>> saying she can be disbarred with which the general assembly can't do. so it is not like they are looking at this as a moment where we can sit there and say okay, let's take a breath. let's give this guy his time in court and figure out what happened and what didn't happen. they are using this to push further conspiracy theories. >> we should be holding everyone accountable. everything. a to z. >> it is hard to do that when you have your guy showing up getting booked in and indicted for rico. >> in the split screen world, i would say this is the argument the republicans are making. well look what happened when the department of justice went to court. and the judge asked two yeses and it fell apart like a house of cards. poof, vanished. the flip side of the world is saying they are watching video of hunter biden with cocaine and prostitutes and yet, they are saying nothing has happen today this guy. what is happening? >> we all agree everyone wants to see hunter biden held accountable for any wrong doing he did. but he is not the president or the former president. >> i don't agree. but listen, when america sees all this going on and they see nothing happening to the biden family, this is the narrative that gets reinforced. >> two negatives don't make a positive. our party needs leadership to steph forward. if the leaders are telling folks this is not okay behavior. this is not acceptable, then the people are going to start to follow. it's a long term investment. >> everybody on that debate stage except for asa hutcheson said they would vote for him even if he was convicted. >> that is disheartening. >> and the most popular person on that debate stage seemed to be was the guy imitating the former president. he is doing the trump show with his own spin on. >> he is not wrong that is how most of the right sees us with regard to hunter biden. it goes to people in public trust lying. they kept referring to the biden crime family. hunter biden is being adjudicated by the department of justice. >> everything that is equally absurd, this entire conversation going back and forth on which of these elites are being treated which way by the system when the masses of people are treated badly by the system every day. here we have a mug shot. just having a mug shot isn't a bad thing. a lot of people in america have mug shots. it's what's the mug shot for? this is somebody who got arrested abusing his power. you are willing to vote for this guy with a mug shot. would you hire somebody with a mug shot? would you hire somebody with 91 charges against him? would you give somebody else a chance? because i see no evidence. that hypocrisy cuts deep and i think regular people watching this are going to ask questions here. why now do you care if the criminal justice system is bad? because it affects hunter biden or donald trump but you don't care about everything else. >> arguing about the weaponnization of the fbi. the fbi was weaponnized for decades. >> against dr. king. >> yes. >> it is a little selective. >> it is incredible. >> your point is well taken about whether we saw this on the first step back. in terms of joining together to get things done but i think a lot of america is frustrated with and this is not necessarily directly related to this. what you see in smash and grabs. the lawlessness taking place. no laws being enforced and selectively being enforced against certain people. whether it is in kensington, philadelphia, zombies walking around with drugs and fentanyl and all these terrible things. and no one is going to jail. things are running amok in america. >> this idea of lawlessness, from the top to the bottom, you have lawlessness on january 6th and what's going on with this person. and you have stuff going on in our neighborhood level that needs to stop. this idea you can't trust law enforcement. we have been screaming for decades now. we have been talking prosecutors abusing their power. an going too far. no offense to my friend here. and people in the same republican party that are all upset are telling us we are hysterical. when we try to fix it, there has been a backlash. what i'm saying is let's take this conversation if we are going to have it, beyond just these couple of elite families. we are supposed to pick sides about which elite family gets treated right. what about everybody else? >> when all of this is over, i think donald trump is going to go down as one of the biggest mistakes this country has made. we as republicans have to figure out how serious do we want to get about fixing this. at the end of the day, when you simplify this problem, 65% of the republican party, 65% of our friends and colleagues that are still persuadeable and we need to fight for the keys of the party. we need to send real leaders forward. >> 30 years from now, someone will look back at this mug shot and think that guy was president of the united states? >> here's the count of that as well. what is it about the biden harris administration that make republicans persuadeable in that case? why are republicans needing to be persuaded is your point. if this is so horrific, why are republicans like this is terrible. we are never voting for this guy again. but they say if he is on the ticket, i would rather vote for him than joe biden and kamala harris. that's crazy. >> that's what the leaders are saying. they are