Its been more than a decade since a storm this big has hit the part of florida where Hurricane Michael is expected to come ashore tomorrow afternoon. The storm will first hit the Florida Panhandle. Again, landfall tomorrow afternoon. Its then expected to turn toward alabama, mississippi, georgia, and South Carolina, even as parts of South Carolina are still coping with what happened from the last hurricane to come ashore, hurricane florence. In terms of whose going to get it the worst, the area just sort of southeast of panama city on the gulf coast of florida looks like theyre going to get the worst storm surge. Something on the order of 9 plus feet of storm surge. Broadly speaking, thats a region that includes Tindell Air Force base. But in addition to that big storm surge, for a large area theyre expecting flash flooding and hurricaneforce winds that the National Hurricane center says tonight will extend, quote, well inland. Again, tomorrow afternoon is expected landfall. Right now michael is a category 3 fastmoving hurricane. Its got a 120mileanhour winds. Theyre saying that it may come ashore with winds that strong. Also today, u. N. Ambassador nikki haley unexpectedly announced that she is stepping down from that very high profile position. Nikki haley is the highest ranking and highest profile woman in the Trump Administration. And, yes, i am sure it did not escape you that she has just surprise announced her resignation right after Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as the new Supreme Court justice and all the controversy surrounding his nomination. In normal times, that close sequencing of events might signal that that was the reason nikki haley was leaving the administration. Maybe these things are connected. In normal times, thats what youd think. These are not normal times, however. And honestly, no one seems to have any idea why nikki haley is leaving and leaving right now. This is a weird time to do it. It doesnt seem like a convenient moment. A couple of days after kavanaugh is sworn in, four weeks exactly before we have really, really, really important midterm elections. Its one di after an ethics complaint was filed against her for using private planes for her government travel. Are any of those events precipitating factors here for her surprise resignation . No idea. This outoftheblue announcement today and no clear explanation for why its happening, that has sort of left a vacuum into which has flooded lots of fun speculation. One popular avenue of speculation today has centered on her home state colleague, or at least her fellow south carolinian republican senator Lindsey Graham. Given Lindsey Grahams politically aggressive to the point of strange behavior recently, it is possible that senator graham is about to make some sort of move into the Trump Administration . If the president were to pluck Lindsey Graham out of the senate and appoint him to some big administration job, maybe this announcement today from nikki haley should be seen as some sort of preliminary move, some sort of staging so that shes ready to be appointed by South Carolinas governor to fill Lindsey Grahams seat in the senate. Whenever Lindsey Graham leaves that seat in the senate to instead move on up to do whatever trump has in mind for him in the administration. Maybe thats whats going on here. Surely that is conceivable. But honestly, if that is the plan, there is no reason why nikki haley would need to resign from this job now, especially at this very awkward time in order for that kind of a plan to go into effect. If thats the plan, she could just hold on to her u. N. Ambassador job and then resign ultimately to take that senate seat when the time came. So theres been a lot of breathless and i will admit sort of fun speculation about that prospect and lots of other sort of breathless avenues of speculation about what could really be going on here. Honestly, at this point we do not know. That said, this white house does leak like a rusty sieve straining acid. So i can promise you that this mystery will not be mysterious for too long. Eventually we will find out what happened with this nikki haley surprise resignation today. Until then, until we inevitably get the leak from someone associated with the Trump Administration or the white house who tells us what happened, until then, there is no real point in making up potential explanations that dont necessarily have basis in fact. So i feel like in terms of what were watching ahead for in the news, obviously tomorrow is going to be hurricane landfall for Hurricane Michael. I think i feel like starting tonight, but certainly by tomorrow we should expect to be getting more well informed reporting as to what happened here with the nikki haley resignation. But in terms of what were keeping an eye in tomorrows news, one other sort of low profile thing that you might want to watch for is that were going to have the sentencing hearing tomorrow for another one of the people who has plead guilty in conjunction with the russia investigation. Led by Robert Mueller and the special counsels office. The guy who is going to be sentenced tomorrow is named Richard Pinedo. We know next to nothing about him in personal terms. I believe this is his photo. But we know that he was charged in conjunction with the indictment of the Internet Research agency, that strange sort of kremlin adjacent social media propaganda farm that was operated