Transcripts For MSNBCW Deadline White House 20200917

Department he leads didnt stop there. He mocked the very notion of deferring to any career prosecutors managing cases and asserted he and he alone has all the prosecutorial discretion he said under the law all prosecutorial power is invested in the attorney general. He mocked the very notion that any career official should be free to handle cases free from interference from him. Barr said that argument in essence means the will of the most Junior Member of the organization would determine decisions, but he insisted he would not blindly defer to whatever the subordinates want to do. Heres attorney general bill barr in his own words last night on the career men and women who make up the department of justice. Name one Successful Organization or institution where the lowest level employees decision are deemed is sacros sacrosanct there arent any good leaders at the department of justice need to trust and support their subordinates that doesnt mean blindly deferring to whatever the subordinates want to do. Now important to remember that barr has repealed career prosecutors over his interventions in the cases of two of the president s closest criminal pals. Felon roger stone and felon mike flynn. Barr said the Obama Administration had some of the people in muellers Office Writing their broiefs for the Supreme Court. Maybe that explains something. Barrs comment was seen as a direct attack on michael dreban. He was a long time lawyer and is considered one of this countrys foremost experts on criminal law. Barrs war on the department he leads is where we start. Former acting solicitor general is here and former chief spokesman for the Justice Department matt miller, and Devlin Barrett devlin, i want to start with you. Whats so interesting is barr is trying to do what no one else has managed to do. When cabinet secretaries act like trump, they usually dont last hes trying that out and seeing if it works for him it would appear yeah, thats right. I also think one of the more interesting bits about what barr is doing very few leaders of agencies attack their people while theyre leading those agencies you dont see the cia director denouncing how the cia treats foreigners what hes doing is going after his own people and hes in a sense cracking the whip because i think hes clearly taking um bridge at all the criticism coming at him involving his handling of the cases of people close to trump. Hes wrong on the facts here though thats where he gets trumpy. The notion these are junior prosecutors that he overruled in the stone sentencing is flat wrong. They were hardly preschoolers in terms of their doj careers. Yeah. Ive already talked to people who are pretty unhappy about the preschoolers line. That seems a little gratuitous to some folks i talked to in the department theres a principle that the doj has operated on. You let the career people bring their decisions, bring their best judgment to you then you approve it if you think its right barr is basically making the argument to be fair to him, hes longheld this view hes making the argument that, no, the attorney general should make a lot of decisions and should not defer to judgment of people who know the case inside and out. Thats what i think has alarmed some of the folks at the Justice Department neil, the floor is yours. First of all, happy constitution day, nicolle, to the extent it exists anymore. Is it is it . Look, i think youve said it exactly right. Barr has gone full caputo at this point as i once said attorney general barr is at the Rudy Giuliani stage of his personal development. He had competence a while back and traded it in for modern day relevance. This idea devlins reporting is great saying he called career prosecutors Nursery School students i disagree hes held this for a long period of time. Hes held this in republican administrations. In democratic administrations you never hear the attorney general can do whatever he wants. The whole premise of the dunham investigation if the theory was right that attorneys general have a free hand, that would destroy the rationale of the dunham investigation that was sanctioned by high level officials when it was done this is an attorney general who is really destroying the morale of the department. Theres just a crisis of confidence there and hes well on his way to becoming the antijackson by that i dont mean president jackson. I mean Robert Jackson the attorney general who all of us fight for his portrait in our office hes seen as evenhanded model prosecutor, model attorney general. Barr is the absolute reverse of that i think hell go down in history as the guy who nobody wants that portrait nobody wants to have anything to do with him. Matt miller, theres so much to unpack here let me just start with barr taking the position hes basically taking the position that all prosecutions are driven by him hes also taken the position that the ones that the president didnt like the outcome of were invalid. Is there a single example of a prosecution that wasnt involving a president ial ally that he ruled against . Is there a single example where he was hard on one of the felons in the president s circles a single example where he deferred to prior investigations into the origin of the russia investigation . Does barr have all his eggs in the one hes in the middle of traveling to capitals with mr. Durham to interview italian officials about Intelligence Matters . Youll be surprised by this answer no, theres no example of interference except when it benefits the president he was asked that question before the house when he testified before the house and he was unable to come up with an example. This attack was a dishonest attack on the Justice Department its a way to defend his inappropriate interventions. To a large extent he was attacking a straw man. Theres no one that believes the attorney general doesnt have the right or ability to intervene in cases when its appropriate and doesnt believe that political appointees cant sit in judgment of the people that appointed them. It happens all the time. When those are good faith diszbreedi disagreemen disagreements, the career officials may not like the answers they get, but you didnt see people leaving in droves or you didnt see that in previous administrations either the reason you see people resigning over the attorney generals interventions are because his decisions arent being made in good faith its not that he thinks drug sentences ought to be harder or more lenient he only intervenes when its in the president s favor. Thats the fundamental disagreement with bill barr. This attack on the department was a way to confuse people about whats really going on. You know, devlin, we sometimes separate out Justice Department stories and Justice Department reporting and barr stories from trump stories this is a trump story. William barr was asked at the end of july about the election and about ballots. I want to play some of that exchange with congressman greg stanton and talk about his role as really a wing man in trumps efforts to go to war against an election that hasnt happened. Mr. Barr, the president suggested that only votes counted on election day should be what matters. If a voter casts a legal ballot on or before election day, it shouldnt count at all i want to ask about your commitment to ensuring that every vote is counted. If in this upcoming november election the president asks you to intervene and stop states from counting legal ballots after election day, will you do the right thing and refuse yes or no . I will follow the law. You wont say yes or no. I will fol low the law. If a state has a law that says it has to be cast before election day, thats the law. Will the department of justice not get involved in a contested election yes or no . I will follow the law it would appear we have an attorney general who is on the record as not coming out and saying voting twice in North Carolina is illegal as donald trump called for voters to vote two time and commit voter fraud. As an attorney general who will not say that he will allow for legal ballots to be counted, which your newspaper and the new york tiemes and every paper of record is reporting that some of the mailin voting due to the coronavirus may need to be counted after election day. How the department of justice approaches what could be a very messy vote counting process is incredibly important what you see in the clip and the reason why democrats are so anxious about this is that barr isnt promising anything they want to hear he hasnt promised that, you know, he wont issue some version of durham findings before the election, which a lot of democrats find to be a form of domestic interference, akin to what happened in 2016 look, i think barr is determined not to have any daylight between him and the president on some of these issues involving the election when intelligence Officials Say they see no