for regular people. or captured by elites. i want my party to spend a little less time. a little more time proposing real big plans to massively transfer power from the elite to regular people as a means of showing the democracy can work for them. i don't think we should assume the people in this country will be in for democracy for the next 50 years. if it continues to consolidate wealth and power. we need to be wise to that conversation. that is happening all across the country. >> all right, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> that is all in on this tuesday night. in on this tuesday night. tuesday night. alex wagner tonight begins good evening, alex. >> democracy not a forgone conclusion apparently. thanks to you at home for joining me this hour. today the former special counsel

who investigated president biden's mishandling of classified documents, a man named robert hur is grilled by house members on the capitol. concluding nothing president biden did was worthy of prosecution, but that did not stop republicans in congress from making a four-hour circus out of mr. hur's testimony today. that's because today's hearing wasn't actually about matters of law. it was about scoring political points. the only reason joe biden accidently taking classified documents with him when he left office, and the only reason that matters at all is because donald trump woefully, willfully, purposely took documents with him when he left office and then tried to obstruct justice to cover it o all up. these two cases are not the

same, but just don't take my word for that. here is special counsel hur reading from his own rt on the matter. >> unlike the evidence involving mr. biden, the allegations set forth in the indictment of mr. trump if proven would present serious aligating facts. >> keep going. >> ctcongresswoman, i'm happy t let you c read the words of of report. >> well, it's your report so i think it's more fitting you read those. >> most notably after being asked to return documents and avoid prosecution mr. trump did the opposite. he also obstructed justice. >> we'll get into hur's apparent reluctance there to read the negative parts about donald trump o even if they were partse wrote. but congresswoman madeleine dean in the exchange forced mr. hur to highlight the most important conclusion in this whole thing.

in one case biden's you have what seems to be a legitimate mistake followed with full cooperation with law enforcement. and the other, trump's, you have what appears to be criminal the intent of obstruction of justice. and as to illustrate the chasm yesterday we got even more evidence just how intentionally criminal donald trump's actions appear to be. the witnesses f in the classified documents investigation, one of the witnesses came veforward. and up until yesterday we knew this witness only as trump employee 5. cnn is now reporting that his name is brian butler. he was a long-time employee at mar-a-lago, and he witnessed some incredibly damning things like the day that trump flew from florida to bedminster, new jersey. trump's body man and his codefendant, walt nauta, asked mr. butler to get nauta a big suv, an escalade. butler then saw nauta and

trump's codefendant, carlos deolive yra load them up and load those boxes onto the plane. mr. butler said that all took place on june 3, 2022. later that same day one of trump's lawyers provided investigators with what he said was the entirety of classified documents that remain o in mr. trump's possession as well as a sworn certification that falsely claimed on trump's behalf that he and team trump had conducted a diligent search of boxes and all responsive documents had been turned over. what brian butler is now asserting here is pretty explosive. not only did trump apparently hideaway at least 105 classified documents the fbi eventually found, it sure sounds like trump managed to steal another 10 to 15 boxes of records, and we

don'ts, know if the fbi ever go those records back. who knows where those boxes are now. that sure sounds like obstruction of justice. what is equally concerning here is why brian butler decided to go public right now. here he was explaining his decision. >> well, i mean, it's been almost a year since fbi agents showed up at my house when my wife was at home, and, you know, over the course of the last year emotionally it's been a roller coaster. a couple of weeks ago judge cannon said she's going to release the names of the witnesses. you know, you go from highs and lows in this. and instead of just waiting for it to just come out, i think it's better that i get to at least say what happened than it coming out in the news, people calling anyone crazy. i'd rather just get it out there andt the hope is at least i ca move on with my life and get

over this. >> brian butler coming forward with this is brave. president trump has a tracks record of trying to influence or intimidate witnesses who speak out against him, and his followers have a track record of harassingec and threatening anye they perceive to be one of donald trump's enemies. so coming out in this big public way is in itself a big deal. as the months go on, the list of trump's transgressions, if not the list of his actual crimes, those lists continue to grow. and yet for now the mar-a-lago classified documents case is on hold. andis instead of talking about trial in congress, the focus is instead on president biden and not just howd he handled classified documents, which as a legal matter is already settled, instead the focus is on biden's age and whether he's fit to be president. the former special counsel himself played a huge role in that. the report made broad and