by an oligarch close to putin who was targeted personally in that indictment and also personally sanctioned by the ustyugov. Richard pinedo was named by prosecutors in the special counsels office as essentially being an american helper for that Internet Research agency, russian influence operation that targeted our president ial election in 2016 to try to elect trump. Mr. Pinedo, according to prosecutors, didnt help the russians directly with their actual propaganda and these sort of psychological operations they were running on behalf of trump, but he did help them indirectly. According to prosecutor, he helped them indirectly through his profitable little criminal hobby which was basically online Identity Theft and bank fraud. The russians who were carrying out that part of the attack on our 2016 election, they needed to move money around for elements of that attack, for things like setting up websites, and operation servers. Richard pinedos online Identity Theft and bank fraud business was the means by which the russians were able to do some of that moving money around. So Richard Pinedo will be sentenced for that tomorrow. Sentencing guidelines recommend a range of 12 to 18 months in prison for the kinds of crimes to which he has plead guilty. Prosecutors seem to be signaling to the judge that they dont necessarily want the judge to throw the book at him. In their last substantive filing before tomorrows hearing, prosecutors in the special counsels office sort of went on a great length about the seriousness of the type of fraud and the type of theft that Richard Pinedo committed, but then this is how they closed their filing. Quote, at the same time, the government recognizes that since being confronted by law enforcement, mr. Pinedo readily admitted his own misconduct and provided significant assistance to the government in its own investigation of the facts. For example, at the governments request, mr. Pinedo promptly flew to the district of columbia and answered questions posed by the government and acknowledged his criminal conduct. He explained how he obtained the account numbers later sold for profit, and he provided the government with access to records identifying buyers of the accounts. Mr. Pinedos prompt acceptance of responsibility saved the government significant time and resources in the investigation. In other words, its okay if you dont lock him up. But whether or not he does get locked up, ultimately that is for the judge to decide, and that sentence willing take place tomorrow morning. So we shall see. If Richard Pinedo does get jail time tomorrow, that will make him the third person sentenced to a custodial sentence, sentenced to incarceration thus far in the mueller investigation. He would join George Papadopoulos who was sentenced to 14 days in jail for lying to investigators. Papadopoulos has been sentenced but he hasnt yet reported to start serving that time. Richard pinedo, if jailed would also join alex vand d der zwaa lawyer based in britain. A scheme that figured prominently in manaforts own criminal prosecution. Paul manafort, the president s campaign chairman, of course has himself now plead guilty to multiple felonies. Manafort is now cooperating with prosecutors in the special counsels office. Same deal with manaforts deputy, the Trump Deputy Campaign chairman, rick gates. Rick gates had a starring role you might have seen on the front page of the New York Times yesterday because of his newly reported role during the president ial election in fielding a pitch, a pitch from a foreign Intelligence Firm that was offering the Trump Campaign that they would come in and start running a psychological operations and online Propaganda Campaign in the u. S. To help trump win both the republican president ial nomination and ultimately the general election. Now rick gates as Donald Trumps campaign chairman, he reportedly did not accept this pitch from this foreign Intelligence Firm. He didnt sign off on this effort. He didnt hire this firm to do this work for the campaign. But of course the reason this is on the front page of thetimge what is interesting about this story is their pitch, the pitch from this firm to create zillions of fake online personas and to microtarget individual americans with divisive and or fake information, that would be targeted specifically to influence these americans targets either toward trump or away from his electoral competitors, the story in the times about rick gates is he was pitched this campaign, and he said no. But that pitch really does look a lot like it looks kind of exactly like what actually happened, right . That pitch from this foreign Intelligence Firm, what they said they could do for the Trump Campaign, it looks a lot like what russia actually did for the Trump Campaign to help him win. In part by using that Internet Research agency in russia which ended up getting poor old Richard Pinedo in all the trouble he is going to face before that judge tomorrow. So that story about the shady, mysterious Intelligence Firm that was offering to do that work on behalf of the Trump Campaign, that story has a lot of interesting, loose threads. For one, the firm supposedly didnt get the contract to do the work, but we know something very much like what they had pitched did happen during the campaign. Also, it appears that that firm that made the pitch, they were paid a couple Million Dollars right after the