evidence or no threat from foreign actors making mock ballots or mailing in mock ballots, barr insists thats still possible. Thats because the president insists it is. There is this tension and distrust i think the distrust stays with us and will sbintensify between now and election day. We have a truther the attorney general doesnt believe the facts presented by the current fbi director today on russias rule and we have a lawless attorney general who wont say its illegal to vote twice and wont say that ballots will be counted. Matt miller you tweeted the nightmare scenario if barr wanted to prosecute a local mayor over a policy dispute. Whats he going to do on november 5th when local officials are counting ballots and trump says it could stop this is a nightmare scenario. Bill barr said in a recent interview if donald trump isnt reelected the United States will be taken over by socialism. Something the attorney general shouldnt be weighing in on at all, the outcome of an election. He wanted to prosecute the mayors of seattle and portland over policy issues when you combine that with the conspiracies of mail in voter fraud, it worries me if the balloting is close, but trump is ahead and the counting is still going on and the president declares hes won, bill barr declares the election is over and does something no department of justice has done and tries to stop ballot counting i know it sounds paranoid. If you think theres a scenario thats too extreme for bill barr and trump to try to hold on to power, you havent been paying close attention lately. I would agree with you. I want to end with the human beings neil, behind a sideswipe, an effort to smear the reputations of all career prosecutors, are men and women who get up and in this day and age a lot of them have to go in to work. Some of them have tested positive for covid a lot of them would like to tell their stories to people like devlin, but theyre terrified because what the justice is doing is a crackdown on leak investigations i dont want to let this end without talking about who suffers. The morale at the department i understand to be horrible. People have been preparing for and bracing for sweeping pardons for the president s criminal friends for months theyve watched a real brain drain as prosecutors quit these cases and slowly and quietly leave the department you mentioned nora dunnahey. The resignations are forceful public signal that something is awry at the Justice Department a hallmark of the department where both of us worked is traditioned of political independence, forged over dec e decad decades. You write this with joshua gelter neither of us heard of career Civil Servants resigning because they believe the attorney general is acting politically. Never. That accounts for the strong conservatives and liberals in its ranks. Talk about the shock waves when an attorney general says Something Like this and walks back into office and has smeared everyone of his employees. Barr has two problems problem one, he doesnt believe in law even though hes the attorney general and our chief Law Enforcement officer. Number two, he doesnt believe in the Justice Departments personnel. Thats why you have folks resigning and demoralized. Morale is at the toilet level. For him to attack michael dreban, i have no idea what the guys politics are, widely seen as a Supreme Court advocate, its ridiculous. He does this to all sorts of people at the top and bottom of the Justice Department the only way the Justice Department works is through the hard work by the career folks, men and women who generally do it right to call them Nursery School folks is inexcusable it breaks my heart i dont think this man is fit to be attorney general of the United States. Maybe hes fit to be attorney general of the soviet union. This is damage to the department, damage to the rule of law and i think his legacy is set in stone at this point well, i want to end with this other piece from your reporting, neil one of the people he called a preschool person is nora dennehey shes resigned you wrote she poses a looming threat for barr. She resigned from the department and mr. Barr cant muzzle her. Breaking news on the latest former trump official to come out in support of joe biden. Why . Because human lives depend on it this person says. Plus Christopher Wrays back handed rebuke of attorney general william barr. Later on Donald Trumps former director of National Intelligence going perhaps further than hes ever gone in criticizing the administration in which he once served. Dont go anywhere. Upbeat music tech youll get a text when were on our way. Tech before we arrive, just leave your keys on the dash. 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We want to bring you some news thats broken a former top aid to Vice President mike pence came out and announced her support of joe biden because of what she calls trumps flat out disregard for human life during the pandemic from the Washington Post, olivia troy who worked as Homeland Security counterterrorism and coronavirus adviser to Vice President pence for two years said the administrations response caused lives and shell vote for joe biden this fall because of her experience in the trump white house. Quote, the president s rhetoric and his own attacks against people in his administration trying to do the work as well as a promulgation of false narratives and Incorrect Information of the virus made this ongoing response a failure she said in an interview heres olivia troy in a new voter put out by Republican Voters against trump. We knew it wasnt a matter of if covid would become a pandemic it was a matter of when. The president didnt want to hear that. His biggest concern was we were in an Election Year and how would this affect his level of success. It was shocking to see the president saying that the virus was a hoax, saying that everything is okay when we know its not the truth is he doesnt actually care about anyone else but himself. Matt miller, theyre going to need a bigger boat for all the Trump Administration officials coming out and endorsing joe biden. There is a serious echo here everyone who has seen donald trump up close, his failures to protect the National Security, his failures on the Homeland Security front, they cant get out fast enough to endorse the alternative, joe biden those are extraordinarily damning comments its worth noting theres no precedent for this we havent seen this in previous administrations where you have multiple officials who leave and when they leave speak out about what a danger the president is to the country and are willing to endorse the president s opponent this isnt the first person weve seen do it weve seen a number of them. It goes to something weve talked about for almost four years. The obligation that people who see trumps actions up close, the responsibility they have to come out and say what weve seen im glad some of them are doing it there are a lot more not meeting that obligation. I think it also holds true inside the government. We talked about the Justice Department and about john durham and his investigation. I hope people like john durham will do what nora dennehey did theyll stand up and say no if they have to. Neil, to matts point, theres Something Different between losing enthusiasm and staying home and being so alarmed and so frightened for the country that you put your face and reputation and career in a political ad for the other party. It is an unbelievable degree of alarm. My concern that its coming so late that a lot of people are voting, but all the calls about the danger that donald trump represents to this country, all those calls are coming from inside the house nicolle, it was once said wisdom come so rarely to folks even if its late, just take it. Im glad its coming today isnt by any stretch the only example last week a person at the department of Homeland Security, a senior official said he was pressured to minimize threats about russia to the election in order to help donald trump he became a whistleblower for that reason. Its not just people who left like this official its even folks who managed the stay youll see people like this coming out its hard for at least Justice Department people to do that because there are disciplinary actions that can be taken against them they have to resign which is what happened with roger stone and you had a prosecutor resigning and going public at that point with the kind of political pressure that was placed on him. Yoe this in other administrations. Not just the resignations, but the complaints that a president is in it only for himself. Hell bend the rule of law, bend the facts, all of it just to help himself. Devlin, theres this nexus that miles turner is involved with, Elizabeth Newman she said she brought the threat of White Supremacy to the white house. He was rebuffed. Now you have an official from mike pences staff with the responsibilities of Homeland