i did everything right and they indicted me. and what it means to set and then immediately break the record for hottest day ever recorded on planet earth. when all in starts, right now. good evening from new york. i m chris hayes. hope you had a good july 4th weekend. we are rapidly approaching the real actual serious for now start of the 24 republican primary. the first rnc debate is next month in milwaukee where the republicans will also hold their 2024 convention. while it s still too early for any real predictions about who voters will choose or how this will play out, right now, speaking as of today, it does look like donald trump is way ahead of everyone else. and that is in large part because florida governor ron desantis, who was initially hyped up is the candidate who could take on trump, has seen his poll numbers tank. just look at the polling averages since the start of this calendar year. desantis line should commit with its own slide whistle. he s almost 30 p
donald trump hit the campaign trail in iowa last night telling rally goers that the department of justice s case against him is quote, all be f. well, you said the real world, but i can. he also said every time he gets subpoenaed, his poll numbers go up. he s not wrong. trump leads the board for the republican nomination by at least 30 points. that s not good for any of the other 11 candidates. particularly florida governor ron desantis whose campaign in second to trump in the polls but is being hit with words like sagging and stalled. and then there s this. in the last four months donald trump has been indicted twice, and yet, the disgraced former president s campaign says it raised an astounding $35 million in the second quarter. that s double his take in the first three months of the year. joining me now, terrace at meyer, former gop communications director lincoln project senior advisor and resident scholar at the uva center for politics, and former republican congressm
russia in crisis. the weekend mutiny by russian mercenaries exposes putin s vulnerability, forcing him to cut a deal with the man he had called a traitor just hours before. that man, hot dog vendor turned war lord yevgeny prigozhin was apparently allowed to flee to belarus. we re going to take a deep dive into what happens next for him and his wagner group. and it s becoming increasingly clear that republican voters don t care how corrupt their candidates are. donald trump s lead is actually growing in the crowded republican presidential field. make that make sense. but we begin tonight with a wild weekend in the unprecedented challenge to more than two decades of vladimir putin s grip on russia. the armed rebellion has ended, but the uncertainty it sparked continues. the russian war lord behind that attempted insurrection. wagner group leader yevgeny prigozhin remains out of sight, but he released an audio message today, claiming he wasn t seeking to overthrow putin. h
did you hear that? seacrest is on speed dial. he sure wise. congrats to pat sajak and such an impressive run. and way to go ryan, on your new gig. on that note, i wish you all a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late. i ll see you at the end of tomorrow. of tomorrow we have some breaking news tonight from the new york times this evening, some reporting that makes a recently unearthed trump recording even more incredible. if you ve not yet heard it, nbc news has independently obtained the audio of former president trump and his bedminster unit new jersey golf club, essentially admitting to a crime. here is trump in july of 2021 telling a group of people that he still has classified information after leaving the white house, and then proceeding to destroy his own defense. he explicitly says on audiotape that he could have declassified this when he was president, but he did not. take a listen. isn t that amazin
forces. so, i think putin is afraid of them. tonight, how tenuous is black vladimir putin s hold on power. what does russian infighting mean for ukraine s counteroffensive. and what did the u.s. and western allies know in advance. we gave putin no excuse to blame this on the west and blame this on nato. good evening from kyiv, ukraine. i am ali velshi. and i am here because something unprecedented unfolded over the weekend. never in 23 years under putin s russia has this happened. thousands of armed soldiers, mercenaries, taking up arms against their own country. [inaudible] this was a scene inside russia today, explosions and cities, and a private army watching through the streets, vowing to take the fight all the way to the capital. those rebel forces previously allied with putin and the russian military, even leading many of the battles and ukraine but then that ship suddenly violently ended. what exactly they were marching for remains unclear.