bring out at trial and will litigate to ensure that they can bring it out is sort of the evidence of a prior bad act in the context of mr. trump s intent. his motive. his willingness to conceal this information. that he knew he had this records. this is a minor victory for mr. trump. the issue is that it took so long. it could have been resolved weeks ago. it never needed to have taken this long. if it is not a significant win for trump, is it indicative of a broader tension? because throughout this case, it seems like it is ratcheted up in recent months. there is maybe not a volley. the judge does not seem happy with jack smith and his team. the tensions continue to boil. in a hearing just a few weeks ago, it got to prosecutors were so upset. and frustrated with their attempt to try to explain to judge cannon their view on the case law and how certain legal precedents applied, that the judge had to basically counsel them to calm down. none of us were there. i don t know how badly that got out of hand. but it is never a good sign if you are lawyer and the judge tells you to calm down. judge cannon has chosen to take a slow methodical approach here. she has not granted donald trump anything of substance yet at any point in this case. but because of how she has dragged it out, it is almost guaranteed this will never see the light of day. they will never get the trial before people go to the voting booth in november. that seems guaranteed. there is an open question about whether we will see the trial period. but that will depend on politics. i do need to ask trump filed another motion to dismiss today. this one says the fbi destroyed evidence by not showing where it was in contrast to nonclassified material. trump says he didn t pack the boxes and know what was in there. how substantiative is this or does it matter? is it just more delay? i think this largely is a delay tactic. if hope at best they might get an evidencey hearing. how the boxes were organized this way. whether or not there is something of allegations of bias and improper storage. on on the merits, it doesn t absolve trump of the idea that he willfully retained the documents. he knew he had them in 2022. when he turned stuff over to the archives. he is talking with his lawyers they are telling him to turn it over. we keep finding stuff. it will not ultimately change anything. but it will quite possibly the way judge cannon handles things but it will drag things out a little more. we are
the rachel maddow show starts right now. hi, rachel. hi, yen. thanks very much. much appreciated. thanks to you at home. really happy to have you here. we have an interesting show for you tonight. particularly glad you re here for it. we re going to start a ways back as we sometimes do. when allied soldiers came ashore on the coast of france on the beaches of normandy for the d-day invasion, they opened up a new western front against the nazis in europe. and that of course was a shock to the germans. the operation overlord, the d-day invasion, it relied on the element of surprise. and the germans really were shocked. they had been occupying france for four years at that point. they the installed a collaborationest regime that they assembled from pro-fascist and pro-nazi forces inside france, so the collaborationists and the nazis together were ruling france and they had been for years. there was a french resistance to the nazi rule and the collaborationists, but the nazis and their puppets were definitely in charge. they were actually heading into year five of being in charge. they were really settled in, in france. and then here comes this shock arrival. this invasion. hundreds of thousands, ultimately millions of allied troops landing on the beaches and the cliffs of the northwest of france. and they are clearly planning to take it all back. the d-day invasion, the allied invasion, started on june 6th. now, on this date, on june 10th, 1944, just four days into the d-day invasion, the germans were reacting. they had been, of course, shocked by the initial invasion. but a few days into it, they now realized the scale of what they were up against and had started scrambling their units from all over france, turning all the available german troops in france toward the northwest of that country to try to stop the allied advance. and that included a nazi ss panzer division that had been in the south of franz. that division was ordered to essentially traverse the whole length of the country, head north to where the allies were advancing from the beaches of normandy. and on their way north through france, toward the new allied front lines, the new western front, this panzer division stopped in a village called oradour. pro-nazi french collaborators had told them, they told this panzer unit that the french resistance was active in this town. and they told them that the french resistance in that town had killed a nazi officer. and in response, that panzer unit decided, yes, they were on their way to the north of france to join the new western front and the, you know, the battle for the whole war, to try to shore up the german lines against the big allied invasion, but they decided on their way there, they would stop and do something in oradour. they would destroy that entire village and everyone in it. that panzer unit rounded up every single man, woman, and child in that village. they even rounded up random people who didn t live in the village but were nearby or who had the misfortune to be passing through the village when this nazi unit made this decision. that nazi unit killed every human being in oradour. or everyone they could find. they killed 643 civilians. a vast majority of them women and children. they used machine guns and they burned them alive. they looted the entire village, and then they tore down the village as best they could. they razed it. oradour. this is what it looks like today. still in ruins. the french decided after the war that they would never rebuild. they would leave the ruins, preserve them as they were left at the end of the war, as a memorial to what the nazis did. and we have these photos of what oradour looks like literally today, because this morning, the president of france and the president of germany visited the ruins at oradour to commemorate what they call the martyrdom of that village, to remember what happened in europe, in france, under fascist occupation. now, this is not the first time that french president emmanuel macron has visited oradour. actually, ten days before he was first elected president, he went there. he visited the village just before he was elected president. he visited in the company of the man who was then the last living survivor of that massacre. i said the nazis killed everyone in the village, at least everyone they could find. the nazis did kill over 600 civilians that day, but there were about half a dozen people from the village who, against all odds, in a miracle managed by hook or by crook to survive. the last one of the survivors was in his 90s when he brought emmanuel macron to oradour in 2017. that last survivor has since died. but today, macron went back to the site, to show this place, to germany s president. now, in 1944, about six months after oradour happened, the germans were still hanging on. but thanks in large part to the d-day invasion, they knew by the end of 1944 that they were losing. they were losing to soviet forces in the east, for sure. they were also simultaneously losing to the allied forces coming in from the west. once the allies opened that new western front with the d-day invasion, they started pressing their advantage against the nazis everywhere. not only liberating france, they clearly intend to liberate everywhere the nazis have taken over. they re pressing toward germany itself. hitler knows that his military is on the ropes. it cannot sustain the losses they re taking on both the eastern and western fronts. and so about six months after d-day, about six months after oradour, hitler decides he s going to mount a surprise of his own. he decides he s going to mount a huge german counteroffensive in belgium against the allies. the allies are basically closing in on germany s own borders and when hitler musters hundreds of thousands of men to mount a counteroffensive against them in the forests of belgium, it absolutely is a surprise to the allies. nobody thought germany still had it in them. everybody thought not everybody, but a lot of people thought the war was going to be over by christmas that year. where did the germans muster 400,000, 500,000 men to mount this new counteroffensive, but they did. that german counteroffensive started in mid-december 1944. it began a six-week-long battle that would be the single deadliest battle of the entire war for the u.s. military. aside from just the brutal toll of that battle, that was the battle of the bulge, that battle also came with its own astonishing and unforgettable atrocity. it was another german panzer unit much like the one that killed the entire population of that french village. it was an ss panzer unit in belgium. and they ended up in the very outset of that surprise german counteroffensive, they ended up ambushing a bunch of americans. and the result of it was they took custody of a large group of american prisoners of war, unarmed american p.o.w.s. and these p.o.w.s, again, they had surrendered. they had no weapons. the nazis lined up those americans in a field, the americans have no weapons. they have surrendered. they have their hands above their heads. they re p.o.w.s, but the nazis just massacred them in the field, they mowed them down with machine gun fire. and like at that village of oradour, what is almost as unbelievable as what the nazis did there was the fact there were somehow miraculously some survivors. there were some american gis who had also been lined up in that field, who nevertheless lived. american gis who played dead, who hid under the dead bodies of their comrades, who managed in the end to drag themselves into the woods to get away. and what happened to them? you will not believe me when i tell you this, but it would not be long before a sitting united states senator would vehemently object to those men giving testimony about what they saw. about what they survived, about what happened to their platoon mates, to the other men in that battalion. the other p.o.w.s who were massacred by those nazis. a sitting u.s. senator tried to block the american soldiers who survived that massacre from giving testimony about it in congress. he said the american people shouldn t hear it. he said it would be inflammatory. it would inflame the public against the nazis who killed all of those unarmed american p.o.w.s. i find it absolutely insane to think about, but this became a very strange thing in american domestic politics. i mean, there were unrepentant leftover nazis in germany after the war. they were trying to make the allies and america in particular the bad guys from world war ii and maybe that is understandable when you think about unrepentant nazis who just lost the war, but you would not believe it, the thing that s amazing is not that there were leftover nazis who were trying to do this. the thing you wouldn t believe is they enlisted a lot of americans to help them in that project. including taking a stand against the american soldiers who survived that p.o.w. massacre and demanding that the nazis who did it should be set free. this became a cause celebre in the right wing press at the time. and it helped launch the national career, the rocketship ascendance of arguably the most radical and controversial figure in republican electoral politics in the last 80 years before donald trump. while he was swimming in these very dark waters, darker than what seems possible for something in mainstream american politics he would go on to lead a movement of millions of followers who were increasingly radicalized by his increasingly radical rhetoric and tactics over time. his fellow republicans were both repelled by him, horrified by him, while they also wanted in on some of the massive political energy and fanatical devotion he attracted. they thought very seriously about putting him forward for the presidency, and the reaction among close observers of him and his tactics look so much like what you re seeing in the american press today about the fear of a second trump term, you wouldn t believe that it isn t just a straight up rerun. in his time, the people who stood up against him mostly got mowed down in politics by the strength of his fanatical following. that happened for a very long time. until eventually, ultimately, it stopped happening. and the forces against him prevailed. and i m telling you this for two reasons. number one, this is the thing that i have been working on for the past year. my podcast, rachel maddow presents ultra, now has a season two, and it is out today. episode one is out today. you can get it anywhere you get podcasts. if you don t usually listen to podcasts, if you take out your phone right now, open the camera on your phone, and point it at that weird looking little circular square thing on your screen, you click on the little box that pops up on your phone, it will bring you right there so you can listen to it. you can listen to it for free. it s free to listen to. there are eight episodes of this all together. episode one is out today. i hope you may want to listen. i have been working really hard on it. i m really proud of it, but i hope you like it. i hope you ll check it out. that s one of the easons i m telling you this story. i have been working on this story, i have been working in general on stories about other times in our american history that we have dealt with really terrible threats to the country. where we have confronted really radical people with really radical designs to undo the fundamental things that make us who we are as a country who nevertheless get into political power and attract large followings. this has happened to us before. and the reason i have been working on this for the past couple years, the reason i have been working on these projects is because for me, i feel like i really need to learn this stuff and fast, for me, there is a real urgency to learn these stories now. from when we have contended with terrible challenges before, particularly when we re talking about powerful americans advocating for authoritarianism or just flat out embodying it. particularly when it s about selling factually unhinged conspiratorial lies to the american public and half the public is mortified, mystified by that, but the other half of the public is super energized by it and they not only believe these lies, they kind of become their whole new reason to live. the public gets bifurcated like that into earth one and earth two where some people are based in the reality based community and some people are based in a different place, and that place is emotionally satisfying to them, and radicalizing them, and it takes over their lives. we are living through a moment like that right now with what is ascendant on the american right, but we have lived through it before. and i feel like i m racing to learn these stories about americans who have fought these kinds of fights before us for the simple reason that i feel like i need their ideas about how to fight it. we need their ideas about how to fight these things. we need to see what worked and what didn t when americans faced threats like this before. and it doesn t mean that fighting them always works. sometimes they get away with a lot of this stuff, and sometimes people take on incredible risk and danger to themselves. sometimes people risk their lives or give up their lives to fight these things, but knowing the track record of americans who have stood up against these kinds of dark and authoritarian and anti-democratic forces knowing who else has tried it and what s happened to them is helpful for us calibrating our available responses now. and knowing what to expect when we confront these dark movements. so that is why i have been working on this, and that is why that story is on my mind tonight. but it is also what s on the news right now. i mean, one of the remarkable things about seeing the french president with the german president at the ruins of oradour today in france is that they took that tour of the ruins of that village today, that preserved memorial to what fascism did in europe, they took that tour this morning. just one day after the german far right and the french far right won shockingly large proportions of the vote in the european elections that were held yesterday. in both of those countries, the parties that did so well have ties not only to the old fascist participaties of world war ii era germany and france, they both have current ties, including financial ties, to vladimir putin and russia. when president biden and president macron of france met in france these past few days for the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of d-day, president biden said that he and president macron agreed on a new plan to seize russian assets in the g-7 countries and use those seized russian assets to provide even more support to ukraine. as ukraine continues to struggle against the russian invasion of that country. president biden is just back from france for these d-day commemoration ceremonies and from those meetings with president macron. he s just back but heads back to europe the day after tomorrow to go to the g-sev summit, among other things to rally the other nations to support this new plan, to support ukraine as much as possible including this new plan that he and macron have just agreed to involving seizing russian assets to help ukraine even more. and, you know, in the american aperture here, what s going on in our politics while president biden is trying to, you know, rally the free world, trying to strengthen our alliances as much as possible to lead collective international will against a rogue dictatorship that has invaded one big european country already and has its sights set on more, here at home, literally while president biden and other american leaders were headed off to europe for the 80th anniversary of d-day, while they were heading off to europe for that, what was happening in the american congress? a fifth of the republicans in congress just voted that we should leave our allies altogether. that we should break up the big western alliance, that we should defund nato. and i think nobody really paid attention to this vote because this legislation was put forward by a very fringe member of congress, a member of congress who is known for her publicity stunts and she s therefore she is easy to ignore. but it wasn t just her. 46 republicans voted for this thing. a fifth of the republicans in congress last week voted to defund nato. don t just forget being the leader of the free world, forget the whole idea of there being a free world at all. they saved that for the anniversary of d-day. 46 republicans voting to defund nato. and as radical as that may seem, particularly when you think about where nato came from and why, the wing of the republican party that is pushing for this stuff, i mean, on its face, it seems unlikely they would have such sway. every few days we get a new mugshot of one of their leading lights because so many of them have been charged with crimes. today, it was their presidential candidate s personal lawyer, who has had his law license suspended, who is under indictment, rudy giuliani s mugshot just released today after he was arraigned in arizona. you can put it up on the wall with all of the other maga republican mugshots we have accrued over the past year. their presidential candidate is a convicted felon. today he had to meet with the probation office in new york ahead of his sentences. people at his rallies not only wear tshirts and fly flags that have his mugshot on them, they started carrying signs and wearing shirts that now say they re proudly voting for the convicted felon. at a rally this weekend, their presidential candidate described members of the mob of his supporters who physically attacked congress and injured dozens of police officers, he described them in a speech this weekend as, quote, warriors. his warriors. people who took part in that mob attack on congress. his warriors. while a few days ago, two police officers who were both badly injured fighting hand to hand with that mob to defend congress, to defend the u.s. capitol, those two police officers were jeered and booed by republicans in the pennsylvania state legislature. they jeered them, turned their backs on them and walked out. these are two officers who survived that attack, they were literally injured fighting for their country, defending our seat of government against a violent attack. but the republicans who jeered at them and turned their backs on them and walked out, they want the attackers freed. and they don t want to hear what these survivors of the attack had to say. don t want to hear from the survivors and the witnesses. you want the attackers set free. we are going through some weird stuff right now. but we have gone through weird stuff before. and i do think that we can learn from it and that we urgently need to. that s why i have been working on all these projects. that s why i ve got this new podcast out and i hope you listen. but it s not just the distant past. in the very recent past when we got donald trump in the white house in the first place, you might remember what preceded that shock election result here in the united states in 2016. our shock presidential election result in 2016 was preceded that year by some shocking and surprisingly right wing election results in europe. including the brexit vote in britain which happened just months before trump s surprise presidential victory here. i asked ben rhodes to please join us here tonight in the wake of what is now, again, another round of what seemed to be surprisingly right wing election results in europe this weekend. was it right in 2016 to see right wing election results in europe as a harbinger of what was coming for us in the fall of 2016? as president biden balances his campaign responsibilities right now with back-to-back trips to europe, he just got back from europe, he heads back to europe again on wednesday. do the election results from europe right now, this weekend, have hallmarks that tell us anything about what to expect here and about how weird this is all going to get? president biden clearly sees our connections to europe right now as absolutely key to the future of the world. does what s going on in european politics right now tell us something to expect about the future of our world here? joining us now is ben rhodes. he s former deputy national security adviser to president obama, cohost of the pod save the world podcast. really great to see you. thanks for making time to be here tonight. good to see you. first, let me ask you for some of our viewers who may not have paid close attention to what was happening in the european elections this weekend, let me ask you two questions about them. do you think they re important for us to pay attention to? and can you just give us a rough characterization of what happened in those elections? sure. these were elections for the european parliament. so the european union wide parliament, so the only election that takes place every few years in which all of europe votes. it s a good barometer of where opinion is in europe. the two headlines are the far right made noticeable gains in the two largest countries