the river levels have come down, but flood watches are up through much toch region. >> a little silver lining, when you've got through your streaming libraries, you can come here where we have fresh broadcasts every single day, never a rerun. choice us at the news. that's going to do it for me. deadline white house starts right now. >> hi there everyone. 4:00 in the east. a special show today, a special focus on one aspect of the trump coup plot that came together rather quietly and under the radar at the time. through dry legal memos and endless emails exchanged between lawyers, closed-door meetings involving dozens of lawyers, activists and campaign officials, but which right now at this hour just might be the single biggest legal exposure for the disgraced ex-president

and members of his inner-most circle. we're talking about the slates of fake electors set up in battleground states. they set up as the spark for the rest of the plan as conceived by john eastman. from the very beginning from when the plan was first conceived days after the november election, attorneys for the trump campaign were well aware of the fact that their plan for slates of fake electors was -- how should we put it -- fake. "the new york times" reported on emails from trump lawyers that say this, quote, we would just be sending in fake electoral votes to pence so someone in congress can make an objection when they start counting votes and start arguing that the they need to be counted. he wrote that on december 8, 2020 in an email to boris epshteyn, an advisor for the

trump campaign. in a followup email, the same guy, mr. will len chick wrote that alternative votes is probably a better term, a better word than fake votes. he added a smiley face emoji. the plan quickly gathered steam as the trump campaign lost case after case after case up to 16 defeats in court. rurg attempting to get legislators to intervene failed. cassidy hutchinson told the january 6th select committee that the fake electors came up in dozens of calls and meetings leading up to december 14, 2020. that is the day that joe biden officially won the electoral college and the day that slates of trump electors went ahead and met anyway in seven states. this is a side-by-side on the screen of the real electoral vote september by the state of arizona alongside the fake one

sent by the trump electors where they claim to be the duly qualified electors. the january 6th select committee uncovered a mountain of evidence that showed red flags were raised over and over and over again regarding the fake states of electors. quote, trz knew or should have known that this scheme was illegal. in fact, it violated the electoral count act and the u.s. constitution. president trump repeatedly demanded that vice president pence go through with it anyway. that pressure campaign went all the way to significant. here is trump on the ellipse just moments before his supporters stormed the u.s. capitol, many of them chanting "hang mike pence." >> if mike pence does the right thing, we win the election. you have to show strength and you have to be strong. we have come to demand that congress do the right thing and

only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. >> all of this is now a major focus of the department of justice's investigation into january 6th. special counsel jack smith has interviewed election workers and officials and anyone who may have been involved in certifying the 2020 election. last night michigan secretary of state jocelyn benson revealed back in march she, too, sat for an interview with prosecutors from the special counsel's office. that is where we start today with michigan secretary of state jocelyn benson. thank you so much for coming back. i know we had you here yesterday a couple hours before the news broke. it's great to have you back today. this is something that we have been talking about since election day, donald trump's effort to overturn his defeat in michigan. i wonder if you're comfortable sharing with us what parts of what you and other election officials, frankly, both parties

have been sounding the alarm over for years now. what part of that was jack smith's office interested in? >> first, thank you, nicolle, for having me back so soon and for your consistent focus on what really i still believe and say repeatedly is something we can't turn our eyes away from, this real concerted serious effort that was afoot in 2020 that we still haven't seen consequences or accountability for to overturn the will of the people. i'm grateful the justice department is meeting with not just me, but election officials across the country, with state and local election officials from an ter rim county which we know is the center of a number of conspiracy theories, advisers to the detroit city clerk as well as others in our statewide bureau of elections and lawmakers. so without compromising the substance of the investigation, i think the january 6th committee hearing and the

subsequent report, as you were just pointing out, really did present a mountain of evidence. i have a lot of confidence that the justice department is taking that evidence seriously and also conducting their own research and investigation into the depth to which people were willing to break the law in order to overturn the presidential election, and the threats, frankly, that came from that. >> i want to come back to the threats. this is from your testimony to the select committee about the threats you and your family faced. >> stop the steal! stop the steal! >> you're the threat to democracy. up ear the threat to free and honest elections. >> we love america. >> we love our freedom. >> -- you're a felon and you

must turn yourself in to authorities immediately. >> and then about 45 minutes later we started to hear the noises outside my home. my stomach sunk, and i thought it's me. and then we don't know what's -- the uncertainty of that was what was the fear. are they coming with guns? are they going to attack my house? i'm in here with my kid. i'm trying to put him to bed. so it was -- that was the scariest moment, just not knowing what was going to happen. >> you know, i've come to know you through these conversations. i've covered the threats against you since before i knew you, and it is irreconcilable to me that the real victims of the lie -- thank god they didn't come into your house, but you had this really real moment at moment with your child where you had to contemplate what you would do,

and for the officers who faced physical combat with the trump supporters and for you and your family who feared a physical confrontation, to your earlier point, there hasn't been a consequence. do you resist hoping this is it, or do you really believe that jack smith is pursuing this to its natural end? >> i think both. i also think there will ultimately and must be legal accountability for not just the effort to overturn the presidential election, but the very real threats and the violence that occurred not just outside my home but escalated into the tragedy of the u.s. capitol on january 6th. we need to see consequences for that. i believe that we will. i do. but i think that won't necessarily be the end of it because it has become a political grift to spread these

lies even if and perhaps because of the violence and the chaos and confusion that follows. i always believed that what will get us out of this moment is voters -- not just the legal system rejecting this strategy, but voters have to reject it as well. they have by and large, but we see one of two major political parties in america inundated and invested with individuals who are not just believing the lies but running on them as well, including at the top of the national ticket. until voters resoundingly reject that once and for all, we'll have to keep living in fear, that moments like you just saw outside my home will happen again. >> i respect your respect for an ongoing investigation and whatever role you may have in it. i want to put out for the viewers some of the public-facing evidenced developed by the committee. this is angela mccallum's call

to a michigan state rep on december 1st. this is what the effort to overturn trump's loss in michigan sounded like in voicemails from a campaign official to a republican rep. >> my name is angela mccallum. i'm calling from train headquarters in washington, d.c. i know you're very busy but i did want to personally reach out to you on behalf of the president as you've got an opportunity to be a crucial part of his re-election. tomorrow, as you might be aware, mayor giuliani will be presenting experts and witnesses from michigan who will be able to show that the vote totals are fatally flawed and do not accurately represent the will of the voters as well as your constituents. you do have the power to reclaim your authority and send a slate of electors that will support president trump and vice president pence. >> so no effort to shield trump's role in any of this.