Security, counterterrorism and coronavirus adding her voice to the people from inside the administration i want to show you some of what Christopher Wray said which is in line with wt these ill call them sort of theyre not whistleblower in the legal sense, but theyre coming out of the Trump Administration and sounding the alarms about what they saw Christopher Wray sounding more like the three of them on the specific question of the threat posed by russian interference and the threat posed by White Supremacists lets watch some of chris wray who testified on capitol hill. We have seen very active, very active efforts by the russians to influence our election in 2020 through what i would call more the maligned foreign influence side of things social media, use of proxies, state media, online journals, et cetera in an effort to sew divisiveness and discord i think the Intelligence Community has assessed this publicly, primarily to denigrate joe biden and what the russians see as an antirussian establishment. Thats the substance of the bulletin that was scuttled at the department of Homeland Security it was a russian plot to denigrate the health of joe biden. It was created it was never delivered to the countrys Law Enforcement agencies in his own words the fbi director with the same alarm right whats the connecting tissue between a lot of these things you see where government officials are coming forward to say they have deep concerns about what the administration is doing . I would argue in 2016 you saw a sort of political storm around the fbi and the fbi became politicized in a way that people hadnt expected. Where are we four years later . We politicized the Postal Service, health care, pandemic response, all these things that really should not have anything to do with politics are getting fed into this meet grinder its very alarming to people who are professionals who do whatever their specialty is, who do it for a living, and see this crazed meat grinder coming for the work they care the most about. Thats whats frustrating to some inside the government thats why some of those folks have decided to speak out. Matt miller, theres also a whistleblower complaint in the department of the Homeland Security about the substance of the intelligence reports that they couldnt seek approval for, to even pass up the chain of command. Some of them are around what we watched wray testify to, russian interference some of them are around White Supremacists and the role they play in domestic terrorist threats in this country. Heres Christopher Wray on that topic. I can tell you that within the domestic terrorism bucket, category as a whole, racially motivated violent extremism is the biggest bucket within that group, with the that bucket people subscribing to white supremacist type ideology is certainly the biggest chunk of that so, matt miller, obviously the Vice President has access to what the fbi director thinks is the greatest chunk white supremacist ideology is the biggest chunk of that. Why when the Vice President in his Convention Speech shared his sympathy for a Homeland Security worker who was killed, why didnt he call out the white supremacist who killed him you can look at christophers wray testimony as a rebuke of what william barr, mike pence and donald trump have said i think a clear contradiction of what the president and attorney general have been saying he said there was clear russian intervention the attorney general said it looked like there was indications they were going to interfere but china was a bigger threat he said the biggest domestic terrorism threat was the threa when all you hear from the attorney general are screams about antifa i think pretty clearly the attorney general and president are doing that as a employ ployp thepresident get elected when you see the departments dealing with the coronavirus, its the resistance to truth the resistance of truth when its inconvenient to them and out right lie about it thats what you saw chris wray push back on today. Neil, to the degree its been a demoralizing 20 hours for the department, let me show you what Christopher Wray had to say in response to the attorney general saying every agent works for him. Here he is under questioning from val demings he said like i said to the fbi agents, whose agents do you think you are. Director wray, as we think about Law Enforcement and the very nonpartisan rule that Law Enforcement is engaged in or should be, to alleviate any confusion on behalf of your agents or the American People, how do you respond to that comment from the attorney general . Im not familiar with that particular comment from the attorney general i will say we, the fbi, work for the American People. Little bit i dont know. I guess that counts as chicken soup for the battered soul neil its as good as weve gotten from the administration at this point. At least director wray is standing up for the men and women at the Justice Department, or at least the fbi. Devlin and matt have been right here if you have an administration that will politicize everything, if theyll politicize the wearing of masks and criticize that kind of truth, then theyll politicize anything including Law Enforcement and the sensitive decisions that have to be made. Im glad to see director wray saying White Supremacists are the greatest domestic terrorist threat thats still at the level of rhetoric they havent introduced a statute or any legislation to go after domestic terrorists and white supremacist groups instead you have a president who says there are fine people on both sides we sure do. Three of the best of the best, thank you all so much for spending so much time with us. After the break, the former director of nation intelligence dan coats is warning act now or the election might not be safe former cia director john brennan responds to that in a conversation next. Keeping your oysters business growing has you swamped. You need to hire. 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Coats writes in the New York Times our democracys even ani enemies want us to concede in advance that our voting systems are faulty or fraudulent the judicial institutions, Law Enforcement and National Security have been twisted, misused and misdirected to create anxiety and conflict. If those are the results of this Election Year, we are lost no matter which candidate wins. Joining us is john brennan and mike schmidt director brennan, everyone of the threats he details to democracy are behaviors that donald trump engages in. Is that intentional . Well, i have deep respect and admiration for dan coats he sees the threat we face to our democratic experiment, as he says after listening to the public statements of donald trump and william barr, i am more worried today than i ever have been before in the health and stability of our government and our country. Clearly donald trump, as we all know, is an unethical, unprincipled corrupt individual who will do anything to advance his own interests. William barr is a right wing ideologue who is trying to advance his agenda and using donald trump to protect what hes doing when i look at the republicans in the senate, senators mcconnell and johnson and graham, theyre allowing this trampling of our Democratic Institutions ive seen this happen overseas when a leader is able to exploit the environment. Were on the cusp of a very difficult period when we approach the election. I get more worried each day. You and i have been having these conversations for years. I never heard you describe yourself as more worried tell me how you see this playing out if everyone continues on their current path i should add that donald trump today tweeted that because of new and unprecedented massive amount of unsolicited ballots sent to voters, the election result may never be accurately determined twitter did something late to say it wasnt true as you and i both know, director brennan, his lies make their way around the world several times before our inadequate fact checks get half as far. Nicolle, we worked in the white house for different president s we understand the tremendous powers that a president has, as well as the capabilities and powers of an attorney general. If they exert those powers in a corrupt way, theyre able to manipulate the environment were in right now im very concerned about what were going to see in the future in terms of harnessing the capabilities within the executive branch and allowing the republicans in the senator to allow continue to provide them protection. When i look over the next 50 days, the things that donald trump and william barr can do, theyre not going to stop this political dishonesty in terms of trying to misinform the American Public as well as exert their authority in a way that will manifest on our streets, the election polling booths or wherever this is something all americans need to be concerned about. Director, ron johnsons committee has subpoenaed you or put in