Conspiracy charges against eric adams, the mayor of new york city. The democratic mayor of new york is indicted. We are not focused on the right or the left. We are focused only on right and wrong. Tonight, what we know about the charges and what it says about the equal application of law. I noticed the indictment is very old. It goes back a long time. I had the same thing. Then jamie raskin on jack smith's big filing. Plus the house republican doubling down on his vile attack on immigrants. Higgins is a dear friend of mine and also a very principled man. The mac as hurricane helene approaches landfall, what we know about the damage already done when all in starts right now. Good evening from new york, i am chris hayes. We are following breaking news in florida where a category 4 hurricane is about to hit the florida panhandle. Hurricane helene is now categorized as an extremely dangerous storm with wind at 130 miles per hour. Yesterday helene pummeled cancun as a category 2 hurricane, bringing down trees and disrupting travel as it made its way up the gulf to florida. Today the storm rapidly intensified. It is now expected to make landfall in a few hours with that category 4 strength. The florida state capital, tallahassee, is in the direct path of the storm. Forecasters are warning there could be an unsurvivable storm surge possible up to 20 feet, higher than the typical one story home as the monster storm comes up short. Meteorologist bill karins is tracking helene's path and joins me with the latest. Chris, this does not look like it will make it to category 5, but a category four did storm will do incredible damage to the coast. We are 3 to 4 hours away from landfall. They expect that between 11:00 p. M. And midnight and it will be somewhere around tallahassee to perry, florida. The storm is going away from the tampa area. We have a 4 to 5 foot storm surge up and down the coast. We have a lot of water damage from that storm surge. Thankfully it happened toward low tide. That helped. As the next high tide approaches these areas from cedar key northwards, we could get the 10 to 20 foot storm surge. Let me give you a closer look at the eye of the storm. This intensified over the last 12 hours. The southern half has fallen apart a little bit, which is why i don't think it will intensify further, but the core is moving onshore. If there is a sliver of good news it is that this category 4 hurricane will make landfall in one of the lowest population centers on the gulf coast. The population density is very low. No beaches. A couple of fishing villages and hopefully everyone is gone from there because those areas will have that devastation. This storm is moving so fast that it is going to stay very strong much further inland than other storms. This is where we will get that extreme damage. It is 56 miles from the coast. We can say it is moving at 20 to 25 miles per hour. Two hours from now the district of wind makes it to the coast, but another hour after that it makes it to the population centers. We have yet to see, is tallahassee going through the eye or on the edge of it? it makes a world of difference. Huge oak trees and a quarter of 1 million people call it home. If you go through the eye you may not have power for weeks. On the edge maybe it is a couple of days. A big difference. Our friends in perry, florida have gone through huge hurricanes in the past. There is perry, florida on the right side of the storm. This is as we go throughout the night. We could have hurricane wind all the way through macon, georgia. Atlanta, it looks to be to the east. The forecast is better in atlanta. Lower wind gusts means less power outages, but the rainfall is a huge issue and of course the storm surge. We've seen the pictures along the coast. Water levels are 2 to 3 feet higher than what you would expect. In the tampa bay area we will still see these going up another foot or two. We are getting and what we call moderate flood stage. It goes minor, moderate, major and then historic. It is bad, but it could've been worse at high tide and if the storm was closer to the area. We have seen wind, 70 mileper hour wind in miami a couple hours ago. 300 miles away from the center of the storm. That is why we were like don't focus on the cone, this is huge and even now, 62 mileperhour guests. What is different about this storm is right now, tallahassee 31. It is moving so fast, but the eye is so strong. It will move in more like a large tornado. It will not be a slow buildup. All of a sudden the wind will ramp up and that eye will come through. We get what we call an extreme wind warning issued and when that is issued, even as far inland as tallahassee, that is when you go into your safe rooms, guide your kids. Go in an interior closet or bathroom and put a mattress over your blankets to protect yourself, because it will feel and sound like a tornado going through and that will last roughly two hours. Meteorologist bill karins, thank you. I should note there are 21 counties in florida under mandatory evacuation. That is 21 of 67 counties. We have jesse kirsch, msnbc news correspondent live on the ground in perry, florida, what you just saw on the map. What are conditions like now? reporter: we've had rain on and off. Nothing dramatic in terms of precipitation, yet the wind is starting to gust more as we make landfall. I clocked wind gusts