election. Hmm. What were they paid for . Also, since coming under scrutiny, the firm appears to have dissolved into thin air which is not itself crazy. Business goes away. But it does add to the mystery here. This, however, i think is one of those mysteries that we ultimately will probably get to the bottom of, if only because one of the people involved in this very intriguing story, the guy who reportedly sent this firm a check for 2 million after the election, that guy who sent them the check, what was he paying for . That guy who sent the check is now a cooperating witness for Robert Mueller. Here he is with President Trump in happier times. His name is george nader. He is an unusual figure in the russia scandal. He has been convicted on child pornography and child molestation charges. He appears to have had several ins with the Trump Campaign, including him apparently paying this foreign firm right after the campaign. He paid this foreign firm that had offered this mysterious pitch to the campaign in 2016. George nader is now a cooperating witness for the fueler investigation. He is cooperating allegedly under a deal that grants him immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony. So because of him, because in the middle of that strange story, theyve got a cooperating witness whose already got immunity. Hes already in the tractor beam of the special counsels office here. I think that this story is one of the more intriguing mysteries of the russia scandal that we may ultimately get an explanation for. That one may ultimately be explained. For my money, though, the single most fascinating story in all of this is what has just been reported by veteran investigative journalist Dexter Filkins at the new yorker. Just before the president ial election on halloween, october 31st, 2016, franklin phora published this fascinating and very controversial piece at slate. Com. And honestly, it has been driving me nuts ever since. We talked about this reporting a few other times on the show. You might remember it was about logs of internet traffic, logs of communication between Different Computers on the internet that appeared to show frequent and somewhat inexplicable contact all of the sudden during the president ial campaign between a computer server at the Trump Organization and a computer server at a russian bank, a russian bank called alpha bank. Alpha is the biggest private bank in russia. They have friendly relations with the kremlin. You dont get to be big anything in russia without friendly relations with the kremlin. Alpha bank is mentioned in the Christopher Steele dossier that was published to such great controversy right before the inauguration. Executives from alpha Bank Actually went on to sue buzzfeed for publishing the dossier because the dossier does mention this alpha bank just a couple of months ago in august. That lawsuit against buzzfeed was dismissed in a u. S. Court. For what its worth, i should tell you that one of the billionaire founders of alpha bank has a daughter. Not that long ago his daughter married alex van der zwaan. Crazy, right . One of the only people whose gone to jail so far in the mueller investigation. Probably all just a big quinky dink. But for whatever reason at the height of the campaign in 2016, a server use beside they bank kept making contact with a server at the Trump Organization. When that server was being used for almost nothing else, why was it communicating with a russian bank . Its a vexing little mystery. Ever since Franklin Foer first reported on it for slate. Com two years ago, halloween night right before the 2016 election, it has been a very controversial piece of reporting. Well, now Dexter Filkins at the new yorker has picked that up and run with it. And even if you have felt like this is one of those confusing stories, one of those sidebar stories about the russia investigation that seems too technical and youre not sure you get it. Pick up a copy of the new yorker or go to the new yorker. Com. Print it out, read it on paper in a quiet moment. Dexter filkins is a very, very good writer. And i promise you, even if you have been mystified by this story before, you will be intrigued by it the way he has written it up. And im going to let him tell you the story. But just to prepare you for that conversation, heres a few things that he sort of blew the lid off here with his piece in the new yorker. Number one, it turns out that at the same time Franklin Foer was pursuing this story at the very end of the president ial campaign in 2016, the New York Times had been pursuing it too. Investigative reporter for the times naked eric likblau had the story and was working on it before franklin started working on it for slate. As part of reporting that story, eric likblau at times apparently came to learn that the fbi had an open counterintelligence investigation under way into possible contacts associated with then president ial candidate donald trump and russia. Oh, which means before the election, the New York Times was in possession of the story that there was an open fbi counterintelligence investigation into trump in russia, before the election. Did i mention that they knew this before the election . Remember that headline about donald trump being the subject of an open fbi counterintelligence investigation about him and his campaigns contacts with russia right before the election, the one that blew the lid off the