motion steps to subpoena you. Would you testify if they called you . I welcome the opportunity to testify publicly in front of johnsons committee, grahams committee. They dont have the let me correct that they dont have the interest in calling me in front of their committee and to testify in front of the American People. I think i heard what you almost said. Almost said this is a hyper partisan, politically corrupt effort to try to create an environment prior to the election that casts donald trump in a positive light and joe biden in a negative light. Im happy to talk to them the way i spoke to john durham or any other committee on the hill. Mike schmidt, you reported for years on Donald Trumps will to use the Justice Department to prosecute his political enemies including director brennan and his former colleagues in other National Security agencies it would appear this effort getting on the phone and calling on prosecutors to build cases represents a new abuse of power. How do you see barrs actions of late if you look at trumps posture towards the Justice Department during his presidency, things fall into two buckets. One is obstruction and the other is proactive measures, using his powers to go after people. The president concentrated a lot and had his most success in the obstructive area making sure theres loyalists in the Justice Department, firing those who dont go along with what he wants. Throwing sand in the gears of the mueller investigation, blocking things. Its the proactive part where the president has struggled to be most successful there are two wellknown examples with this one with Jeff Sessions and the other with don mcgahn where trump tried to pressure them to prosecute his rivals that only went so far. Now were looking down at that question and that attempt again here with the president talking about this and the attorney general sort of echoing the president s rhetoric on this issue, at least in these private conversations with prosecutors the question will be will the president be successful in this proactive area, the area where hes had less success than on the obstructive front . Director brennan, let me give you the last word. In your interview with the durham probe, did it feel like they were criminalizing your conduct in an aggressive manner . Were they seeking to find something where no other probe, the doj probe, the mueller probe, has found anything . Did it feel to you the motives were less than wholesome no. I ha i think they were testing various hearings they heard and were asking for my views and recollections on things. It was handling in a very professional manner. Im concerned that nora dennehey decided to leave the durham investigati investigation. When i hear what barr is saying about professional prosecutors, im surprised theres not an insurrection in the department of justice its appalling. Director brennan, to be continued. Mi skechmidt is staying put. Well sneak in a quick break well be right back. And tailored recommendations. Thats the clarity you get with fidelity wealth management. To soccer practices. And new adventures. You hope the more you give the less theyll miss. But even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past. They may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. Lets help protect them together. Because missing menb vaccination could mean missing out on a whole lot more. Ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination. So when it comes to screening for colon cancer, dont wait. Because when caught early, its more treatable. Im cologuard. Im noninvasive and detect altered dna in your stool to find 92 of colon cancers even in early stages. Tell me more. Its for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. False positive and negative results may occur. Ask your prescriber if cologuard is right for you. Im on it. Thats a step in the right direction. We are back and joined by msnbc anchor, alicia menendez, whose new show airs on saturday. And mike schmitt is back let me start with you, alicia, in the oped i asked mr. Brennan about, the warning of threats domestic and foreign, our very democracy is at risk if congress does not act ow . Putting the idea of maintaining the legitimacy is the biggest task facing americas leaders, and its hard to argue, nicole, and theres this idea that a highlevel Bipartisan Commission would be created through emergency legislative action i mean, youre talking about a Republicanled Senate that has not brought up a vote for increased funding to the United States Postal Service even though we are in the middle of an election where Many Americans will need that exact service in order to participate in our democracy, where they have not voted on restoring the Voting Rights act and have not taken up legislation to combat foreign interference in our election, so i am curious to hear what you have to say about who it is that you could put on that type of commission that would really have the buyin necessary to make people feel they could with confidence say the results of the election were, in fact, legitimate mike, thats something you write about in the book. Theres a complete absence of any remaining referees john mccain used to sometimes fill this space, and if he were alive he still may have been at war with donald trump. This is your larger point, alicia, anybody that leaves ends up revealing a deepseeded concern about the countrys National Security, and how else to explain the president s behavior mike schmitt i sort of learned about this in the reporting of my book, they dont know if the president is acting out of his ego or insecurities or protecting his family or his Family Business or his ties to russia they cant put their finger on what it is that is truly motivating the president , what is behind his extraordinary use of power not only are they trying to contain the president and stop the president , but they are doing so in a very puzzled place, in a place of not totally getting what the president is up to that is that a question that i think we will wrestle with as a country for many years to come what was the reason donald trump behaved the way he did was he overwhelmed by the office and scared of being exposed by it, is that why he did this . Or is there a larger, more sinister thing the remarkable thing about all this is despite all the investigations that have gone over over the past four years, we dont really have a clear answer to that question. Peter strzok, the former fbi agent that was in charge of the hurricane situation says he believes the president might be affected by russia involvement we just dont know we will be watching you at 6 00 on friday night, and congrats on the new show, my friend when we come back, the calls from inside the trump house. The highest profile rebuke of donald j. Trump and the white house. Dont go anywhere. Just more electrifying. Still a night out. But everything fits in. Still hard work. Just a little easier. Still a legend. Just more legendary. Chevrolet. Making lifes journey, just better. Im a verizon engineer. And im part of the team building. A powerful 5g experience for america. Its 5g ultra wideband, and its already available in parts of select cities. Like los angeles. And in new york city. And its rolling out in cities around the country. With massive capacity. Its like an eightlane highway compared to a twolane dirt road. 25x faster than todays 4g networks. In fact, its the fastest 5g in the world. From the network more people rely on. This is 5g built right. Only on verizon. I got it all from you im always pushing through i know well make it to the finish line i know youre waiting on the other side im like you ondemand glucose monitoring. Because theyre always on. Another lifechanging technology from abbott. So you dont wait for life. You live it. Towards the middle of february, we knew it wasnt a matter of if, covid would become a big pandemic here in the United States, it was a matter of when. But the president did not want to hear that because his biggest concern is that we were in an Election Year and how was it going to affect what he considered to be his record of success. It was shocking to see the president saying the virus was a hoax and saying everything is okay when we know its not the truth is he doesnt actually care about anybody else but himself. Hi again, everybody its 5 00 in the east. That was olivia troy she was a top advisory to Vice President mike pence she served on the Coronavirus Task force that pence led, but she will now vote for joe biden. She says this in a interview, the president s rhetoric and own attacks against people in his own administration trying to do the work, as well as Incorrect Information of the virus has made the ongoing response a failure. Olivia troy is the latest Trump Administration official to break ranks and come out in support of joe biden publicly, and she does so as the death toll from the coronavirus nears 200,000 