saying i will still vote for him. i will vote for whoever gets the nomination. wink, wink, nod, nod, governor kemp said that. it is one of those things where it is something to, you can sit here and talk about integrity, leading with truth, all that kind of stuff. when the rubber hits the road, you have to act your values right? >> why is governor kemp saying that? does he love donald trump or fear what four more years of biden administration means? >> i think we are a deeply polarized teams. >> this is polarizing. this will be an indelible image that will live through history and the ultimate rorschach test. liberals will look at it and be delighted or think this is a moment of accountability. conservatives will say this is persecution. and let me say this, as a prosecutor thinking back to this case, that worries me because you need unanimity in that jury room. u need 12-0. if you have different people seeing that and it evokes strong emotions that is not good for you as a prosecutor. >> by the way, i think how would i feel about this if it was barack obama? just, that should be the basic question that republicans ask themselves. if 91 felony counts were committed by barack obama, would i be out shouting and calling for congressional hearings? yes. my party cannot hold him to a different standard than they would if this was a democrat. i remember when i was working in the oversight committee and we were subpoenaing eric holder because he defied congressional subpoenas. now jim jordan defied a subpoena. it's the height of hypocrisy t. to your point, i don't know we have a party in ten years if we don't wrap our arms around the direction that it is going. >> my kids would say donald trump has figured out the cheat code. he plugs in a couple of numbers with fear mongering and screaming and yelling. but did you really win? when neighbors can't talk to neighbors anymore, whatever the divide is, if you can't talk to people at your own office or your own parties, we don't even go to state party functions. brian kemp doesn't go to the state party functions because it is just a broken system. it doesn't represent america. that's my point about the 65%. it is now or never. we stand up, fight for the keys of the party, redirect our course. donald trump, i have a 13-year- old son more conservative than donald trump and been a republican longer than donald trump. he has confused the republican base to be loud and angry as conservative. it's not. >> i think the problem y'all have really, because this showed up in our polling, too. the people that are identifying themselves as republican tend to be pro trump. right? so, you have this whole block of folks and i call them chamber of commerce or business republicans, that are about 10 to 15% of the republican electorate normally in our state i know. that now identify themselves as independent. and not partisan at all. so even the polling is off. so when you hear that 35%, 40% of republicans feel this way, i don't think, i think those are the republicans who will say the republicans now. and that's really a problem. >> by the way, the democrats, you guy haves the same problem. only 35% of your base really supports joe biden. wants joe biden to stay in the presidency. you wish you had somebody better to vote for that was younger, more vibrant, more dialed in. but you don't. and that's just, but your guy doesn't have 91 indictments. >> that's right. >> so the lesser of two evils. >> i think a couple of things can be true at the same time. i'm actually proud of joe biden and what he has been able to do and we are on a economic recovery. but there's a lot of hurt out there. >> there is. >> and we are not talking about it. the main problem most people have is not donald trump and it is not joe biden. the main thing they are scared of is the check engine light. because when that check engine light goes on, that's 3,000 bucks, baby, that you don't have. and every day you are driving to work hoping it doesn't cut on. who cares about it? you got people with real problems and they are watching this saying one thing i know for sure, none of these people care about me. and that's the big issue. to me, my concern is that the only thing we have is each other, to your point. it is really getting bad where we can't talk about anything. listen, you put something on the table, and i put something on the table. do i like lawyers getting arrested? that is scary. that is scary. because a lot of times the only thing my people have or lawyers. if lawyers get in the cross hairs that is scary for me but i can't say that because i don't want to give any aid and comfort to the ore side when these bad lawyers are getting in trouble so the nuances get chased outed among the elites but the ordinary people, these are real problems. we only care about the top when everybody else can go to hell. >> let's go down to katelyn outside the jail in fulton county. >> reporter: yes, we are still outside the jail here in fulton county. i am joined by charles burnham. the attorney of john eastman. one of the president's 18 codefendants who told trump that pence could block certification of biden's win. good evening, thank you for joining me, does your client also want a speedy trial here? >> as we stand here today, we are not prepared to make that demand. it is certainly something we might, you know, think