surround 17 miles per hour. Isolated gusts. Nothing consistent, though the wind is starting to pick up more now. We just heard from bill that this is one of the more isolated areas on the gulf coast in terms of population, but i can tell you there are still people by the thousands by the estimate from the sheriff herein taylor county that have not heeded the request for evacuation in this community and in particular the sheriff tells me that he estimates around 200 people refused to evacuate from the coastline. Those are lowlying areas where we could be seeing storm surge up to 20 feet. These have been described as on survivable conditions. We are talking about dozens of people refusing to get out of harms way. The sheriff told me that he is so concerned about the impact from the wind as well in this community. That they don't even have a shelter open in this county. They are trying to transport people to shelters and other counties and here is the request from officials. They are asking people to take their name, their date of birth, other information about themselves and write it in permanent marker on their bodies so they can be identified after the storm. Jesse kirsch reporting for us live in perry, florida. Thank you very much for that and stay safe. In new york, we are covering another breaking story. The federal indictment of the mayor of the city, democratic mayor eric adams on charges of bribery and wire fraud. Mayor adams engaged in a longrunning conspiracy in which he solicited and knowingly accepted illegal campaign contributions from foreign donors and corporations. As we allege, mayor adams took these contributions even though he knew they were illegal and even though he knew these contributions were attempts by a turkish government official and turkish businessmen to buy influence with him. We also allege that the mayor sought and accepted well over $100,000 in luxury travel benefits from some of the same foreign actors who arranged many of the illegal campaign contributions. These benefits included free international business class flights and opulent hotel rooms in foreign cities. The mayor had a duty to disclose these gifts on his annual public disclosure forms so the public could see who was giving him what. But as we allege year after year after year, he kept the public in the dark. He told the public he received no gifts, even though he was secretly being showered with them. Mayor adams is scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow. He says he has no intention of stepping down and will fight the charges. Lisa rubin's, former litigator and msnbc corresponded. She served in the southern district of new york. They both drive me now. Well it is it started to feel like we were headed this way when basically everyone in the entire administration had their offices searched including the police commissioner who had to resign and the head of the department of education, but still, a pretty shocking document. Give us, lisa, the kind of topline theory of the case from the government about what the mayor did wrong. The theory of the case is that the mayor excepted two forms of benefits. One, illegal campaign contributions through straw donors and secondly, a series of travel benefits, either free or upgraded tickets and hotel rooms over a series of years that range from roughly 2015 to 2023, 2024. And he did this all, the feds allege, for his own benefit and in response the turkish government got approval of a building that was not standard with respect to fire code. They were having a bunch of problems getting it through the fire code. They were hold held up on this. Yes, but they wanted this to open in time for the president's visit and eric adams made that happen for them. Then they got small things, like they wanted eric adams to stop supporting a turkish community center affiliated with a hostile political movement. Shades of michael flynn in 2016. At the same time michael flynn was alleged to have authored this oped. Similarly eric adams is being pressured by the turkish government. Stop supporting this community center in brooklyn that is affiliated with that political movement. They also got him to commit that he would not make a statement about armenian genocide. Basically eric adams was in the pocket of the turkish government in exchange for free travel and campaign contributions. You have the quid pro quo. You get straw donors raising lots of money. $10 million for your mayoral campaign. No, i want to be clear about what that $10 million of benefits is. They say because eric adams lied on forms that he submitted to the campaign finance board in new york city, he then qualified for $10 million in matching funds that are available through the new york city campaign finance board. The benefit was $10 million, meaning the number of straw donors because of the matching ratio, they did not give him $10 million, but he had $10 million more coming through this public financing mechanism than he would have otherwise. Correct. So he is getting that and these flights. The turkish government get someone looking at their interests. We don't want you to support the community center that is associated with that movement. As someone who works in this office, tell me what jumped out to you about this indictment? one thing that jumped out to me are the various ways in which he either destroyed