seemingly unusual characterizations about biden's age. and now one of the people -- one of the congress people who questioned hur today was congressman adam schiff. remember that before becoming a congressman, schiff spent years as the assistant u.s. attorney for the central district of california,e meaning he's no stranger to how a prosecution like this shouldby run. he knows the rules, and he does not think the former special counsel has followed them. >> politics played no part whatsoever in my investigative steps. >> you understood nevertheless -- mr. hur, you cannot tell me you're so naive as to not think your words wouldn't create a political firestorm. you understood how they would be manipulated by my colleagues here on the gop side of the aisle and former president trump, did you tot? >> congressman, i understood the regulations of the special

counsel. a confidential report by the attorney general -- >> mr. hur, what is in the rules -- what is in the rules you don't gratuitously do things to prejudice a subject of an investigation when you're declining to prosecute. you don't gratuitously add language you know will be useful in a political campaign. you were not born yesterday. you made a choice. it was a political choice. it was the wrong choice. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> joining me now is congressman adam shif of california. congressman schiff, it's great to see you. you i think made a lot of -- made an impact today shall we say in your questioning of the former special counsel, and i just wonder what your assessment was after you asked him i think quite credibly whether he actually believed this was not a political document or he did not

make any political considerations when assessing president biden's memory. did you believe him? >>be no, i didn't believe him a all. you know, he tried to claim this was a confidential memo, but he was also forced to acknowledge he knew it would be made public, the attorney general made it clear it would be made public. and the idea that he was required to give either this personalized, prejudicial bias and broadside to the president though it wasn't necessary in his report is absurd. he could have commented all he wanted as the president's recollectionhe as to this documt or that document. that would have been appropriate. but heav understands having don dozens and dozens of depositions witnesses are expected if they don't remember something clearly they should i don't recall. to make this political puck shot at the president during a midst

of a political campaign when he knows how it would be used, a graveit abuse of prosecutorial authority, and he knows it. >> i also feel he wanted to issue a backhanded not quite indictment of the president. he refused -- he got into a big back and forth with congresswoman jamilla jayapal. why did he refuse to exonerate him? >> i think you saw in the clip you played his reluctance to even read portions of of his report critical of donald trump. my sense was what he decided to do was lacking the evidence to make a recommendation to charges the president, he would do the next best thing, which is give them a political bludgeon, attack the president's memory, paint an unflattering portrait of him. that in many ways was more damaging than any observation he might have made about the facts

or the chargeability of those facts. and so i think he has a tough time criticizing trump. he doesn't want to alienate someone who might be president, doesn't want to alienate the republican party, and i think this is his effort failing to find facts to charge or recommend charges to gratify the trump crowd. >> what do you make of the fundamental issue on display here or the fundamental conclusion that i think is worth repeating over and over again, the vast, vast gulf that separates what president g bide did versus what former president trump did on the matter of classified document retention? do you think democrats made a forceful enough distinction, as it were, given all that republicans had stored up, the political bludgeon, as you call it, to try to muddy the waters, try to impugn president biden's reputation, his age, and his fitness for office?

>> i think, yes. madeleine i think did a great job. ted lou also went through, itemized a number of the charges against donald trump, the actions of trump, and concealing materials and trying to get people to lie about it. and talking about scrubbing the server that had surveillance footage on it. in all theseerments just night and day with president biden's not deliberate effort to retain documents with his full cooperation with his lengthy interviews. it was a sharp contrast. i think democrats made that contrast. i also think it's not some neutral, objective nonpartisan prosecutor. this is n someone who was a republican appointee who really found it difficult even though as you say it was his own words to read from his report in ways that would be critical of donald trump. and so i think the public got a