in europe, france and germany. in france, the national front party, the far right party that used to be on the fringes of french politics, emerged as by far the largest vote getter in this election and to build on what you re saying, this is a party that is not only far right, they have ties to russia. they have gotten a $10 million loan from russia in the past decade. in germany, the afd party, which has ties that go back into the kind of neonazi past of germany, they got over 15% of the vote, not a huge total, but very alarming given the source here. i want to be clear, in other parts of europe, the center did hold. i think the real concerning factor is in the two most important countries, france and germany, we saw these far right gains. do you think that it s right to look back at 2016 and see some of what was going on in politics in europe as a harbinger for the shock election result we got in the fall of 2016 when trump won? do you think these election results should be read as a harbinger of what s coming down the pike for us this year? i absolutely do, rachel. the commonality between the brexit vote, the vote by the uk to leave the european union in 2016 and the trump election was that it was a it was a surprise. people did not think brexit was going to win the campaign and they campaigned on a kind of right wing populist message. the slogan was take back control. they ran against globalists and liberal elites and against immigration and was very trumpy in its message, frankly. it kind of foreshadowed what we ended up dealing with in the fall here. i think the warning in this election, and you ask mead a question when i came on to talk about my book a few years ago about far right parties and their commonalities around the world, you asked what lesson should we learn. i always think about that. the lesson i take from this one is that their incumbent parties in germany and france that have defended essentially the status quo, emmanuel macron has been a defender of the european union. olaf scholz has been a defender of the liberal order. people are not listening to that message right now. you cannot defeat these parties, these populist insurgents be being the defenderoffs the stat status quo, but you have to tap into people s dissatisfaction with globalization, dissatisfaction with inequality. sense that things are slipping out of control. it s not enough to say we re the responsible adults here. you have to kind of get down and have a different message for how things are going to change. i think that s the warning sign that joe biden should hear, not enough to run on status quo here. not enough to defend even the things we think are very important. you have to meet people where they are, and people are frustrated. ben rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to president obama. ben, thank you for making the time. i feel like when we need to like widen the lens a lot and look at america in the world, you re almost always one of the first people i think of. thank you for being here. thanks, rachel. i can t wait to check out the podcast. i appreciate it. thank you. we have much more ahead here tonight. do stay with us. shop etsy for thoughtful pieces made by real people to bring a little something extra to the ordinary. find items that add wow to walls and make you fall in love with your family room again. when you want one-of-a-kind pieces to refresh your home. etsy has it. sometimes your work shirt needs to be for more than just work. like when it needs to be a big, soft shoulder to cry on. which is why downy does more to make clothes softer, 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( ) ( ) this one will never see the light of day. all right. nitty-gritty here. in the aftermact of the 2020 election, georgia became this kind of benchmark for principled republicans refusing to go along with improper, un-american machinations from president trump. governor brian kemp, brad raffensperger, two very conservative republicans, both nevertheless stood up to personal pressure from trump to overturn president biden s win in georgia. and of course, all that pressure trump brought to bear on georgia republicans and the ways in which those republicans resisted, that formed the basis for fulton county district attorney fani willis filing a huge rico case against trump and 18 of his codefendants in georgia. that s one story of the state of georgia after the 2020 election. republicans standing up, the record of them standing up and what they had to stand up against forming the basis for this sprawling, damning criminal indictment. the other story of georgia since that election is all the work that pro-trump republicans have done to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. to make sure nobody can ever again get in the way of trump seizing georgia s 16 electoral votes, no matter what the votes say. the most obvious thing georgia republicans have done is use every tool at their disposal to derail fani willis prosecution of trump. in the latest development in that three republican appointed judges have just put the whole case on hold while they take their time considering whether fani willis should be disqualified from the case. thus guaranteeing that the georgia prosecution will definitely not go forward against trump before the election. but that s only the start. in georgia s most populous county, fulton county, one republican elections board member last month refused to certify the primary results there. because you know, elections are scary. with the help of lawyers from a pro-trump think tank, she has now filed a lawsuit seeking the power to block the certification of elections which would of course throw november s results in georgia into chaos. which is presumably the point. meanwhile, just north of fulton county, republicans recently started agitating to take over an elections board in cherokee county. now, the board there, like other counties in georgia, has always been evenly split between democrats and republicans, but republicans in cherokee county are no longer okay with that. they wanted a full scale republican takeover, when that was blocked, they comp with an ingenious new plan. they decided they would replace one of the democratic commissioners who had been nominated with their own choice. their own choice for a democrat. a new guy that none of the local democrats have ever heard of. but don t worry, the republicans who run cherokee county swear this guy they picked is definitely a democrat. the atlanta journal constitution reported that the republican cherokee county commission chairman, quote, assured the board that the new member is a democrat, even if the local democratic party is unfamiliar with him. i assure you, he s definitely on your team. i know you have never met and i picked him, but trust me. pinky promise. meanwhile, at the state elections board in georgia, republicans there just started writing a new rule that would allow county elections boards to conduct a, quote, reasonable inquiry before they certify any election results. so instead of signing off on election results as county election boards are now required to do by law, they would be empowered instead to investigate those results as they see fit. the journal constitution notes that, quote, the proposed rule doesn t say what a reasonable inquiry would entail before certifying an election. yeah, why would you specify that? you want every election denying republican county elections board member in georgia just making it up as they go along, calling their own behavior reasonable. while the presidential election potentially hangs in the balance. speaking of that state elections board, one of its republican members was ousted last month, one of its republican members was ousted, after trump reportedly spent months calling georgia republicans insisting that that election board member had to go. because that person was not backing trump s lies about the 2020 election. and so of course, the guy had to go. trump s personal involvement in remaking the georgia state elections board is just one of the revelations in new reporting from rolling stone. their new piece is headlined georgia is our laboratory. inside trump s plan to rig 2024. it details how trump s allies are working to make sure there will not be a straightforward election result in georgia this year, given georgia s swing state status that absolutely could be a deciding factor in how the election is going to go down. what is happening there? what is happening to try to stop what is happening there? one of the reporters on that rolling stone piece joins us next. stay with us. ay with us citi s industry leading global payments solutions help their clients move money around the world seamlessly in over 180 countries. and help a partner like the world food programme as they provide more than food to people in need. together, citi and the world food programme empower families across the globe. we re trying to save the planet with nuggets. empower families across the globe. because we need the planet. and we also need nuggets. impossible. your best defense against erosion and cavitieseat. is strong enamel. nothing beats it. i recommend pronamel active shield because it actively shields the enamel to defend against erosion and cavities. i think that this product is a game changer for my patients. it really works. organic soil from miracle-gro has grown me the best garden i have ever had. good soil, and you get good results. look at that! the broccoli was fantastic. that broccoli! i think some of them were six, seven pounds. love you. have a good day, behave yourself. like she goes to work at three in the afternoon and sometimes gets off at midnight. she works a lot, a whole lot. we don t get to eat in the early morning. we just wait till we get to the school. so, yeah. right now here in america, millions of kids like victoria and andre live with hunger, and the need to help them has never been greater. when you join your friends, neighbors and me to support no kid hungry, you ll help hungry kids get the food they need. if we want to take care of our children, then we have to feed them. your gift of just $0.63 a day, only $19 a month at helpnokidhungry.org right now will help provide healthy meals and hope. we want our children to grow and thrive and to just not have to worry and face themselves with the struggles that we endure. nobody wants that for their children. like if these programs didn t exist me and aj, we wouldn t probably get lunch at all. please call or go online right now with your gift of just $19 a month. and when you use your credit card, you ll receive this limited edition t-shirt to show you re part of the team that s helping feed kids and change lives. if you re coming in hungry, there s no way you can listen to me teach, do this activity, work with this group. so starting their day with breakfast and ending their day with this big, beautiful snack is pretty incredible. whether kids are learning at school or at home, your support will ensure they get the healthy meals they need to thrive. because when you help feed kids, you feed their hopes, their dreams, and futures. kids need you now more than ever. so please call this number right now to join me in helping hungry kids or go online to helpnokidhungry.org and help feed hungry kids today. . the ultimate authority is the voter. the secretary of state was re-elected by the voters of the state by a larger margin than any other excuse me. order. order. by a larger margin than any other state-wide office. the voters order. have demonstrated their faith and therefore i do not believe that at present, we have the authority to oversee or investigate the secretary of state. georgia s board of elections gathered to discuss larging an investigation into georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger who had the chimerty to say no when donald trump insisted he flip the results of the election. the lone democrat spoke out against doing this unprecedented investigation. she was loudly shouted down. in a new article titled georgia is our laboratory, inside trump s plan to rig 2024, rolling stone reports this. quote, the former president and his supporters have been making concrete step by step progress in shaping electoral processes to his benefit. across the state, maga die hards are devoting considerable resources to purging voting rolls, intimidating election officials, employing dirty tricks and ousting appointees who haven t been initiated into the cult of trump. it s the state where the republican party has total control over the levers of power. trump loving elements of the georgia gop have wielded that advantage in a crusade to turn election conspiracy theories into policies. it s an alarmingly anti-democratic experiment that trump planned and much of the republican party hope to take national. joining us now is adam ronsly, the reporter co-by-lines on the sprawling piece. thank you for being here. thanks for having me. so what are some of the steps that trump and his allies have taken to change the electoral process in georgia? so one of the most alarming ones that a source who has discussed this issue with trump told us, a republican attorney, is they re planning to challenge the election result regardless of the result. you know, we think of the threat to elections from trump s behavior in 2020 as only occurring in the event that trump loses. you know, at the current state of polling, trump is ahead in georgia, if you believe the polling, but what republican attorney who discussed this with trump told us is that, quote, you can t let the left get away with this cheating just because it didn t succeed, air quotes around cheating. and the plan is to challenge the result regardless of the outcome. and the intent behind that is essentially a permanent delegitimization of the election process. it s heads, i win, tails you lose. and i think you had mentioned this a little bit in your intro, is that one of the things people should be paying close attention to is that refusal to certify in the fulton county board of elections in the presidential primary. because one of the things that s very, very notable about that is that the attorneys who filed that lawsuit work for america first policies institute, which is a very trumpy organization filled with former trump folks. and what you see in those kinds of processes is the legal january 6th in miniature. essentially you re taking someone who is, you know, acting beyond their brief and trying to essentially insert themselves into the counting and, you know, assessment of vote tallies. adam, is this actually a fight in georgia? you note, i think, importantly, that georgia s a place where republicans control all of the levers of power. we just played the sound of one democratic member of the state elections board getting shouted down when she objected to what they were trying to do in terms of targeting raffensperger. is this fight joint where there is pushback against what they re doing or are they essentially running the table by changing processes to their own benefit? you know, they definitely have quite a built-in advantage. and i think that s why georgia relative to other battleground states is particularly interesting because it is more so than perhaps any other state a fight for the soul of the republican party. particularly when it comes to their faith in free and fair elections. and yeah, even folks like brian kemp, who was an absolute obstacle to trump s attempt to, you know, illegally overturn the election in georgia, brian kemp signed sb-202, a law that allows for a range of, you know, sort of procedural chicanery. joe biden called it jim crow in the 21st century. you know, even folks who have proven themselves to be obstacles to some of the more overt aspects of it sometimes will just go along to get along. and so they definitely do have an advantage. and they are running the table in certain ways, but you do see folks like you mentioned earlier, like ed lindsay, whose resignation letter we obtained in the story. people like that, you still do have these kind of principled republicans who are willing to stand up for what they believe in, but as you saw with the case of ed, you know, he had to resign under a great deal of pressure from not just president trump but from the grassroots of the party who believe in a lot of election conspiracies. yeah, the bare fact that a presidential candidate is personally lobbying to remove individual state elections board members ought to be on the front page of every paper of the country. been reported by adam, reporter at rolling stone. adam, the by-line reporters on the piece, georgia is our laboratory, thank you for helping us understand this. love to have you back. thanks so much for having me, rachel. i appreciate it. we ll be right back. stay with us. time stops. 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( ) gain flings. seriously good scent. let s get the rest of these plants in. organic soil from miracle-gro 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. to give your teeth a dentist clean feeling. start with a round brush head. add power. and you ve got oral-b. round cleans better by surrounding each tooth to remove 100% more plaque. for a superior clean. oral-b. brush like a pro. the promise of america is freedom, equality, but right now, those pillars of our democracy are fragile and our rights are under attack. reproductive rights, voting rights, the right to make your own choices and to have your voice heard. we must act now to restore and protect these freedoms for us and for the future, and we can t do it without you. we are the american civil liberties union. will you join us? call or go online to my aclu.org to become a guardian of liberty today. your gift of just $19 a month, only $0.63 a day, will help ensure that together we can continue to fight for free speech, liberty and justice. your support is more urgently needed than ever. reproductive rights are on the line and we are looking at going backwards. we have got to be here. we ve got to be strong to protect those rights. so please join the aclu now. call or go to my aclu.org and become an aclu guardian of liberty for just $19 a month. when you use your credit card, you ll receive this special we the people t-shirt member card magazine and more to show you re part of a movement to protect the rights of all people. for over 100 years, the aclu has fought for everyone to have a voice and equal justice. and we will never stop because we the people, means all of us. so please call or go online to my aclu.org to become a guardian of liberty today. organic soil from miracle-gro has grown me the best garden i have ever had. good soil, and you get good results. look at that! the broccoli was fantastic. that broccoli! i think some of them were six, seven pounds. could have been the heat, i suppose. temperatures were over 100 degrees at his outdoor campaign rally in las vegas yesterday. so hot, six people had to go to the hospital, and another two dozen had to get medical treatment on site. could have been the heat, i suppose. could also maybe have been that he was nervous about the fact that he was less than 24 hours away from his first meeting with his new york state probation officer. that meeting could be particularly nerve-racking for him because, you know, one of the things a probation officer asks you after you re convicted of felonies is if you have been associating with anyone who has a criminal record. that s worth noting because if he is ultimately sentenced to probation next month while he s on probation, he would not be allowed to associate with anyone with a criminal record. for a lot of people, that wouldn t be a big deal. for him, that s a big deal. that particular restriction eats away at his very close social circle. so maybe that was all distracting him. i don t know. he maybe had a lot i don t know. whatever the reason, he decided to venture into new territory in his campaign speech yesterday, less than five months out from the election. this is an important swing state. he decided with the land locked citizens of las vegas needed to hear about from him in order to be persuaded to vote for him was his fear of boats. heavy boats, boats with batteries near sharks. you know, nevada sharks. i know you have heard it happened. you may have seen a headline or scrolled past it on a social media feed. have you actually watched it? uncut, straight through, watched it unfold? it is very much worth watching. it s astonishing. my favorite part is the people you can see at the rally behind him who are really trying to follow along but who clearly have no earthly idea what uncle ramble standers is on about. just watch this. what would happen if the boat sank from its weight? and you re in the boat, and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery is now underwater, and there s a shark that s approximately ten yards over there? by the way, a lot of shark attacks lately. did you notice that? i watched some guys justifying it today. well, they weren t really that angry. they bit off the young lady s leg because of the fact that they were they were not hungry but they misunderstood who she was. these people are crazy. he said there s no problem with sharks. they just didn t really understand a young woman swimming. really got desmaded and a lot of other people. i said so there s a shark ten yards away from the boat. ten yards. or here. do i get electrocuted if the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking. do i stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted or do i jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted because he didn t know the answer. he said, nobody has ever asked me that question. i said i think it s a good question. i think there s a lot of electric current coming through the water, but what i would do if there was a sharko you get electrocuted, i would take electrocution every time. i m not getting near the shark. we re going to end it for boats. we re going to end that, we re going to end it for boats. we re going to end it for boats. vote accordingly. 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. 