again, it will be up for investigators to determine whether or not that's the case in a criminal context. certainly the evidence developed by the select committee leaves nothing to the imagination. this was a trump-directed coup. the legal argument was fleshed out by john eastman. they knew it violated the electoral counteract. do you from where you're sitting have any doubt that the evidence, if jack smith wishes to pursue it, will take this plot all the way to trump's doorstep? >> i think the evidence certainly shows a direct line between the former president, the phone calls, the pressure that he, himself, exerted on the lawmakers and the state of michigan, to local county certification boards. so the line is there. of course, the public speeches that you just showed earlier as

well demonstrate that. so i think his involvement is clear, and every drop of new evidence that emerges in the public arena only underscores that. and so i hope that line will be drawn, but we have to remember it's not the only line, that there were a lot of co-conspirators, for lack of a better word, in my opinion. and all of it manifested itself in a multifaceted national, coordinated, illegal effort to interfere with the will of the voters and overturn it. the other component of that is the violence that followed, most notoriously on january 6th which was also a very real consequence of those lies, beyond just the anti-democratic nature of them. so there needs to be culpability of all of that and the blood that was shed and the lives that were forever impacted because of those lies, not just again at the state level, but local

officials as well. my confidence is that the justice department as well as local and state prosecutors are collectively casting a broad net, looking all of these things, with a goal not just of seeking justice, but ensuring that these don't escalate in the future or reoccur. >> i want to ask you to stick around, but i want to bring in the former lead investigator for the january 6th select committee, tim haf fee. also joining us, former u.s. solicitor general neal katyal and formerly with the department of justice, andrew weissmann. i want to play one more piece of sound. the trump-directed plot played out in public. i want to show you one of stephen miller's interviews on fox moves on december 14th talking about the plan not in any coded or secret way, but a pretty brazen one. >> as we speak today, an ultimate slate of electors in

the contested states is going to vote, and we're going to send those to congress. this will ensure all our legal remedies remain open. that means if we win these cases in the courts, we can direct that the ultimate state of electors be certified. the state legislatures in georgia, wisconsin, pennsylvania, can do the same thing. congress has the opportunity as well to do the right thing. >> so tim haf fi, by december 14th, no one on the campaign he had won. nobody thought he had won. take me inside what that means, they're talking about electors in contested states where they have on december 14th no evidence themselves on fraud. >> yeah, nicolle. there has been no evidence despite lots and lots of effort to find it by december 14 of any

election fraud. again, bill barr had already repeatedly told the president, hey, we looked, we launched u.s. field offices and u.s. attorneys offices to investigate claims of voter fraud. his own campaign was telling him, we looked, we don't find it. by the way, we'll explain to you how the numbers differed 2016 and explain the loss, the loss of support in the outer suburbs. it was well established. frankly, nicolle, i think most of the 62 cases that had been filed had already been adjudicated by december 14th. there was really almost mog left to keep alive. the stephen miller clip there that this is to protect potential success, again, there had been no evidence that surfaced whatsoever that suggested there was anything to protect. >> i want to also keep front of center the known illegality of

what they were doing. this was also developed by the select committee from cassidy hutchinson's testimony. she testified she heard at least one member of the white house counsel's office say the plan was not legal. the committee staff asked her to be clear. did you hear the white house counsel's office say this plan to have alternate electors to meet and cast votes in states that he had lost was not legally sound. cassidy hutchinson, quote, yes, sir. she also recalled a meeting that took place in or before mid december during which this view was relayed to rudy giuliani and members of his team by lawyers in the white house counsel's office. so it seems, tim, like jack smith has traveled a long way toward i guess proving to his standards what the committee proved over and over and over again which is that trump knew he lost. everybody around trump knew he lost. everybody around trump told trump he lost. they new the fake elector slot

was illegal. that seems like a very dangerous place for donald trump to be today. >> absolutely right, nicolle. he was told repeatedly there is no factual foundation forney challenge to the election because no evidence of fraud had surfaced. he was told repeatedly by different groups of lawyers that there's no legal basis at that point to assert any challenges. you mentioned pat cipollone, his own white house counsel told him this fake elector plot is unlawful. his own campaign lawyers testified, that he dissociated. he and justin clark, the two lawyers said eastman, cheese borrow, you're on your own. we don't think this scheme, this plan has any validity. repeatedly lawyers close to the former president were telling him no factual foundation and no valid legal basis. nonetheless, he continued to assert publicly and directly to the vice president and others

that there was fraud and that there was a legal path. that is evidence of intent. that's what they're focused on now in the final stages of this grand jury. >> andrew weissmann, i don't get to ask jack smith questions on this program. you're sort of the closest avatar for how he might view things -- a mission should you choose to accept it. i want to understand from you if you have any surprise or if it seems like an obvious part of this to pursue if you're jack smith, the multistate fake electors plot has been hanging out there. the probe pushed as far as it could without getting some of those white house actors to cooperate. eastman wrote it out on paper but asserted his fifth amendment rights. you didn't get him sitting around talking about who he sent it to and what they all said. they really did get us in the room and establish that they

knew it was illegal. they knew it was unconstitutional and pursued it with vigor anyway. >> so i think what we're seeing is a very natural progression of the federal investigation. for a wlong time we focused on georgia. but a natural question was why would they only focus on that one so-called swing state when there were issues that would appear to be happening in the secretary of state in arizona, in new mexico, in wisconsin. so you always expect that there would be this broadening of the investigation to show the full nature of the conspiracy. the other reason it's important that this would be focused on is it took a clean criminal case -- not that any case -- every case

always has its challenges, and nothing is always a certainty. this is one where there's a clean charge of making a false statement and filing false paperwork with federal officials in order to undermine the peaceful transfer of power. yes, you need to show they didn't have any legal basis and, as tim pointed out, the that there were no folks. still to this day there are no facts. to make a charge that's -- filing a false statement and a conspiracy to do the same. this is all sort of a natural progression that you see at the federal level. i think, also, it's a natural progression is what the secretary has talked about, which is that we're seeing the states also pursue their potential charges. i would just underscore the importance of that because those state cases, if they are

brought, are ones that will not be subject to a federal pardon if donald trump or an ally wins the white house. so what we're hearing being done by the states is extremely important. >> it's just so next level that we even have to stipulate that, but this is where we are. i'm desperate to get neil in on we'll put these questions to neil on the other side of the break. we'll also delve into another fake elector's probe opening up, this one in arizona. a state investigation, as andrew suggests is wise, into republicans who put forward those fake electors for donald trump. we'll tell you about it. five years ago today, the person who was our president stepped into the world stage in helsinki, choosing russian president vladimir putin over his own intelligence community.

how he's managed to remain still an ever-present national security threat to all of us to this day. all those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. a quick break. don't go anywhere. [city ambience sounds] [car screech] [car door slam] [camera shutter sfx] introducing ned's plaque psoriasis. [camera shutter sfx] he thinks his flaky, red patches are all people see. otezla is the #1 prescribed pill to treat plaque psoriasis. [ned?] it can help you get clearer skin and reduce itching and flaking. with no routine blood tests required.

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ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingles. is anyone ever going to tell the truth... if you're 50 years or older, about what's happening here. 3... -are we saying there's a chance... 2... -we destroy the world? 1... we are back with michigan secretary of state jocelyn benson, tim favorite fee, neal katyal and andrew weissmann. neal katyal, maybe you can go deeper or beyond where the secretary of state is willing to go and tell us what you think jack smith would want to know from jocelyn benson? >> first of all, as i listen to the stephen miller clip about alternate electors, nicolle, alternate electors are not a

thing. it's like alternative facts. they don't exist. what these people were trying to do and what jack smith is investigating is an attempt to throw out the popular vote and have a bunch of state legislators pick delegates to the electoral college. most of us don't even know who our state legislators are. the idea that those people, a handful of people will pick the next president and do so in the teeth of a popular vote that voted against donald trump in these individual states is totally preposterous. i think the essence of what jack smith is looking at is that donald trump wanted to cheat, he wanted a do-over after he lost the election, and not just in the three states we've been talking about, arizona, georgia and michigan, but four more where these fake slates of electors were appointed. i think the michigan secretary of state that we just heard from is exactly right, that this was a lawless attempt, and there's a