election . No, the New York Times did not run that story. Even though they knew that that counterintelligence investigation was under way. New york times instead ran this rather infamous story, also on october 31st, which basically said yeah, you know, the fbi looked into some stuff about trump. People have been asking questions about russia and stuff. It turns out its all fine. There is nothing there. Thats the story they ran on october 31st when the times knew at that moment through its own reporting that actually, an fbi counterintelligence investigation into these contacts had begun and stood open. And they knew that directly because the fbi asked their own reporter, Eric Lichtblau to hold off on some of what he had to report about this alpha bank thing because they were looking into it too and they didnt want it to interfere with their ongoing counterintelligence investigation. So they knew. I love me the New York Times. As far as im concerned, the New York Times is the eighth wonder of the world. I do not want to imagine an america without the New York Times or with a lesser New York Times. But when it comes to how they handled the information that they had about fbi interests in two president ial candidates in 2016, at some point there presumably will have to be a little bit of a come to jesus moment about that, because that was a heck of a thing for the New York Times to have sat on and not published, especially given how dead the horse was they were aggressively beating at the time every day when it came to Hillary Clintons emails. They knew trump was the subject of a counterintelligence investigation at the fbi at the time and they didnt tell us . The times has sort of apologized for that halloween 2016 story since it ran. Theyve never run a correction. Theyve sort of explained their own disappointment in it. But now we know. Thetimes knew trump was under active fbi counterintelligence investigation and they didnt publish it. Thetimes also effectively killed what would have been corroborative reporting from eric lic lichblau about alpha b and the servers which Franklin Foer ended up reporting all on his own at slate. The odd communications between a russian bank and a trump server they are reporting could have corroborated that too. For this new yorker piece, Eric Lichtblau told filkins, quote, not only is there clearly something there, but there is something that someone has clearly gone to Great Lengths to conceal. Thats not what the times published, but thats what their reporter found. Dexter filkins also for the first time explains in laymans terms what kind of communications, what kind of interactions between someone in russia and someone at the Trump Organization might have produced the kind of Internet Data that led to all of this reporting. And i will let him explain that in just a moment, because for me, that was kind of the ahha moment, that finally somebody has spelled out what this might have been, what would turn up looking like this in these internet logs, what kinds of communication, what amount of communication, what might have gone down here that produced this evidence. Perhaps most importantly, where Dexter Filkins finally gets with this story is how this intrigue could finally one day end, how you could make this question one day have an answer, how this story and all of this intrigue and this particular mystery could finally be explained and put to bed. Quote, this march, after republicans on the House Intelligence Committee announced that they had found no evidence of collusion between the Trump Campaign and russia, the committees democrats filed a dissent, arguing that there were many matters still to be investigated, including the Trump Organizations connections to alpha bank. The democrats implored the majority republicans to force a Company Involved in the communication between the servers a Company Called cendyn to turn over Computer Data that would help determine what had happened. Quote, those records could show who in the Trump Organization who used the server there would probably be a record of who shut down the domain after the times contacted alpha bank for comments on its recording. Cynden might have records of Outgoing Communications sent by the Trump Organization. Quote, but such a request for firstdegree Murder Investigation is unlikely to proceed as long as republicans hold the majority. In other words, if there really was this story thats been so intriguing for two years now, if there really was secret line of communications set up between trump tower and moscow during the election, one they tried to cover up, that could be sort of the miss link involving how involved the trunk campaign was in russias efforts to interfere on the election on trumps behalf. If anybody really wants to figure out whether that secret line of communication was there, its doable. You could probably figure it out. They could probably do it with just a couple of subpoenas. And in fact, if democrats win the house four weeks from tonight, it look likes democrats are ready to go with subpoenas to get that information. Which means wed finally have an answer. Now, one does of course wonder if Robert Mueller and his prosecutors have already beaten the democrats there either before Dexter Filkins published this piece or since it has been out. Dexter filkins joins us next. Stay with us. With advil, youll ask. What sore muscles . What pounding head . Advil is. Relief