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with absorbine pro, pain won t hold you back from your passions. it s the only solution with two max-strength anesthetics to deliver the strongest numbing pain relief available. so, do your thing like a pro, pain-free. absorbine pro. that does it for me tonight. tonight. much appreciated. thanks to you at home. really happy to have you here. we have an interesting show for you tonight. particularly glad you re here for it. we re going to start a ways back as we sometimes do. when allied soldiers came ashore on the coast of france on the beaches of normandy for the d-day invasion, they opened up a new western front against the nazis in europe. and that of course was a shock to the germans. the operation overlord, the d-day invasion, it relied on the element of surprise. and the germans really were shocked. they had been occupying france for four years at that point. they the installed a collaborationist regime that they assembled from pro-fascist and pro-nazi forces inside france, so the collaborationists and the nazis together were ruling france and they had been for years. there was a french resistance to the nazi rule and the collaborationists, but the nazis and their puppets were definitely in charge. i they were actually heading intoc year five of being in charge. they were really settled in, inf france. and then here comes this shock arrival. this invasion. hundreds of thousands, ultimately millions of allied troops landing on the beaches and the cliffs of the northwest of france. and they are clearly planning to take it all back. the d-day invasion, the allied n invasion, started on june 6th. now, on this date, on june 10th, 1944, just four days into the d-day invasion, the germans were reacting. they had been, of course, shocked by the initial invasion. but a few days into it, they now realized the scale of what they were up against and had started scrambling their units from all over france, turning all the available german troops in france toward the northwest of that country to try to stop the allied advance. and that included a nazi ss panzer division that had been in the south of franz. that division was ordered to essentially traverse the whole length of the country, head north to where the allies were advancing from the beaches of hr normandy. and on their way north through france, toward the new allied front lines, the new western front, this panzer division stopped in a village called oradour. pro-nazi french collaborators had told them, they told this panzer unit that the french resistance was active in this town. and they told them that the french resistance in that town had killed a nazi officer. and in response, that panzer unit decided, yes, they were on their way to the north of france to join the new western front and the, you know, the battle for the whole war, to try to shore up the german lines against the big allied invasion, but they decided on their way e there, they would stop and do something in oradour.g they would destroy that entire village and everyone in it. that panzer unit rounded up every single man, woman, and child in that village. they even rounded up random people who didn t live in the village but were nearby or who had the misfortune to be passing through the village when this nazi unit made this decision.t that nazi unit killed every human being in oradour. or everyone they could find. they killed 643 civilians. a vast majority of them women and children.or they used machine guns and they burned them alive. they looted the entire village, and then they tore down the village as best they could. they razed it. oradour.ed this is what it looks like today. still in ruins. the french decided after the war that they would never rebuild. they would leave the ruins, preserve them as they were left at the end of the war, as a memorial to what the nazis did. and we have these photos of what oradour looks like literally today, because this morning, the president of france and the president of germany visited the ruins at oradour to commemorate what they call the martyrdom of that village, to remember what happened in europe, in france, under fascist occupation. now, this is not the first time that french president emmanuel macron has visited oradour. actually, ten days before he was first elected president, he went there. he visited the village just before he was elected president. he visited in the company of the man who was then the last livini survivor of that massacre.s i said the nazis killed everyone in the village, at least everyone they could find.ge the nazis did kill over 600 civilians that day, but there were about half a dozen people from the village who, against all odds, in a miracle managed by hook or by crook to survive. the last one of the survivors was in his 90s when he brought emmanuel macron to oradour in 2017. that last survivor has since died. but today, macron went back to the site, to show this place, to germany s president. now, in 1944, about six months after oradour happened, the germans were still hanging on. but thanks in large part to the d-day invasion, they knew by the end of 1944 that they were losing. they were losing to soviet forces in the east, for sure. they were also simultaneously losing to the allied forces coming in from the west. once the allies opened that new western front with the d-day invasion, they started pressing their advantage against the nazis everywhere. not only liberating france, they clearly intend to liberate everywhere the nazis have taken over. they re pressing toward germany itself. hitler knows that his military is on the ropes. it cannot sustain the losses they re taking on both the eastern and western fronts. and so about six months after d-day, about six months after oradour, hitler decides he s going to mount a surprise of his own. he decides he s going to mount a huge german counteroffensive in belgium against the allies. the allies are basically closing in on germany s own borders and when hitler musters hundreds of thousands of men to mount a counteroffensive against them in the forests of belgium, it absolutely is a surprise to the allies. nobody thought germany still had it in them. everybody thought not everybody, but a lot of people thought the war was going to be over by christmas that year. where did the germans muster 400,000, 500,000 men to mount this new counteroffensive, but they did. that german counteroffensive started in mid-december 1944. it began a six-week-long battles that would be the single deadliest battle of the entire war for the u.s. military. aside from just the brutal toll of that battle, that was the battle of the bulge, that battle also came with its own astonishing and unforgettable atrocity. it was another german panzer unit much like the one that killed the entire population of that french village. it was an ss panzer unit in belgium. and they ended up in the very outset of that surprise german counteroffensive, they ended up ambushing a bunch of americans. and the result of it was they took custody of a large group of american prisoners of war, unarmed american p.o.w.s. and these p.o.w.s, again, they had surrendered. they had no weapons. the nazis lined up those americans in a field, the americans have no weapons. they have surrendered.ve they have their hands above their heads. they re p.o.w.s, but the nazis just massacred them in the field, they mowed them down with machine gun fire. and like at that village of oradour, what is almost as unbelievable as what the nazis did there was the fact there were somehow miraculously some survivors. there were some american gis who had also been lined up in that field, who nevertheless lived. american gis who played dead, who hid under the dead bodies of their comrades, who managed in the end to drag themselves into the woods to get away. and what happened to them? you will not believe me when i tell you this, but it would not be long before a sitting united states senator would vehemently object to those men giving testimony about what they saw. about what they survived, about what happened to their platoon mates, to the other men in that battalion. the other p.o.w.s who were massacred by those nazis.p. a sitting u.s. senator tried to block the american soldiers who. survived that massacre from t giving testimony about it in congress. he said the american people shouldn t hear it.e he said it would be he inflammatory. w it would inflame the public to against the nazis who killed alf of those unarmed american p.o.w.s.na i find it absolutely insane to think about, but this became a very strange thing in american domestic politics. i mean, there were unrepentant r leftover nazis in germany after the war. they were trying to make the allies and america in particular the real bad guys from world war ii, and maybe that is understandable when you think about unrepentant nazis who just lost the war, but you would not believe it, the zi thing that s amazing is not that there were leftover nazis who were trying to do this. the thing you wouldn t believe is they enlisted a lot of americans to help them in that project. including taking a stand against the american soldiers who survived that p.o.w. massacre ha and demanding that the nazis who did it should be set free. this became a cause celebre in the right wing press at the e time. and it helped launch the national career, the rocketship ascendance of arguably the most radical and controversial figure in republican electoral politics in the last 80 years before donald trump. while he was swimming in these very dark waters, darker than what seems possible for something in mainstream american politics he would go on to lead a movement of millions of followers who were increasingly radicalized by his increasingly radical rhetoric and tactics over time. his fellow republicans were both repelled by him, horrified by him, while they also wanted in on some of the massive political energy and fanatical devotion he attracted. they thought very seriously about putting him forward for the presidency, and the reaction among close observers of him and his tactics look so much like what you re seeing in the american press today about the e fear of a second trump term, you wouldn t believe that it isn t just a straight up rerun. in his time, the people who stood up against him mostly got mowed down in politics by the strength of his fanatical following. that happened for a very long time. until eventually, ultimately, it stopped happening.en and the forces against him prevailed. and i m telling you this for two reasons.ll number one, this is the thing that i have been working on for the past year. my podcast, rachel maddow presents ultra, now has a season two, and it is out today. episode one is out today.t you can get it anywhere you get podcasts. if you don t usually listen to podcasts, if you take out your phone right now, open the camera on your phone, and point it at that weird looking little on l circular square thing on your screen, you click on the little box that pops up on your phone, it will bring you right there so you can listen to it. you can listen to it for free. it s free to listen to. there are eight episodes of thio all together.ei episode one is out today. i hope you may want to listen.e i have been working really hard on it.n i m really proud of it, but i hope you like it. i hope you ll check it out. that s one of the easons i m telling you this story. i have been working on this story, i have been working in general on stories about other v times in our american history that we have dealt with really terrible threats to the country. where we have confronted reallyr radical people with really radical designs to undo the fundamental things that make us who we are as a country who nevertheless get into political power and attract large followings. this has happened to us before.p and the reason i have been working on this for the past couple years, the reason i have been working on these projects is because for me, i feel like i really need to learn this stuff and fast, for me, there is a real urgency to learn these stories now.no from when we have contended with terrible challenges before, ha particularly when we re talking about powerful americans advocating for authoritarianism or just flat out embodying it. particularly when it s about selling factually unhinged conspiratorial lies to the american public and half the public is mortified, mystified by that, but the other half of the public is super energized by it and they not only believe these lies, they kind of become their whole new reason to live. the public gets bifurcated like that into earth one and earth two where some people are based in the reality based community and some people are based in a different place, and that place is emotionally satisfying to them, and radicalizing them, and it takes over their lives. we are living through a moment like that right now with what is ascendant on the american righth but we have lived through it before. and i feel like i m racing to learn these stories about americans who have fought these kinds of fights before us for the simple reason that i feel like i need their ideas about how to fight it. we need their ideas about how to fight these things. we need to see what worked and what didn t when americans faced threats like this before. and it doesn t mean that fighting them always works. sometimes they get away with a lot of this stuff, and sometimes people take on incredible risk and danger to themselves. sometimes people risk their lives or give up their lives to fight these things, but knowing the track record of americans who have stood up against these kinds of dark and authoritarian and anti-democratic forces knowing who else has tried it and what s happened to them is helpful for us calibrating our available responses now. and knowing what to expect when we confront these dark movements. so that is why i have been working on this, and that is why that story is on my mind tonight. but it is also what s on the news right now. i mean, one of the remarkable things about seeing the french president with the german president at the ruins of oradour today in france is that they took that tour of the ruins of that village today, that th preserved memorial to what fascism did in europe, they took that tour this morning. just one day after the german far right and the french far right won shockingly large an proportions of the vote in the h european elections that were held yesterday. in both of those countries, the parties that did so well have ties not only to the old fascist parties of old world war ii era germany and france, they both have current ties, including financial ties, to vladimir putin and russia. when president biden and president macron of france met in france these past few days ma for the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of d-day, president biden said that he and president macron agreed on a new plan to seize russian assets inz the g-7 countries and use those seized russian assets to providn even more support to ukraine. as ukraine continues to struggle against the russian invasion of that country. president biden is just back from france for these d-day commemoration ceremonies and from those meetings with e president macron. he s just back but heads back to europe the day after tomorrow to go to the g-sev summit, among other things to rally the other nations to support this new plan, to support ukraine as muc as possible including this new plan that he and macron have just agreed to involving seizing russian assets to help ukraine even more. and, you know, in the american aperture here, what s going on in our politics while president biden is trying to, you know, rally the free world, trying to strengthen our alliances as much as possible to lead collective international will against a rogue dictatorship that has invaded one big european country already and has its sights set on more, here at home, literally while president biden and other american leaders were headed off to europe for the 80th anniversary of d-day, while they were heading off to europe for that, what was happening in the american congress? a fifth of the republicans in congress just voted that we should leave our allies altogether. that we should break up the big western alliance, that we should defund nato. and i think nobody really paid attention to this vote because this legislation was put forward by a very fringe member of congress, a member of congress who is known for her publicity stunts and she s therefore she is easy to ignore. but it wasn t just her.y 46 republicans voted for this thing.ca a fifth of the republicans in congress last week voted to defund nato. don t just forget being the leader of the free world, forget the whole idea of there being a free world at all. they saved that for the anniversary of d-day. 46 republicans voting to defund nato. and as radical as that may seem, particularly when you think about where nato came from and why, the wing of the republican party that is pushing for this stuff, i mean, on its face, it seems unlikely they would have such sway. every few days we get a new mugshot of one of their leading lights because so many of them have been charged with crimes. today, it was their presidential candidate s personal lawyer, wh has had his law license suspended, who is under indictment, rudy giuliani s w mugshot just released today after he was arraigned in arizona. you can put it up on the wall with all of the other maga republican mugshots we have accrued over the past year. their presidential candidate is a convicted felon. today he had to meet with the probation office in new york ahead of his sentences. people at his rallies not only wear tshirts and fly flags that have his mugshot on them, they started carrying signs and wearing shirts that now say rr they re proudly voting for the convicted felon. at a rally this weekend, their presidential candidate described members of the mob of his t supporters who physically w attacked congress and injured dozens of police officers, he described them in a speech this weekend as, quote, warriors. his warriors. people who took part in that mob attack on congress. his warriors. while a few days ago, two police officers who were both badly injured fighting hand to hand with that mob to defend congress, to defend the u.s. capitol, those two police officers were jeered and booed by republicans in the pennsylvania state legislature. they jeered them, turned their backs on them and walked out. these are two officers who survived that attack, they were literally injured fighting for their country, defending our seat of government against a violent attack. but the republicans who jeered at them and turned their backs on them and walked out, they want the attackers freed. and they don t want to hear what these survivors of the attack had to say. don t want to hear from the survivors and the witnesses. you want the attackers set free. we are going through some weird stuff right now. but we have gone through weird stuff before. and i do think that we can learn from it and that we urgently need to. that s why i have been working on all these projects. that s why i ve got this new se podcast out and i hope you listen. but it s not just the distant past. in the very recent past when we got donald trump in the white house in the first place, you might remember what preceded that shock election result here in the united states in 2016. our shock presidential election result in 2016 was preceded that year by some shocking and surprisingly right wing election results in europe. including the brexit vote in e britain which happened just months before trump s surprise presidential victory here. i asked ben rhodes to please join us here tonight in the wake of what is now, again, another round of what seemed to be surprisingly right wing election results in europe this weekend.y was it right in 2016 to see right wing election results in europe as a harbinger of what was coming for us in the fall o 2016? as president biden balances his campaign responsibilities right now with back-to-back trips to europe, he just got back from europe, he heads back to europe again on wednesday. do the election results from europe right now, this weekend, have hallmarks that tell us anything about what to expect here and about how weird this is all going to get?ut president biden clearly sees ouo connections to europe right now as absolutely key to the futureo of the world. does what s going on in european politics right now tell us something to expect about the future of our world here? joining us now is ben rhodes. he s former deputy national security adviser to president obama, cohost of the pod save the world podcast. really great to see you. thanks for making time to be here tonight. good to see you. first, let me ask you for some of our viewers who may not have paid close attention to what was happening in the european elections this weekend, let me ask you two questions about them. do you think they re important for us to pay attention to? and can you just give us a rough characterization of what happened in those elections?za sure. these were elections for the european parliament. e so the european union wide parliament, so the only electiop that takes place every few years in which all of europe votes. it s a good barometer of where opinion is in europe. the two headlines are the far right made noticeable gains in the two largest countries in europe, france and germany.rg in france, the national front party, the far right party that used to be on the fringes of french politics, emerged as by far the largest vote getter in g this election and to build on what you re saying, this is a party that is not only far right, they have ties to russia. they have gotten a $10 million loan from russia in the past decade. in germany, the afd party, which has ties that go back into the kind of neonazi past of germany, they got over 15% of the vote, not a huge total, but very alarming given the source here. i want to be clear, in other parts of europe, the center did hold.ur i think the real concerning factor is in the two most important countries, france and germany, we saw these far right gains. do you think that it s right to look back at 2016 and see some of what was going on in politics in europe as a harbinger for the shock election result we got in the fall of r 2016 when trump won? do you think these election results should be read as a harbinger of what s coming down the pike for us this year? i absolutely do, rachel. the commonality between the brexit vote, the vote by the uk to leave the european union in 2016 and the trump election was that it was a it was a surprise.a people did not think brexit was going to win the campaign and they campaigned on a kind of right wing populist message. the slogan was take back control. they ran against globalists and liberal elites and against immigration and was very trumpy in its message, frankly. it kind of foreshadowed what we ended up dealing with in the fall here. i think the warning in this election, and you ask mead a wa question when i came on to talk about my book a few years ago about far right parties and their commonalities around the world, you asked what lesson should we learn. i always think about that. the lesson i take from this one is that their incumbent parties in germany and france that have defended essentially the status quo, emmanuel macron has been a defender of the european union. olaf scholz has been a defender of the liberal order. people are not listening to that message right now. you cannot defeat these parties, these populist insurgents be being the defenders of the status quo, but you have to tapt into people s dissatisfaction e with globalization, dissatisfaction with inequality. sense that things are slipping out of control. it s not enough to say we re the responsible adults here. you have to kind of get down and have a different message for how things are going to change. g i think that s the warning sign that joe biden should hear, nots enough to run on status quo here. not enough to defend even the things we think are very t important. you have to meet people where they are, and people are frustrated.d ben rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to president obama.t ben, thank you for making the time. i feel like when we need to like widen the lens a lot and look at america in the world, you re le almost always one of the first people i think of.s thank you for being here. thanks, rachel. i can t wait to check out the r we have much more ahead here tonight.e do stay with us. her uncle s unhappy. i m sensing an underlying issue. it s t-mobile. it started when we tried to get him under a new plan. but they they unexpectedly unraveled their “price lock” guarantee. which has made him, a bit. unruly. you called yourself the “un-carrier”. you sing about “price lock” on those commercials. “the price lock, the price lock.” so, if you could change the