souls. For that reason she may very well be the most potent. The latest call from inside the white house about the dangers of donald trump is where we start this hour. Washington post white house correspondent, Ashley Parker is here and former rnc chairman and Senior Adviser for the lincoln project, Michael Steele is back, and robert gibbs is here olivia troy, behind all the giant scoops is a human being who has wrestled in a painful way, im sure, not just with breaking from the person she worked for, and she worked on pences task force, breaking with him and breaking with trump and rebuking the Coronavirus Response and backing joe biden thats exactly right. You know, she starts by saying shes a lifelong republican she says shes a john mccain republican and george w. Bush re republican, and she makes clear to say she did not vote for trump in 2016, but like so many people did she believed he was the president and thought he would grow into the role, and thats why she continued to work the Vice President was the one leading the task force that has been ineffective shes one of the many people who we are now seeing speaking out its striking and startling, both two things, first to see how many people worked in this administration have come out and expressed deep alarm and deep concern and deep dismay and regret for potentially their own role and culpability and then its striking how many people feel that way and have not spoke out out publicly, and we have the senior officials who are channeling through authors of books or telling their friends this is how they feel, but they have not yet spoken up. I think in the final days, you are seeing this, a real effort to get people like olivia troy out on the record and in public and to get people who are better known and perhaps who saw more, to come forward and say, now is the time, these 47 days, its when it counts Michael Steele, though, just to play the devils advocate, if you turn it around who has left the Trump Administration and served in senior and National Security capacities and have not rebuked him. Mattis likened his tactics to those used by the nazis. From the most senior level you dont get any more boldfaced than john mightiouatt mattis, hn bolton himself is now being criminally prosecuted, and you cant find anybody that left and has anything good to say about Donald Trumps stewartship of the country and the crisis no, you cant i have to give props to miss troy what shes doing, the role she played in the policy space is significant. Probably i would say more important than the mattis and boltons because coronavirus is still here, and its still impacting our lives. Americans are still dying. Were reaching that 200,000 american threshold, and its important to understand and give context to what all of this means and how this plays out for a lot of americans this is the moment, this is the central narrative that voters are going to be taking with them into the polls, not where they were on impeachment, and not where they were on mueller, not where they were even on aspects of the economy, but how coronavirus has been handled and why americans in the face of what we see, nicole, around the globe, not just to our north and canada, or to our south in mexico but around the globe, how other countries have repositioned themselves in the face of this hard irus, how australia, who just coming out of their winter and coming out of their virus season had how many cases how many cases during their virus season, because the citizens protected themselves and they took heed because they had leaders that told them what to do, who they could trust and who was truthful yeah, i applaud miss troy, thank you for sharing this information and giving this exposure i do, too i want to applaud you, and you described your debates we have in the country around how to beat the coronavirus as basically dumbass debates on whether or not we should be wearing masks. Talk about how donald trump contaminated Public Health conversations about whether or not kids go to school, and not to take drugs that could kill you like hydroxychloroquine for me the signature moment is really the defining moment is when we had to have a debate about whether or not to wear a mask to protect ourselves and families and communities to protect ourselves to keep ourselves from getting sick was a back and forth thats an absolute reflection of poor leadership. You get to a point, nicole, where you realize theres only so much i can say to my neighbors, friends and family members who sit there and refuse to acknowledge the silence and the facts. So let me be clear again, theres only so many people we can save so lets work to save those that we can, and the rest, okay, god bless you, go with god and do your best and listen to donald trump. I thought the young woman that said it best at the democratic convention, when she said my fathers only preexisting condition was listening to donald trump theres a lot of truth in that narrative. There are 200,000 americans right now who lost their lives because of the feckless ineffective policy making, and i put that in quotation marks of an administration more concerned about what donald trump thought than what the cdc told us today. Robert gibbs, i have grown increasingly concerned about what Michael Steele is talking about here, the permanentation of the falsehoods. I have looked at some of the doctored videos he sent out this week, and if twitter is trying to get this stuff down, they are not trying very hard how does joe biden combat somebody with a cultlike hold over his base who believe the lies well, look, i think videos like you just showed loosen up some of the base, at least some of those people that voted in 2016 for donald trump who have had doubts about his leadership over the past four years, have had doubts about his rhetoric are watching closely with somebody that worked closely with him in the white house and are listening to her words, and joe biden has to go out there and continue to look and sound like a president every day i dont think you can get down in the gutter with donald trump. I think thats exactly where he wants people to come with him, and i think thats where he wants to drag people down, and i think he has to stay above it and continue to act as if he were the leader of the country even though hes not, to project that president ial nature, to talk about what we have to do because i have a sneaking suspicion that after november and by the middle of january next year, he will start implementing the response, so its best to act like you are implementing the response right now by educating people on exactly what they need to be doing. I agree with that, and i pray to god we get to that. If we were in the studio i would grab you in the hall and ask you to tell me the truth heres my concern. Republicans, and i say this as somebody who used to work for them, they go to election day, especially the last 50 days like jason bourne i mean, they go like killers what are the democrats bringing to beat this president whose supporters are, if you take an american president line to mix with the bourne supremacy, to crawl in the sand and eat the sand thats not just what is in democrats dna, not the description of what is in the Bourne Identity as you just described. I have no doubt they will play hardball in terms of turning this response and its fleckless nature as Michael Steele just said, and to walk people through, i mean, this ad says it didnt have to be like this. Every day of reminding people, i think we have to be careful not to go crazy and go over the top because you lose people, but walk people through the fact that every day people in the administration didnt take the virus seriously, and it didnt have to be that our kids are still learning from home it didnt have to be that we are not seeing our parents and our grandparents it didnt have to be like this we did not have to have this rush through Nursing Homes and kill hundreds of thousands of people we could have done Something Differently. Think of a republican governor, think if this person acted like they did, if he had taken it seriously from day one the disease would be in a fundamentally different place in this country, and we would have fewer deaths and we would have more activity. Our economy would be stronger because more of it would be open quite frankly, donald trump would be as strong as anybody could imagine, he would be coasting to reelection, and i think history will show on all three of those things that donald trump had the decision to make and he could have done this differently and he didnt and democrats have to keep putting that in front of people every single day nicole can i Say Something really quick, if i could followup on something robert said because its important and i think its a strategy the Biden Campaign can walk with. Biden getting out right now in the public and spending time with america in obviously the