sense of who he is, where's he's coming from, that this is not a arbiter. >> independent what republicans and former special counsel robert hur has to say about it, i do wonder how much of an impactw that's going to have wh the american public as tee wed into p an election season wheree may not get of the federal criminal trials, they may not happen before the election. we have a witness coming forward andwi saying not only did donal trump retain boxes at his residence, he may have obtained 10 to 15 boxes more and sent them to points north or whatever. do you think that had the impact it necessarily should, or there were some false equivalents made between bidenui taking things despite the fact it wasn't criminal, and what trump did. do you think the trance gegzs of

that case have lost the impact in the court of public opinion? >> i don't think they lost the impact, but as for the indictments some time ago i think it's valuable to remind people of the itegregious facts. and i think mr. butler coming forward particularly as you say given that the trial doesn't look like it's going to go forward before the election to say, hey, the president was involved in hiding these classified materials. i was asked in a strange, suspicious way to help load these boxes of documents on the same day it turns out the president's lawyers are meeting with the justice department to go over these classified materials. lord knows what happened today all these documents or some of these documents. i thought mr. butler's statements also about having this billionaire foreign person talking about russian and other submarine capabilities or u.s. capabilities, the aastonishment thates the president would talk

to, you know, some wealthy and i don't know if this is a donor or just wealthy patron at mar-a-lago, shows you what a national security risk that whole mar-a-lago enterprise was. donald trump's willingness to discuss, show photographs and things to different partiesot tt were potentially classified materials. you know, it's terrifying to think of him getting classified briefings now, and i really hope the agencies dumb down so they don't share anything with the president they don't want shared with the world. >> yeah, only material published in "the washington post" and "the new york times." that he probably won't read either. congressman adam schiff, thank you for making the time tonight. really appreciate it. >> thank you. we have a lot to get to this evening including what a doctored photo of the royal family means for american politics. plus, potential presidential spoiler. rfk jr. announced his short list for running mate includes,

surprise, a very prominent anti-vaxxer. what that could mean for november coming up. xer. what that could mean for november coming up

and there was one time he said, well, we're all dirty, we all move boxes. and i said, look, i didn't even remember what i was moving until i was a at the plane and that's why i remember moving boxes. >> we're all dirty, we all move boxes. not you, not me. unless they're empty amazon boxes. the man speaking there is butler, a long mar-a-lago employee who quit three months. he was referenced in the criminal indictment as trump employee number 5. while nbc news has not independently confirmed mr. butler's role here, the fact he has come forward now is telling. any day now the judge in this case, aileen cannon, may

released the identities of unnamed potential witnesses like witness number 5, which puts at least a dozen others like mr. butler at risk. judge cannon has yet to rule on whether she'll release the names of those witnesses for the prosecution. she held a hearing 11 days ago on the matter, and as far as that trial date, that is still very much tbd. joining me now to discuss all this is msnbc legal analyst lisa rubin. it's so wonderful to have you on set here to explain my continued confusion about what exactly is happening down in florida. and other legal scholars. what's cannon going to do here? i mean this seems like a very bad call just on its face, witnesses should be protected especially if the president has a history. >> cannon clearly still has a leaning toward revealing their

names. and she actually asked david harbaugh of the special counsel's office verbatim has there been any evidence these witnesses have been threatened, and his response was sort of incredulous, and he said to her, well, that's not the standard, your honor. we don't have to show a witness has been threatened in order to make a credible case to you that the revelation of their names would compromise the investigation as well as their public safety? >> do you feel if see says no jack smith takes this to the 11th circuit? >> i do. jack smith does take it to the 11th circuit because there are 20 to 25 other witnesses according to har baugh's estimation that could be impacted, and it's not just their identities wrn y. to be clear to you and our viewers. it's about the substance of their testimony as well. there could be communications between members of the prosecution team between and among them about some of these

witnesses. and some of them are incidental. let's say they're talking about lisa rubin, a witness, and lower down in the chain they're talking about alex wagner. you could end up having alex wagner's name out in the domain even though it's entirely incidental for the purpose in which the hibits were used in these underlying motions. that is the subject of this unsealing order. >> i do wonder when we talk about the most explosive elements of this interview with mr. butler, i was shocked of his account of helping to load 10 to 15 bankers boxes, bankers boxes he said looked very much like the boxes storing classified documents we've seen photos of in the document. that those 10 to 15 boxes were loaded onto a plane and took off. to me, i find the special counsel -- first of all, they knew this months ago. why not continue looking for them? what does that reflect on the part of jack smith? >> first of all, we don't know that they haven't recovered them. it could be they have determined