price, change the name! it s not a lock, i know a lock. so how can we undo the damage? we 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. so let s get down to the nitty-gritty here. georgia became this kind of bench mark for principled republicans refusing to go along with improper, un-american machinations from president trump. governor brian kemp, brad raffensperger, two very conservative republicans, both nevertheless stood up to personal pressure from trump to overturn president biden s win in georgia. and of course, all that pressure trump brought to bear on georgia republicans and the ways in which those republicans resisted, that formed the basis for fulton county district attorney fani willis filing a huge rico case against trump and 18 of his codefendants in georgia. that s one story of the state of georgia after the 2020 election. republicans standing up, the record of them standing up and what they had to stand up against forming the basis for this sprawling, damning criminal indictment. the other story of georgia since that election is all the work that pro-trump republicans have done to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. to make sure nobody can ever again get in the way of trump seizing georgia s 16 electoral votes, no matter what the votes say. the most obvious thing georgia republicans have done is use every tool at their disposal to derail fani willis prosecution of trump. in the latest development in that three republican appointed judges have just put the whole case on hold while they take their time considering whether fani willis should be disqualified from the case. thus guaranteeing that the georgia prosecution will definitely not go forward against trump before the election. but that s only the start. in georgia s most populous county, fulton county, one republican elections board member last month refused to certify the primary results there. because you know, elections are scary. with the help of lawyers from a pro-trump think tank, she has now filed a lawsuit seeking the power to block the certification of elections which would of course throw november s results in georgia into chaos. which is presumably the point. meanwhile, just north of fulton county, republicans recently started agitating to take over an elections board in cherokee county. now, the board there, like other counties in georgia, has always been evenly split between democrats and republicans, but republicans in cherokee county are no longer okay with that. they wanted a full scale republican takeover, when that was blocked, they comp with an ingenious new plan. they decided they would replace one of the democratic commissioners who had been nominated with their own choice. their own choice for a democrat. a new guy that none of the local democrats have ever heard of. but don t worry, the republicans who run cherokee county swear this guy they picked is definitely a democrat. the atlanta journal constitution reported that the republican cherokee county commission chairman, quote, assured the board that the new member is a democrat, even if the local democratic party is unfamiliar with him. i assure you, he s definitely on your team. i know you have never met and i picked him, but trust me. pinky promise. meanwhile, at the state elections board in georgia, republicans there just started writing a new rule that would allow county elections boards to conduct a, quote, reasonable inquiry before they certify any election results. so instead of signing off on election results as county election boards are now required to do by law, they would be empowered instead to investigate those results as they see fit. the journal constitution notes that, quote, the proposed rule doesn t say what a reasonable inquiry would entail before certifying an election. yeah, why would you specify that? you want every election denying republican county elections board member in georgia just making it up as they go along, calling their own behavior reasonable. while the presidential election potentially hangs in the balance. speaking of that state elections board, one of its republican members was ousted last month, one of its republican members was ousted, after trump reportedly spent months calling georgia republicans insisting that that election board member had to go. because that person was not backing trump s lies about the 2020 election. and so of course, the guy had to go. trump s personal involvement in remaking the georgia state elections board is just one of the revelations in new reporting from rolling stone. their new piece is headlined georgia is our laboratory. inside trump s plan to rig 2024. it details how trump s allies are working to make sure there will not be a straightforward election result in georgia this year, given georgia s swing state status that absolutely could be a deciding factor in how the election is going to go down. what is happening there? what is happening to try to stop what is happening there? one of the reporters on that rolling stone piece joins us next. stay with us. stay with us are you still struggling with your bra? it s time for you to try knix. makers of the world s comfiest wireless bras. for revolutionary support without underwires, and sizes up to a g-cup, find your new favorite bra today at knix.com the ultimate authority is the voter. the secretary of state was re-elected by the voters of the state by a larger margin than any other excuse me. order. order. by a larger margin than any other state-wide office. the voters order. have demonstrated their faith and therefore i do not believe that at present, we have the authority to oversee or investigate the secretary of state. georgia s board of elections gathered to discuss launching an investigation into georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger who had the temerity to say no when donald trump demanded he flip the results of the 2020 election in georgia. the lone democrat on that elections board spoke out against doing this unprecedented investigation of raffensperger. as you heard, she was loudly shouted down. in a new article titled georgia is our laboratory, inside trump s plan to rig 2024, rolling stone reports this. quote, the former president and his supporters have been making concrete step by step progress in shaping electoral processes to his benefit. across the state, maga die hards are devoting considerable resources to purging voting rolls, intimidating election officials, employing legal dirty tricks, and ousting appointees who haven t been initiated into the cult of trump. it s the state where the republican party has total control over the levers of power. over the last four years trump loving elements of the georgia republican party have wielded that advantage in a crusade to turn election conspiracy theories into policies. it s an alarmingly anti-democratic experiment that trump planned and much of the republican party hope to take national. joining us now is adam ronsly, the reporter co bylined on that sprawling piece. thank you for being here. thanks for having me. so what are some of the steps that trump and his allies have taken to change the electoral process in georgia? so one of the most alarming ones that a source who has discussed this issue with trump told us, a republican attorney, is they re planning to challenge the election result regardless of the result. you know, we think of the threat to elections from trump s behavior in 2020 as only occurring in the event that trump loses. you know, at the current state of polling, trump is ahead in georgia, if you believe the polling, but what republican attorney who discussed this with trump told us is that, quote, you can t let the left get away with this cheating just because it didn t succeed, air quotes around cheating. and the plan is to challenge the result regardless of the outcome. and the intent behind that is essentially a permanent delegitimization of the election process. it s heads, i win, tails you lose. and i think you had mentioned this a little bit in your intro, is that one of the things people should be paying close attention to is that refusal to certify in the fulton county board of elections in the presidential primary. because one of the things that s very, very notable about that is that the attorneys who filed that lawsuit work for america first policies institute, which is a very trumpy organization filled with former trump folks. and what you see in those kinds of processes is the legal january 6th in miniature. essentially you re taking someone who is, you know, acting beyond their brief and trying to essentially insert themselves into the counting and, you know, assessment of vote tallies. adam, is this actually a fight in georgia? you note, i think, importantly, that georgia s a place where republicans control all of the levers of power. we just played the sound of one democratic member of the state elections board getting shouted down when she objected to what they were trying to do in terms of targeting raffensperger. is this fight joint where there is pushback against what they re doing or are they essentially running the table by changing processes to their own benefit? you know, they definitely have quite a built-in advantage. and i think that s why georgia relative to other battleground states is particularly interesting because it is more so than perhaps any other state a fight for the soul of the republican party. particularly when it comes to their faith in free and fair elections. and yeah, even folks like brian kemp, who was an absolute obstacle to trump s attempt to, you know, illegally overturn the election in georgia, brian kemp signed sb-202, a law that allows for a range of, you know, sort of procedural chicanery. joe biden called it jim crow in the 21st century. you know, even folks who have proven themselves to be obstacles to some of the more overt aspects of it sometimes will just go along to get along. and so they definitely do have an advantage. and they are running the table in certain ways, but you do see folks like you mentioned earlier, like ed lindsay, whose resignation letter we obtained in the story. people like that, you still do have these kind of principled republicans who are willing to stand up for what they believe in, but as you saw with the case of ed, you know, he had to resign under a great deal of pressure from not just president trump but from the grassroots of the party who believe in a lot of election conspiracies. yeah, the bare fact that a presidential candidate is personally lobbying to remove individual state elections board members ought to be on the front page of every paper of the country. been reported by adam, reporter at rolling stone. adam, the by-line reporters on the piece, georgia is our laboratory, thank you for helping us understand this. thanks for doing this work. would love to have you back. thanks so much for having me, rachel. i appreciate it. we ll be right back. stay with us. stay with us i m gina. i want to talk to you about golo and how it has changed my life and how it can change yours too. like many of you i ve been dieting and failing half my life. and each time i would diet i would quit and my weight and health would get much worse. i had to do something. i saw a golo commercial, i talked to my doctors, and i ordered. like me, the golo success stories are real. give golo a shot. you won t be sorry. could have been the heat, i suppose. temperatures were over 100 degrees at his outdoor campaign rally in las vegas yesterday. so hot, six people had to go to the hospital, and another two dozen had to get medical treatment on site. could have been the heat, i suppose. could also maybe have been that he was nervous about the fact that he was less than 24 hours away from his first meeting with his new york state probation officer. that meeting could be particularly nerve-racking for him because, you know, one of the things a probation officer asks you after you re convicted of felonies is if you have been associating with anyone who has a criminal record. that s worth noting because if he is ultimately sentenced to probation next month while he s on probation, he would not be allowed to associate with anyone with a criminal record. for a lot of people, that wouldn t be a big deal. for him, that s a big deal. that particular restriction eats away at his very close social circle. so maybe that was all distracting him. i don t know. he maybe had a lot i don t know. whatever the reason, he decided to venture into new territory in his campaign speech yesterday, less than five months out from the election. this is an important swing state. he decided with the land locked citizens of las vegas needed to hear about from him in order to be persuaded to vote for him was his fear of boats. heavy boats, boats with batteries near sharks. you know, nevada sharks. i know you have heard it happened. you may have seen a headline or scrolled past it on a social media feed. have you actually watched it? uncut, straight through, watched it unfold? it is very much worth watching. it s astonishing. my favorite part is the people you can see at the rally behind him who are really trying to follow along but who clearly have no earthly idea what uncle ramble standers is on about. just watch this. what would happen if the boat sank from its weight? and you re in the boat, and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery is now underwater, and there s a shark that s approximately ten yards over there? by the way, a lot of shark attacks lately. did you notice that? i watched some guys justifying it today. well, they weren t really that angry. they bit off the young lady s leg because of the fact that they were they were not hungry but they misunderstood who she was. these people are crazy. he said there s no problem with sharks. they just didn t really understand a young woman swimming. really got decimated and a lot of other people. i said so there s a shark ten yards away from the boat. ten yards. or here. do i get electrocuted if the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking. do i stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted or do i jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted because he didn t know the answer. he said, nobody has ever asked me that question. i said i think it s a good question. i think there s a lot of electric current coming through the water, but what i would do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted, i would take electrocution every single time. i m not getting near the shark. so we re going to end that. we re going to end it for boats. we re going to end that, we re going to end it for boats. we re going to end it for boats. vote accordingly. vote accordingly a slow network is no network for business. that s why more choose comcast business. and now, we re introducing ultimate speed for business our fastest plans yet. we re up to 12 times faster than verizon, at&t, and t-mobile. and existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds. at no additional cost. it s ultimate speed for ultimate business. don t miss out on our fastest speed plans yet! switch to comcast business and get started for $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. call today! all right, that s going to do it for us tonight. i told you tonight was going to be a show and a half. way too early with jonathan lemire is up next. donald trump has completed his presentencing interview with a new york probation officer after being convicted in his criminal hush money trial. what sources are saying about what happened during that private proceeding. plus authorities release a new mug shot of rudy giuliani as
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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(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. if you have generalized myasthenia gravis, picture what life could look like with. vyvgart hytrulo, a subcutaneous injection that takes about 30 to 90 seconds. for one thing, could it mean more time for you? vyvgart hytrulo can improve daily abilities and reduce muscle weakness with a treatment plan that s personalized to you. do not use vyvgart hytrulo if you have a serious allergy to any of its ingredients. it can cause serious allergic reactions like trouble breathing and decrease in blood pressure leading to fainting and allergic reactions such as rashes, swelling under the skin, shortness of breath, and hives. the most common side effects are respiratory and urinary tract infections, headache, and injection site reactions. it may increase the risk of infusion-related reactions and infection. tell your doctor if you have a history of infections or symptoms of an infection. talk to your neurologist about vyvgart hytrulo for gmg and picture your life in motion. organic soil from miracle-gro has grown me the best garden i have ever had. good soil, and you get good results. look at that! the broccoli was fantastic. that broccoli! i think some of them were six, seven pounds. as hunter biden waits for the jury s verdict in federal criminal case against him we are joined by former federal prosecutor andrew weissmann. what do you think the jury is focusing on in this case at this point in our deliberations? 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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thank you for watching, while we were just talking about this summer s o olympics it is also worth noting that just minutes from now we will officially be two years out from the fifa world cup which will take place here in the u.s. after 30 years and you re in luck. get your count down clock started now. and on that note i wish you a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks at nbc news, thanks for staying up late with me. i ll see you at the end of tomorrow. thank you for joining us this hour. really happy to have you here. we have an interesting show for you tonight. i m particularly glad you re here for us. we re going to start a ways back as we sometimes do. when allied soldiers came ashore on the coast of france on the beaches of normandy for the d day invasion. they opened up new western front against the nazis in europe. and that of course was a shock to the germans right. this, the operation overlore, the d day invasion it relied on the element of surprise. and the germans really were shocked. they had been occupying france for four years at that point. they had installed a collaborationist regime that they fashioned from nazi forces inside france. the collaborationists and the nazis together were ruling france and they had been for years. there was a french resistance to the nazis but the nazis and their puppets were definitely in charge. they were actually heading into year five of being in charge. they were really settled in in france. and then here comes this shock arrival. this invasion, hundreds of thousands ultimately millions of ally troops landing on the beaches and the cliffs or the northwest of france and they are clearly planning to take it all back. the d day invasion, the allied invasion started on june 6th. now on this date, on june 10th, 1944 just four days into the d day invasion, the germans were reacting. they had been of course shocked by the initial invasion. but a few days into it they now realize the scale of what they were up against and they had started scrambling their units from all over france. turning all the available german troops in france toward the northwest of that country to try to stop the allied advance. and that included a nazi assess panser division that had been in the south of france down by toulousse. that division was ordered to essentially traverse south of the country and toward the beaches of normandy. and on their way north through france toward the new allied front lines the new western front, this panser division stopped in a village called orador, pronazi french collaborators had told them. they told this panser unit that the french resistance was active many this town and told them that the french resistance had killed a nazi officer. and in response that panser unit that yes they were on the way to go join the new western fronts and the battle for the whole war, right. to try to shore up the german lines against the big allied invasion but they decided that on the way they would stop and destroy that village and everyone in it. they rounded up every woman, and child in that village. they even rounded up people who did not live in the village but who were near by or had the misfortune of passing through the village when the nazi unit made this decision. that nazi unit killed every human being in orador or everyone they could find. they killed 643 civilians a vast majority of them women and children. they used machine guns and they burned them alive. they looted the entire village and then they tore down the village as best they could, they razed it. orador. this is what it looks like today. still in ruins. the french decided after the war they would never rebuild. they would leave the ruins, preserve them as they were left at the end of the war as a memorial to what the nazis did. and we have these photos of what orador looks like today. literally today because this morning the president of france and the president of germany visited the ruins at orador to commemorate what they called the martyrdom. now this is not the first time that french president emmanuel macron has visited orador. 