battleground states for sure, but he can demonstrate through his actions how a president in a time of crisis like this can follow the rules and still connect with people and still show empathy he can have that conversation being socially distanced and wearing the mask, and let trump mock him and make fun of him, because what america will see is one person who is mocking the death of others and another person, another potential president who is trying to prevent that from happening, from preventing the deaths from happening. Theres a contrast that the biden team can set up here using and actually pushing back on trumps own narrative to show, hey, trump this is what a president does, i dont know what you are doing but this is what a president does, so maybe you should check what you are doing. Yeah, actually i think thats one of the undercurrents of what you report out today which is a detailed indictment of all of trumps failures in a really important time take us through what you are reporting. Sure, we decided to look at a 10day period from the end of january, and its where trumps National Security adviser goes in and tells him on the coronavirus this is going to be the biggest National Security threat of your president see, until ten days later when trump calls woodward and tells him he does understand the severity of the threat, and he knows the virus will be deadly and he repeats that twice for emphasis, and he knows its airborne and thus hugely contagious a lot of initial reporting on how the president handled this was looking at the mistakes and the wasted time but against the backdrop, it was unclear what the administration and government knew and perhaps they were making the best informed decisions on information that was changing in the situation, but while trump knew an pandemic was headed our way, it was deadly and airborne and deeply contagious, the president was golfing. He flew to maralago and golfed for two days, and he was not trying to hide it. He hosted a Super Bowl Party with a marching band and cheerleaders with pompoms, and he was deeply focussed on impeachment, and he secelebrated with lawyers in a private room, and the coronavirus could not have been further from their minds. Its worth taking a note of where the president s head was and where his actions were when he knew this pandemic was all but headed our way thats what we tried to do with this piece you know, ashleys reporting, Michael Steele, is a pwhbluepri of negligent, hes got the blood of 200,000 americans on his hands and the destruction of the economy didnt have to be what it was if he knew it was airborne he knew it was contagious, and he knew it was deadly, and he could have taken steps to help businesses prepare for a longer stretch of curbside delivery or the sorts of things that are in place like you said in countries like in australia that came out on the other side. To me these failures destroyed the families of 200,000 americans, of our neighbors and nurses and grandparents and trapblg tragically some 6 our children he destroyed a lot of businesses that had been there for generations. Thats probably the most devastating part of this, which is why in so many ways the reporting of journalist like ashley and her colleagues are really kind of creating that snapshot moment in time for us, and that i think you can begin to gather and pull together and really begin to see just how to roberts point, how different this could have been, if you just cared onetenth more, if you paid attention for 30 seconds more, if you listened just an hour more, how different this could have been so we did not have to go through, you know, that walk through the wilderness that we find ourselves now trying to get to the other side, trying to get out of the darkness. And keep the economy intact and keep our kids focused on education and so forth i think thats going to be an important part of the ongoing narrative for the next 45 days the president is trying to shift that conversation to some baser nov n novelties. Theres no need to get pumped any longer get your ballot and go vote. Show what you know right now because thats all you have left you have the story lines you have the their teufz ashley and her colleagues are putting stuff out here and creating the timeline and exposing the other side of the coin now take that information and empo empower yourself with that knowledge and know what kind of leader you have standing in front of you and vote him out. Michael steele, you are not going anywhere and neither are you gibbs. Thank you for your reporting everybody that has not read it yet. Get when we come back, bill r pushed for saw dishen charges. That story is next plus, the sitting attorney general shows off the death of his tone deafness, if you can call it that on race, dismissing the black lives Matter Movement and likening the coronavirus lockdowns to slavery deadline white house will be back ur keys on the dash. Well replace your windshield with safe, nocontact service. Upbeat music tech and thats service you can trust when you need it the most. Upbeat music tech schedule at safelite. Com. Upbeat music singers safelite repair, safelite replace. Here . Nah. Here . Nope. Here. When the middle of nowhere. Is somewhere. The allnew chevy trailblazer. Its time for theraflu hot liquid medicine. Powerful relief so you can restore and recover. Theraflu hot beats cold. Everything you do will be closely watched. And i am not immune. As many of you saw the result of the photograph of me at Lafayette Square last week, that sparked the National Debate about the role of the military in Civil Society i should not have been there my presence in that moment and that environment created of the military involved in politics, and as a uniformed commissioned officer its a mistake i learned from and i sincerely hope we all can learn from it. That was the nations highest ranking military leader expressing regret for his participation in donald trump and attorney general barrs militarized removal of largely Peaceful Protesters from Lafayette Square over the summer we are talking about the militarygrade weapons to be sought used against american citizens exercising their First Amendment rights from a new whistleblower account amid protests over Police Killing of george floyd, federal officials began to stockpile ammunition and seek devices that could ae met deaf kwrupbsing sounds and make everybody within range feel like their skin is on fire thats according to an Army National guard major that was there. If you thought things could not get worse, at the same time we are learning about the weapons sought against protesters, and attorney general barr is calling on prosecutors to bill sedition cases against state and local leaders and protesters barr reportedly wanted to build a case on portland officials barr told prosecutors in a call last week they should consider charging rioters and others who had concocted Violent Crimes with the crime of sedition with us chuck rosenburg, and the National Investigative report for the Washington Post. You have been on this pushback from inside those who were there about just what was asked of them talk about the weather complaint and the weapons that were gathered to be used against protesters in washington streets. You know, the posts had been writing about this from the beginning because we had reporters on the ground that said teargas was tossed at us, and protesters were peaceful and rubber bullets seemed to be coming our way and we never heard a warning. Bill barr, the attorney general and numerous people who are officials in the Trump Administration said our reporting was inaccurate what we found was that the whistleblowers were on the ground and they were military and career officers and said the reporting was exactly right. Now we have a new detail reported in the Washington Post by my colleague from similar sources basically finding that the government was and i should say, when i say the government, the highest levels of the Defense Department in the National Guard were on the prowl for weapons of war to use against protesters these weapons of war included a radartargeting device that would send a High Frequency radar beam to make peoples skin feel like they were on the fire, so they would flee the area. Another device they were looking for was called a long range whistle sound that would make people flee. And also 7,000 rounds of body armour piercing ammunition was being collected and stored at the d. C. Armory. What . Yes why the idea is they wanted to be prepared if there was an onslaught, if there was a real threat to the white house. You might remember the friday before things got so ugly in Lafayette Square, that first night of the floyd protests, people had jumped over the bike rack that was temporarily established as the parameter and the fencing around the white house. That really freaked out the secret service they rushed the president , even though he