all of those boxes were returned to mar-a-lago or somewhere else, that they essentially follow trump around wherever he went. i had a conversation with someone on your team tonight about our shared recollection that when trump showed up in new york last year for a deposition in a new york attorney general civil fraud case, he was seen outside trump tower with personal aides carting those very same sorts of bankers boxes. look, there is a reference in the indictment to the fact that carlos de olliva and others shuttled those boxes to mar-a-lago. >> in the back of my mind this is all pure speculation, i should warn everyone at home. that it seems jack smith probably more than anyone else

at the department of justice has noods the aprieveiated calender within which he's working. like he built a federal indictment on january 6th made for speed, let's get it done. that is very much up in the air. the mar-a-lago classified documents case seems very narrow, very clear. he didn't bother with the dissemination charge, for example, saying trump was trying to spread state secrets. >> he can use some of this as the intent of proof at trial. jack smith to your point i think has adopted a surgical approach. he's also determined based on his team's experience with judge cannon so far, further superseding the indictment is not to the trump's benefit. we wouldn't see some of the things come back and make a reappearance at trial incluldsing his testimony. >> i do think there's been a

fatalest attitude about this. there's a 50% chance joe biden is president of the united states come the end of november, which means this trial could actually happen. i do wonder what you think the time line might be for this given cannon's seeming indecision to actually set a date. >> look, i think a lot depends on what the supreme court does on presidential immunity. trump has made multiple motions to dismiss in this case two of which will be dealt with later this week. but presidential immunity is not one of them. and depending on what the supreme court does, this case could go away or it could come back to judge cannon to determine even if he is immune for facts alleged to be official, does the stuff in this indictment count as acts for official immunity? i will tell you no. they are post presidential acts, they don't qualify. donald trump on the other hand is saying because they emanate from his lawful possession

during his presidency he's very comfortable to cloak himself into the bathroom of immunity. >> does that mean he can go into the white house any time, steal a bunch of stuff -- i mean i'm not going to ask you to actually answer that, but that seems to be an argument to trump's merit. i appreciate you as always. still to come this evening, why a badly, badly photoshopped portrait of british royals has implications for american politics. we'll explain coming up. n politics we'll explain coming up. plus trump and biden cross a crucial presidential campaign milestone tonight. that is about the only thing their campaigns have in common, though. we'll have more on their respective strategies coming up next. their respective strategies coming up next

in a few hours when all the votes are tallied in the washington state primary donald trump is set to become the presumptive republican presidential nominee. and thanks to a primary win in georgia, joe biden is now the presumptive democratic nominee. so here we go general election. president biden was not waiting to secure a certain number of delegates in order to shift into general election mode. he released this ad over the weekend going after donald trump and taking on the age question head on. >> look, i'm not a young guy.

that's no secret. but here's the deal. i understand how to get things done for the american people. i led the country through the covid crisis. today we have the strongest economy in the world. i passed a law that lowers prescription drug prices, cap is it on $35 a month proceduresch for four years donald trump tried to pass an infrastructure law, and he failed. i got it done. >> so president biden is running on the stuff he's done. and donald trump -- well, he's firing dozens of people at the republican national committee including its political director, as his campaign takes operational control of that organization. and trump is calling into national television programs and floating ideas like this. >> have you changed your outlook how to handle entitlements, social security, medicare, medicaid? >> there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting. >> trump followed that up by

announcing that his first act of president will be to close the border, drill baby drill, and free the january 6th hostages. okay now. joining me now is tim miller, writer at large at the bulwark, and claire mccaskill, former u.s. senator in the state of missouri. thank you both for being with me here tonight to understand what is happening. claire, let me first just ask you, you could talk about the infrastructure bill, you could talk about climate change, you could talk about lowering the cost of very common medications, you could talk about protecting the social safety net, or you could talk about freeing the january 6th hostages and tiring the political director of the rnc. which strategy would you take, claire? >> i kind of like our side of the fence here. i think biden's got a stronger hand, and by the way let's don't leave out the fact what donald trump mostly does is talk about how america sucks. he is constantly trying to convince everyone that we're terrible, that we're in decline,