evidence, concealed evidence, or fabricated evidence. There are various buckets here and one is more ridiculous than the next. There is one message exchange where there is an individual identified as a staffer. He says please delete all messages you send me. He replies, always do. Clearly he didn't because it shows up in the indictment. Then you have the phone. This is one of my favorites as well. When the fbi comes to him and says we have a search warrant for your phones, he does not have his personal cell phone on his person, so the next day he provides his personal cell phone to the fbi and says i changed the password yesterday when i learned of this investigation to make it more complicated, from a four digit to a six digit number and i forgot it. And the reason i changed it was so none of my staff would tamper with evidence. I did it for you guys to preserve evidence. That is how seriously i take the process, but now i have forgotten it. It is the worst excuse since donald trump said he can't debate kamala harris because it is too late. We are in dog ate my homework territory and he is a former nypd officer. These are ridiculous, ridiculous statements and i think for me, in addition to not filling out any of these travel benefits on disclosure forms as you should, but the fake paper trail of saying that you paid for travel benefits that the records show were complementary. That is pretty good evidence that you know what you are doing is wrong. That stood out to me, too, which is like you are aware. There is even another moment that release truck that really stuck out to me. The prosecutors are choosing the evidence. We may learn all kinds of things that complicate this picture. He maintains his innocence. I want to stress that. But there is one moment in the indictment when a staffer is talking to this turkish handler who is trying to arrange the straw donors scheme and how it would work and the staffer says something along the lines of i don't think the mayor would go for that because it would be too big of a stink, he says. He's talking about this but goes i will talk to the mayor and the next day he texts to say, how much are we talking? it is like all right, i guess a consultation got made. Absolutely. Not only are the allegations themselves stunning, but this is another example of how the southern district builds the case that i think nicely complements the sean diddy combs indictment last week. There are real parallels in terms of the plethora of evidence. The number of witnesses that they appear to have and the fact that they are alleging a conspiracy of over a decade long in which some of these participants who are described here are clearly co conspirators and yet they only charged one person. Eric adams this week. Sean diddy combs last week. It sort of reflects the changing of operation. Because, generally speaking, you go for the little fish and flip them and head up the chain. This time they are headed straight to the top. Enormous headlines out of an office which is used to making headlines, but this is about as big as it gets. I don't know if we have the file photo of sean combs and the mayor making the heart sign as he got the keys to the city. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Coming up, putting today's indictment into the proper context. What the indictment says about the biden department of justice and the equal application of law. Next. Law. Next. I don't have a problem with my memory. Memory loss is, is not something that occurs overnight. I started noticing subtle lapses in memory. I want people to know that prevagen has worked for me. It's helped my memory. It's helped my cognitive qualities. Give it a try. I want it to help you just like it has helped me. 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Eric adams has become the first sitting mayor of the city to be criminally indicted, which is remarkable when you think about how long the city has been around. The charges are also in a strange way reassuring. They show that we have a functioning federal government that still holds the rule of law to be a bedrock synchronous act thing. Look at the doj joe biden inherited from donald trump. After trump's endless, constant attempts to subvert federal law enforcement and converted into a political tool of the president. Particularly when you look at the southern district of new york, arguably the most influential federal prosecutors office in the country, the one that indicted eric adams. When trump became president the southern district was run by the u. S. Attorney under barack obama and we later learned that trump was regularly calling him to cultivate a personal relationship that made him so uncomfortable he reported it to his bosses at the doj and eventually refused to call the president. Less than a day later preet bharara was fired. Trump's personal lawyer would brag that he convinced trump to fire him, telling the president, this guy is going to get you. It is a pattern trump would repeat over and over again as president. Whether it was firing james comey after trump asked comey to drop the federal investigation into the national security adviser michael flynn or having his attorney general, bill barr, fire another attorney from the southern district. The man he appointed in 2020, after berman prosecuted trump's former lawyer, michael cohen, and opened several other