10 days before he was first elected president he went there. he visited the village, just before he was elected president. he visited in the company of the man who was then the last living survivor of that massacre. i said the nazis killed everyone in the village. at least everyone they could find. the nazis kill over 600 civilians that day but there were about half a dozen people from the village who against all odds in a miracle managed to survive. the last one of the survivors was in his 90s when he brought emmanuel macron to orador. that last survivor has since died. but today macron went back to the site to orador to show this place to germany s president. now, in 1944 about six month, after orador happened, the germans were still hanging on. but thanks in large part to the d day invasion they knew by the end of 1944 that they were losing. they were losing to soviet forces in the east for sure. they were also simultaneously losing to the allied forces coming in from the west. once the allies opened that new western front with the d day invasion, they started pressing their advantage against the nazis ever where. they re not only liberating france. they re pressing toward germany itself. hitler knows they cannot sustain the losses they re taking on both the eastern and western fronts. so about six months app after d day. hitler decides he s going to form a huge counter offensive against the allies. the allies are closing in on germany s own borders. when hitler musters hundreds of thousands of men to mount a counter offensive against them in the forests of belgium, it absolutely is a surprise to the allies. nobody thought germany still had them in them. a lot of people thought that the war would be done by christmas that year. where did the germans muster 4,000, 5,000 men to counter this offensive but they did. that began a 6 week battle, that would become the biggest counter of the war. as far as that brutal war of that battle. that was the battle of the bulge. that battle also came with its own astonishing and unforgettable atrocity. it was another panser unit much like the one in orador. they ended up in the very outset of that surprise german counter offensive. they ended up ambushing a bunch of americans. the result was they took custody of a large group of american prisoners of war. unarmed american pows. and these pows they again they had surrendered, they had no weapons. the nazis lined up those americans on a field. they are pows, they had surrendered, had no weapons. but the nazis just massacred them on that field. and just like in orador is the fact that there were somehow miraculously some survivors. there were some american gis who had also been lined up on that field who nevertheless lived. americans gi who played dead, who hid under the dead bodies of their comrades. who managed in the end to drag themselves into the woods to get away. and what happened to them? you will not believe me when i tell you this but it would not be long before a sitting united states senator would vehemently object to them giving testimony of what they saw, to what happened to their platoon men. the other pows who were massacred by the nazis. a sitting u.s. senator tried to block those veterans from testifying. he said the american people shouldn t hear it. he said it would be inflammatory, it would inflame the americans against those nazis who killed the american pows. i find it absolutely insane to think about but this became a very strange thing in american domestic politics. i mean, there were unrepenitent left over nazis. they were trying to make americans the real bad guys. when you think about unrepenitent nazis who just lost the war. the thing that you wouldn t believe is that they enlisted a lot of americans to help them in that project. including taking a stand against the american soldiers who survived that pow massacre and demanding that the nazis who did it should be set free. this became a cause seleb in the right wing at the time. it helped launch the national career, the rocket ship ascendants of arguably the most radical figure in the last 80 years before donald trump. while he was swimming in these very dark waters. darker than seems possible in mainstream american politics he would go on to lead a movement of millions of followers who were increasingly radicalized by his increasingly radical rhetoric and tactics over time. his fellow republicans were both repelled by him, horrified by him. while they also wanted in on some of the massive political energy and fanatical devotion that he attracted. they thought very seriously about putting him forward for the presidency. and the reaction among close observers of him and his tactics looked so much like what you are seeing in the american press today about the fear of a second trump term you wouldn t believe it isn t just a straight up rerun. in his time the people who stood up against him, mostly got mowed down in politics by the strength of his fanatical following. that happened for a very long time. until eventually ultimately it stopped happening and the forces against him prevailed. and i m telling you this for two reasons. number one, this is the thing that i have been working on for the past year. my podcast rachel maddow presents ultra is out today. you can get it any where you get podcasts. if you don t usually listen to podcast you don t know how to do that. if you open your phone right now, open the camera, you click on the little box that pops up on your phone, it will bring you right there so you can listen to it. you can listen to it for free. it s free to listen to. there are eight episodes of this all together. episode one is out today. i hope you will want to listen. i ve been working very hard on it. i m very proud of it but i just, i hope you like it. i hope you will check it out. so that s one of the reasons i m telling you this story. i have been working on this story. i had been working in general on stories about other times in our american history that we have dealt with really terrible threats to the country. where we have confronted really radical people with really radical refine who get into political power and attract large followings. this has happened to us before. the reason i ve been working on this for the last couple of years including this new one that launches today, for me, i feel like i really need to learn this stuff and fast. for me there is a real urgency to learn these stories now. from when we have contended with terrible challenges before. particularly what we re talking about powerful americans, advocating for athoriatism. when it s about selling lies to the american public. and half is mortified by that but the other half of the public are super energized by it. they not only believe these lies they kind of become the new reason for them to live. the public gets gets like that, into earth one and earth two. and that place takes radicalizing them and it takes over their lives. we are living through a moment like that right now with what is ascendant at the american life. but we ve lived through this before. i feel i m racing to learn these stories about american who is have fought these kinds of fights before us for the simple reason that i feel like, i need their ideas about how to fight it. we need their ideas about how to fight these things. we need to see what worked and what didn t when americans faced threats like this before. and it doesn t mean that fighting them always works. sometimes they get away with a lot of this stuff and sometimes people take on incredible risk and danger to themselves. sometimes people risk their lives or give up their lives to fight these things but knowing the track records of americans who have stood up against these kinds of dark and authoritarian forces. knowing who else has tried it and what happened to them is helpful to us calibrating our available responses now and knowing what to expect when we confront these dark movements. so that is why i ve been working on this. and that is why that story is on my mind. tonight. but it is also what s on the news right now. i mean one of the remarkable things about seeing the french president with the german president at the ruins of orador today in france is they took that tour of the ruins of that village today. that preserved memorial to what fascism did in europe. they took that tour this morning. just one day after the german far right and the french far right won shockingly large proportions of the vote in the european elections that were held yesterday. in both of those countries the parties that did so well have ties not only to the old fascist parties of world war ii era germany and france but they both have tied to putin and russia. when president biden was in france, he and president macron agreed on a new plan to seize russian assets in the g7 countries and use those seized russian assets to provide more support to ukraine as ukraine continues to struggle against the russian invasion of that country. president biden is just back from france for these d day commemoration ceremonies. he heads back to europe the day after tomorrow to go to the g7 summit. among other things presumably to try to rally the other g7 nations to support this new plan. to support ukraine as much as possible including this new plan that he and macron have just agreed to involving seizing russian assets to help ukraine even more. and you know, in the american aperture here what s going on here in our politics while president biden is trying to you know rally the free world trying to strengthen our alliances as much as possible to lead collective international will, against a rogue dictatorship that has invaded one big european country already and has its sights set on more. here at home, literally while president biden and other american leaders were headed off to europe for the 80th anniversary of d day, while they were heading off to europe for that, what was happening in the american congress? a fifth of the republicans in congress just voted that we should leave our allies all together. that we should break up the big western alliance. that we should defund nato. and i think nobody really paid attention to this vote because this legislation was put forward by a very fringe member of congress. a member of congress who is known for her publicity stunts and she is therefor, i am eager, she is easy to ignore. but it wasn t just her. 47 republicans voted for this thing. a fifth of the republicans in congress last week voted to defund nato. don t just forget being the leader of the free world forget the whole idea of there being a free world at all. they saved that for the anniversary of d day. 46 republicans voting to defund nato. and as radical as that may seem, particularly when you think about where nato came from and why. the wing of the republican party that is pushing for this stuff, i mean on its face it seems unlikely that they would have such sway. right every few days we get a new mug shot of one of their leading lights because so many of them have been charged with crimes. today, it was their presidential candidates personal lawyer. who has had his law license suspended, who is under indictment rudy giuliani s mug shot just released today after he was arraigned in arizona. you can put it up on the wall with all the other maga republican mug shots we have accrued in the past year. their presidential candidate is a convicted felon. today he had to meet with his probation officer. people in his rallies not only fly t-shirts and fly flags that have his mug shot on them. they started carrying signs and wear shirts that say they are proudly voting for the convicted felon. at a rally this weekend, their presidential candidate described members of the mob of his supporters who physically attacked congress an injured dozens of police officers he described them in a speech this weekend as quote warriors. his warriors. people who took part in that mob attack on congress. his warriors. while a few days ago, two police officers who were both badly injured fighting hand to hand with that mob to defend congress, to defend the u.s. capital, those two police officers were jeered and booed by the republicans. they jeered them, turned their backs on them and walked out. these are two officers who were injured in that fight. they were literally injured defending our congress. but the republicans who jeered at them and turned their backs on them and walked out they want the attackers freed and they don t want to hear what these survivors of the attack had to say. they don t want to hear from the survivors and the witnesses they want the attackers set free. we are going through some weird stuff right now. but we have gone through weird stuff before. and i do think that we can learn from it and that we urgently need to. that s why i ve been working on all these projects. that s why i have this new podcast out and i hope you listen to it. it wasn t from the recent past, when we got donald trump in the white house in the first place. you may remember what proceeded. our shock presidential election result in 2016 was proceeded that year by some shocking and surprisingly right wing election results in europe. including the brexit vote which happened just months app months after trump s presidential win. was it right to see right wing election results in europe as a harbinger of what was happening to us in 2016. as biden has back to back trips to europe. he just got back to europe. he heads back to europe again on wednesday. do the election results from europe right now, this weekend have hallmarks that tell us anything about what to expect here and about how weird this is all going to get? president biden clearly sees our connections to europe right now as absolutely key to the future of the world. just what s going on in the european politics right now tell us anything to expect about the future of our world here? joining us now is ben rhodes. he s cohost of the pod save the world podcast. ben it s really great to see you. thanks for making time to be here tonight. good to see you. first, let me just ask you, for some of our viewers who may not have paid close attention to what was happening in the european elections this weekend. let me ask you two questions about them. do you think they are important for us to pay attention to, and can you give us a rough characterization of what happened in those elections? sure, these are elections for the european parliament. so the european union wide parliament. it s the only election that takes place every few years in which all of europe votes. so it s a good barometer of where opinion is in europe. i think the two headlines are, the far right made noticeable gains in the two largest countries in europe. france and germany. and france the national front party which is the far right party that used to be on the fringes of french politics, emerged as by far the largest vote getter in this election and just build on, what you were saying, rachel, this is a party that is far right they got a $10 million loan from russia in the last decade. this is reality. and in germany, the afd party which has ties that go back to the neonazi germany. they got 15% of the vote. not a huge total but very alarming given the source here. i want to be clear in other parts of europe, the center did hold. but the two most important countries france and germany we saw these far right gains. do you think that it s right to look back at 2016 to see some of what was going on in europe as a harbinger for the shocking election result we got in 2016 when trump won. do you think these election results should be read as a harbinger of what s coming down the pipeline for us this year? i absolutely do, rachel. the commonality about the brixit vote and the trump election was that it was a lot, it was a surprise. people did not think that brexit was going to win that campaign and they campaigned on a right wing populous message. the slogan was take back control. and they ran against globalists and liberal elites and against immigration and was very trumpy in its message. it kind of forshadowed what we ended up taling with in the fall. the warning in this election and you asked me a question to talk about my book a few years ago about far right parties and their commonalities around the world. you asked me what lesson should we learn. i always think about that. the lesson i take from this is there are incumbent parties in europe and france that have defended the status quo. emmanuel macron has been a defendant of the liberal union. people are not listening to that message right now. you cannot defeat these parties. these populous by beating the status quo. that s hard for the united states. but you have to tap into people s disfraction with globalization. dissatisfaction with inequality. that things are slipping out of control. it s not enough to say, we re the responsible adults you have to get down and have a message for how things are going change. i think that s the warning sign joe biden should hear. not enough to run on status quo. not enough to defend even things we think are very important. you have to meet people where they are and people are frustrated. ben rhodes former deputy national security advisor to president obama. ben, thank you for making the time. i feel like, when we need to like widen the lens a lot and look at america in the world, you re almost always one of the first people i think about on these things. thank you for being here. i can t wait for you to check out the podcast too, it sounds great. i appreciate it. thank you. we have much more ahead here tonight, please stay with us. that s why he 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had to stand up against forming the basis for this sprawling damming criminal indictment. the other story of georgia since that election is all the work that protrump republicans have done to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. to make sure nobody can ever again get in the way of trump seizing georgia s 16 electoral votes no matter what the votes say. the most obvious thing georgia republicans have done is used every tool at their disposal to derail willis prosecution of trump. in the latest, two republicans judges have placed the trial on pause. guaranteeing they will not go forward on trump before the election. that s only the start. in georgia s most populous country, one republican elections board member last month refused to certify the primary results there. because you know, elections are scary. with the help of lawyers from a protrump think tank she has now filed a lawsuit seeking the power to block the certification of elections which would of course throw november s results in georgia into chaos. which is presumably the point. meanwhile just north of fulton county republicans recently started agitating to take over an elections board in cherokee county. now the board there like other countries in georgia, has always been evenly split between democrats and republicans. but republicans are no longer okay with that they wanted a full scale republican take over. when that was blocked they came up with an ingenious new plan. they decided they would replace one of the democratic commissioners who had been nominated by the local republican party with their own choice. their own choice for a democrat. a new guy that none of the local democrats have never heard of. but don t worry, the republicans who run cherokee county swear this guy they picked is definitely a democrat. the atlanta general constitution reported that the republican cherokee county commission chairman quote assured the board the new board member is a democrat even if the local democratic party is unfamiliar with him. i assure you, he s definitely on your team. i know you ve never met him, and i picked him but trust me. pinky promise. at the state elections board in texas, republicans there just started writing a new rule that would allow county elections board to conduct a reasonable inquiry before they certify any election results. so instead of signing off on election results as county election boards are now requiring to do by law they would be empowered instead to investigate those results as they see fit. the general constitution notes that quote the proposed rule doesn t say what a reasonable inquiry would entail before certifying an election. yeah why would you specify that. you want every election denying boards member in georgia just making it up as they go along calling their own behavior reasonable. while the presidential election potentially hangs in the balance. speaking of that state elections board, one of its republican members was ousted last month one of its republican members was ousted after trump reportedly spent months calling georgia republicans insisting that that election board member had to go. because that person was not backing trump s lies about the 2020 election. and so of course the guy had to go. trump s personal involvement in remaking the georgia state elections board, is just one of the revelations in new reporting from rolling stone. their new piece is headlined georgia is our laboratory. inside trump s plan to rig 2024. it details how trump s allies are working to make sure there will not be a straightforward election result in georgia this year. given georgia s status. what is happening there, what is happening to stop what is happening there. one of the reporters on that rolling stones piece joins us here next. stay with us. this soil will blow you away. it s the martha stewart of soil. when i was diagnosed with h-i-v, i didn t know who i would be. but here i am. being me. keep being you. and ask 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other, excuse me. order, order. by a larger margin than any other statewide office. the voters. order, order. have demonstrated their faith and therefor i do not believe that at present we have the authority to oversee or investigate the secretary of state. when georgia s board of elections the lone democrat on that elections vote spoke out against doing this unprecedented investigation of rathenburger. she was loudly shouted down? in a new article titled georgia is our laboratory. inside trump s plan to rig 2024, rolling stone says this, they have been shaping electoral processes to his benefit. maga die-hards are intimidating officials and ousting election officials who haven t been initiated into the cult of trump. georgia is the sole battleground state where the republican party has total control over power. have wielded that advantage in a crusade to convert, discredited election conspiracy theories into policies. well ahead of election day 2024. it s an alarmingly experiment that trump planned and much of the republican party hope to take national. joinening joining us now is donald rolsing. thank you for joining us. thank you for having me. so what are the steps trump has taken to take the electoral of georgia. one of the most disturbing one. who an attorney, a republican attorney they are planning to challenge the electoral results regardless of the result. we think of, the threat to elections from trump s behavior in to 2020 as only occurring in the event that trump loses. at the current state polling, trump is ahead in polling. if you believe the polling. but what they told us is that quote, you can t let the left get away with this cheating just because it didn t succeed you know air qualities around cheating. and the plan is to, challenge the results regardless of the outcome. the intent behind that is essentially a permanent delitimazation. heads you win, heads i lose. one of the things people should be paying close attention to is that refusal to certify in the fulton county board of elections in the presidential primary: because one of the things that s very, very notable about that is that the attorneys who filed that lawsuit work for america first policies institute. which is a very trumpy organization filled with former trump folks. and what you see in those type of processes is the legal january 6th in miniature. you re taking someone who is you know, acting beyond their brief and trying to essentially insert themselves into the counting and you know assessment of vote tallies. adam, is this actually a fight in georgia? you note, i think importantly that georgia is a place where republicans control all of the levers of power. we just played a the sound of the state elections board getting shouted down when she objected to what they were trying to do in terms of targeting rafensburger. is this fight joined where there s push back against what they re doing. or are they essentially running the table by changing processes to their own benefit. they definitely have quite a built in advantage. and i think that s why georgia, you know relative to other battleground states is particularly interesting because it is more so than perhaps any other state a fight for the sole republican party es especially when it comes to their sole. yeah in fact, kemp which was in the way of trump. kemp signed procedural jim crow of the 20th century. even folk who is have proven themselves to be obstacle to some of the most overt processes of it sometimes just go along to get along. it definitely does have an advantage and they are running the table in certain ways but you see folks like ed lyndsey who s resignation letter we obtained in the story. people like that you still do have these kind of principal republicans who are willing to stand up for what they believe in. as you see ed had resigned from a great deal of pressure from not just president trump but the grass roots of the party who believe in a lot of election conspiracy theories. the bare fact that a presidential candidate is personally lobbying to remove individual state election boards members ought to be on the front page of every paper in the country. it s been reported by at rolling stone. adam, you were saying by line, georgia is our laboratory. great to have you back. thank you for having me, rachel. all right, we ll be right barack. stay with us. all right, sir, we ll be right back, stay with us. ects, including ketoacidosisects, that may be fatal, dehydration, urinary tract, or genital yeast infections, and low blood sugar. a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking farxiga and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this infection, an allergic reaction, or ketoacidosis. far-xi-ga are your gutters clogged? cleaning them can be dangerous, mucky, yuck. get leaffilter. it s as easy as one, two, three. call or click today. get your free gutter inspection on your 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meeting could be particularly nervewracking for him because one of the things a probation officer asks you after you re convicted of felonies is if you ve been associating with anyone who has a criminal record. that s worth noting because if he is ultimately sentenced to probation next month, while he s on probation he will not be allowed to associate with anyone with a criminal record and for a lot of people that wouldn t be a big deal but for him that s a big deal. that particular restriction eats away at a lot of his social circle. so maybe that was all distracting him. i don t know. he maybe had a lot, i don t know. whatever the reason, he decided to venture into new territory in his campaign speech yesterday, with less than 5 months out he decided what the landlocked citizens of las vegas needed to hear about from him in order to be persuaded to vote for him was his fear of boats. heavy boats. boats with batteries near sharks. you know nevada sharks. i know you have heard that this happen happened. i know you may have scrolled past it. have you actually watched it like uncut, straight through, just watched it unfold. it is very much worth watching. it s astonishing. my favorite part is the people you can see at the rally behind him who are really trying to follow along but who clearly have no earthly idea what uncle ramblestander is on about. just watch this. what would happen if the boat sank from the sway and you re in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery is now under water and there s a shark that s approximately 10 yards over there. by the way a lot of shark attacks lately. did you notice that. a lot of sharks. i watched a guy justifying them. they really weren t that angry. they bit off the young lady s leg because they weren t hungry but they misunder who misunderstood who she was. there s nothing wrong with sharks. so there s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards, or here, do i get electrocuted if the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery. do i stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted or to i jump over by the shark. because he didn t phroep know the answer. he said, nobody has asked me that question. i said you know i think there s a lot of electric current going through that water. i ll take the electricution every single time. so we re going end that. we re going to end it for boats. vote accordingly. to show him he s #1. etsy has it. 