that america is awful. and i don't think that's what most americans believe or frankly want to hear. i think they want somebody who believes in the goodness of our country, somebody who sees that we are, in fact, in a stronger economic position than any of our other developed nations across the globe, that we are doing better than we were under donald trump. and i actually think that even though there are still lots of days left before the election, i'd much rather be joe biden at this point than donald trump. i think he does have the stronger hand. >> tim, we are told repeatedly, largely by trump surrogates that the trump campaign is a well oiled machine, better run and managed than it was in 2016. it was a low bar in 2016 admittedly, but they did secure a bunch of endorsements, do seem to have more of an official campaign apparatus. having said that, the nationalization of this campaign and theict fathat almost all of its appeal rests on the shoulders of donald trump, when

he's out there saying things like i'm going to cut social security and medicare and talking glowingly about january 6th hostages, i just do wonder how much the campaign stuff and the adeptness of his campaign actually matters if the principal is saying that kind of stuff. >> i do think it's fair to say he's got some professionals around him right now that must be a little bit better than 2016 where he had several campaign managers and i think most of them were indicted at one point or the other including paul manafort who was kind of a russian spy or at least back channelling to russia during the 2016 campaign. pretty low bar for improvement getting people around him. i think they've stepped over that, but a lot of other things going against them they didn't have in 2016. donald trump hadn't been indicted 91 times, didn't have a track record to compare against. it addressed both accomplishments but also it

addresses the age contrast in a way, right? oh, you're worried i'm too old, this other guy, this other old guy by the way said he was going to do infrastructure every week, and look who did it. i did. i think having a marginally better campaign team, i don't know if that off sets all the other challenges donald trump faces this team. >> i agree with you, tim. and i wonder what you thought in that ad it shows when biden talks about his ability to get infrastructure passed you see a faumbling image of which is actually tonally different than what we've seen so far. we've seen him as a pernicious evildoer but bumbling and ineffective is a new bucket, and i wonder how useful you think that will be as biden tries to kind of claim a counter narrative in the trump years. >> all you have to do is play donald trump at some of these rallies when he goes onto these

sentences that aren't sentences and talks gibberish and doesn't know who he's running against and doesn't identify leaders with the right countries and in the middle of it all he loses his train of thought and kind of goes sideways. he clearly has some cognitive issues. and i think the best thing that happened in the biden campaign they figured out they've got to go after donald trump. they can't just sit in the oval office and be presidential and talk about bidennomics and talk about what he's gotten done. they have to go after donald trump. they're doing that now. and by the way, donald trump is helping them by going on a show where he's trying to appeal to donors and saying he's willing to cut social security and medicare. these are mistakes that campaign operatives can't fix. >> yeah, you know, to that end, tim, you're bulwark buddy, sarah longwell, is the head of the republican accountability project, and the reporting is that they are going to spend $50 million in a campaign

effectively against trump. they do not consider themselves a pro-biden shop as i'm sure you're well aware, but it's going to feature ma'am made videos of america who voted for trump i believe in the past whether 2016 or 2020 but chosen not to in 2024. how effective do you think that will be in moving the sort of critical slice of independent swing voters to the left side of the aisle? how effective will that be? >> look, i think sarah to defend her honor as pro-biden i think is the strategy here is talking to people that might not want to get there around biden. i don't get that, it doesn't make sense to me, but i think this is important. when you look at a strategy a lot of democratic groups out there in pacs trying to activate young voters or black voters or part of the coalition. this is an effort to reach people pretty much republican voters, that voted for donald trump, not even like never trumpers. they're trump voters. and moving some of them from going from a trump voter to a