thats fast. Strength that lasts. Youll ask. What pain . With advil. And my brother ray and i started searching for answers. vo when its time to navigate inhome care, follow that bright star. Because brightstar care earns the same accreditation as the best hospitals. And brightstar care means an rn will customize a plan that evolves with moms changing needs. woman because dad made us promise wed keep mom at home. vo call 8444brightstar for your free home Care Planning guide. The title of the piece is was there a connection between a russian bank and the Trump Campaign . New 7,000 word exploration of the alpha bank server mystery in terms of alpha banks apparent computer administrations or with the Trump Organization during the president ial campaign. Its written by the new yorkers Dexter Filkins. Quote, alpha banks computers were looking at the address of the trump server nearly every day. There were dozens of lookups on some days and far fewer than others. But the total was notable. Alfa looked up the Trump Organization more 2,000 times. It was like watching an airplane fly by, max a Computer Scientist said. And we thought why is a russian bank communicating with a serve theyre belongs to the Trump Organization and at such a rate. Joining us is Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Dexter Filkins. Mr. Filkins, thank you for being here. Thank you. What was it about this mystery that made you want to revisit it a couple of years after the first reporting on this . Kind of like what you were just saying. I read that story on october 31st, 2016, and i was super intrigued by it. And i thought like you could see a little bit, but not a lot. And then it went away. I mean, the story just kind of vanished and nobody picked it up. And it just i was kind of haunted by that story. And then what happened was after the election, a couple of Democratic Senators got the computer, got to the Computer Scientist and then brought him together with an investigator who was mentioned in my piece, dan jones and said can you guys get some Computer Scientists together and take some time and look at this again and see if you can reach any conclusions it. And they did, and ultimately that came to me. So i got to take a look at some of those i got to talk to the scientists who looked at the data. They wrote up a report. Have i the report. So i was able to kind of it took a long time, but i was able to kind of do a deep dive into this very vexing question. One of the things i found very helpful, we are blessed as a country to have journalists as talent ed as you and Franklin Foer writing about this because its a difficult thing. And the storytelling ability around a story like this is very important because its hard to get at the core of it unless youre great with words. That said, for me, the ahha moment in your reporting was some of the stuff about the New York Times and what they chose to publish and not before the election, but also what you explained about what this might have been. You go through a lot of the scenarios about some of the innocuous explanations for what this could have been. It could have been spokesman. Yeah. It could have been sort of internet noise. It could have been all these other things, none of which seemed to fit. Here are some things that might fit. Yes. In that case you said its not email, but it would have been other kinds of basically simple communication between somebody at alfa and somebody at Trump Organization. Yes. What the Computer Scientists that i talked to said was this isnt the way you would do this. This isnt very sophisticated. We think this was an ad hoc system, something they used before and thought you know what . Lets just communicate that way. This is just a theory. And so they tried to imagine what was actually happening, because it wasnt any of the things you just mentioned. It wasnt spam. It wasnt malware. It wasnt email. So what was it . They thought for instance maybe it was something called foldering when you type a draft and you dont send it, and then somebody else can sign on, read the draft, write another draft, you can read that. So the email never goes anywhere . It never goes, exactly. There is a dns lookup, and its logged and thats of course the records we had. I thought maybe that. There is something there is something called web mail that if youre on the same server, there wouldnt be an email record of that, but they could actually be emailing each other theres any number of things. There could have been an instant messaging mechanism that was on some of the software. I was stuck on that in part because of my own professional experience here. When were all working on scripps, me and the whole staff here, we open up a program where we all get to access the same script. Within that script there is a little instant messaging system that is super simple and super quick. But if i ever wanted to communicate with something on my staff somewhere on the other end of the earth, and i wanted it to not go as email for some reason and they could log into our teleprompter script system and we could use that instant message system to talk back and forth no matter where you were, that sort of back and forth communication would leave the kind of trail that these Computer Scientists have found . Yes. Which is so say not very much. Not so many fingerprints, but they do leave dns records. So the content of the Communications Remains the