new prosecution memo that norm eisen and others have drafted that's come out today which really demonstrates in convincing detail just how much donald trump did here. he wasn't just a cheater, he was criminal. there was a set play that he had before the election and he was even told during the election it was illegal. he was told after the election it was illegal by his own lawyers, and he did it anyway. i think that's what smith is looking at, is all of those different things, what did donald trump want to do and what was he told at the time about his plans, and any lawyer, it requires not even a law degree. it requires like three days in law school, perhaps not even that, to know that what trump was doing was obviously illegal. >> you know, neal, of the crimes that the committee referred, do you have any sense of -- based on what has become public and the folks we have access to and are able to talk to like the

secretary of state, do you have any censor would you dare to sort of read the tea leaves of which ones jack smith is pursuing most aggressively. >> i think andrew is right that the 1001 false states charge is simple and easy. it doesn't require things like the president claiming to act as the president to protect the american people or something like that. at the same time, what happened on january 6th, what happened the two months before january 6th is not just about a false statement. sure, that's part of it, but it's much bigger. that's why i would look to what judge david carter has already written in a published opinion he wrote about a year ago, in which he looked at the evidence at that time, and jack smith has developed so much more, he said it's more likely than not that donald trump included federal felonies including obstruction

of a proceeding, section 15.12, by trying to interfere with the counting of the electoral votes on january 6th. those are serious crimes. i don't mean to minimize the false statements charge because false statements are the lifeblood of any investigation. you need to have that tool available to you. but what trump did was so much worse, so much more corrosive that i think a look at the other things. >> andrew, i want to bring you back in. i know you have a question for the secretary of state. >> sure. secretary, i know there's a limited amount you can say about on going investigations, but given that we're tea leaf reading and you're a potential tea leaf, i'm going to ask anyway. with respect to either what's going on with the attorney general in your state or maybe with respect to other secretaries of state in states

which also receive pressure, can you give us your sense of either discussions with them about what was going on in their states and whether they were experiencing the same thing that you were experiencing or the status of your sense of your state's own investigation? >> yeah, i'm happy to. one, we talk regularly. earlier today i was with the secretaries from nevada and arizona. we all talk regularly, especially as this unfoem folds. in many ways we're forward looking in our conversation. we see -- in michigan, for example, i have full faith that our attorney general, dana nessel is and continues to work in coordination not just with other states but the federal government in identifying the best path to justice, be it at the state or federal level when you do have multiple things happening in multiple states at the same time. i have faith that a lot of those conversations are on going and

that everyone is taking their roles and responsibilities very seriously here and looking to see how to achieve justice. a lot of our conversations are recognizing we're less than two years away from the 2024 election cycle in which one of the key perpetrators of a past effort to overturn democracy remains a candidate for the presidency. a lot of the work on the election administration side is in some ways to anticipate these ak ticks and perhaps new one and develop a strategy to preempt them or react to them. looking at the differences in the playing field from 2020 to '24. there are changes in the state legislature in wisconsin that are concerning in terms of the supermajority. arizona with governor hobbs being there as opposed to governor ducey. there's a lot of planning and mitigating to ensure democracy

prevails again. that is our primary goal and responsibility in this moment. >> jocelyn benson, thank you for being part of our conversation and our coverage today. everyone else sticks around. we'll have much more on this special focus, our special hour on the trump coup plot in the battleground states, the fake elector spots involving dozens of co-conspirators, members of the president's inner circle. we'll turn to how arizona is now opening up to be the next legal front in these investigations. a short break for us today. don't go anywhere. for us today don't go anywhere. pay for what you need. you could save $700 dollars just by switching. ooooh, let me put a reminder on my phone. on the top of the pile! oh. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪ tourists tourists that turn into scientists. tourists taking photos that are analyzed by ai. so researchers can help life underwater flourish.

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♪i did it my way!♪ we've got some breaking news as is often the case. i'm trying to read it off my phone. we're learning from "new york times" reporters that jared kushner was already questioned by special counsel jack smith. tim heaphy, you had a chance to talk to jared kushner. i remember hises as a tad smug. take us through what he provided for you and what opportunities, if any, jack smith might have had to push further and what they would have wanted in terms of a criminal context from jared kushner. >> yeah. so we did spend about eight hours with mr. kushner. he did submit to a voluntary interview by the select committee. there are really two separate things about which he has information, nicolle.

he's part of the president's family, was involved in discussions soon after the election in which the president was told directly that he lost. he was present for this meeting where the pollster, the data guy from the campaign actually presented the numbers and went through the sort of explanation of the decreased margins in the suburban areas, and he was already starting to move to florida. he and his wife were looking at property and schools for their kids in november. so we developed a lot of information from him about direct communications with the president about the fact of the election loss. o thing that's really crucial about kushner is he was directly involved in the campaign fund-raising that then became the stop the steal fund-raising. he was directly personally briefed almost daily about the cash machine, verrett table, hand-over-fist money making machine it was, the stop the

steal. the trump campaign pivoted to a fund-raising operation, jared kushner was right in the center of strategy of mining the false narrative for repeated cash contributions of up to $250 million after the election. so to the extent jack smith is looking into campaign fund-raising based on these false statements of election fraud, jared kushner would have information about that as well. >> tim, jared kushner i think also sat atop the very sketchy/corrupt pardon process. if you thought you were going to be there for a second term, would you really pardon your dad? it seems like of all the people that knew the gig was up, the lights were going out, jared kushner is at the top of the list. >> exactly right. he was right at the center of a lot of conversations and was one of the voices that we developed that was more realistic about the election. your point about politics there and pardons is important, too,

nicole. one of the things getting lost here and secretary benson's comments bring it to mind, is all this effort that the president and his conspirators were focused on was on republicans. secretary of state benson, very same position as secretary of state raffensperger doesn't get the call. he wasn't calling democrats. if he was truly concerned about election fraud and thought there was actual evidence of election fraud, he would be calling everyone. instead he's calling republicans. in arizona, we're about to talk about arizona. he doesn't call the secretary of state in arizona. she's a democrat. he calls rusty bowers, the republican leader of the legislature. this is an effort to try to get republicans to violate their oath to stay in power. the difference in terms of how he treats or reaches out to democratic office holder, lack out outreach, republican office holders, repeated outreach to

them, shows the political desire, and to neal's point, he knew it was cheating. he could only get republicans to help. >> let me read some more from this piece that tim and i are talking about. "the new york times" has just dropped a piece of reporting that say this. prosecutors ask witnesses whether trump acknowledged he lost the 2020 race. it starts this way, federal prosecutors investigating former president trump's attempts to overturn the election have questioned jared kushner about whether trump privately acknowledged in the days after the 2020 election that he had lost. the reporting is based on four people briefed on the matter. the line of questioning reports "the new york times" suggests prosecutors are trying to establish if trump was acting with corrupt intent as he sought to remain in power, essentially that his efforts were knowingly based on a lie. evidence that could substantially bolster any case they might decide to bring

against him. kushner testified before a grand jury in washington last month where he's said to have maintained that it was his contention that trump truly believed the election wupz stolen when briefed on the matter. saying trump thought it was stolen isn't the same as trump having information that anything had been stolen. it feels like jared kushner may be watching his inheritance with one eye and his legal hide with the other. you have so much evidence that people went right to trump and told him that he lost. nobody went in and told him the opposite because the pillow person, the pardoned mike flynn. what questions do you have about this new reporting? >> so, a could things. regardless of what someone's opinion is -- jared kushner's opinion about what he thinks the president truly believed or

didn't, is not admissible. what is going to be admissible is what facts are there. this really goes to tim's point that he's said over and over again. there are no facts. just remember to this day there are no facts. in other words, even if there were no facts then, even now there's still no facts. so at the end of the day, a criminal case is where facts and law matter. so the other point is that putting in to the grand jury people like jared kushner, everyone who was around the president, to learn what they would say is a critical part of what jack smith's job is at this point. whether their information is going to be good or bad, they need to know what these potential witnesses would say, whether they're favorable or whether they might get called as a defense witness, they want to know exactly what his story is now because if there are ways to undermine it, if there are ways

that makes it look credible, they e want to know what it is they're dealing with. if you look at what the florida case teaches us is that jack smith has been meticulous. he's done this chapter-and-verse interviewing of everybody under the sun, it appears. it appears that's exactly what he is doing in connection with the january 6th case. it makes total sense you would put jared kushner in the grand jury. again, his opinion about the president not particularly relevant. and even if it came in, not that relevant unless he has facts to support it. >> neal, i'm just thinking about what jared kushner's life has entailed since he knew his father had lost re-election. he spends the transition not helping the next administration deal with any of the items in his portfolio, but in the middle east where his post white house life has included raising millions, millions of dollars.