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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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from 1 trillion to 3 trillion in under a year. but video doesn t actually manufacture anything. they outsource that. they design still this is now the second largest corporation on our the planet with all our futures in its manicured hands toward holding this is the most complex highest performance computer the world s ever made. that that s why you have to care now, in the next few years, the competition is going to heat up in this marketplace for making the chips that train ai. but some analysts say that right now nvidia has maybe up to a 95% share of that market is they ve got a huge head-start on their main competitors intel and amd. amd just launched a new chip in video says are going to launch new chip every year that 3 trillion valuation peaceful world column. just said maybe that s an undervaluation medical. all right. thank you very much. nick watt. thanks for joining us. the situation room starts now property now, israeli police have just released video the moment hostages were rescued during a daring and deadly raid inside gaza. i get reaction from the us ambassador to the united nations, linda thomas-greenfiel d, chief standing by to join us lucidly, just minutes from now. and there s breaking news. the hunter biden case is now in the hands of a delaware jury the historic trial against the president since son potentially nearing an end as the panel waste three felony gun charges plus donald trump is taking the first step toward his sentencing. i m 34 felony convictions. the former president, holding a virtual meeting with a probation official this afternoon, and that interview could be a key factor as judge juan merchan decides on potential punishments for trump welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer, a urine the the situation room let s get straight to our top story tonight. the daring bloody israel kelly raid inside gaza, that operation successfully rescuing four hostages. but exacting a heavy toll on palestinian residents nearby the us ambassador to the united nations, linda thomas-greenfield, is standing by live will have a lot to discuss, but first, let s get all the latest developments from cnn s paula i hancocks in tel aviv new video from the israeli military shows the rescue of israeli hostages from central gaza. it says hundreds of personnel were involved in this rare daytime operation three hostages locked in an apartment in one multi-story residential building. another held in a flat 650 feet away in a densely populated neighborhood. models of the buildings were built weeks before to train in forces this is how israel s hostage rescue mission looked from the ground airstrikes explosions residents running to find safety. that doesn t have to exist in gaza hostages were flown by helicopter back to israel israel remains with family who had dreamed of this moment for eight months. families you only heard about the mission once their loved ones were safe. i haven t stopped smiling since my mug was returned to me, but the remaining hostages needed deal to get home safely there is a deal on the table we ask the israeli government to move forward with the deal the doctor who has treated the hostages since they arrived tells me, despite appearing in good condition, all for a malnourished or masses are extremely wasted. is damage to some other systems because of that, he says, they were moved frequently and beaten by their captors it was harsh, harsh experience with a lot of abuse almost every day, every hour both physical, mental, and other types and that is something that is beyond comprehension. dr. pessach also treated some of the hostages released in november and says the psychological damage of these four is significantly worse. all of them had faith but losing that faith. i think is where you get to the breaking point. and i m happy that this guy because i hear but there are others losing the faith in us. and human kinds residents in nuiseirat central gaza are in a state of shock, struggling to deal with the aftermath of saturday, which neighboring countries and the eu s top diplomat have called a massacre i m going to miss out this woman says, most of those trapped under the rubble of women and children. holmes s a filled with displaced people. israel committed a massacre the united nations security council passed a resolution votes this monday on a us proposal for a complete ceasefire in gaza. and the release of all remaining hostages. their work 14 votes in favor, zero against, and just one abstention from russia will follow. hancocks reporting from sylvia. thank you very much, sir. when i was in israel last november, i had a chance to meet with the family of almog meir, jan, one of the hostages just released by the idf i ll mugs a mother. all right. told me about the last time she spoke with their son as the hamas attack was underway. if you re me up and said to me, mom, they are rockets all over. and shooting. i don t know what happened. what is going? hey, non am i doing i ll call you every half an our mom, i love you i m so happy. of course, but i ll mug is home now with his loved one, sadly almost father yossi die just hours before his son s return to israel, authorities found yossi meir unconscious. and they went to notify him of all mugs rescue. he was later declared dead. i want to send my deepest condolences to the mayor family as they grieve yossi is passing and welcome almog home joining me mydata discuss all of this and more of the new united nations and to discuss the du, united nations resolution on a gaza ceasefire and all the other top stories from the region, the us ambassador to the united nations, linda thomas greenfield, ambassador. thank you so much for taking a few moments to join us. as you know, this is the first-time the un security council has officially endorsed they ceasefire plan. why now, after eight months of war we have been working on this for eight months for eight months. we have pushed for efforts to achieve a ceasefire. this resolution brings us the closest to getting that done. then we re ever been. and we thought it was important that the council s speak in a unified voice on that. and the boat today s show that if 14th or nothing with one abstention, that would be russia, president biden says this ceasefire plan is israel s, but prime minister netanyahu hasn t publicly accepted it, neither has hamas president biden has said it s time for this war to end. what will this resolution ambassador do to get both sides? to accept this deal? that s currently on the table i think the resolution is actually the opportunity to pressure hamas to accept the deal. israel has accepted the deal. the president has said that and now all we need is to have hamas, this deal, release hostages that they are required to do in phase one and move forward on an extended ceasefire this is an important effort that was made with the support of the qatari government and the egyptian government working with us on the ground as you said, you say, the israeli government has accepted this deal. that s currently on the table. but does the israeli leader, prime minister netanyahu, need to accept it himself he s avoided that but i can t speak for prime minister netanyahu. i can only speak what the president has conveyed and he has conveyed competence in the israeli acceptance of this. still, what we need dallas hamas to accept the deal, they welcomed the resolution immediately after it was passed. they need to take the next step and accept the deal and start to release hostages. as you know, ambassador this weekend s israeli operation freed four israeli hostages, but came with a steep to, of at least 274 palestinians killed. that according to gaza officials. are you comfortable with that trade-off luck? i can t get into the numbers for me. a singles civilian, innocent civilian killed is way too many. but what we cannot ignore the fact that hamas hides behind civilians they were holding hostages in civilian areas. they are firing at idf from civilian areas. so it is hamas that should be held accountable for any actions that are taken that lead to civilian deaths. they don t care about their palestinian billions. as long as they continue to use civilians as, as cover. but does this level of carnage ambassador risk? isolating israel even more so out there on the world stage. and is the us risky? it s international credibility by letting israel operate in gaza virtually unchecked well, if our international reputation is very strong and we have worked very closely with our israeli allies. they are not operating unchecked. we re engaging with them on a regular basis. du we agree 100%, not always but we re working very, very closely with them. israel has a right to defend itself from a terrorist group whose main purpose in life is to ensure that israel does not exist and all jews are killed. so we have continued to support israel s right to defend itself against these terrorists. ambassador, have there been any conversations inside the biden administration to try to negotiate what s being described as a unilateral deal with hamas to free the remaining american hostages who are still being held but we re trying to get all hostages released every single one we care very much about the american hostages who are being held. but all hostages should be released for hostages released who were actually brought home on saturday is just one small group. all of them could be brought home if this deal gets accepted by hamas ambassador linda thomas-greenfield, thanks so much for joining us and just ahead, there s more breaking news. we re following donald trump just finishing his meeting with a probation official in new york. what we we know about what the former president it was likely asked and how his answers will factor into his sentencing next month. plus a live update from delaware. the jury now deliberating in the federal case 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by in vet help call 1807, 10000. do you have an invention idea, but don t know what to do next. collin van help today, they can help you get started with your idea called i ll now 800 100020 the following more breaking news, donald trump has just wrapped up in an interview with the new york probation official, a key step just ahead of his july 11 sentencing hearing our chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, john miller, is here to break it all down for us. john we know, first of all, about this interview. well, this interview was conducted virtually via zoom meeting between the new york city department of probation which is run by a commissioner and has probation investigators their job in this meeting, which was attended by donald trump on the screen and his lawyer, todd blanche, was to gather personal information in background, which is interesting because there isn t an awful lot that is not known about donald trump his life and so on. but to gather the kind of background that they could put in their report that psr pre-sentencing report to the judge? so he can consider their findings about whether donald trump would be a better candidate to be sentenced to jail or prison, or whether he would be a better candidate for probation given his his crime. so they go into things like his personal life has financial background, education, family s situation ration, things like that. but it was a relatively short meetings. cnn s kristen holmes tells us that this meeting lasted not much longer than than half an hour and covered the basic information was uneventful. yeah, very interesting. only half an hour. interesting indeed, john miller, thank you very much. want to get some analysis? it s from our legal experts who are here with me in the situation room. at least adamson is with us former federal prosecutor, at least walk us through what you expect. actually happened during this half-hour meeting yeah. i think it s important to note that this was a psi that was conducted after a jury verdict. so when a defendant pleads guilty, i think you can expect these introduced to take longer because at that point, most defendants, but they ve already accepted responsibility. they re going to show some remorse. they re going to explain why their actions are bad. they re going to use that time as advocacy to tell the judge probation through the judge threw probation, why they should be giving a more lenient sentence. i think it s not unexpected that today s interview was very short because the former president wants to maintain his fifth amendment right. he s going to appeal. he is going to maintain his innocence so i think today it was just simple questions. he was not going to go into the conviction. todd blanche was there with him, so he was just going to talk about his education, his his characteristics, how long he had lived in the state of new york, probably as residency in florida and just very basic background because really that s all he could safely share it s interesting, tim, because todd blanche s attorney was there with them coaching and presumably about this probation interview that was going on, how do you think trump is handling it? what do you think he s trying to do? well, i mean, he s obviously he s not happy about the conviction itself. and so i think that todd is trying to keep him on task of let s just talk about the issues here at hand and is released. just said when i have a case like this where it is a verdict after trial you would tell the probation officer, hey, don t ask him any questions. he s going to invoke his fifth amendment rights. so just stick to the history of biograph biographical information. so i think that the idea of donald trump being interviewed by a probation officer about where did you grow up tell us tell us your parents names and things like that i m sure that he finds it somewhat direct, degrading, but it is the same thing that every criminal defendant in that courthouse go, sir yeah. that s an important point as well. judge. grass. so what do you make of the fact that this interview lasted what, a half an hour? well, i agree with what the other panelists said. we wouldn t really have expected donald trump to go on at length about a sense of accountability and the things he s learned from this type of a situation. i think it was pretty perfunctory i mean, if he wanted, he could have tried without it without admitting anything or accepting liability for the offenses that he s still going to appeal on. he could have tried to maybe couch and in terms of while i don t think i did anything wrong, maybe we could have done things better along the way. some sense of humility or something like that, because the bottom line is this probation officer, is going to be making a recommendation to the judge on sentencing. the probation officer could very well recommend jail or prison time in this case so theoretically, a defendant might try and appear contrite. i doubt that happen here just from what we ve seen being in court every day and the general persona of this defendant. so putting all of that in context a half-hour is not surprising at all at least i didn t think today s interview that trump had with his probation official will impact judge varchar decision on july 11 to announce sentencing. yeah, i don t think it ll have that great of an impact these sentencing recommendations are meant to be persuasive. so i think judge merchan will take it into consideration. but once again, since this wasn t a very fulsome interview, the defendant wasn t sharing a lot of information that the judge will take into account. and then i also understand from new york legal expert tim, that the psr is in new york state are not as robust as they they are in the federal system, in the federal system, the probation officer does their own investigation. they colored their own understanding of the facts, and they use that as the basis of the recommendation. it s my understanding that that s not the same here. so given the relatively short duration of the interview and the fact that judge merchan presided over the entire jury trial and is very aware of the facts and the defendant and its behavior. i think while it might be helpful, i don t think it s going to impact his ultimate decision-making to trump s team is scheduled to submit its sentencing recommendation. is this coming thursday? what do you think they re going to ask where there are clear then asked for some type of a probation in this case. i mean i think that what they would be smart to do is to focus on not just this case, but the history of what donald trump has done in new york city, they should be talking more about what he did for woman skating rink, what he did for revitalizing the area around grand central terminal, all of the things that he did for the decades before politic some of the positive thing exactly, exactly. they should talk about all the positive things that he s done for new york city and say, in light of all these wonderful things that he s literally changed the skyline the line of the city versus these false business records. this is not something that even accepting the facts as the prosecution claims them is something that he should get jail for, especially for class e felony with a cooperating witness who admitted to a class c felony during the trial, where somebody is no criminal history. so i think that they have a very good argument for some type of probation the difficulty is going to be of course, the prosecution is going to point out everything that he s done as far as violating the gag order the statement city made about the judge just minutes after the verdict. it s it s a very unique case. will know on july 11, what the judge decides everyone. thank you very much. just add a live report with hunter biden s fate doubt in the hands of a jury following a dramatic day of closing arguments in the federal trial of the president s hey, mom, how many 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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. scan the code now and ask about the bosley guarantee. the assignment with audie cornish. listen wherever you get your podcasts ricky news, jury deliberations in the hunter biden trial are now underway. the 12 member panel, weighing three felony gun charges against the son of the us president. our chief legal affairs correspondent, paula reid, has the latest from wilmington, delaware hunter biden s fate is now in the hands of a jury after six days of trial, 12 citizens will decide whether the president s son is guilty of three federal gun charges. in a major show of support, hunter s family members and pastor taking up three rows in court today have known the parameters you don t abandon your friends and family in closing arguments, prosecutors pointed to the gallery of supporters and said, those people are not evidence and reminded the jury that no one is above the law. the prosecution directly address the most difficult element they have to prove that hunter biden knowingly lied on a federal background check form when purchasing the gun at the center of this case, the defendant knew he used crack and was addicted to crack at the relevant time period, adding that hunter would have been aware from his time in rehab that he had a problem with drugs maybe if he had never gone to rehab, he could argue he didn t know. he was an addict at the end of his closing, prosecutor, leo wise circled back to testimony from hunters daughter, naomi, on friday, when she told the jury that when she returned or father s car to him on october 19, 2018, she did not see any the evidence of drugs, but why is reminded the jury hunter s former girlfriend, hallie biden, his brother, beau biden s widow, had testified that when she found the gun in the same car days later, she found it alongside drug paraphernalia defense attorney abbe lowell countered, warning jurors not to convict his client in properly adding it s time to end this case. he compared the trial to a magician s trick, trying to dupe the jury, saying, watch this hand pay no attention to the other one. he accused prosecutors of cherry picking evidence to present a more timeline of hunter s