holy grail here. If there were communications. This is just metadata. So what this means really in a super literal sense is that alfa bank was trying to find the address or its like going to a phone book and saying whats the phone number for the Trump Organization. Thats what they did 2,500 times. Its usually a prelude to some other kind of communication between computers. Not always, but usually. So thats the part we know and the unknown part is what happened after. You mentioned a couple of companies, one called cendyn and one called list track. Yes. Both of which had some role in the infrastructure of how this happened. You suggested its possible if they were subpoenaed, if this was being properly investigated, that those Companies Might actually be able to shed a lot more light on what types of contacts these were. They could, they could. So the way it worked was the Trump Organization kind of farmed out its the marketing for the its travel business, its hotels to cendyn which is in boca raton. Cendyn hired a Company Called list track in pennsylvania to send out emails, basically, mass market emails. That server wasnt sending out starting in may 2016, it wasnt sending out mass market emails for the Trump Organization, and thats kind of when the mystery begins. I know that in october 2016, the fbi visited list track. Oh. And got and i spoke to the head of list track, and he we gave the fbi everything they asked for. That was 2016 . 2016. I dont know if theyve done that with cendyn. Presumably they have. But you can determine any number of things. For instance, there is a key moment in my piece when Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times calls alfa bank in washington. 48 hours the trump domain vanishes from the internet. It would be one thing if the a alfa side disappeared. If you had those records, you would be able to term who shut down the trump domain. Literally the person . Yeah. Dexter filkins, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, staff writer now for the new yorker. 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With citi, we see a Bright Future for our farmers and their families. Check this out. Nbc news president ial historian Michael Beschloss has found some tape youve never heard before of an american president acting kind of nuts at a very volatile moment in history. Its president Lyndon Johnson. This is him in 66 and 67, right, approaching the height of the vietnam war, and you havent heard this before. Im going to warn you, lbj has been known to use some colorful language, and he definitely does so here. The thing im more frightened about than anything else in our government now is not whipping them in vietnam, right. Its not its not the economic situation. Its not our ive been strong militarily. The thing im afraid of is these sons of bitches born from within. We just had hail and had hoover in after them. And ho chi minh sent a bunch of them over here in april. Our folks came back home, and it was pretty much until they got into colleges. They got in colleges and got the liberal groups and the preacher, and the preachers had been in all these. They came, marched here, and we arrested 600 of them and gave 29 of them pretty tough times. We found most of them really were mentally diseased. We talked too damn much about Civil Liberties and Constitutional Rights of the individual and not enough about the rights of the masses. I think were in more danger from these leftwing influence news than weve ever been in 37 years since ive been here. And theyre working in my party from within. This sound nbc historian Michael Beschloss has just dpdu from the Lyndon Johnson white house talking about the mental disease discovered among war protesters that demonstrates a the time the vietnam war was sort of dragging lbj a little bit around the bend. Michael beschloss has a brandnew book out today. Its called president s of war. This is from the start of the book. He says, quote, the founders created a constitution that Gave Congress the sole power to declare war and divided the responsibility to wage war between the executive and legislative branches. As congressman Abraham Lincoln wrote to his friend William Herndon in 1848, the early americans resolved that no one man should hold the power to take the nation into war. Beschloss says, quote, were the founders to come back, they would probably be astonished and chagrinned to discover that in spite of their ardent strives, the life or death of much of the human race has now come to depend on the character of a Single Person who happens to be the president of the united states. This dynamic, this sort of personalization of war making power, that being consolidated in the president , that is a dynamic i have written about myself. Have i written one book. It almost killed me, but thats the thing i wrote about. Ive always considered than to a scary dynamic in modern American Life and modern american politics. I wrote my subject on that book before the current president took office. I will say the dynamic of the president having that much over war and peace is all the more scary now because weve got sort of an offtherails presidency. Recent reporting, including that famous anonymous New York Times oped suggests that in this current wild presidency is, senior officials in the administration are just defying the president , stealing stuff off of his desk. Military leaders defying the