to find someone more acutely aware and more transactional in how he used a period from when his father-in-law lost re-election to when they left washington would be difficult. >> yeah, nicolle. it's the rare time i'll correct you. it's not millions, it's billions. >> 2 billion, yes. >> it totally makes sense for reasons andrew is saying, for jack smith to be trying to interview and interview jared kushner. kushner was in the room where it happened. kushner always thinks he's the smartest guy in that room. so there's no doubt in my mind that he is obfuscating before jack smith and saying things like his opinion is that trump thought he legitimately won the election and the like. kushner has a high view of himself and his ability to do things like that. remember this is a guy who thought he could waltz in and solve mideast peace.

i wouldn't doubt at all he's going to obfuscate before jack smith. in reality jared kushner is not quite that bright and there's going to be other contemporary evidence, who else was in the room with kushner and trump whenever they spoke about it? what did the email and text traffic state? what do the other people who kushner spoke to at the time, what do they say? it's hard to coordinate all of thoed f those different stories which is why investigators ask every person to tell their story. so that's part of what smith is doing here. to me this kind of demonstrates, as andrew is saying, that jack smith has been meticulous in his investigation so far. >> tim, i'm thinking, also, of the evidence that the committee developed from ivanka. it was abundantly clear that at a time of choosing between her father's alternate facts on earth two and bill barr's

accurate facts whoobt had won the election and whether there was any fraud and whether all that amounted boldly, ivanka trump chose bill barr. what's your sense of the clarity that jared kushner would, if he were before a jury, answer like ivanka in that taped depo? >> i think andrew hut his finger on the core issue. it doesn't matter what jared kushner's opinion is. what matters is he was in the room when the president was told by his campaign that he lost. jack smith is trying to establish the president's state of mind. jared kushner's impression isn't relevant. but his presence at a moment in which the truth was conveyed to his father-in-law is important. that's a building block that suggests intent and knowledge of the president that the election was stolen. both ivanka and jared acknowledged to us that they didn't see evidence of election fraud, that they credited and

trusted bill barr, the campaign team, matt stepien and others, that they didn't find election fraud and a they acted in accord with that belief. jared went on at length about all the important things he needed to finish before january 20th because the election had been decided for president biden, including middle east peace. he had all this important vaccination deployment because he knew the administration was ending. their actions, their presence for those conversations are what's relevant. there are opinions about what the president did or didn't believe, don't matter, are not admissible in court. that's why it's important to us and to jack smith. >> this reminds me, andrew weissmann, of some of the evidence that the committee developed that we learned about in the transcripts. there was vast body of individuals that can speak to trump's knowledge that he lost. it even included mark milley who

testified to the committee about a conversation about what the next guy would have to deal with regarding with -- i think it was foreign policy in iran. the number of witnesses who with testify to trump's knowledge that he lost and he was, therefore, leaving is almost endless. my struggle is to try to figure out how do you defend against it? what is trump -- i guess we know already for the documents case that the defenses are ludicrous, legally and publicly. they're farcical. there's no publpublic-facing evidence to the contrary. trump was told he lost, he knew he lost and knew he was leaving the white house. >> nicolle, you're ready for your law degree. i wouldn't agree more. in many ways, if you're a prosecutor, you want donald

trump to die on that hill. there are some arguments the defense can make and you wonder how you'll respond to it. for the defense to go down the road of, oh, he thought he won, plays to government's strength because there are so many sources of evidence. and at the end of the day you're going to say to the jury, and what is the contrary evidence? what are the facts? again, not sort of conjecture. what facts are there that show that he actually could have won? just start with the fact that every single legal case was lost. that's a sign that you're not doing well. but then you have so much more evidence internally, and so the dallas-ft. worth of any facts makes this something that, if you're a defense lawyer, you're thinking i need to deal with this at a different level. i think that's why very much like the documents case, the defense in this case is really going to be playing out the clock. it's not going to be about facts

and law. it's going to be about is there a political solution to this case because i'm not going to win on the facts and the law. >> we're seeing it play out. we already know that. his criminal defense strategy is to win the republican try to wi house again. heaven help us. >> nicole, could i interrupt for a second? i think that relates to what has been filed in the florida case. the government put its brief in opposing the defense request to have no trial date set. that goes to the conversation we are having right now about this idea of -- that there's a political solution, because the legal solution is not going to go well for the president. so the government has come back and said, no, you have to set a trial date. that is required by the speedy trial clock. the reasons that have been given by donald trump and by walt

nauta are not valid. it goes through it meticulously. it's quite a strong brief that was just filed. >> let me read from it. that's the other piece of breaking news i was reading when "the new york times" story broke. they describe it as frivolous for delaying the case. respond to that. then i have another question about jared. >> jack smith, i think, called out trump's defense, which is the presidential records act, and destroys it in this very brief filing today. basically says that there's nothing to it. it's not a criminal statute. the idea that that kind of supposedly novel question is the justification for delaying of trial past the election next year, he just basically makes fun of it. it's a very strong brief. i think this is kind of judge

cannon's first moment of reckoning. is she going to be a judge or something else here? i think all eyes should be watching what happens on this timing question. >> i want to come back to you on jared kushner, it's clear from your analysis and tim's and andrew's, as a prosecutor jack smith is the opposite of frivolous. he pursued the facts and is sealed away from everything else. i wonder if the fact that a family member has been in signals anything. was that just where jack smith was in his investigation? >> i think it does -- you are probably going to bring jared in toward the end of the investigation, not toward the beginning. i think all signs are that this is moving toward jack smith concluding -- making his final conclusions about january 6. in part, it's not just the tea leaves we are reading about jared coming in or the

prosecutor showing up in the d.c. courthouse. it's just the fact that, garland sat on his hands for a couple of years. the clock is ticking. if you are going to do anything, it's kind of the time to put up or shut up at this point. because of exactly what andrew has been talking about, which is trump has a political strategy to try and get a republican, if not him, someone else in the white house who can drop the prosecution, and order the whole thing order. that's what i think is going on when we talk about why we feel the jack smith decisions on january 6 are coming up soon. it's because they almost have to, because otherwise, there won't be time to try this thing before the election. >> tim, i have to ask you, as someone who had jared and ivanka

as witnesses, they refer crimes committed by donald trump to the justice department that are being pursued by jack smith. what do you think about putting the president's daughter and son-in-law in front of a jury? would you do it? >> absolutely. they are not just the president's daughter and son-in-law, they are white house officials. he brought them in that situation bring bringing them into very important conversations throughout his administration, but certainly at the very end. they are not the typical family member that a prosecutor hesitates to bully by putting in as a witness. they are white house officials. they happen to be related to him. because they are related to him, their information is more credible. they are not biased against him. they are family members, which gives their account of the meeting at which the president -- the numbers were explained and he was told he lost even more important, make ivanka's testimony about the