denied it, they rushed the president to an underground bunker they were not prepared if there had been a group of people really jumping over the fence all at once. That doesnt mean we would need the bodyarmour piercing bullets. Anyway, all those things were stored and many of the devices had been rejected in war as questionable one of them was rejected by Kirsten Nielsen when she was urged to use the radar device against immigrants coming towards the border she said she had really grave concerns about whether or not it was humanitarian i cannot even come up with a question to ask you. Your thoughts . I will ask myself a question, nicole, and then answer it heres how i think about this. I am not always concerned about what government has in stockpile or in storage, i am concerned about how they think about protesters and what they actually use lets go back to First Principles one thing we know from the whistleblower is that in an exchange of emails, at least some people were referring to the protesters, these Peaceful Protesters, exercising First Amendment rights as adversaries, and thats an awfully dangerous way for us to think about fellow americans exercising First Amendment rights the other point, and i dont want to lose this one. What carol reported was interesting, but First Principles what happened in Lafayette Square, they cleared a park so the president could have a photo opportunity. Regardless of how they did it and what they used, and some things could be worse than others, they still cleared a park for a photo bill barr, its something that i think will remain a tphrarflas point. When did you first learn that the president planned to walk through the park and go to st. Johns church . First i would like to answer would you answer the question my time is limited sometime in the afternoon that the president might come out of the white house and then later in the afternoon i heard that he might go over to the church so it was absolutely necessary the park be cleared that had nothing to do with that the plan to move the parameter was it necessary that the park be cleared and it was done, and you said get it done andrew, i think we can put an umbrella over this attorney general that just reads abusive power and put many things under it especially after last night, but how does this episode fit in the way i think about this, nicole, is having looked at the issue of 2016, foreign election interference in 2020, we have foreign election interference and we have department of justice interference, and you have bill barr acting politically. In his speech last night he made it very clear that he thinks that its appropriate. He said that means its okay, excepted for he has two provisions in the constitution that is acting based on race or religion, and putting those aside its okay for them to do whatever they want, which means doing the kinds of things that you pointed out. It means not saying its a mistake for the military to be involved in politics you have bill barr saying its totally fine to be involved in politics as sure as we are sitting here we are going to be in the next few days or weeks talking about john durham and discussing why his number two resigned and the latest bill barr outrage trying to influence this election well, lets go there right now. On friday in this hour mr. Durhams deputy, norah dennehy did resign i know chuck rosenberg, you were on with me that day. That is the bill barr she resigned because of the political pressure on the timing of the production of a report. The headlines are too many to string together, its more like a constellation. When taken with the assertion in the speech last night, andrew weiss phu weissman, all the prosecutorial discretion rests with him, and from practicing attorneys to people with decades of experience in the doj, they are all subservient to his will. How does that land inside doj . Of course that lands terribly in doj, but the attorney general got this issue totally wrong nobody is questioning does the head of the department of justice, hes the power and, in fact, the right to weigh in. Nobody is questioning that he weighed in what people are questioning is how he weighed in, that he provided preferential treatment to friends of the president , namely roger stone and Michael Flynn, while he is also reportedly seeking to have investigations of his enemies, including, according to the New York Times, a former United States attorney and mayor of seattle who is widely respected amongst people in the department of justice, jenny durkan i have been waiting all day to talk about anewdr, carol and chuck, so i will ask them to stay for a quick break dont go anywhere. Well be right back. Ular basis for at least eight years. For me, the greatest benefit over the years has been that prevagen seems to help me recall things and also think more clearly. And i enthusiastically recommend prevagen. It has helped me an awful lot. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Another bundle in the books. Got to hand it to you, jamie. 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By design, by design, the department of justice is constructed so the political layers extraordinary thin, there are 37,000 women and men in the fbi for instance and only one is politically appointed. When i was United States attorney in the eastern section of virginia, i was the only one politically appointed. We have constructed the department of justice in which we purposefully give authority to people who are nonpartisan. Thats how it is built to Andrews Point before the break, which is an important one, nobody questions the authority of the attorney general to run the department of justice. What we are concerned about is how he is running the department of justice, and his denigration of the careers, but also to those that worked there and love that place, it was designed to be insulated from politics even though there are political superiors in the department, the heartbe heartbeat is the career men and women. I think everybody that worked on the stone case and the flynn case quit after attorney general barrs heavy handed interventions, a couple of them left the department completely what is your sense of what barr is getting ready to do why so publicly undermine everybody that works there still . That issue of the stone case, and in the flynn case similarly, you had noisy, noisy refusals of the prosecutors to sign on the dotted line, and they were leaving or resigning and stepping aside for a political appointee to sign on their behalf, and that should worry everybody. I would like to sing out two of the points that andrew and chuck made, and connect it a little bit to the point at the beginning, which the heartfelt apology, the appearance that he would be attacking protesters, and thats the pattern that people who work in the Justice Department are most concerned with with this attorney general. The public appearance of shaping everything he has done, and the appearance of him deciding to send troops to democratic cities to go after protesters, but as the congresswoman pointed out in her questioning of the attorney general, not in the places where people were wearing swastikas, but to intervene in the stone and flynn case, two people who were very important in figuring out whether or not trump knew about russian efforts to help his campaign and was encouraging them, those two individuals, for him to intervene in those cases, but he could not remember any other cases he intervened in when questioned. Right that made everybody in the agency jittery, but everybody who covered it like i have, no matter what white house was in charge, no matter what president was in charge, i have not seen this level of political intervention by an attorney general until now. Andrew, i want to give a quick last word. To answer your question of what is softeningthe ground, its when john durham does something, the attorney general wants to say, ignore the career people who are opposed to this, because who worries about them they are not running the department that is really misleading, because the issue is not that they have the power to run the department, its that they are resigning and protesting because they are not following the principles that politics should play no role in an individual case Andrew Weissman always taking on my bluntest questions its a pleasure and privilege to talk to all of you about this story. When we come back, bill barr compares the coronavirus lockdown to slavery and dismisses the black lives Matter Movement that story, next my father always reminded me, a good education takes you many different horizons and that sticked to my mind. So, when 1 a day came out, i said, why not . Why not just utilize that resource. And walmart made that path open for me. 