investigations of people and banks in trump's orbit. The cardinal rule is that partisan political concerns are not supposed to enter any decisionmaking and that rule was repeatedly violated. Now we managed to push back every attempt to interfere in our cases and we were successful every time. But it was difficult. It was 2 1/2 years of unrelenting pushback. Unrelenting pressure, 2 1/2 years. Trump was constantly pushing for prosecutions of his perceived enemies including hillary clinton and john kerry. He said this publicly. This is not some scoop. His attorney general bill barr also distorted the mueller report on the trump campaign russian contacts and appointed as special counsel to investigate the fbi investigators who looked into trump and russia. An investigation which yielded to embarrassing acquittals for trump. We have blocked so much of this out, but trump was constantly spending his time as president trying to manipulate the doj to do his bidding. To destroy any independence and that pressure culminated in his attempted coup after the 2020 election, when trump was trying to name jeffrey clark, a mid level doj lawyer, as temporary attorney general so clark could use the department's name and stationary to send out a letter saying the election was rigged and get state legislatures to overturn the election. Compare that with the biden doj under merrick garland. The department of justice that has been over backwards to be independent of the white house and partisan political concerns. They appointed a special counsel, a republican and trump appointee, to investigate the sitting president handling of documents. They prosecuted a string of highprofile democratic officials and family members on a variety of charges. Today i'm announcing that my office of paint a three count indictment charging senator robert menendez. Breaking news, nbc has learned that the department of justice is expected to announce an indictment against longterm democratic congressman henry cuellar of texas. We are announcing charges against eric adams, mayor of new york city. An extraordinary step earlier today. Federal prosecutors have indicted president joe biden's sole surviving son, hunter biden, on three criminal counts. The doj prosecuted a sitting democratic senator, a sitting congressman from a swing district that possibly only he could win as a democrat, new york city eric adams, 40 days out from an election in which there are a whole bunch of swing districts around new york city democrats are trying to win and joe biden's last surviving son who is awaiting sentencing on charges that even trey gowdy, the former far right congressman and prosecutor things are pretty ludicrous. On prosecutions for six years, but i bet there weren't 10 cases prosecuted nationwide of addicts or unlawful drug users who possess firearms or lied on applications. I bet there weren't a dozen, which makes you wonder of all the cases you could be pursuing in delaware, why are you pursuing this one? it is entirely possible that joe biden will leave the presidency and never see his son outside of prison. This is the administration that republicans say have politically weaponized the department of justice when the opposite is actually true. It is a point that the current u. S. Attorney made today when he announced the indictment. The southern district of new york remains committed to rooting out corruption without regard to partisan politics. We are not focused on the right or the left. We are focused only on right and wrong. I want to be clear. This does not mean the department of justice always gets it right. The people prosecuted are guilty. They might not be. We will see in trials. But at the level of the institutional functioning of the department of justice, this is how the doj is supposed to work. Even though there are essentially zero political benefit and it for democrats and here's the thing. If donald trump wins i think this is all going to change. These institutions could be put in the hands of trump's creepiest authoritarian sycophants, like this republican lawyer who is rumored to be in the running for a top doj post and who said this last year. I will rain hell on washington, d. C. We will fire a lot of people in the executive branch and deep state. We will indict hunter biden and joe biden and james biden and every other sleaze ball biden. We will deport a lot of people. 10 million people and growing. Anchor babies, their parents, their grandparents. We are going to put kids in cages. It will be glorious. We will contain a lot of people so he says he is just trolling, but again it is not stick. Trump wants it to be policy, very clearly. He said it in his presidency and afterwards and on the campaign trail this month. We will completely overhaul kamala's department of injustice and turn the injustice department back into the best law enforcement agency on the planet. Guess who reposted that clip of trump on social media? mike davis did with the single word comment, amen. Donald trump is promising to destroy the federal justice system and the justice department so that he can wield it like a weapon to fit his political needs and he has help thanks to the john roberts authored supreme court immunity decision, which goes out of its way to basically tell trump, have at it. He would have carte blanche to do it as part of his official duties. They don't indict that guy, indict that guy. Do you think joe biden is doing that? i for one am grateful, weird as it is, for today's indictment and the signal that it sends. The rule of law still holds up, for now. 