phone call between the president and vice president from the oval office on january 6, when she talks about how heated he was. he used a horrible slur to describe the vice president on that call. really credible, because they are not witnesses with an agenda, they are family members. they will be trial witnesses if this case is brought and it goes to trial. because of their proximity and relevant information they have. >> their credibility is an interesting point. we don't think of them in that context. legally, as witnesses against her father and father-in-law, that's, of course, the case. andrew, i want to -- >> sorry. defense lawyers, they criticize credibility of government witnesses. that's sort of 101 cross examination. that's really hard to do when the witness is the defendant's own daughter or son-in-law. jack smith is very mindful of

credibility. almost all of the witnesses for us and for him are members of the administration, longtime conservative republicans, who wanted the president to win. that bolsters their credibility. it's hard for the president's lawyers to say they have an ax to grind or some political bias that the people are bringing. it's the opposite. >> neil, i know you stayed longer than we asked you to stay, that you are available to stay. thank you for doing that in light of today's breaking news. tim and andrew, we have tapped you with sticking around longer. we will delve deeper into this on the other side of a break. much more on the breaking news in both of the federal cases being pursued by special counsel jack smith against the ex-president. don't go anywhere. ex-president don't go anywhere. no fingersticks needed. manage your diabetes with more confidence. freestyle libre 2. try it for free at freestylelibre.us

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hi, everybody. it's 5:00 in the east. we are continuing with the breaking news that we have been covering in the last hour in jack smith's twin investigations into the twice impeached and twice indicted ex-president. "the new york times" broke a story in the last 30 minutes that reports jared kushner has been questioned by federal prosecutors in the probe examine the ex-president's efforts to overturn his defeat. he appeared before the federal grand jury in washington, d.c. he did so last month. on the special counsel's investigation into trump's handling of classified documents, jack smith is opposing trump's effort to delay that trial until after the 2024

election in a robust and strong filing that we will delve into with our experts and friends. let's bring in mike schmidt. it's his reporting we have been talking about when it comes to jared kushner. tell us what you are reporting. >> jared went in in june to testify before the grand jury in washington. there was -- no one knew about it at the time. there were no pictures of it. they were able to sneak him in and get him in and get him out apparently. basically, the most important thing we were able to learn about what happened with jared and what's happened with other witnesses is that he was asked and others have been asked about whether trump told them that he knew he lost the election. that gets to the question of whether trump knowingly engaged

in this wide ranging effort, conspiracy, to overturn the election full well knowing that he had lost. in the story, we lay out the examples of other people in trump's orbit who have talked about this. one was the former communications director, alyssa farrah griffin who testified to the january 6 committee about how trump acknowledged to her, you can believe i lost to this guy, talking about biden in the days after the election. milley in his testimony to the committee talked about how trump said, you know, we will leave this for the next guy in a meeting that happened in late november, early december. in reporting this story, i could kind of see that there was a change in what trump was saying behind closed doors. it seemed like in the november period of time into early december, he was acknowledging

the loss. as milley talks about in his testimony, trump in subsequent meetings to the one he was referencing where trump says we will leave it to the next guy, was very agitated and bringing up about how the election had been stolen. i don't think it's just by chance that the examples we know of with alyssa farrah griffin and with milley happened in that november, early december period of time. there's a text message that we reference in our story that became public yesterday or actually, i think, tuesday in unrelated civil litigation that shows that jason miller, trump's close aide, was asking whether he could come up with any examples of election fraud allegations, even if they weren't proven, it looked like

to relay to the president. just sort of getting a larger picture here about how the special counsel has been looking at the question of what trump was saying behind closed doors to better understand his intent. >> mike, i want to read some of the sections that you alluded to. i will start with the general milley anecdote. you report here about some aides and allies who interacted with trump in the days after the election who had previously disclosed that trump indicated he knew he lost the election. in testimony before the house select committee, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general mark milley said in the oval office meeting in late november, early december 2020, june trump acknowledged he lost.

the gist of the conversation was -- it lasted maybe an hour or something like that, very rational, general milley said. it was calm. the subject we were talking about was serious. everything looked normal to me. i do remember him saying that. to your point about timing, how trump seemed to grow radicalized after losing 60 lawsuits where his campaign wasn't able to manufacture any evidence of fraud, general milley notes, in subsequent meetings, trump had increasingly discussed how the election was stolen from him. it wasn't there in the first session, but then all of a sudden it started appearing, general milley said. what's public basing and what you and your colleagues have reported is that team normal, as the trump folks called themselves, gets replaced by team lunatics.

are there other variables that change what milley describes as a knowledge he defeated and growing radicalized and the belief that it had been stolen from him? >> i would hate to explain why something changed in donald trump's mind. what i find remarkable about that is that it took trump until those final, like, weeks of his administration to really find the people that were going to do what he wanted. along the way, there were a lot of them. he did have bill barr as his attorney general. he did have a lot of people in important cabinet positions that went along with his outlandish and questionable ideas at different points. it's really only in those final weeks that he is able to get down to the people that are truly willing to do anything for him. with rudy giuliani being at the center of that.

it's like a -- if trump had figured that out earlier, i think he would have been able to have been far more effective in his ability to try and stay in power. he would have -- it's remarkable it takes him until the end of the administration to truly find those people that are just going even further than we thought anyone around him would. a lot of those people suffering enormous consequences now, whether they are -- whether it's something like taking their law licenses away or them being under criminal investigation in different areas. there's that winnowing out of people in that period of time. trump becoming captivated by the lies that they are telling them, these fantastical ideas about votes being stolen and larger conspiraies that obviously never turn out to be true but

lead the president down the path in december, it sort of picks up in december, into january 6. >> tim, let me bring you in on this. some of these anecdotes are familiar from the evidence developed by the january 6 select committee. i believe the select committee had access to this statement from alyssa farrah griffin. this is what mike and his colleagues are reporting today. the white house communications director in the days after the 2020 election repeating an account she provided last year to the house select committee told prosecutors trump had said, can you believe i lost to joe biden? what is your analysis of how powerful all that evidence is, the acknowledgement from trump that he had lost?

>> i think it's really powerful. it's weird that his statements and the factual development go in opposite directions. you would expect after the election there's suspicion of voter fraud. he is telling people, stop the steal, we're going to win. over time, as facts develop, the acknowledge and can you believe i lost would come. in fact, it's the opposite. at first, when they haven't done all of the investigations, he acknowledges that he lost. he had been told by the campaign that he lost and why he lost and the numbers were translated for him. as the facts develop, his rhetoric is increasingly inconsistent with the facts. all of this, again, informs this sense that it is mindfully criminal, that it's fraudulent, intended to bilk people out of their money because it's an effective fund-raising scheme. all of it is important.