through as a sort of thought experiment but we would be inclined to not do something similar. this is a complicated case. there will be an enormous amount of evidence. >> go ahead. >> i was going to conclude by saying this is enormously complicated case. i can only imagine what discovery will look like and it will take time to work through all that. >> reporter: so you have no plans to ask for a speedy trial for john eastman? >> that is correct. >> reporter: okay, will your client try to move this case from state court to a federal court like we have seen others attempt to do? >> well he may not have a choice. i understand there is a viable argument that if a federal officer, an actual federal officer that worked for the federal government gets his case successfully removed which could happen, there is a reasonable argument that the rest of the defendants may be removed whether they are federal officers or not. that may be what ends up happening. if that doesn't happen, we might take a serious look at that. but we haven't made a decision one way or the other. >> reporter: so you are saying if one of them moves, all of them could. but if not, you may ask for that as well. i guess my question is what would your premise be? that law pertains to federal officers, or agencies, but mark meadows worked inside the white house. jerry clark worked at the justice department. mr. john eastman did not work for the executive branch. so how would you make that argument? >> yeah, it would be a more difficult argument for sure: we might take a look and see if there is some sort of an agency theory that might apply. but we haven't made any final decisions on that yet. >> reporter: what would the agency be? >> there may be some support, there could be an argument that somebody who isn't a federal employee themselves if they worked in connection with other federal officers as dr. eastman did, perhaps there is an argument there we might take a look at that. but we haven't made a decision one way or the other. >> reporter: but wouldn't it be a difficult argument? given he wasn't being paid by the federal government or have a taxpayer funded job. how is there any stretch of an argument that he was working on behalf of the federal government? >> he certainly wasn't working on behalf of the federal government. and we haven't made a final decision on that. you may wind up being that. you made the counterargument very well. >> will you seek to sever this case? >> i think again, i want to answer your question directly. but i think any decision, especially severance more so perhaps than removal, is going to be made down the road. certainly there's benefits to going to trial apart from codefendants. there may be benefits to going to trial. with codefendants. i'll put it like this. i think the odds we move to sever are significantly greater than the odds we ask for a speedy trial. put it that way. >> okay, so that is an option you are considering. is your client worried that donald trump, mark meadows and other codefendants here will try to pin that activity that happened after the election on mr. eastman? >> no, not at all. counsel for mr. trump has already made fairly extensive comments to that effects and various media appearances that it absolutely is their position that donald trump did exactly what we would expect him to do. he had a serious constitutional question to confront around the certification of the election. so what does he do? he hires a constitutional law professor to advise him and follows that advice. we would have no problem if that was part of the defense that he decides to mount in georgia. that's fine with us. >> but he would have been following that advice against the advice of top officials who worked for him. the attorney general. top election officials. top attorneys in the white house. when your client left the jail here the other day, he said he still believes that the election was stolen which of course it wasn't. but is that a defense? why is he saying that still? >> reporter: dr. eastman believes very strongly. >> specifically that there were major problems with election illegalities. which is different than fraud. his contention then and his contention today was, is that many votes were cast in many states in contravention of the manner set forth by the state legislatures which has constitutional underpinnings. and in that, dr. eastman is not a voice in the wilderness. vice president pence made statements along the same lines. his chief counsel has made statements along those lines and dr. eastman does very much still maintain that view today. >> the secretary of states, they had a right to change the way the elections were administered. there wasn't anything illegal about that. it doesn't mean the 2020 election was stolen. if he is indicted over the role he played in trying to overturn the 2020 election, does it help for him to continue claiming the election was stolen? >> i would say two things. one is dr. eastman if you look at his whole record, he is very much a man of principle and a man not afraid to call it like he sees it so when he makes a comment like that, it is not some sort of strategy. that's what he really thinks. i think when you look at the trial, the issue that will be presented some day to a georgia jury is was there a good faith basis to challenge various aspects