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And now i'm finally free. Take back control with lipo flavonoid. Today we got movement toward what might be our last chance of some type of public reckoning through the legal system for donald trump's attempts to end the american experiment and still the 2020 election. A few hours ago special counsel jack smith filed a brief detailing why the expresident should be put on trial and convicted. Right now that filing is under seal, which means we can't see it, although we may see a redacted version as early as next week, depending on the decision by the federal district judge. Even though we have not seen the filing, we do know it is very long. Up to 180 pages. It likely includes new facts not previously alleged by the government and we also know the trump team did not want the special counsel to make this filing before november 5, arguing the document would enter the dialogue around the election. The judge shot that down, saying the defendants concerns for the consequences of the proceedings does not bear on the pretrial schedule. Joining me now is jamie raskin, democrat of maryland, member of the january 6 committee and lead manager of the second impeachment. It is good to have you. I imagine you have a position on this and it is different than being a federal judge ruling in that context, but as a member of congress do you think the public should be able to see what this filing is? well i like the way judge chutkan has been treating this, which is she is neither going to hurry up these proceedings so the public gets to learn everything before the election, nor is she going to slow them down. She is not going to allow potential political consequences of any judgment to affect her rendering of the legal analysis and so the question of whether or not this should go public relates simply to what parts of it should be redacted. For example there might be certain parts of grand jury testimony that for different reasons should be redacted. There may have been searches that produced material that should not be part of it. It is at that microlevel of analysis that the court needs to operate, not according to some abstract philosophical debate about whether or not the people deserve to know. That is not how you make a decision in a criminal trial. I talked a little bit about this department of justice under merrick garland and the biden administration and a record of not just independence, but going out of its way to be independent. So much so that i think in some cases there is an argument that the hunter biden charges never should have been brought. The reason i bring it up is because it contrasts so sharply with the trump justice department and much of that we know at the time, but one item that got lost and has not really got the attention, but you have been focused on and house democrats have been focused on that it appears the trump administration shut down a department of justice investigation into the kind of behavior charged in the indictment today, which is taking money from a foreign interest for some purpose. Democratic leaders on the house oversight committee, that's you, released a letter asking former president trump if he ever illegally released money from egypt and whether the money played a role in a $10 million infusion in his 2016 run for president. What do we know about what happened at the department of justice in terms of investigating that? to be clear, the reason it is house democrats asking about that is because the house republicans on the oversight committee are not interested, so we asked about it. It is very clear that the department of justice was in possession of information that egyptian intelligence agents under the direction of the president went and collected $10 million. I think it was most of the american currency that was in the banking system of egypt and it weighed hundreds of pounds and they put it all together in hundred dollar bills and donald trump changed his mind. Originally he was saying no, he was not going to cough up the $10 million that the campaign was asking for, despite that he originally promised to pay for everything. He did not want to pay and suddenly he had a meeting with the president of egypt. He changed his mind and that money was brought over in january. At least, apparently repaying him for the money he invested in his own campaign. That money, by the way, ended up paying for an antisemitic tv ad he ran featuring george soros and janet yellen, that these globalists do not have your interests in mind. You just made a stronger case than i thought we knew. I want to take this slowly. What we do know is that u. S. Intelligence saw this money being taken out of egyptian banks and had to basically come from the government for all this cash to come out, so there is that $10 million. We know the donald trump after saying he would fund his own campaign and resisting putting out money down the stretch ponied up $10 million. That seems circumstantial to me, worth investigating. We know the money made its way to the u. S. , like physically we know that. I understand that the money made its way to the united states. I don't