there's a disconnect between the rhetoric and the facts. the accounts that we heard from alyssa and general milley are very consistent. they are close in time. i think miss griffin said it was the week after the election. in the dining room, the two of them. biden comes on the tv and in a candid moment, he turns to her and makes that statement about, can you believe i lost to this guy? milley similarly says it's right after the election, they are talking about iran policy and other issues, and he says, this is hard, it's going to go to the next guy. when you hear things that seem consistent, they corroborate each other, closeness in time and the spontaneity of the statements, give them to us a degree of credibility. it's only after the fact -- even though the facts are going in the other direction, that he is emboldened with the team crazy narrative of stop the steal. i can't explain it. as mike said, i can't get inside

his head and explain it other than it seems like that's when the strategy kicks in and the narrative has to be consistent with the strategy. >> tim, what i'm thinking of is the testimony you developed from some of mike pence's lawyers. what happens after this period of his defeat sinks in, after he loses lawsuits brought contesting the results, is that the eastman memo gains traction. they succeed in placing their guy at doj. i think liz cheney led the narrative putting -- after trump has acknowledged defeat, they plop in some guy at doj. they organize a coup where they put jeffrey clark there. it seems that what may happen is that trump affirmatively puts in motion a criminal conspiracy to steal the election. is that possible? >> yes.

he starts with legitimate levers. he files a bunch of lawsuits. that's his right. that's what should happen. the justice department says, let's look into claims of election fraud. that's what should happen. as those legitimate avenues are foreclosed, he doesn't give it up and commit to a transfer of power. he doubles down on the crazy enabled by team crazy and starts to do increasingly desperate things. pressure on the justice department. pressure on the states, the fake electors. ultimately, it results in launching a violent mob of insurrectionists at the capitol to interrupt the joint session. that's what the committee laid out, a desperate series of steps, starting with legitimate lawsuits, all the way to inspiring a violent group of people who believed that the election was stolen to march on

the capitol. >> andrew, mike's reporting and tim's analysis seem like very poor facts for donald trump. if a jury is made aware of these people, including the chairman of the joint chiefs, who is talking soberly and calmly and in a reasonable way with donald trump after his defeat to joe biden how some foreign policy decisions will be left to the next guy, if his communications director is trying to talk to him about who bested him and he believes something else, it seems like the "and then" is john eastman's blueprint for a coup. it seems like donald trump's tweet on december 19, where he mobilizes the violent insurrectionists. his fingerprints are on everything that happened next. >> absolutely.

let's just imagine this situation where we all thought that donald trump was deluded, that his defense is, there was no evidence, but i'm so divorced from reality that i believed it, that's usually not something that you run on to become the next president. you are so divorced from all facts and believe in a false narrative. in terms of if you are applying logic to this, it's not -- which is not what's happening in his campaign. it's not how you run for president. i have the exact same analysis that tim does. this is just his going with what he needs to go with because the legitimate levers that he has tried to pull all came up empty. just remember, this is -- think about some of the other proof. he has told the vice president

when he is chiding him and trying to goad him into doing something the law doesn't allow, he says to him, you are too honest. what he says to brad raffensperger to get him to change the vote is he threatens him with criminal prosecution. this is not going to be a speed bump for jack smith. it's a necessary part of the investigation that he interviews everyone, he has a good sense of what they are going to say pro and con. that's just what a good prosecutor does. the evidence is overwhelming. if the defendant, if he -- donald trump is charged in the january 6 case, he can obviously take the stand and say that he honestly believed that he had won. i don't think he is going to be taking the stand. i don't think that that is going to be the defense in this case. i think this is just jack smith doing the job that he needs to do before he brings charges.

>> i want to bring into our coverage and analysis former u.s. attorney barbara mcquade. i apologize for not introducing you at the top. i was reading the story. i want to read some to you. some folks that we have covered in the past offer their analysis in here. mike and his colleagues write this, legal experts and former federal prosecutors say establishing trump's mindset would give prosecutors a more robust case to put in front of a jury if they choose to bring charges. he quotes andrew goldshtein. a partner at a law firm who says that there are other benefits to having trump's statements that were critical in a weighty case. it would help justify to the public why charges in this case would be necessary to bring.

the mueller team, including andrew who is with us now, is aware of this, whether we like it or not, incredibly high bar for charging an ex-president. jack smith aware of that, too. i wonder what you think of this effort on smith's part to develop clear evidence of trump's state of mind. >> i think it's essential. as you read that last quote about being able to make the case in the public, i think that's the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence. we might be able to infer from the circumstances that trump knew that he had lost the election. when his own statements verbatim can be used at trial, that can be more powerful. the law says circumstantial is just as good as direct evidence. i think for a jury, it is -- it feels stronger and they can be convinced more beyond a reasonable doubt. this element of willfulness is an essential element of the crime. it's hard in fraud cases.

as a judge will say in instructions, we cannot read another person's mind. you have to look at what they said and what they did so that the jury can draw reasonable inferences. if he keeps saying, i believed it, that could be a valid defense. it reminds me of the episode of "seinfeld" where george is trying to coach jerry into beating a polygraph. the secret is, if you believe it, it's not a lie. that seems to be perhaps the strategy here. even though he didn't went election, he believed he did. what's valuable about these additional statements is that even his own words can refute that claim. i can imagine preparing an exhibit at trial where after you hear the witnesses testify you put up a chart where you say, here is what he is saying, and here is the time line and what he was saying privately. that's the kind of discrepancy that can be powerful with a

jury. >> i feel like somewhere the universe owes george an apology. mike, i want to end with you. i have the part of the reporting that you mentioned about the text messages. let me read that to you. the text message from early december 2020 between some of trump's lawyers disclosed on tuesday night shows trump searching for reports on how the election was stolen. if they had not been substantiated. the text message says, urgent, potus request, need best example of fraud that is super easy to explain. doesn't have to be proven but does need to be easy to understand. we know from tim's work that there was never any allegation of fraud that was proven. they have all been disproven.

this message is from a lawsuit holding rudy giuliani accountable for lies he told. to this day, they never found that potus request for evidence of fraud. how does the fact that there was never anything -- i know what it's like to be a staffer to find something. there was never anything. is there any evidence that anyone was able to produce anything directly for that request from trump for evidence of fraud? >> obviously not. the text message and the process of doing the story, i understood the time line. as i was saying earlier, you can see where in the aftermath of the election he basically is accepting this loss. then there's this turn. what that text message shows is what was fed into him.

there's this response from giuliani that comes up with a complete false thing that becomes a central part of the argument that trump and his lawyers make. you see how it evolved to where it is. i'm sure if you looked at the time line, you get closer to the crazy meeting in the oval office in the middle of december. you are getting closer to january 6. i wanted to pick up on one other point. i wanted to talk to andrew goldshtein when i was doing this reporting. he was the last person who was looking under the hood or one of the last on whether trump broke the law. his quote about the fact that statements from trump would help inform the public, what i think he is trying to say there is that, of course, everyone is supposed to be treated equally under the law. when you are charging a former president, there are these additional things that come with it. one of it is showing the public that there's good reason for taking this extraordinary measure. when you have a stronger case,

it makes communicating that to the public all the more easier. it makes a decision to bring an indictment all the more easier. when you have that and you have an indictment like the mar-a-lago documents indictment, where if you are an average person you pick it up and say, wow, the government really has a lot of evidence here. you can understand why they did what they did. goldshtein, being someone who thought perhaps too much about the question of what to do with the president who was breaking the law, is someone who is saying, look, there are other issues here. this type of evidence can be very powerful in communicating to the public, here is why the justice department is bringing this case. >> it's so interesting to your point, mike, how cognizant prosecutors are of the outside conversation. it will be interesting to watch on the other side how much that

weighed on jack smith. fantastic piece of reporting. thank you for joining us. tim and andrew, you stayed longer than we asked you to. we are grateful. thank you so much. barbara is sticking around a bit longer with us. what a difference five makes. president joe biden on the world stage in helsinki, the same place his predecessor took vladimir putin's world. don't go anywhere. don't go anyw. . who needs that much more tide? (crashing sounds) everyone's gonna need more tide. it's a mess out there. that's why there's 85% more tide in every power pod. -see? -baby: ah. i was stuck. unresolved depression symptoms were in my way. i needed more from my antidepressant. vraylar helped give it a lift. adding vraylar to an antidepressant... ...is clinically proven

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they said they think it's

russia. i have president putin. he just said it's not russia. i will say this, i don't see any reason why it would be. i have great confidence in my intelligence people. but i will tell you that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. >> i bet he was. it's almost re-traumatizing to watch that. that was five years ago today. five years ago to the moment when donald trump took the word of russian president vladimir putinments of his own intelligence community. he did so in front of the cameras on a world stage sending a clear and a very alarming signal to america's allies. fast forward those five years to today. the current president, president joe biden in that very same room, broadcast to the world a very different message about where america's allegiances lie.