nothing, that's a step in the right direction, right? that's a plus one for joe biden. moving him to joe biden, that's a full flip. that's what you're trying to do, right? in order to do that these testimonials are hearing from them. hearing from claire, hearing from me even, someone voted for hillary is not going to be as compelling. someone that looks like them, sounds like them, they voted for donald trump, and explaining for whatever reason whether it be january 6th, whether his behavior since then, his change of heart on the economy or covid, they can't get around this time. and we've seen in testing that is a way to move some of this critical -- it's a small number, 1 or 2%, but that could be a meaningful 1 or 2% in a close election. >> i'm not going to impugn your reputation or claire's. i hear what you're saying, tim. claire, we have news tonight that robert f. kennedy, jr., the

third party candidate may be -- may be choosing jesse ventura, the former minnesota governor or the jets quarterback, aaron rogers, a known anti-vaxxer to be his running mate. does this matter at this stage in the game, claire? does the continued sort of thorniness of the kennedy candidacy have the potential to spoil this race? >> well, first, don't get me started on aaron rogers, are they going to go off and do lsd together in a dark room? and the poor jets, right? but here's the thing, we're going to have to spend, people are going to have to spend a lot of money explaining to people in this election that a vote for anyone other than joe biden is a vote for donald trump. and it's going to be expensive. people don't realize they see the name, i'm look at all these

polls, and yes he polls a few points from trump but polls from president biden, and all of that is the name. i think the kennedy family would get involved. i believed they would because i know they think this is a horrible idea. but i've got to tell you the truth i don't think jesse ventura or aaron rogers is going to help someone who's got the whacky ideas someone like robert f. kennedy has. marie shriver was a guest at the "state of the union." she was one of the -- can we call her a matriarch, one of the most prominent members. thank you for joining me. i appreciate you. still ahead the photo that simultaneously broke the internet and public trust. what the british royal photo scandal says about institutional integrity and what donald trump had to do with all of it. that is next. what donald trump had to do with all of it that is next

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the palace released a fake photo of kate middleten today. >> several resources have recalled this photo of kate middleton and her children because they say it's manipulated. >> if you look at prince charlotte's sweater, you can see the sweater isn't fully there. right here where the skirt juts out, i really believe this photo was taken back in 2023.

of course they're not going to release a picture supposed to be brand new all in the same outfits in a publicized events, so they tinkered with it a bit. >> it was completely fakely generated. >> by now you have probably seen the photo that launched a thousand conspiracy theories. on saturday the family released this photo for british mother's day. immediately people clocked several signs the photo had been digitally edited. major news agencies like the associated press and reuters removed the image from their official databases because the image appeared to have been manipulated by the royal family. for context here kate middleton has been absent from public life for about two months now. in january the palace announced she was undergoing abdominal surgery but it didn't give any details on her diagnosis, so the british public was already awash in conspiracy theories here. and then in an attempt to kill

all the speculation the royals admitted the photo they'd released had been edited. the official account for princess kate tweeted like many amateur photographers, i do occasionally experiment with editing. i wanted to express any confusion that the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. that only led to more questions, questions like why was the princess of wales doing her own crappy photo edits, and how did no one else in the palace catch this, and also why? i don't know maybe there's a totally legitimate explanation for all of this. but the global panic this one photo has caused is something of real concern. the rise of disinformation and misinformation paired with advances in artificial intelligence have given rise to a new era of uncertainty, one that threatens to upend our own political system here in the united states. i mean we've already seen real evidence of how deep fakes are interfering with the election. there was the fake robo call

from joe biden or fake joe biden telling democratic voters to stay home in the state of new hampshire. then there were the widely circulated fake images of donald trump surrounded by black supporters that was generated using a.i. but the impact of any single deep fake is ultimately less concerning than the general climate of suspicion generated simply by living in the era of deep fakes. as one stanford a.i. researcher told the atlantic, you don't need to create a fake video for this tech to have a serious impact, you just point to the fact the tech exists, and you can impugn the integrity of the stuff that is real. that is where the significant danger lies, and it is already happening. we are witnessing the unraveling of shared reality. as notes the royal photo debacle is merely a microcosm of our

current moment where trust in both governing institutions and gate keeping organizations such as main stream press is low. we're going to talk about what the end of shared reality means for the future of our democracy coming up next. r democracy coming up next