know there is testimony about who exactly got it, but that money left egypt. We also know that he did meet with the president of egypt down the stretch of that campaign. Indeed and you know this set the pattern of course for their relationship with saudi arabia, which was completely, you know, capitulation is stand embracing of everything that the homicidal crown prince wanted to do and then jared kushner walks away with $2 billion and $150 million every year in management fees they are getting. I mean the whole thing was a corrupt moneymaking operation from the very beginning and people need to understand that. That there is an economic motivation underlying all of it and the mad desire to set aside the rule of law and lie and cheat and steal and incite violence is all to keep the grift going, so that the corruption is insulated. I can't imagine that getting better in a second term, but that is speculation. Congressman jamie raskin as always, thank you very much. You bet. Still ahead, the unrepentant racism of clay higgins as democrats for say since your vote. 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In tallahassee the big concern will be the wind damage. 55% of the city is under tree canopy and when you factor in 100 mileperhour wind moving through the area and staying for an extended time, officials are concerned about the possibility of toppled trees, downed power lines and extended power outages. Earlier today i had a chance to speak with residents who decided to seek refuge at emergency shelters in tallahassee. Several opened up in advance of the storm and a lot of folks took advantage of it. They were filling up quickly and a lot of folks here weathered the storms. When you hear cat 3, cat 4, and made them nervous and they did not want to take chances. The main rule in the shelters is that during the height of the storm they can't leave, for safety reasons. In tallahassee officials have really been preparing for days, but when it comes to mother nature, we don't know what it is going to do. Right now we are feeling this lowell from the storm, but we are told they are getting aid from across the country and of course tomorrow will be the day where they will be going out and assessing the damage, but they anticipate the storm could be catastrophic. Kathy park in tallahassee, thank you. Stay safe down there. Still ahead, how a grotesque comment about haitian immigrants is part of a long pattern from the man who represents louisiana's third congressional district. That is next. That is next. Jen x is planning a summer in portugal with some help from j. P. Morgan wealth plan. Let's go whiskers. Jen y is working with a banker to budget for her birthday. You only turn 30 once. And jen z? her credit's golden. Hello new apartment. Three jens getting ahead with chase. Solutions that grow with you. One bank for now. For later. For life. Chase. Make more of what's yours. ♪♪ vicks vapostick provides soothing nonmedicated vicks vapors. Easy to apply for the whole family. 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Now available: boost max! louisiana's third congressional district is home to over 730,000 people. It is comprised of a geographically large portion of the southern half of the state, including the city of lafayette. The folks who live there have sent this man, republican clay higgins, to be their representative in the united states congress four terms in a row. Before he was a congressman, he was a louisiana police deputy who got himself in a little bit of trouble with the following video. What street gang is responsible for hundreds of violent crimes. We have arrested 10 of these thugs and have warrants on seven more. Every one of these animals is most definitely armed and dangerous. You will be hunted, you will be tracked, and if you raise your weapon to a man like me, we will return fire with superior fire. Darian carter, you think men like these are afraid of an uneducated, 125 pound punk like you that has never won a fair fight in her life and holds a gun sideways? in 2016, higgins was forced to resign in disgrace after publishing that video, so of course he immediately ran for congress, and won with 56% of the vote. He hasn't changed a bit. Yesterday, higgins posted this racist rant about haitian migrants in ohio, lol, these haitians are wild. Eating pets, voodoo, the nastiest country in the western hemisphere, colts, slapstick gangsters, but if they don't all feel sophisticated now, filing charges against our president and vp. All of these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before january 20th. After widespread outrage and condemnation, including some objections from republicans, higgins ended up deleting the tweet. Republican speaker of the house, mike johnson, tried to turn the whole thing into a sort of coup by a moment about the healing powers of redemption. Representative higgins is a dear friend of mine and a colleague from louisiana, and a very frank and outspoken person. I just talked to him about it, he said he went and prayed about it, and he regretted it, and he pulled the post down. That is what you want a gentleman to do. I'm sure he probably regret some of the land which he used, but we move forward, we believe in redemption around here. He prayed about it, he regretted it, and he pulled the post down. So, guess what? after congress officially left town