>> what actions will you take to assure finland that the u.s. will remain a reliable nato partner for decades to come? >> i absolutely guarantee it. there's nooverwhelming support from the american people, from the member of the congress, both house and senate. both parties, notwithstanding the fact there's some extreme elements of one party, we will stand together. the american people have known since the end of world war ii and the formation of nato that our security rests in the unanimity among our partners. >> the words and assuances highlighting the differences between the biden presidency and that of his predecessor could not be any starker. president biden underscored the key tenants of his diplomacy,

reiterating the u.s. commitment to democracy across the globe. our commitment to standing with ukraine as it battles russia's illegal war. during his presidency, trump took every opportunity, as he did five years ago today, to cozy up to vladimir putin every chance he got. his indictment on dozens of felony counts of willful retention of national defense information tells us everything we need to know about how he views state secrets and his role in protecting u.s. national security. joining our conversation, former fbi counterintelligence ambassador. during trump's presidency, at some points, it was so unusual

that it became comical. i tend to laugh when i'm nervous. the coverage had that feeling. i remember, it wasn't list first foreign trip. but his first trip to europe. i remember they called back to tell us, he will reaffirm his commitment to article 5 and his commitment to nato. he would give the speech and he wouldn't do it. he will do it here. they had to make trump stay in nato. they had to make trump commit to nato. when we talk about elections having consequences, i know that u.s. foreign policy -- people have issues and real -- they think that democracy and diplomacy aren't tabletop issues. i would argue they r. the differences could not be more

stark. >> the contrast is striking. it was a shocking experience to listen to the president of the united states agree with vladimir putin, a dictator in russia, and throw our cia, our intelligence community under the bus. he also wanted to throw me under the bus. he wanted to hand me over to the russians to be interrogated. it was personal for me that day as well. your point is really important. there are theories in international relations. i teach at stanford about the world. there are theories states just have interests and individuals don't matter. this is a day when you see that individuals matter and that elections have consequences. the other thing to remember, you just invoked powell and mcmaster. neither of those people or people like them will be in the next -- if there's a future trump presidency, they won't be there.

he will have a mandate that says, i know how to do this now. i don't need people like mcmaster and powell around. i will do it my way. that will have very negative consequences for american national security. >> it also isn't theoretical. we are standing with an ally, a democracy as it is in a deadly, brutal and costly war against a shared enemy in russia. what should the conversation be and when should it start about the stakes of getting that wrong, of not standing with our democratic ally in the region? >> i think the conversation has to start now. i think the president -- great speech he gave yesterday. he needs to give those kinds of speeches in places like chicago and explaining to the american people why nato is good for us, why security in europe prevents

us from getting into world war i or world war ii. he made that kind of argument on this trip. i think it was very successful. he now needs to make that to the american people back home. >> pete, the irony -- i don't know if that's strong enough. the reality of running against someone who is an ex-president who endangered u.s. national security by leaving state secrets in bathrooms, it almost writes itself. i want to play what chris wray said about something so obvious but coming from trump's ex-fbi director, the person he appointed, it was notable. let me play that for you. >> i will say that there are specific rules about where to store classified information, and that those need to be stored in a secure facility.

ball rooms, bathrooms are not. >> it was simple but it cut. what do you think as we head into another election cycle? >> i think that the question that is on everybody's mind is exactly that which you played in the clip. our allies are watching the events unfold here in the united states, just like we are. when they see the massive mishandling of classified information by former president trump, when they look at his disregard for the national security of the united states, they can't help but wonder and ask the question of the current president, are you here to stay? we know and the united states are on our side and with us now. is that going to stay the case? i'm glad president biden said what he had to say. i think there's some question in everybody's mind, including the intelligence services and our allies, are we going to find

ourselves in the same spot we were? it's a critical issue not just here in the united states but all around the world. >> let me just roll the tape, rick, on what that was. he treated nato like it was one of his golf clubs. watch. >> either they pay up, including for past deficiencies, or they have to get out. if it breaks up nato, it breaks up nato. we probably will be in nato. i will probably restructure it. you have to be strongly prepared to walk. >> will we stand with one another? will we stay committed to our course? this week, finland and the united states and our allies and partners said a resounding, loud, yes, yes, we will step up, yes, we will stand together, yes, we will keep working toward a stronger, safer, more secure world. >> it's a contrast in substance

and tone. trump sees nato as one of his properties, as one of his golf resorts. i might stay and put in a snack bar. no appreciate for what it means to the country and to our national security. >> i think, nicole, he doesn't see it like a golf club, he sees it as a deadbeat tenant in one of his old queens buildings that the trump family used to own. they are not paying up. he never understood that what the guidelines for nato is that nato countries should spend 2% of their gdp on defense spending. he thought it was a kind of a rent payment. he never really understood that. i have to say, there's a really vast difference between now and five years ago. biden's performance today shows us that. the reason president trump was in helsinki five years ago is because american presidents met russian presidents in finland,

because finland was a neutral territory but leaned towards the rush slan russians. it had been neutral for all those years. now that country, where russian presidents went to meet american presidents, is a member of nato. that's a vast change. in many ways, today was like the last act of the cold war. not only is the warsaw pact now in nato, but countries like sweden and finland -- sweden has been neutral for 200 years, is now in nato. that's a gigantic accomplishment for the west and for president biden. >> it is. ambassador, it's a huge, huge, catastrophic blow for vladimir putin. >> yeah. i agree. i think the contrast is great that helsinki -- we had a noun. finlandization. that's what the soviets were

trying to do. that's over. 200 years of neutrality, sweden, that's what putin accomplished by his disastrous war in ukraine. he has not achieved any of his military objectives. the president was right to underscore that today. at the same time, the war is not over. it was important that we reaffirm our commitment as many other allies did in a bilateral way to help ukraine succeed in stopping the occupying forces in ukraine. >> barbara, i went through and looked at some of my notes from five years ago. i found in my notes some very close trump ally and outside advisor still in the public and political arena said to me after watching helsinki, maybe he does have something on him, meaning putin, maybe putin does have something on trump. it was such an earthquake, not just on earth one, where we all see putin for who he is and nato for the importance that it

plays, but even for people who thought that some of the questions about trump's affinity for putin were over torqued, saw his statements as evidence that there was more there, to disregard as president, as the chief customer of the u.s. intelligence product, everything that they develop, to disregard all of that, they exist to put some of the best intelligence in front of the american president so he can protect u.s. national security and the security of our allies to say, no, he was really strong there his defense, he didn't do anything in 2016, was too much. what do you think in terms of sort of heading into another presidential election where there's a tendency to sort of wash and forget about elections past? what do you think about the unresolved and unanswered questions about why he is so into putin? >> it's hard to know why.