drug use and said his client was not lying when he marked down that he was not an addict on that federal form. lowell attacks, two of hunter s former girlfriends who both served as prosecution witnesses in this case. he noted zoe kestan took pictures of hunter with drugs, but not in the key month of october 2018. he also reminded the jury that hallie biden could not remember specific details about when she found the gun in hunter s car? and noted hunter was the one who told hallie to file a police report for the missing gun after she threw it out hunter did not take the stand to testify in his own defense in this case. a move that would have come with potential rewards and definite risks the jury will return to court here in wilmington tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. to resume their deliberations. but it s notable the prosecutors pointed to the first lady and other supporters who are there for hunter and reminded the jury that they don t matter, that suggests that perhaps the justice department is a little worried about that let s show of force for hunter and what it means for their case. but i was in court earlier today and watch the jury. they followed by line by line is the judge went through the instructions but they ll have to follow for this historic decision. wolf paula reid reported for us, paula. thank you very much. let s discuss what s going on with cnn, legal analysts. carrie cordero, and our senior political analyst, gloria borger carry lab. you start with you based on the closing arguments. what do you think are the best strongest points of each sayyed that they made? well, from the defense perspective, the biggest thing that they have going for them is that the prosecution, if it s going to prove its case, is doing so by info in other words, there does not seem to have been at the trial specific evidence of a witness or documents like a video, for example, in actual physical piece of evidence demonstrating that hunter biden was using drugs at the specific time. what there is is there s sort of tangential evidence of circumstances that would lead the jury to infer that he was using at the time. and so that s that s really what the what the defense will point to the prosecution on the other side is going to say, well, look at all these different circumstance dances. those all add up to a conclusion that he was using and therefore, he knowingly falsified the form. well, it was interesting, gloria, in reference to the biden family. yeah. the prosecution said during their closing arguments, they said this, i m quoting people sitting in the gallery are not evidence. you may recognize them from the news, but respect thankfully, none of that matters. what do you make of the optics of the first lady, jill biden and other family members showing up almost on a daily basis. well, i think that the prosecution might be a little concerned that the jury would have a lot of sympathy for somebody with that kind of family support. don t forget a lot of members of the jury have gone through issues in their own lives with drug abuse and you have the first lady flying back from france to come sit at this trial. you have his children, you have his pastor you have friends, family. they took up three rows, i guess and that s something that jerry pays attention to. and so it helps in the portrait of hunter biden as not an evil, a drug addict. it portrays him as somebody deserving of your sympathy and your empathy. and i think that helps him think you re probably right. did you think it was the right move for hunter biden not to testify? he could have testified if he wanted to. his lawyers presumably said don t do it. but what do you think? i think that s right. i m certainly any defendant has the right not to testify. and i think in this case, probably it would have opened the cross-examination would have open him up to delving into so many other areas that are potentially would have been counterproductive. so i think most defendants don t testify on around behalf, and i think in this case, it probably makes sense that he followed the advice of his defense counsel not to, you know, in an odd way though, you did hear from hunter biden because you heard from his book in which he audio books, his audio book. he wrote about this. he wrote about his drug addiction and that was used during the trial against him. but it was used. and so you don t voice you did here, right? and you did here? voice. so he didn t testify. but you did hear him talk about his addiction. you know, it s interesting. the president has vowed to accept the verdict, but is ruled out a pardon for his son very definitively, if he s convicted, though, how s this going to play out politically? you know, it s, it s really hard to say. i m not sure that it plays out that much at all. what congress is worried about. its financial and propriety that may have been committed between joe biden and his son, and they ve presented no evidence for that. if you notice, they ve been a little quiet during this trial. and if a hunter biden is convicted, i think that there will be some sympathy for for joe biden and for the family and all of this. but i m not sure that it plays out in a large political way other than the fact that it will affect joe biden himself. i think sure. it will gloria borger. thank you. carrie cordero. thanks to you as well. coming up. attorneys, preparing sentencing recommendations for donald trump after his meeting with a probation official earlier today, we re taking a closer look. at the options the former president is now facing the assignments are going on and the tornado here. i m thinking, i m going to die. and i thought that was it violin earth with liev schreiber, sunday at now i know on cnn nine out of ten people don t get enough fiber. bennett fiber is the easy, gentle solution for every day. it s plant-based prebiotic fiber nourishes good bacteria in your gut, working with your body to promote digestive health with so many ways to enjoy benefit here is your fiber, your way look in the hotels.com to find your perfect somewhere. ocd is more than what you see on tv. and in the movies, it comes with unrelenting intrusive images, thoughts, and urges. if you have ocd and need help, you can get better. who specialized treatment go to know cd.com to learn more? for me. it was that trouble losing weight and keeping our same discover the power 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plans yet! switch to comcast business and get started for $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. call today! 090121. now chasing life with dr. sanjay gupta. listen wherever you get your podcasts or this just in to cnn, look at this. officials in arizona have just released rudy giuliani was mug shot. giuliani has pleaded not guilty to charges of allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election in that state. prosecutors accused giuliani and other trump allies of scheming to use fake electors to subvert the election there s more breaking news with donald trump taking a key step towards his july 11 sentencing today, judge juan merchan now is just over a month to determine how he ll punish the former president for his 34 felony convictions. cnn s bryan todd is taking a closer look at all of this for us, brian, what factors is judge merchan weighing as he decides sentencing? he s weighing several factors. wolf, including what trump might have just said at that pre-sentencing interview tonight, we have new information on the many possible forms of punishment the judge more sean could impose on donald trump i just went through a rigged trial in new york now that donald trump has completed his pre-sentencing interview with a probation official, a report on the interview will be sent directly to judge juan merchan, who has a few options for sentencing. trump, the most serious one, prison time, the crimes for which trump s been convicted, falsifying business records could carry sentences of up to four years, each, with a maximum of 20 years. but realistically, it s unlikely that someone convicted of this type of felony in new york with no prior criminal history would see much if any, prison time trump s advanced age experts say would also be a factor in not sending him to prison he turns 78 this week. another sentencing option, probation analysts say, well, that might be a more realistic choice. it would come with a host of inconveniences and indignities for the former president have it be drug tested, having to check in with a probation officer, there could be random visits by probation officers to your home, not with a search warrant, but they can come knock on the door. you need to let them in. home confinement also might be part of a probation sentence for trump, or maybe a restriction on out-of-state travel. if he were going to fly off to another state wisconsin, arizona, he would have to get explicit permission from the probation agency. trump could simply be fine for his convictions or he could do community service where he has to pick up trash on the subways. experts say a conditional discharge could be a sentencing option is a condition of your discharger, your release and you have to abide by those conditions. the court will say, don t get arrested, going, don t get in trouble for the next year or during the pendency of your saenz or for stated period of time. and that s it. you re not checking in? no one s following up with you. there s no probation is no oversight all options, experts say reflective of the striking uniqueness of this situation for the probation department, this is uncharted waters. they have never interviewed someone of this statute before. they know that their work their recommendation is going to weigh heavily in the judgment and decision by judge merchan legal analysts say acceptance of responsibility is often a key factor when a judge considers a sentence. and the fact that donald trump has shown no remorse for the actions he s been convicted of, and has repeatedly publicly attack the judge and witness in this trial could bring him a stiffer sentence. wolf, july 11 is a big day. we ll see what happens on that day, brian. thank you very much coming up back to politics with donald trump out there and the virtual campaign trail today, speaking today to an anti-abortion group but what it s what he didn t say that is making some news you 19th, cnn celebrates junzi with special performances by john legend hadi lewbel, smokey robinson. we still have a lot of work to do g10, celebrating freedom and legacy wednesday, june 19 at ten on cnn before abigail chewable for allergic edge, giving dogs pills was a battle of wits. oh, maria, i m wednesday or foolish game. he s had gone totally gone. it s relief just got easier. apa quell the trusted number one treatment for allergic, which is now available in a tasty chewable that works in a day, do not use in dogs with serious infections may cause worsening of existing parasitic skin infestations are pre-existing cancers and series infections, new neoplasia as have been observed, do not use in dogs less than 12 months old, ask your vet for apical chewable to it billy, the kid to try to take over the town what it needs is clean it up they ve appointed a new sheriff, pat garrett means something to you. sure does no use they re really with billy now it s your job to haunt them down the law doesn t take 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listen to the former president address a group of christian political activists today we ve done things that nobody thought were possible to have gotten done. you just can t vote democrat. they re against religion there, against your religion in particular, you cannot vote for democrats or let s get some more analysis now from republican strategist. sure. michael singleton and democratic strategists, maria cardona, she s a cnn political commentator what do you think should michael he was speaking to a group that calls for abortion in their words to be eradicated entirely. direct quote eradicated entirely without ever saying the word abortion. yeah, i m familiar with the group. i understand why the former president s spoke before the group. this is obviously a very dicey and touchy topic for republic blinken s. on mature, maria will talk about, we have two years worth of electoral data that showcases, we just don t do well on the issue of reproductive rights with that said, in that clip, you showed a lot of evangelicals. we ll do believe the cultural behavior and customs of behavior in the country are changing particularly as it pertains to their religiosity and the religious views. and they sort of do want someone to be a protector or defender of those views, even if that person is the imperfect individual to do so, how do you think this is going to play with moderate voters out there? certainly that s a group that trump is trying to win over moderate voters, suburban women, for example, how s it going to play? not well at all. will fan this is where i think trump is trying to have it both ways. and while it s no question that christian groups, christian conservative groups, who are completely against abortion are going to support him because he is responsible for overturning roe v. wade and he brags about it every chance he gets, especially in front of these conservative groups. but then suburban women, moderate voters, and frankly, the vast majority of americans who believed that women should have the right to do what they feel is best for their own bodies and their families they don t support this. they think that roe v. wade should not have been overturned they believe that women should have this right. and they are going to continue to punish republicans and donald trump at the ballot box if they continue to push this massive goal of taking away women s rights and freedoms. and that s how the biden campaign s smartly is messaging this whole issue let s just get your thoughts, your mic alone. i have you vice president harris called out congress, republican congressman byron donalds for his controversial comments on jim crow. during an interview with politico. that s first watch what he said. listen to this during jim crow. go back family wants to get during black not just conservative, by who always a pink conservative library more black people voted conservatively vice president harris responded to that by saying this and i m quoting her now. it s sadly at another example of somebody out of florida trying to erase or rewrite our true history i went to florida last july to call out what they were trying to do to replace our history with lies. and apparently there s a never-ending flow of that coming out of that state. what are your thoughts on what he would this congressman were saying? congressman jim crow. the jim crow era. yeah, i ve watched several interviews wolf with the congress and i m going to take him at his word that his intent was not to romanticize the jim crow era. this is a black man i m really going to presume that he s very aware of our history. and in this country, i hope that isn t but, but i do think the point that there are some areas within our community that we as a collective group have to focus more on. i wouldn t disagree with with that should we do some things? a strengthened a family? absolutely. can you do that through the policy realm? i think so, but i do think as you talk about the past, you do have to be careful not to have the appearance that you re romanticized and something that was very horrible for the black community. i have grandparents that are still alive who went through segregation. my grandmother was the first to enter into her high school in new orleans and first-time desegregating the school. and so i think there are people that are still among us who have those very real and raw my experiences. and i would hope that republicans, whether they re black, white, or anyone else for that matter, would be sensitive to the experience of those individuals who are still among us that s interesting on another subject, trump is launching what he s calling a latino americans for trump campaign to reach out to hispanic voters. what do you think? noise when a wolf whole issue of wanting to launch a program called latino americans for trump a couple of days after he brings onstage in arizona sheriff joe are pio, who has the most racist, the most xenophobic v, most anti-immigrant current sheriff, i think ever at least in modern history. and for donald trump to bring him on stage and hug him, and kiss him is he hiring him to be the head of latino americans? for tropics? that s what it looks like. and it is just indicative of how empty and how wrong-headed and misguided donald trump s focuses when he talked it s about latinos in this country and that i think just gives the biden campaign more ammunition to make the contrast between a 34 times convicted felon who is the most racist and the most xenophobic president we ve had ever versus president biden, who has had record job creation in the latino community. record business growth in the latino community, and they have a record with which they can make that contrast and that at the end of the day is going to win joe biden, the latino vote oh, sorry, maria. sure. michael, to both. out of time. thank you very much coming up details on why a meeting at an italian restaurant in new jersey, is taking center stage today. and the federal bribery case against democratic senator bob menendez the most anticipated moment of this election. and the stakes couldn t be higher the president and the former president, one stage two, very different visions for america s future that cnn presidential debate thursday, june 27, nine live i, cnn and streaming on max ocd is more than what you see on tv. and in the movies, it comes with unrelenting intrusive images thoughts, and urges. if you have ocd and need help, you can get better, with specialized treatment. go to know cd.com to learn more life, is better. with the credit god s on your side. rewards once available to if you, are now accessible to the many credit one bank get cashback rewards and lins large have heart failure with unresolved symptoms get maybe time to see the bigger picture heart failure and seemingly unrelated symptoms like carpal tunnel syndrome shortness of breath andrew irregular heartbeat could be something 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walmart and target for gentle dependable constipation really tries seneca. it works differently than others laxatives, because it s made from the center flat and natural vegetable active ingredient, gentle, dependable seneca also available in delicious gummy he s like minute 30 minutes okay one, remember, i don t want surgery for my duper trends contraction to i don t want to wait for my contract i m sure to get worse. three, i want to treatment with minimal downtime for i want to non-surgical treatment. good boy. and five and if not surgical treatment is an opera i ll get a second opinion let s go take charge of your treatment. if you can t lay your hand flat, visit, find a hand specialist.com to get started. i m jessica schneider at the federal courthouse in washington and this is cnn we re following the federal bribery trial of democratic senator bob menendez on the stance at a key witness for the prosecution, detailing the alleged scheme to trade favors for influence soon as jason carroll is joining us from outside the courthouse right now, jason update our viewers. in another dramatic day of testimony yeah. more testimony coming from jose uribe. this is the man who s already pleaded guilty to bribery charges. now cooperating with the prosecution and today we ll he gave more details about specific conversations he has. he says he had with senator menendez directly related to bribery. he spoke about one in particular, a dinner in 2019 at il bellagio restaurant in new jersey. he says, i get to ask again for the first time and explain what is worrying me so much. i asked him if anything in his power to stop an investigation. i ll explain about that in a moment. menendez is answer he would look into it. of course, you rebate was worried about these criminal investigations going on in new jersey wolf that could have implicated people that he was close to. so he told jurors what he did was he paid nadine menendez $15,000 so she could buy a brand new mercedes in exchange for the the senators influence. he then talks about another meeting at nadine menendez, his home, where he says he wrote down the names of people who were possibly implicated in this designation, put it on a piece of paper. he said senator menendez folded up the piece of paper, put it in his pocket, then in october of 2019, he says he got a call from senator menendez. he told jurors that he felt as though this situation had been resolved and he choked up. juror he choked up wolf as he was speaking about what had happened saying that this situation had been over, and he felt he was at peace then there was this