of the 2020 election? and did dr. eastman and the others bring the challenges in good faith? we are confident that the answer will be absolutely yes. >> well, i'll say attorney general has said he disagrees. you mentioned mike pence. i don't think you have been asked about this. the former vice president said the preponderate was surrounded by a group of crack pot lawyers that kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear. he is talking about your client, there. >> i'll say this about the former vice president. i want, i think the former vice president, let's look at what were his incentives here around january 6th. he really lad two choices right? he could have said dr. eastman, you may have a point but i don't think there is any evidence of fraud or illegality as you were suggesting earlier. there would have been nothing inconsistent about that. the problem for vice president pence would be for obvious reasons that would be significantly disadvantageous to any future political campaign. the second option the vice president had which was the one he ultimately chose was to say yes, i agree there was evidence of illegality and fraud duh i spill is constitution has tied my hands so i can't do anything about it. and the consequence of taking that approach on january 6th is that it aligns the vice president's interests directly in opposition to professor eastman and i can't read his mind, but he has an incentive to do everything he can to discredit everything dr. eastman said at the time and the statement you quoted is very much along the lines. and i think that is very important context for anyone evaluating this case to appreciate. >> but are you saying that mike pence had politics on his mind at the time? he came under intense pressure for people including your client to try to do something that he did not, that everyone agrees, looking at the legal basis that he did not have the ability to do. and it sounds like he had politics in mind. on january 6th. >> all i can say is i can't read the vice president's mind. i don't know what his internal discussions were, but at the trial,. >> you see what he did. >> what were the incentives? and i think it is clear i don't think it is debatable that the vice president and his allies have an incentive to discredit as best they can the theories that dr. eastman put forward on that date. none of which i continue to insist were foreclosed by any supreme court or binding precedent. you may not like his theories but the important point for these purposes is they were not foreclosed by any binding law at all. >> well there is no supreme court precedent for this. thank you for your time tonight. thank you for coming on. and with the news you do not plan to ask for a speedy trial. up next, reaction from a republican congressman as donald trump is arriving back in new jersey after the criminal booking. booking number four. donald trump's 757 has just landed at newark international airport. live picture of it taxiing to the ramp. let's talk about the day's events with colorado republican congressman and house freedom caucus member ken buck. congressman buck, thanks for joining us. what is your reaction do the former president's a i rest and what you witnessed? >> first, it's a sad day for america in my view. every time we have a former president going through the criminal justice is terribly unfortunate. but i look at this case and i would love to see what the other prosecutors think. i think fani willis has a difficult case. she has to put 90% of her case on with that defendant. so you have witnesses who are going to be testifying under oath as to a version of facts. then you'll have another defendant who has a trial in state court. another defendant who gets severed. you have two or three trials in state court and one or two trials in federal court. because some of these cases will get remanded. by the time you try donald trump, you'll have a witness testify four or five times and there will be inconsistencies. that makes the case a little bit weaker. i think the da's office and fulton county overcharged this case with the rico. and i think they overcharged this case by having 19 defendants. she is counting on 16 of these defendants, 15 of those defendants pleading guilty and becoming state's evidence against donald trump. i'm not sure that is going to happen in a case like this. this is not rico has to do with organized crime. if this is a crime at all. i think it is a disorganized crime and i don't think these folks are willing to testify against the former president of the united states. >> to that point, you have said the charges brought against trump are comparable to a nuclear bomb where a bullet would have sufficed. you were a prosecutor. you were a former district attorney. what charges would have sufficed here in your opinion or do you think district attorney willis should have just deferred to special council smith? >> i think jack smith brought charges. he considered rico. he decided not to go with rico. that was the right decision in the federal case. this is really a federal case. it is not is a state case. she is charging acts that are alleged to happen in pennsylvania. and she can. it is not all that uncommon in the drug case. you may very well have deals made outside of fulton county. outside of georgia she can charge. in this particular