president forget regularly without too many qualms it, just refusing to carry out his orders. And in a way because its this president , thats being seen by some people, i think it was intended to be seen by that anonymous oped writer as a good thing, something that should make us feel comforted. Dont worry, the president is not really in control. It will be okay because of that. Maybe that shouldnt be as comforting as its intended to be, though. One of the things Michael Beschloss discovered in writing his new book is that as crazy as vietnam made lbj, and honestly, it made him a little crazy, even still he was Strong Enough and savvy enough as president to kibosh it, to throttle it when hes generals, including his commanding general in vietnam decided that the u. S. Should prepare to start dropping Nuclear Bombs on vietnam. They came up with something operation fractured jaw. That was their plan to get Nuclear Weapons into vietnam. That plan was set in motion, we can now see in this document that beschloss points us to, set in motion february 10th, 1968. This is the top American Military commander in vietnam, general William Westmoreland telling the american commander in the pacific that operation fractured jaw, which again is get Nuclear Weapons to vietnam that had been approved by him, you see the right quote, approved by me february 10th, 1968. That same day, lbj was briefed on the plan. And then two days later, a new notice went out regarding operation fracture jaw. Look at the first line, quote, discontinue all planning for fracture jaw. Also, make all of the material about fracture jaw secret. Place all planning material, including messages and correspondence there under security. Lbj not only kiboshes the vietnam nuke plan, and fast, it goes to over and secret forever within two days. He takes action to make sure nobody even has any idea that this was even ever considered because he did not want the American People to know that this was even a potential option, even as paranoid and nuts as johnson was because of vietnam at this point in his presidency, he still had the wherewithal and the savvy to shut that plan down when that bubbled up from his generals. Who would you rather have been in charge in that situation, the generals or the somewhat crazy president . Who would you trust to do the right thing now if that kind of situation arose now . The great Michael Beschloss joins us next. Stay with us. In charge in that situation, the in charge in that situation, the we just got married. Were all under one roof now. Congratulations. Thank you. How many kids . My two. His three. Along with two dogs and jake, our new parrot. That is quite the family. Quite a lot of colleges to pay for though. A lot of colleges. You get any Financial Advice . Yeah, but im pretty sure its the same plan they sold me before. Well your situations totally changed now. Right, right. How bout a plan that works for 5 kids, 2 dogs and jake over here . That would be great. That would be great. That okay with you, jake . Get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change from Td Ameritrade investment management. And my brother ray and i started searching for answers. vo when its time to navigate inhome care, follow that bright star. Because brightstar care earns the same accreditation as the best hospitals. And brightstar care means an rn will customize a plan that evolves with moms changing needs. woman because dad made us promise wed keep mom at home. vo call 8444brightstar for your free home Care Planning guide. Whenever any big news drops out of this current presidency, one of the first people i always want to turn to ask, has this happened before, is this unprecedented, how freaked out should we be, one of the first people we always turn to is nbc news historian Michael Beschloss. In addition to being an invaluable unending font of information about the american presidency, i have to tell you he is also a great friend of this show and a huge resource for us as we try to do little bits of history every now and again just to keep us all on even keel. Weve got no better friend on this show than michael for keeping us honest on that stuff. He has now written a new book, and its one he has worked on for ten years. Its called president s of war. In researching this book, mr. Beschloss went through, among other things, 670 hours of tape from the lbj white house, transcribed it himself. Lbj is one of eight president s Michael Beschloss puts through the ringer in this book, again, called president s of war and its just out today. My friend, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Okay. I have a whole bunch of things to ask you. First of all, you wrote two gigantic books about lbj tapes, and then you found more . Because your books before in the lbj tapes didnt include a bunch of stuff that was in here. Does it make you want to kill yourself . Something like that. Sometimes when i listen to him, and sometimes because lbj, just as you were saying about operation fractured jaw, he conceivably saved the world because the generals in vietnam were thinking about using Nuclear Weapons in this little civil war. That could have gone nuclear. It could have brought in russia and china. Johnson was a hero for stopping all that. At the same time, just as you were saying, rachel, you just want to throttle him because he was going a little bit crazy, and even more serious than that, he was beginning