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is this real? that is the question millions of people had to ask themselves this week about this image published by one of the oldest institutions in the western world, the british monarchy. as technology improves, people's ability to discern fact from fiction has worsened. the present scandal around the crown suggests public trust once shaken can just disappear entirely. in a new article for the atlantic charlie warzel calls this moment the end of shared reality. he writes for years researchers and journalists have warned deep fakes and a.i. tools will destroy any reality. experts have warned technology

might become so good at conjuring synthetic media it becomes difficult for anyone to believe anything they didn't witness themselves. the royal portrait debacle illustrates this era isn't forthcoming, we're living in it. joining me now is brian taylor co-host of the podcast and msnbc contributor. brian, thank you for being here tonight. i'm super eager to hear your thoughts on this. not what is going on with kate middleton, though. our thoughts are with her wherever she is, but just the impact of a sort of seismic cultural event, internet event like this in terms of it broader question of public trust and how damaging you think it is even outside of the u.k., even here in america. >> yeah, i mean, if you look at, for example, robo calls, the biden robo calls, if you look at the a.i. generated images of donald trump surrounded by african american voters, obviously they have the short-term impact of accomplishing what those a.i. generated images or what those

manipulated, you know, elements of those things are actually doing, so it has that benefit, first of all. but more insidiously, republicans gets the added benefit of shaking our faith in the reality of everything, that we don't know what's real, we don't know what's fake, we don't know what joe biden said, for example, or what donald trump said or what they didn't say. because i think once we lose faith in the system, once people more broadly lose faith in the system they just check out, and so that's what trump and republicans want. this is the steve bannon model of flooding the zone, which i'm sure you're intimately familiar with, but republicans want a splitical space that feels so inacesable and so dirty and so manipulated and so broken that who would want to get involved? and that cynicism they're kind of ingendering here really does correlate the republican's message of american carnage and fear and dysfunction. this is all, i think, a coordinated strategy, and it comes from the top down. you heard the expression the

fish rots from the head, and that's what we're seeing here. >> i think one of the hallmarks of autocracy is people losing faith in institutions, right? and you've already heard the cry of fake news. it really feels this is the next prong in that strategy, which is anything trump and his supporters don't like on television they're going to say it's fake tv. and there's a concrete example of that. the lincoln project came out with this ad, and let's play it first. this is an ad from the lincoln project. >> we noticed something. more and more people are saying it, you're weak. you seem unsteady, you need help getting around. and wow -- >> an enormous, really an enormous -- >> are you sure you don't have dementia? >> okay, that's an ad from the lincoln project and in response to it trump says on truth social the lincoln project are using a.i. in their fake television commercials in order to make me look as bad. this feels like the next front, right, if you're presented with visual evidence that doesn't

seem favorable to your candidate and your candidate is donald trump, just call it fake. and i wonder how effective you think that's going to be more broadly. >> i think it's going to be effective for the people who want to believe him, and that's what he'll do. everything is just as convenient as they want to make it. in this case if donald trump sees something, well, his own words which are obviously not going to be flattering and if he wants to write it off, he has that an excuse, as a fall back. so he can claim it's an a.i. generated image. by the way, that's kind of tacitads mission how ridiculous the things he says are, that he has to claim what he said was fake. i think that's kind of the big ts tell of all. >> do you feel there's a way to put the toothpaste back in the tube? can you rebuild public trust in the 21st century? i ask them as someone hopeful about institutional integrity.

>> i think it's going to take a lot of digital media literacy, which i don't think we have right now, which is clear we don't have right now. it's also the reason what you do is so important, what i try to do on a daily basis is so important. and that's to arm people with accurate information. it shows why it's so important and arms people with the knowledge this kind of stuff is happening. all you can do is continuously pelt people with the truth over and over again and hopefully it has something of an impact. like i said earlier it's going to take a lot of digital literacy we don't have right now as a society. >> sunlight and literacy, that's what it's going to take. that is our show for this evening. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. what you are suggesting is that i needed to provide a different ve