case, a lot of the activity happened in washington dc. a lot of the activity happened in pennsylvania, arizona, other places. so, this is really a case that should have been brought by the federal government. was brought by the federal government in a much nower and more focused way. >> you have said you would not support a convicted felon for the position of president of the united states. does that mean that you, if donald trump is ultimately convicted of one of these crimes, whether the two being brought by jack smith or this one by fani willis. do you think that you will not support him? >> well, what i have said is i don't think any of these cases will go to trial before the election. i don't think that the appeals will be heard. so there won't be a final judgment on these cases certainly before the election. but i will not support a convicted felon for the position of president of the united states. regardless of who that person is. >> as you know, the former chief of staff mark meadows also surrendered and was arrested and processed today. he obviously is somebody that served in the house of representatives. until relatively recently. and was a member of the house freedom caucus. what goes through your mind when you see a mark meadows mug shot? >> reporter: mark is a good friend of mine. we served together. we met every week in the freedom caucus. he was the chair of the freedom cow dust at the time. that he left to become the chief of staff for the white house. i think it is terribly sad. sad for mark and debbie. these charges are charges that mark, i don't know that he ever actually visited georgia during this time frame. >> he did. >> certainly he set up a phone call and he did other things at the direction of the president. i think the folks who are saying this is a political action and not an action within his scope as chief of staff, if i'm going to make a fund raising call, as a congressman, i have to leave my congressional office and i have to go some place else to make that call. i can't make it on government property. the president of the united states is exempt for that. people expect the president to conduct political activities at the same time he conducts his other activities in the white house. and so it is difficult to say where the line is where mark was acting in his political capacity or in his professional capacity for the president. >> and finally, sir, this is the fourth time that donald trump has been booked on criminal charges. i understand that a lot of people don't take the charges from alvin bragg in new york very seriously. but the jack smith charges seem pretty serious. the fani willis charges seem serious regardless of how heavy a lift you think it will be to bring them forward. do you think the majority of republican voters are paying less and less attention each time this happens? do you think they rally around him more each time it happens or do you think there is a hunger for credible alternative and will be even more so in the coming days as the presidential primaries continue? >> i think all of the above, jake. there is a sympathy factor for a president of the united states. it is magnified by the fact that the case against hillary clinton, the case against hunter biden don't appear to be treated the same way to republicans. i think that there are also many republicans out there who are saying enough drama. maybe mike pence is the right guy. maybe tim scott is the right guy. maybe the governor desantis is the right person. nikki haley. to really run against joe biden and express our values and be a better contrast. but i think president trump has a large support right now. the question really is going to be as this drags on, is he going to continue to have that kind of support. >> congressman ken buck, always good to see you. thank you sir. >> thank you. moments ago, we saw donald trump's private boeing 757 wheels down. as they say. at newark international airport. in a moment, he will get into yet another motorcade and make his way back to his private golf club in new jersey where cnn's kristin holmes is reporting now. donald trump set to arrive back at his golf club in a few minutes. what is awaiting him? i think we saw him in the past after being charged in florida in the classified documents case. i think there was a fundraiser of some sort. what is happening at bed minister this evening? >> reporter: jake, according to trump advisers, not much. as you mentioned, when he was indicted in new york, or arraigned in new york, he had a big party at mar-a-lago. he gave remarks. he talked to club members and he had a giant dinner with friends on the patio. then when he was arraigned again in miami, he had remarks and gave a big fundraiser. we are told none of that is happening tonight. trump is going back to his club with a small group of aides but those aides don't stay there at the club. they stay at nearby hotels. it is reelly just him going back to that bedminister golf club where he is spending the summer and we did hear from him moments ago just in addition to the remarks on the tarmac. we heard from him again in an interview he did on news max where he said that going to the fulton county jail was a quote terrible experience. of course, he added that they were very nice to him. that is something he often says but it was interesting to have him