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(impressed) ay i like it! who wants to come see the future?! get your business online in minutes with godaddy airo hi, i m gina. i ve tried so many things to lose weight. none of it worked. i would quit after a few days or a week at the most. golo is not like any of those. with golo and release i not only met my goal i ve surpassed it. and i m keeping it off. ainsley: it s 8 a.m. on the east coast, tuesday, june 11, this is fox and friends . we are expecting to see hunter biden shortly, day two of jury deliberations in the federal gun trial get underway in one hour. brian: how many family members will be there. this as dad issis faing heat from a pollster. steve: and siri getting smarter, as apple rolls out a massive ai update. can we escape ai in every part of our lives? doesn t look like it. lawrence: mornings are better with friends. brian: get dressed. we are waiting hunter biden s arrival in delaware at federal court. steve: 9:00 eastern time, deliberations will begin. lawrence: rich edson is live outside the courthouse in wilmington, delaware. steve: with a heckler. i m surprised there hasn t been more of that. this was this morning. jurors are supposed to be here and will start deliberating in less than an hour. the judge will address them briefly. they are doing so without hearing hunter biden do so. the jury deliberates after an afternoon of closing arguments. there is overwhelming evidence against hunter biden, lying on a form, owning and possessing that weapon for 11 days, all in october of 2018. they led off their presentation referring to the biden family members, including first lady. people are not evidence and nobody is above the law. and his ex-girlfriend and ex-wife s testimony was discussed. he claimed he was meeting a drug dealer and smoking crack. the gun owner who was questioned about him being a drug owner. relying on evidence of past drug abuse when he bought a gun. lowell says there is no evidence or testimony or witnesses observing hunter using drugs then. week after hunter bought the gun, there was a text about him meeting a drug dealer. maybe he wasn t smoking crack. all in the hands of the jury. steve: during closing arguments yesterday abbe lowell was trying to inject reasonable doubt, he said hunter biden did not knowing ly lie, he was in a deep state of denial. that is their case there. that is the whole case there. there were times between 2015 and 2019, he was in and out of rehab, on drugs, at time he signed that form, he was under the belief he was not a user of drugs. the prosecution is saying that other stuff, they are contending he was on drugs and lied on the form. lawrence: so do other drug addicts that refuse to go to aa, but it is not a defense. interesting to see what the jury decides today. they continue deliberation. hunter biden has not arrived at the courthouse. brian: first lady will go on tuesday from washington to wilmington, wilmington to france, france to wilmington and france to philadelphia. she of course is back in wilmington, to show support for her step-son, i get it. but why are we paying for it? ainsley: it cost $345,000 for her to go back and forth and dnc is saying they will cover the cost. we asked peter about it, they will cover the cost of a couple tickets. steve: probably one first class ticket. if intent was to influence the jury, they will not be needed today. the president is leaving tonight or tomorrow for the g-7. they will be close so they can go back to court if the word comes down. lawrence: when they pay for the flight back and forth, is that a legal expense or campaign contribution? steve: probably campaign. lawrence: is it part of the election, how do you label these things? brian: juneteenth coming up thursday? ainsley: next wednesday next. brian: yesterday at the white house was time to celebrate, great roster of fantastic acts evidently, people looking at this shot and saying is the president freezing? is he frozen? is he okay in this or just refusing to sway with the music? steve: remember when you were a kid and played that game where you come up and say freeze and everybody else around you would move and you have to freeze. looks like he is playing that game right there. he moved a little bit. lawrence: or guy with lack of rhythm. it wouldn t be a problem if he did not lie and say he was part of the black church and he marched in the civil rights movement. that is all we do as a culture. someone hanging with the culture, you even have kamala, she does not have to lie or cackle. ainsley: if you don t have rhythm, you can clap. everyone can clap. brian: he was also brought up in a puerto rican church. he should sway, not sit still. that is all we got, no one in catholic church has any idea if we have rhythm or not. lawrence: he s a catholic part of all this culture. raised and marched. brian: it is a great way to go. steve: when he was not dancing, standing there, freeze, he was at the lect your honor and reminding those at the early celebration of juneteenth, i m doing a really good job for all of you and the other party did not mention political opponents by name, they want to take you back. watch this. president biden: let s be clear, they re all ghosts in new g garments trying to take you back, make it harder for black people to vote or have your vote counted, closing doors of opportunity, attacking, diversity, equity and collusion. about our present and future. brian: run on dei. that is popular in america. number two, what part is he talking about going back, taking us back? southern democrats separated and they were for jim crow and they are the ones that called themselves the kkk, not sure if he will be happy with where his party was. lawrence: whole celebration of juneteenth was donald trump s idea, he proposed the idea and joe biden lift said it and made it a national holiday. it is a fear tactic and they have been doing this nonsense ever since the bronx rally. look at numbers now, black people are leaving the demo democratic party, leaving the party and has nothing to do with race. it is one thing, the economy. it is one thing, the border and fact you decided to take schools away in black neighborhoods, shut down senior facilities and put illegals there. instead of focusing on issues, they plan to use a fear campaign not to talk to white voters, but to tell black folks, stay in your lane right where you are. better not shift your vote, if you do, donald trump is worst thing for you. don t forget tax credits, it is racial politics and to fear people and to brian: talk about georgia. lawrence: which was a lie. brian: senator warnock won again. he should apologize for his comment jim crow 2.0. lawrence: and all that revenue for the all-star game, the all-star game pulled out. business owners said, what are you doing? you are hurting campaigns, it benefited the party. ainsley: one-fourth of the black community is now voting for donald trump. almost 80% voted for biden and now 72% say they will vote for biden. the pollster nate silver is suggesting because of biden s low numbers and ashes proval rating 37.4% is cause for joe biden to jump out of the race. steve: in february, nate silver was saying democrats should think about substituting for the quarterback. yesterday he came back and post said on x, former ly twitter, h said democrats would have been better served if biden would have decided not to seek a second term and give voters a say across the democrats across the country. essentially bring in a new horse. he continued and joe biden hit all-time low in approval, dropping out would be a big risk. there is threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk. are we there yet? i don t know. it is more than fair to ask. you have one guy who is smartest big data guy in the world saying it could be too late for him. lawrence: if you are the president, you can t feel good about this. the convention is two months away, i think. people are still suggesting maybe he shouldn t be on the ticket, almost convention time. brian: where do you go? it is kamala harris. governor whitmore will say, kamala, step back, governor shapiro? no. if you put her top of the ticket, numbers look worse, unless sonia sotomayors, i m going to retire and they say kamala, would you go to the supreme court. ainsley: don t even say that. you said all staffers don t want to lose their jobs and telling him to stay and run. steve: in a safe space. nobody saying, the numbers stink. he knows numbers are bad, he thinks and we ve been talking about this a long time, we heard last march what the plan was. joe biden may not be great, he is not donald trump. ainsley: beat him before. look at virginia. brian: one big advantage is money and that gap is closing rapidly, president got 12 million ainsley: president trump. brian: in silicon valley and story in politico talks how wall street is lining up behind him. and point bridge capital is in. blackrock labeled insurrection following trump, an asffront to democratic values is in, castleman and eric levine, gop fundraiser treasury official is in, shawn mcguire is in. he is getting wall street andic taking a piece of silicon valley. a lot of guys are citing court cases, civil and legal case because they are business people and you don t want to weaponize government to go after people s success. steve: what he did last night trying to court the black community and hemorrhaging young voters. you mentioned virginia, bellwether state for virginia, in latest poll, it s a tie, battleground state. brian: three straight polls. steve: 48%. governor youngkin said last night with sean hannity, anything can happen. sean: that is what polls are showing like georgia and pennsylvania and wisconsin, michigan, nevada and arizona, those battleground states are seeing same kind of statement that virginia is making. they want a strong america. an america that has economic strength, not biden generated economy that unleashed inflation. lawrence: as we get closer, the partisan divide was deeply emotional. the closer we get to election, only emotion that matters and their paycheck every two weeks, they are looking and don t have enough. they are going to the grand jury store. brian: i think security, too. i look at the border and foreign policy, 38% approval rating on foreign policy. lawrence: i agree, it was border at one point, closer to election, economy is number one issue. steve: to your point in our big packet of stuff, there was survey done by intuit credit karma and 27% of americans admit they occasionally skip meals because they cannot afford it, 30% sacrifice other things to buy crashes, other things are paying bills or rent because of cost of food. brian: hot water in a bag, if you are skipping a meal. i think this is country style chicken pot pie, come by my office today, skipping a meal in a bag. tells me where to cut it open, too. boil water, dinner is coming your way. ainsley: it is eza. we have machines right outside your office, put a cup of hot water. brian: and have friends and family over. ainsley: meal in a bag. brian: i m boiling the water, call your relatives. lawrence: i will toss to carley. carley: i always wanted to eat chicken pot pie in a bag. brian: you are invited, bring your own bag. carley: chaotic scene, p protest rocking new york city, watch this. [indiscernible chanting] carley: they are upon chants long live intifada. protesters set off flairs and chanted anti-israel slogans and demonstrators were carrying a banner that said long live october 7. praising the mas killings which left 1200 israelis dead. 120 hostages are still in the hands of hamas. hundred for two migrants who beat and mugged outside a four-star hotel. how to combat that significant uptick in crime. there was a shooting where a migrant shot two police officers trying to keep us safe, who were tailing him because he was a suspect in several robberies. now they shoot at our police officers. carley: the migrants are believed to be staying at nearby hotel shelters. terribles in california rescuing a kite surfer after a pilot spotted the word help in the sand. first responder was lowered down and the surfer was hoisted to safety. the surfer did not need medical attention. uconn head coach dan hurley is staying in connecticut after turning down $70 million from the lakers. he will look to lead huskies to a national championship, saying, i am humbled by this experience, i am proud of the championship culture we have built at connecticut. speaking of basketball, wnba star caitlin clark fouled hard as fever faced the suns last night. the connecticut player bumped clark. clark and chicago sky star angela reese have been in the spotlight. sales are up over last season. actress courtney cox recreating her iconic appearance in bruce springsteen s music video. it is part of trend where people ask their moms how they danced in the 80s. she wore a shirt similar to what she wore. she said it was one of the most importance of her career. brian: i thought it was spontaneous. ainsley: she looks amazing, she has not aged. carley: she is gorgeous and i hope my son does not ask how i dance. lawrence: how did you dance, brian? steve: dancing ymca. brian: no, no. cal mcginnis carley: he stays on one letter. lawrence: like biden. brian: i don t freeze, tomorrow i will be in dallas, klif is carrying the radio show. i will talk to people of texas, find out what dallas thinks what is happening in america and the border and food in a bag. steve: snyder plaza is just across from smu. brian: right where the bush museum is. lawrence: tell my people i said hello, texas, dallas. ainsley: go to the diner so he is not out by himself. steve: i will send sally. brian: i need help dressing casual, untucked shirt. lawrence: show your muscles. ainsley: gingham. lawrence: wear cowboy boots. brian: if we don t tease soon steve: real photos of children are being used to power ai. ainsley: who official and leading ai expert jamie metsel says this is tip of the i m going berg. brian: and he has a brand new book. only purple s gel flex grid passes the raw egg test. no other mattress cradles your body and simultaneously supports your spine. memory foam doesn t come close. get your best sleep guaranteed right now! save up to $400. visit purple.com or a store near you. (vo) in three seconds, this couple will share a perfect moment. (woman) is that? oh wow! but we got to sell our houses! (vo) well, almost perfect. don t worry. just sell directly to opendoor. (woman) yes! (vo) close in a matter of days. when life s doors open, we ll handle the house. i m trevor and i lost 132 pounds on golo. at 26 years old my doctor wanted to put me on medication and i wasn t having that. i tried other diets and they just didn t work didn t last. release worked fast. after a week i had more energy, mental clarity, and my cravings were gone. i ve lost 132 pounds and i will never, ever, gain that weight back. thanks to golo. a slow network is no network for business. that s why more choose comcast business. and now, we re introducing ultimate speed for business our fastest plans yet. we re up to 12 times faster than verizon, at&t, and t-mobile. and existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds. at no additional cost. it s ultimate speed for ultimate business. don t miss out on our fastest speed plans yet! switch to comcast business and get started for $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. call today! steve: check this out, apple officially jumping into the ai race announcing plans to bring ai technology to ios users around the world. some tech agiants are calling ot apple. apep announced a partnership with chat gpt. ceo tim cook says updates will be indispinsible and help users to create custom recipes, stories and more. tech jaet has apple intelligence. it has been called a security risk. visitors will have to check apple devices at the door to be stored in a cage. apples new john ffeatures come later this year. brian: disturbing new report claiming real pictures of young children are being used to create powerful ai learning tools without knowledge of their parents or the kids. human rights watches bad actors are creating malicious deep fakes. this comes after top imf official wash warns ai could have disastrous effect. jamie metsel has a new book that is supposed to help us, super con convergence, it is out there, genetics, biotech and ai revolution will trans form our lives, work and world. this is what you worry about, ethics involved with ai not on display with kids. ai and technology could be best thing happening to humanity, and it could be worst thing that happens. could put our children at risk. now is time we need to navigate toward better outcomes. it is using your picture in way not giving permission. we asked lion to tell us what they are up to, they tdz we have worked together wto move links o the children s public images on the internet. it does not contain images with url that point to public int internet only. you feel better? no, we have large ai systems, they are collecting digital information and more information and data they grab, smarter they bottom. they will try to swallow up the internet, we need governance and regulations in place. brian: you made a readable book about something we all need to know. you said we can start curing cancer and you used ai to save your dad s life. it is really something so meaningful to me, while writing the healthcare chapter, my dad was diagnosed with the steve jobs cancer and i encouraged our oncologist, sequence his tumor cells. chem o did not work, we found a mutation by sequencing the cancer cells. he has seen two super bowls and ashes tended his granddaughter s graduation and celebrating the book launch. brian: i can understand the book, we all need confidence in this. we ll talk more about it. primary day in nevada and polls are opening soon, candidate sam brown picking up major endorsement, he is straight ah ahead. there are many ways to deliver a shipment. at old dominion freight line, we deliver them this way. this way uses technology and goes the extra mile to do things the right way. the delivering promises on time, every time, way. ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she s sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn t know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? 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[panting] janice: good morning, it is a beautiful day here in new york. we have temperatures going into the 70s. across the west, we have extreme heat. phoenix 110, in houston, heat will feel oppressive. above average temperatures thursday, friday and saturday for two-thirds of the country. in florida, tropical moisture, could see 6-12 inches around tampa and fort myers. fox weather.com, for the details. inside to you. ainsley: polless opening soon for highly anticipated senate primary in nevada. lawrence: donald trump endorsing army captain sam brown. sam, thank you for joining the program. lawrence: thank you for your service. how does it feel to have the former president endorse you, do you think it will give you last boost you need? it is humbling to have president trump s endorsement. i started in 2016 as trump voter and a business owner of a small business. i volunteer at the mindon trump rally. polls open in 90 minutes. president trump at top of the ticket and i ll be there with him taking on joe biden and jackie rosen and their failed policy. path to senate majority run through nevada. ainsley: captain, sienna polls have you neck and neck with jackie rosen. senate balance of power, 49-51. why is this seat important to you? this seat is not just important to me, but to the entire country. we have seen contrast between joe biden and left leaning congress lead by chuck schumer compared to how things were under president trump s wellership. nevadans are hurting. the american dream is at risk and people are looking for hope. i know power and importance of hope when all seems lost. my own soldiers came to my rescue saying, sir, i have you. that is what president trump is doing for americans and gaining in the polls and i seek to do in nevada, give them something to hope for. country and struggles we have now do not have to persist. we can get back on track, become strong and have an economy that works for all. lawrence: captain, many would argue you have given the country enough, almost dying in combats, decided to serve again. ainsley: god bless you, thank you for your service. jury deliberations will resume in hunter biden gun trial in 20 minutes, will we get a verdict today? my dad believed in hard work, and the farm was the perfect place to learn grit, determination and problem solving. we re taking that passion and channeling it through our farm to home bedding bath, and apparel at red land cotton. we grow cotton in the rich red earth of north alabama. and we want our products to be made here in the usa, from the seed in the ground to the final stitch. go to red land cotton dot com and receive 20% off your order with code fox 20 do you ever have a run-down feeling, lack of energy or just not up to par? 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we 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. steve: 14 minutes from now, hunter biden s trial will resume. former federal prosecutor joins us with what to expect. the yesterday they went in 3:33 in the afternoon and deliberated one hour. what do you think? this case is open and shut in terms of facts and laws. prosecution has presented strong evidence of his drug use. it is up to the jury here. steve: and we re talking about a jury in bidenville, joe biden has been there forever. you know that leo, the david weiss wes / weiss took into effect the biden family was in the front row saying this is not evidence. we will see. people talk about idea of jury nullification, that means facts and law 100% lined up. it is not supported by what was supported in court and this case has that written all over it. even if they have hung jury or acquittal, which would be outrageous. all from hunter s text messages and laptop, of course. steve: you think he will be convicted? i think he should be convicted based on legal analysis. not sure how political this jury is. you can t read into anybody or a jury until after the fact, of course. steve: we ve all been watching and this case has been salacious, the family dragged back and forth through the trial. he could have done something about this a long time ago. that is a very interest ing part to me. hunter could have pled guilty, you don t need a plea deal to plead guilty, by taking it to trial, we have all the behind the scenes from his o this ws all going down, that is interesting, as well. steve: if convicted, i know the president said he will not pardon him. he s going to pardon him. after the election is over, he will get a pardon, joe biden does not have anything to lose there. they said this is a political prosecution. do you expect a verdict today? i anticipate a verdict today, streamlined case. steve: thank you very much. meanwhile, 10 before top of the hour, kicking off summer of soccer on fox. fox soccer analyst stu holden and alexi lawless will preview it. check in with bill hemmer. bill: taking a few headers outside, see how that works out. we are on verdict watch. about 10 minutes away. dramatic body cam video. hits keep coming over joe biden s age and cans day from the left. one week later, is the border any better? 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which one can we see first? the euro, our first time at fox sports covering this event. it feels like a mini world cup. you have england, germany, spain, italy, all the big players and tournaments. the teams in this big tournament and that s what we re excited. you think about renaldo, his last international tournament. and france and then messi. fox sports we talked about the big teams and stars on display every summer. an opportunity even for the united states this summer in the copa america to show what they ve got. brian: who comes in favored and who do you pick to emerge? euros, france, england. from an england perspective is it coming home being able to win a trophy? they re very good. incredible talent and confidence. france, also the last stand when it comes to renaldo and portugal. the big teams and stars and then a couple days later we roll right into copa america. u.s. hosting this tournament that in normal times is for south america but u.s. is hosting it and everybody is coming and argentina and brazil. messi in his new neighborhood here in the united states, or vinny junior when it comes to brazil. brian: u.s. against boll ive yeah. they re getting respect internationally, right? you make a great point here. we talk about this generation of players and they ve been dubbed as the golden generation. this is a team you should be excited about this summer. really this summer we ll find out if this team actually has what it takes to play against big teams and it is kind of a dress rehearsal for two years from now, the world cup in the united states and expectations are sky high. uruguay is one of the top teams now and then brazil or columbia. chances for these guys to prove what they have what it takes. otherwise the coach could lose his job and maybe i m excited and hope they make us excited getting it done on the field. what have you done for me lately. you should expect this team to do big, bold things. i think as you said for coach and the team to a certain extent. brian: i didn t know where he was going with that. now it makes sense. it works. i think it works. new material. open source, it is all yours. brian: let s talk about this on radio, too. congratulations, a fun summer. the world cup right after. thanks, guys. watch the euro cup and cabo america. steve: meanwhile. brian: i m in dallas tomorrow. breakfast with friends and live there. we ll talk to a lot of people on camera and buy a lot of food. steve: things kick off at 5:00 a.m. central time until 8:00 a.m. lawrence: pack the house for kilmeade, my dallas folks. ainsley: do you want them to get dressed? i will be dressed. stay within yourself. 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