for six weeks, higgins then turned around and said, i will do it again if i want to. It's all true. I can put up another controversial post tomorrow, if you want me to. I mean, we do have freedom of speech. I will say what i want. It's not a big deal to me. It's like something stuck to the bottom of my boot. Just scrape it off and move on with my life. Charlotte has covered for two decades, author of the undertow, a great book. And he wrote a fantastic and unnerving plug profile of clay higgins, the congressman telling trump supporters to buckle up. Jeff, i thought of you immediately when i saw what higgins posted. Let's start with the post which is genuinely shocking and vile even by the degraded standards of modern political rightwing rhetoric. I'm sure you weren't surprised what was your reaction when you saw this develop yesterday? i think clay higgins is the latest member of the gop to sort of carry the ball forward on an escalation of violence political rhetoric, using immigrants, using haitian americans who are here legally, working hard in springfield, ohio, and you know, he is not a bright man. But, he has a long history of playing a game and this is one more sort of notch for him in escalating the rhetoric and moving it closer to violence. Closer to the civil war that he has, in fact, fantasized about in the past. Talk a little bit more about that? because not only is this a person that is clearly racist certainly expresses racist views he really is obsessed with this sort of idea of like, incipient violence, threatening violence, violence sort of hunting everything, the politics of violence, and you talk about this in the piece. Yeah, i think there are two dates you can look at in representative higgins' life, that goes back to, one, when trump was first indicted. A number of freedom caucus members i think it was representative andy biggs, who talked about it is time for war. But, clay higgins went further. He said, no your bridges, buckle up. 150 k, know your bridges, rocksteady, calm. It was the sort of bizarre language that a lot of people thought was funny, they made fun of, they thought, here is another republican who is incoherent. What he was referring to there, though, was 1 to 50,000 which is a ratio of military grade maps, hold your bridges, this is speaking to a fascist fantasy which is not so much militias marching on cities, but in taking strongholds. No the bridges, know the means of approach to your stronghold and sees it. You also cited a few other things he said in the piece this one really leapt out at me. You say, higgins didn't win much attention when he told a gas industry conference he was a 3% or, part of a militia movement that believes the u. S. Government is tyrannical and must be confronted in the spirit of the revolutionary war. Three presenters were indicted and involved in some of the stuff on january 6th. In 2020, responding on facebook while he is a sitting member of congress on facebook, to an armed black lives matter protester higgins promised to shoot them on sight, i dropped 10 of you where you stand. And he added 1450 fps which was sort of like, what is this guy speaking of? he is speaking of ammunition speed, 1450 feet per second. To three presenters, it is part of a long history going back to 1992, when he was voting for david duke. He has been connected to richard spencer of the oath keepers. The three presenters, he was talking to a gas industry meeting, and he was telling them, you are the three presenters, imagining them as a militia against people who are trying to fight climate change. You know, he also this is somewhat recent, 2007, he was a police officer, striking a handcuffed suspect, then lied about it, and quit rather than being demoted. So, there are some actual actions in his past that suggest a kind of intimacy with violence. He goes back to 2018 when he first trains as a military policeman. He is an incompetent cop. I mean, two forces, at least, that he has been forced to resign from. And he is incompetent, even by the standards of his own kind of idea about the blue line. But, where that really comes to bear is when you talk about what he has been doing. He gets to write it as a congressman who doesn't achieve much. He is not trying to do legislation. You are showing a picture there of him with ashley babbitt's mother. He is the leading member of congress in terms of pushing a conspiracy theory that january 6th was what they call a fed surrection, it was the fbi, the fbi are the enemy. He speaks of the deep state, he is constantly going on podcasts and saying that he and other members of the freedom caucus have gathered all of this secret information that they are going to reveal at a certain point, coming soon. Rocksteady calm, hold on. He is always promising an apocalypse just around the corner. Jeff charlotte, who wrote that great profile of clay higgins in the atlantic, and a fantastic book of similar themes. Thank you for your time tonight, i appreciate it. Thanks, chris. That is all in on this thursday night alex wagner tonight starts now. Good evening, alex point extraordinary reporting for the extra ordinary times in which we live. A lot of breaking news tonight, thank you, my friend. Right now, we are watching breaking news out of florida as hurricane helene speeds to the gulf of mexico. The storm is expected to make landfall just south of