say realistically that this was a terrible experience that he had at the jail today. >> all right, kristin, thanks so much. back with our panel. one of the things interesting when you talk to congressman ken buck, at no point did he say donald trump didn't do this. donald trump is innocent. now, if we had booked matt gaetz, maybe we would have heard that. but this is a very conservative member of the house freedom caucus. very conservative republican. not really, you know, not really offering much of a defense. >> no. and doesn't think that donald trump should be the nominee. he is one of the people who we call part of the sort of extreme right. back in 2010. and now. >> tea party. >> yeah, exactly. and he still considers himself that. and it is that part of the party has been totally overtaken by donald trump. all of the party has been overtaken by donald trump. what was interesting about last night is you started to hear some of the fiscal responsibility arguments seep up and catch a lot of fire from nikki haley and others. the question is whether the ken buck arguments, whether the nikki haley arguments. whether any of them will have any oxygen when you have what you saw tonight from the front runner. >> you know what else struck me after last night's debate? the candidates were asked basically the same question that jake asked ken buck. will you vote for a guy who was convicted of a federal crime or has a felony? ken buck said no. i'm not going to do it. and i think last night, it was probably the vast majority of the candidates on that stage. >> i think it was six out of eight. >> who said i will support him still. it really speaks volumes, i think, about how far you have to go if you are running for president to defend trump, even if you are running against him. even if you think his conduct is deplorable. even if you think he should be charged. many of those people said they would vote for him. ken buck didn't. not very many people in the house of representatives right now are willing to say that. to his credit. that was very notable to me. >> jamie? >> i thought it was also interesting. if i had a nickel for every time a republican said privately to me what they really thought of donald trump, i wouldn't be buying any lottery tickets anymore. i mean, the fact that we are still here today, the fact that donald trump still has such a grip, not only on the republican base voters, but on elected officials is just stunning. >> it's interesting so much of this is ending in georgia. where, you know, donald trump, he waged this campaign to flip states that had voted legally and lawfully for joe biden. in arizona, in pennsylvania, in michigan. in wisconsin. in nevada and georgia. i asked the head of one of the states that is not prosecuting donald trump. they said that the fake elector scheme was just, there were too many loopholes as opposed to in michigan. but we are really only seeing accountability on the state level in michigan. and in georgia. >> that's true. but i do think that the special council's case covers some of this activity. >> but on the state level i mean. >> right. and the question is do you need to double dip? there's an argument to be made that it is really not going to matter if he is convicted once or twice. if he was convicted on the federal level, does he need the state conviction to follow as well? i thought the congressman made a good argument and a fair point. and that is what happens with these cases as they go along. especially if the prosecutor histor prosecutor has to try them at different times. it goes on and on. not to mention those waiting to have their case heard have time to get a dry run. and hear the evidence that the government might want to put on against them. so, he made some fair points when it came to the complexity. and that's the charging decision. we could have seen a case where the district attorney didn't need two-and-a-half years to investigate. but came in quickly with a call. a charge from early 2020. >> one of the things that i sense, of course, there's politics afoot with a district attorney. but i do think that there is an incentive for district attorneys and the like. to try to provide a disincentive for any politician trying to do this ever again. not just a president, but a local alderman or a congressional candidate. this coordinated conspiracy of lying about it in an election and trying to force through public pressure, local officials to overturn an election. which would be easier to do. >> that is absolutely true and it tees up an interesting conflict here. there are some like the congressman who say it is double dipping. is it really necessary. there are others i think who raised very good questions about should we be in the system where every politically elected county prosecutor across the country can start prosecuting a sitting president. so these are all very legitimate questions. however, the other side of that coin is you have prosecutors like in this case, fani willis who is looking at substantial criminal activity allegedly. >> and evidence of it. >> in her jurisdiction in fulton county georgia. she was elected by the people of fulton county to prosecute crimes that happened there. this was according to her a very significant one and that is certainly within her remit. >> thanks one and all for being here. juster ahead, another