to take on certain authoritarian tendencies. He was abusing the fbi. If you were a columnist who wrote against lbj and the vietnam war, he would get the fbi to investigate you and he would get your fbi file out, and you would be in danger of him using that against you. And that is something i have found with all these president s of war, at least most of them that ive studied which is they get into a war thats fine, oftentimes for the most admiral reasons. But oftentimes they used war to sort of bring on repression that can verge on augthoritariaautho. For instance, woodrow wilson, this great champion of Civil Liberties, waging world war i came up with something you talked about as you know, called the espionage act. That was in the late teens. Here we are all these years later. Donald trump has been using the espionage act to go after journalists and presumably try to root out leakers, but in fact to intimidate journalists from writing what they should. See, i feel like this is one of the key insight this the dynamic at work here, the sort in the presidency in the context of war. Something ive been interested in for a long time. And i loved your book at the time. Nice of you to say, thank you. I feel like the big aha for me, the revelation is not just that at wartime does the american does the american polity, the American People start to think of the president as somebody they want to be imbued with power. Not only do the American People sort of consolidate in their support for a president at wartime, but it brings something out in the president s themselves as people a. Slo absolutely. They themselves wouldnt do. It reduces them to their core. Often their core is not that great. Lbj was a suspicious person. Woodrow wilson was impe rio us. I know what you americans should do in pursuing this war and going to the league of nations. The result was he wasnt able to persuade people that an International Organization for peace was the right thing to do. The other thing that happened with wilson, you see so often, they have these physical break downs because war is really tough. They have depressions as Abraham Lincoln did. In Franklin Roosevelts case, he had advance cardiovascular disease. So you combine all this, you begin with a president who is going to war with flags flying, even in some cases for the best of reasons, but youd better be prepared for the fact you will not necessarily know what you will be getting. The descriptions that you have here of the death of lincoln, the death of roosevelt are graphic compelling stories ive never heard before. Again, when i talked to you on a regular basis and especially reading this now, one of the things that always amazes me about your work is even when we think we know something, you are able to find new 12u6789 thank you. The documents and tapes here are absolutely revelatory. Thank you so much. Michael besch has a new book, president s at war. Well be right back. If your moderate to Severe Ulcerative Colitis or crohns symptoms are holding you back, and your Current Treatment hasnt worked well enough it may be time for a change. 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Due to make landfall in the panhandle tomorrow afternoon, so well see that, those images coming in over the course of the day as the outer bands start to hit. I do want to mention there is one sidebar to the story that affects the election. Florida is one of 13 states in which today is the deadline to register to vote if you want to vote in the midterm elections in november. The midterm elections are four weeks from today. If you want to vote in them in these 13 states, you have to be registered to vote by today. Arizona, arkansas, florida, georgia, indiana, kentucky, mississippi, new mexico, ohio, pennsylvania, tennessee, texas. Florida is making a slight accommodation because of the hurricane about to hit. If you plan to do so in person and it was closed today because of the storm, the state now says you will have one more day to register in person. That one day will happen on the day your supervisor of Elections Office reopens after the storm, whenever that is, depending on how bad it gets. That said, if youre going to vote register to vote in florida, not in person, but online, if youre going to online register, theyre not extending that deadline to account for the storm. So today in florida, right now still the deadline to register to vote online if you want to be registered to vote in time for the mid terms. Stay with us. After walking six miles at an amusement park, bills back needed a vacation from his vacation. So he stepped on the dr. Scholls kiosk. It recommends our best custom fit orthotic to relieve foot, knee, or lower back pain so you can move more. Dr. Scholls. Born to move. But prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. A peaceful night sleep without only imagine. 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Now its time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. Good evening, lawrence. Good evening, rachel. You know what i think Perfect Timing is . I think its leaving the Trump Administration after two years if youre nikki haley and you have future political ambitions. Do you have do you have secret lawrence knowledge about why nikki haley is leaving and at this moment . No, i have public lawrence knowledge about this. First of all, two years is a typical run in that particular job that very few