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Tell the Business People what the rules are and then let them try to adapt their business to that and you will have ingenuity and people will at least have the freedom to try and earn a living, but, you know, putting a National Lockdown stayathome order is like house arrest, its you know, other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion of Civil Liberties in history. That really happened. Attorney general bill barr said that last night. Comments drew sharp condemnation today with House Majority whip jim clyburn saying its the most god awful think he ever heard. Was there a nationwide mandated lockdown that i slept through, Michael Steele theres not a National Legal lockdown what is he talking about no, theres not well, what hes talking about . We all know what hes talking about. The fact of the matter is, first off you are the attorney general. You dont make policy, right you dont have any say you are to uphold and execute the laws of the United States. You are to make sure that the criminal Justice System works appropriately, et cetera, et cetera you dont get into the policy, but the fact that you are it tells america what we need to know your role as attorney general is not to serve the American People and be their representative, but to carry out the talking points and the dog whistles of donald trump. One more reason to vote them out in november. But slavery, to say its like slavery . Well, yeah, so i actually wasnt even going to address that level of crazy ignorance, because that on its i think jim clyburns words stand for themselves they speak to the moment, very declaratively, in a very clear way, the fact that you would make that kind of comparison is an insult on the families and the legacies of the men and women who were a part of that horrendous system, and the legacies that they have left behind and shows, again,not just tone deafness this is beyond tone deafness its an acute disdain for what slavery means and has meant to africanamericans for over 400 years, that you can just offhandedly say that Something Like putting a mask on is a greater offense or an equal offense than slavery lets put it because thats what you said. Thats what you said that wearing a mask is the equivalent of being enslaved okay, so well just let that stupid rest on its own, because thats what it is. And we just need to stop pretending that these people are serious players. Theyre not. Robert gibbs, i want to let you pick up on that. And i just i keep thinking, what would have happened if these people were in charge when we needed the public to take their shoes off when we got on airplanes because our government was in possession of intelligence that richard reid, the shoe bomber, planned to blow up airplanes with something that he could hide in his shoes or when the intel came through that said that liquids could be explosive. I mean, what would these people have done . Dont take your shoes off . You know, cheering on the vigilantes at Airport Security they are so incompetent and so antiinformation, antiintelligence, and antiNational Security and antidomestic security, it alarms me that anyone trusts them with the stewardship of this country and to be clear, richard reid tried to blow up a plane he was sitting on one with a bomb in his shoe this was in his shoe, right. Over the Atlantic Ocean but what would they have done would they view that as an encroachment to say, you have to take off your shoes . It is interesting because lets look at what barr said i agree with michael, it is beyond crazy, but lets look at it first of all, there is ant National Lockdown order. The only person that would have issued a National Lockdown order would have been the National Leader and thats the person he works for, so i dont even know where were going with that. Except as you mentioned, theres this acceleration of disinformation, this idea that somehow we can all walk out on a sunny day, but let me tell you, the sky is red its not blue. Its not what you think it is. Its not what you see. And its a remarkable ability. You saw this with the town hall meeting that donald trump tried to do the other night with undecided voters and theyre living different facets of their lives, right whether it is being concerned that, as he said, you know, the eloquent question around, make America Great again. For black americans, it wasnt great, right and lets talk about that. And he just he cant deal with this stuff, because he has a reality, and i think this is one of the things that woodward said, hes not sure whether donald trump understands whats the reality and whats not the reality anymore. Because Donald Trumps convinced himself, theres a certain way this world is and looks, and it isnt the way it actually is, but hes convinced himself it is and now you have people its dangerous. This is the chief Law Enforcement of the chief Law Enforcement officer of the United States, whos now out here parroting the very same disinformation that donald trump is its crazy its just beyond crazy and you know, we also know hes a terrible history student, because lets not get into the internment of japanese americans or jim crow as might have been being bad for civil rights you know, robert gibbs, i want to ask you about sort of the mythology around barr. I dont think hes as smart as people thought he was. He was described as an institutionalist, its clear hes not that. But he was compared by some of his allies by dick cheney in profiles and whatever you think of dick cheney, bill barr isnt as smart as dick cheneys, you know, cutoff toenails. There is no intellectual heft there and certainly no concerted intellectual heft in bill barr no. If you look at some of the arguments he made that speech last night, he was concerned about the overreach by career officials at the Justice Department lowlevel career officials, who are taking things too politically. Lets look at bill barrs record in the Justice Department, right . Argued against a stronger sentence for roger stone on behalf of his chief client, donald trump, okay that was pretty political. My favorite is, my favorite is, Michael Flynn gets fired for lying to the Vice President and lying to the Justice Department. And he wants to throw out the case its a crazy thing that were watching here with the attorney general. Robert gibbs, Michael Steele, i could talk to you guys for hours and hours and hours. I just might call you afterwards to keep this going thank you for spending some time with us. Finally, as we do every single day, until something dramatic changes, were going to remember lives well lived her sister says she had a way of making everything beautiful. Ashley dee ashley demarinis found all the satisfaction she needed in those she helped, of those she taught. She was a 34yearold special education teacher. Oh, theyre extra special. One whose students looked up to. In fact, according to npr, ashley got into teaching because of her own experience. When she was a child, she overcame a form of dyslexia thanks to the instructors who supported her. She was a role model, someone whose students could really talk to according to the st. Louis dispatch, ashley was also a leader in the local youth group and if a child couldnt afford to go on a group trip, for example, shed cover the cost for that child herself ashley died of the coronavirus last week. The world is a lesser place and we are thinking about her and her family along with every single teacher in this country this afternoon, wishing them health and wellbeing. We will be right back. At leaf blowers. You should be mad your neighbor always wants to hang out. 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Better taste, better nutrition, better eggs. So youre a small bor a big one. You were thriving, but then. Oh. Ah. Okay. Plan, pivot. How do you bounce back . You dont, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. Powered by the largest gig Speed Network in america. But is it secure . Sure its secure. And even if the power goes down, your connection doesnt. So how do i do this . You dont do this. We do this, together. Bounce forward, with comcast business. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. Well get through this the beat with my friend, ari melber, starts right now hi, ari. Hi nicole thank you so much, welcome to the beat. I am ari melber. We have a big show tonight, including this alarming news, attorney general barr making waves across the legal and political world. Also tonight, a new trump accuser stepping forward on camera and in just a few moments, we turn to a new special report that weve been working on it debunks rightwing hypocrisy on protests and explores a path forward on justice and police brutality. We think its important and i hope you stay with us for it in the moments ahead. But we begin with the top story. Scandal face attorney general barr and what nonpartisan experts call creeping authoritarianism here in america. I dont use these words lightly. If you watch this program, you know, we try to stick to the facts. Ill explain to you why people