important story we have following. u.s. military officials giving their first comments about what may have caused that plane crash that appears to have killed putin ally turned rival yevgeny prigozhin. and analysis of that. plus putin's remarks about prigozhin, next. wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. and it's all right here. streaming was never this easy, you know. this is the way. you really went all out didn't you? um, it's called commitment. could you turn down the volume? here, you can try. get way more into what your into when you stream on the xfinity 10g network. here's why you should switch fro to duckduckgo on all your device duckduckgo comes with a built in engine like google, but it's pri and doesn't spy on your searches and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooki and creepy ads that follow you a from google and other companies. and there's no catch. it's free. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you around showing the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. u.s. military officials said it is quote likely that the head of the wagner mercenary group yevgeny prigozhin was killed in wednesday's plane crash. the pentagon doesn't have any information to indicate right now that the plane crash caught on camera was the result of a surface so air missile. all possibilities are being evaluated including an on board explosion. people familiar with the intelligence believe it was no accident. and that the goal was to kill prigozhin. a one time ally of vladimir putin who led a brief failed rebellion two months before the crash. today, vladimir putin gave his first public remarks about prigozhin's death. we are joined by melissa bell in ukraine and steve hall. so what did vladimir putin have to say? >> it was the first time there was a break in the silence of russian authorities. all we had was the mention of the facts of the matter of this plane crash. so, a break of the silence and yet, though vladimir putin is not really known for his displays of emotions, this was a remarkably dead pan assessment of the death of a man with whom he went back decades. have a listen. >> i knew prigozhin for a very long time since the early 90s . he was a man of difficult fate and made serious mistakes in life and achieved the results needed both for himself and when i ask him about it for common cause. >> wow, very emotional. >> remarkable criticism of a man who had just died there. a reminder that vladimir putin's opinion of his long time ally turned foe were at best mixed and the worst kind of enemy is one that used to be a close friend. >> steve, you certainly spend a lot of time talking about vladimir putin. when you see that message, what do you see? >> i think most of vladimir putin's interactions with other human beings are transactional. so the idea this is an old friend of mine who came back from the saint petersburg days, i don't know how much that holds true. what he is trying to do when he makes statements like this, he is walking a very fine line. he has already sent the the strongest message possible. the most important message for him: to others who would try to pull off what prigozhin pulled off. he sent is strongest message by bringing that plane down. he has to convince the russian people. there are popular support for prigozhin. and, i think he is trying to walk that line by essentially saying look, there are oligarchs, others who might try this. don't. listen, this is something in my ability here. >> assuming he is behind the death of prigozhin, the fact he is willing to kill somebody who he has an economic incentive to keep around is very telling. the economic incentive was not enough to save yevgeny prigozhin. >> yeah. 20 years ago, you would have an oligarch who began to become almost as power. as vladimir putin. he felt he could participate politically and do things putin was extremely unhappy about. ten years in a russian jail, the only reason he was released was because of the sochi olympics. this was not the first time an oligarch has expressed and acted on a sense of hubris. why did prigozhin try this. did he think this would work? two months later his plane goes down. this is a guy who thought he would pull it off and putin now shows him this is not going to happen and more importantly to others who might try it this will not happen. >> as there been any further response from wagner about the decapitation of its leadership? >> there have the expressions of grief. people paying their respects. shedding the odd tear. but there are expressions of anger on the part of wagner mercenaries. some of them threatens retaliation on part of their former boss. most worrying to the kremlin, prigozhin was one man but represented a particular strand of thinking in russian politics. than out flanked vladimir putin on the question of the war and what needed to be done to help to win it. bring mass mobilization. that strand of thinking is still very much there. the question is what it becomes now. >> melissa and steve, thanks. the news continues right after this short break. okay. i'll work on that. save 50% on the sleep numberĀ® limited edition smart bed. plus, 60-month financing on all smart beds. shop now only at sleep numberĀ®. skoirks . hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the united states and all around