it's very damaging to our national security. as a former national security prosecutor, the fact that donald trump threw our intelligence community under the bus doesn't matter to the person who works there. they have thick skin. they serve the country, not any individual. our allies are listening to that. they share with us the secrets of their countries as part of this community. when they know that the president is siding with vladimir putin over the intelligence community, they will be less likely to share secrets. when he is leaving stuff in ball rooms and bathrooms at mar-a-lago, they will be less likely to share secrets. that has a damaging affect on the national security of the united states. the idea that he could be president again is -- regardless of your politics, it's dangerous to the safety of our country. >> no one is going anywhere. we have more to get to. we will all be back on the other side. side

megawatts of power, rails and open road, and essential services of every kind. all running on countless invisible networks, making it a prime target for cyberattacks. but the same ai-powered security that protects all of google also defends the systems running america's infrastructure. for these services. for the 336 million of us living here. ♪ as americans, there's one thing we can all agree on. the promise of our constitution and the hope that liberty and justice is for all people. but here's the truth. attacks on our constitutional rights, yours and mine are greater than they've ever been. the right for all to vote. reproductive rights. the rights of immigrant families. the right to equal justice for black, brown and lgbtq+ folks. the time to act to protect our rights is now. that's why

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the idea that we don't have a chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the idea we have all these promotions that are in are abeyance and we don't know what's going to happen, the idea that we are injecting into fundamental foreign policy decisions, would in fact as a domestic social debate on social issues is bizarre. i don't recall that happening

ever. it's totally irresponsible, in my view. >> not even the 4,000 miles that separate d.c. and helsinki can spare joe biden from having to field questions about anti-military, anti-democratic republican antics. quote, totally irresponsible is how he put it. he is describing what we covered on this program this week. that is the actions of alabama's senator tommy tuberville. he is the one holding up top level military promotions over an objection he feels to an armed services policy regarding reproductive health care. unfortunately, that strategy really amounts to an obsession, a perversion, a sickness, sacrificing u.s. national security in the name of a domestic policy pursuit. it's spreading today. "the new york times" reporting,

far right house republicans who have sought to bloat another forum, the defense bill, with socially conservative policies on abortion, race and gender, have a new demand. severe restrictions on funding for the war in ukraine. now there's an almost zero percent chance it makes it into the final draft, but it is an indication that these far right republicans are, one, ruling the house republican caucus, and two, willing to sacrifice anything, u.s. national security, the security of our allies, to bust any and all norms in service of their fringe and extreme policy aims. we are back with pete, ambassador mcfaul and barbara mcquade. i know the political piece of this doesn't interest you too much, ambassador. but i know that you know the ukrainians are well aware of the extremists in the house republican caucus, and they are

worried about it. what do you think they see when this breaks in our country? >> you are right. they worry about it. they don't understand it. just a few hours ago, i was in touch with somebody in kyiv talking about there's issues. how does our democracy work? how can a small group, allegedly, block these kinds of decisions, including by the way the -- the nominationnomination. it doesn't send a message of confidence. remember, they don't understand exactly how it works. they see that headline that you showed, and they worry, literally, about the future that their country has in fighting the invaders that are there. >> rick, calling tuberville a dope is lazy. he is dangerous. he may be a dope. i don't know him. what he has put in motion and what he normalized is being

emulated. what the republicans are expert at is numbing the shock nerves. they do it the first time and it's shocking. then people get used to not having confirmed leaders of the military. that is a very, very dangerous game of chicken. what do you think happens next? how does this snend? >> it's dangerous. as you know, the gop, the republican party was for many decades the party of national security. you have a republican senator, one who doesn't seem to know much about national security at all, taking a cultural issue and having that trump the recommendations of the administration for military leaders and to lead our services and to lead the marine corps, is the height o irresponsibility. the return to normalcy comes when leaders speak out, when republican leaders speak out and say, this is not acceptable.

this is dangerous for the republic. it's dangerous for our party. we have to cut the cord on that. to me, that -- it will continue until that happens. there's actually no compromise on this. we need those security leaders. we can't use as mike said the distortion of the advise and consent clause to not allow us to have leaders we need. >> let's deal with the dispute. what tuberville is mad about is that members of the armed services in the u.s. would have the same access to reproductive health care if they need it as service members stationed around the world. if you are stationed in a country that doesn't provide reproductive health care, you can have the government pay to fly you home or wherever you need to go. what the military is doing is saying if you are stationed in the middle east or asia or somewhere that doesn't have that kind of health care, you will have the same access to reproductive health care if you

are stateside in a state that doesn't offer reproductive health care or abortion health care, if that's what you need. that's what he is opposed to. do you know where the public is on this? upwards of 80%, 90% of the public think thinks access to an should be legal in all or most instances. >> this really shows the outsized pow they are senators have when they come from a very red state. he cares for more constituent back home than the country. even though the vast majority of americans would favor these health procedure, he doesn't care. he wants to grandstand for his voters, take a firm stand on this issue, and in the meantime, hold the military hostage. there are ways of expressing your view. if he has a strongly held opinion that he can do that, but to withhold approval and the ability for the military to act, in my view s really

irresponsible to really just advance what i see as perhaps his firmly held view, but also pandering to the voters in his one state against the will of the people of the whole country. >> pete, there is a broader picture, right, if you pull out, that these things that were once sacred, a tenured tenure of a fbi director, a norm blown up by trumps and republicans nodded, acquiesced and now attacking a fbi director. they did it for phi hours yesterday. president biden said there today that this is never -- this is weird. he said it's bizarre, this has never happened. this is what they do, and if you're analyzing america from abroad, what you're analyzing is that one of the country's two parties is now destroying the government that it is in. it is steve bannon's vision of destroying the administrative state in overdrive. how does the world see that and evaluate that? >> nicolle, i think the world's

obviously got to be quite worried. the reality is at the end of the day we have had more than 250 or so years of a democratic experiment that we have led the world, and i expect that to continue. and i think that carries currency as intelligence agencies and people around the world watch the u.s. as i look at it, this coming election, there are two men that have an extraordinary amount riding on this election. the first is donald trump. with him potentially staying out of jail requires him to be elected president so he can stop the prosecutions or pardon himself. the other person who has an extraordinary amount running on this election is vladimir putin. if trump is re-elected the prospect of what we do or don't do with ukraine is going to play an enormous role in putin's ability to maintain power in russia. whatever they do or don't do, the constraints they feel or don't feel, i worry a great deal. >> i think a lot of people worry. thank you all so much for

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♪ tourists tourists that turn into scientists. tourists taking photos that are analyzed by ai. so researchers can help life underwater flourish. ♪ for the first time in more than 60 years, hollywood will effectively be shutting down at midnight tonight. that is because the screen actors guild, the union that represents more than 160,000 film and television actors is going on strike. the union is fighting for better wages for working actors as well

as protections against the use of artificial intelligence among other issues that threaten writer. the strike comes more than two months after members of the writers guild walked off their jobs in may. the two unions haven't been on strike at the same time since 1960. we'll keep an eye on that. for all of us who love television it will be a long, long white-knuckle wait. another break for us. we'll be right back. another break for us we'll be right back.

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thank you so much for letting substance abuse your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we are grateful. "the beat" with melissa murray in for ari starts now. >> welcome to "the beat." i'm melissa murray in for ari melber. and we start tonight with breaking news. the special counsel has reportedly interviewed donald trump's son-in-law, jared kushner, in recent weeks as part of the january 6th probe. apparently they are looking into tr