beloved co-workers or anybody nels that space. so again, i'm fine. there is absolutely nothing to worry about whatsoever. i'm trying to do my part to mike sure i don't put anybody else at risk. so please forgive this. actually, i had makeup dropped off for me today, like on my front porch so i could do it myself but i don't know how to do that, so i just didn't. hope you don't mind. forgive this. forgive any lighting or backdrop complaints, i'm just trying to be safe. welcome to 2022. this is the way it works. also because everything else happens at once, i have one other announcement before we get under way tonight. a couple of years ago ago you may remember i did a podcast, a relatively short seven episode single arc podcast called bagman and nixon's vice president spiro agnew and an extortion ring out of the white house and strumabled on the evidence of him being corrupt and taking envelopes of cash across his desk while being a public official and put together a criminal case against him even though he was the sitting vice president and all in the middle of watergate, only thanks to those prosecutors that we didn't end up with president agnew when nixon resigned in disgrace, it would have been after the national trauma and disgrace of water-gate, it would next have been president agnew, the felon, presumably taking envelopes full of cash in the oval office instead of in his vice presidential office. had these prosecutors not followed their case to the end and forced agnew to resign, this is what would have happened. i think it is an absolutely amazing story. it turns out to be the very surprising origin story of why the justice department thinks a sitting president can't be criminally indicted even if he definitely commits terrible crimes while he is in office. that of course was put to the test like never before under the twice impeached coup plotting president donald trump who we just had, but without where that came from, you cannot indict a sitting president, that actually came from the spiro agnew nightmare in the 1970s. anyone way, i'm still fascinated by the story. i've learned a lot more and discovered a lot more about agnew and that whole period and watch that podcast, the reason i'm telling you this, it is now going to be a movie. ben still ser going to direct. it he is incredible. one of the producers of film is lauren michaels, that lorne michaels, this has been in the works for a while now but it looks like it's going to happen. i am super excited about it. and i am going to take a little bit of time off from this show to go help with some of the work and to work on some other things that i have cooking with nbc right now, including a new podcast, kind of along the lines of bagman and the spiro agnew story, a totally different topic but when i say along the same lines i mean to say it's like a, it's got a specific arc, a specific story a reported journalistic tale, not a podcast where i haven't done the research and admit i haven't done the reading. i am super excited about it, super excited to tell you about it when i have more to tell. just like late night hosts sometimes go on hiatus in their shows, i'm going to go on hiatus for a little bit from this show so i can work on some of those other projects, in addition to the movie, the bagman movie, and the podcast that i'm working on, the paper back of the bagman book is also coming out in a few week, coming out in april, there's also an adaptation of a different book that i want to try to make for tv as well but i just started working on, all of this stuff i have been working on that i want to work some more on, so as you can tell, i'm nervous about all of this, as a change in my life, but it is all for the good. i will be here this week, through thursday of this week. and then the hiatus means i'm going to be off for a few weeks, off for the show, not going anywhere, and back for state of the union and other big news events in the meantime and back doing the show again before you'll even miss me, i'll be back in april and there may eventually be another hiatus sometime again in my future but for now one step at a time and i will be here through thursday this week. and of course while i'm away the show will continue to be run by the absolute best producers in this entire business, by the amazing staff of this show, so don't worry, you will be in very, very good hands. change is good. change is absolutely terrifying. but in this case, it's good. so now you know. let's never speak of this again. okay. all right. enough of that. let's get started. tonight, cnn had this scoop, which has since been confirmed by nbc news. the chief of staff to former vice president mike pence has given testimony to the january 6th investigation. apparently for hours. this apparently happened last week, wednesday last week, pursuant to a subpoena that was given him but nobody knew about it until tonight, nobody knew about the subpoena let alone that he testified. sort of a good reminder that the january 6th investigation, they do announce some of their steps publicly, but not all of them. pence's chief of staff testifying would seem to be kind of a big deal in this investigation. but if you think about how he fits into this, right, we talked about on the show, the effort to overthrow the government and prevent the new president from taking power, that's being basically played out in three place, on three levels, first was in the state where they ginned up these stake claims of fraud and election irregularities to try to justify throwing out the election results in those states where trump lost. in at least five states republicans actually got together and forged paperwork proclaiming themselves to be the electors from that state, even though they weren't. that paperwork was sent in to congress and to the national archives, to make it look like those states were casting their electoral vote force trump when they were not. so that all happened in the states. well level two at the justice department. what they tried to do was use the u.s. justice department from u.s. attorneys all the way up to the attorney general's office, to try to use the justice department to give some kind of air of authority to these fake claims about fraud from the states, and to encourage republican state legislators that they really should falsify the election results in those states and throw out the real electors. so number one was at the state level, two at the justice department, level three of the plot, which is the one that we saw the most of on january 6th, was the targeting of mike pence. specifically in his role actually opening and counting the electoral votes in congress on january 6th. it was all this pressure and intimidation directed at vice president pence personally from president trump and others part of the plot. the whole mob that stormed the capitol on january 6th, they were shouting, hang mike pence and trying to find mike pence, because they were directed to go pressure mike pence. they were the muscle. they were the physical intimidation behind that part of the scheme that targeted pence. the former president, former president trump, just last night put out one of his oddly punctuated statements with random words capitalized in which he said outright bluntly that he did want and expect pence to use that role in counting the electoral votes to actually overturn the election results. he said quote mike pence did have the right to change the outcome, unfortunately he didn't exercise that power, he could have overturned the election. just staying it bluntly now, not hiding from it. it is still an open question as to whether or not vice president pence himself is going to testify to the january 6th commission. but we now know the chief of staff testified. that's a big deal. not only was his chief of staff mark short with vice president pence on january 6th including being in the capitol with him while a mob of trump supporters was hunting him in the halls of the capitol but mark short pence's chief of staff was also with vice president pence two days earlier, two days before january 6th in the oval office. on january 4th in the oval office, that was the meeting where former president trump and this lawyer, john eastman reportedly tried to convince pence in person that he shouldn't count the real electoral college votes. she reject them. or he should refuse to open them. or he should refuse to recognize that the real votes were the only legitimate electoral votes from that state and maybe there might be others or maybe there were forged slates of electors should count just as much or two sets of electors, real ones and forged ones from some states, that should be grounds for throwing out that state's results entirely, they were trying to get him to not do a real electoral college vote and they reportedly pressured mike pence to do that in person in the oval office on january 4th and mark short was sitting right next to mike pence during that meeting and mark short has just testified to the january 6th investigation for hours. so as far as this investigation goes, that testimony would seem to be a big deal. the "washington post" has also got some strange but true news tonight about the document, the more than 700 pages of white house documents that trump had tried to keep secret from the january 6th investigation, but he was ultimately forced by the courts to hand those documents over. these are documents that were in possession of the national archives and records administration. national archives holds all presidential records, all white house records, "politico" had reported back in 2018, i can't believe this is coming back in this way now, but "politico" had reported in 2018 that even though there is a law that says you have to preserve all white house records, you have to go to the national archives, it's illegal to destroy them, despite that law, "politico" reported in 2018 that one of the odd hallmarks of the trump presidency is that they broke that law every day. that trump made a habit of tearing papers up. physically ripping them apart as soon as he had seen them. ripping them just in half or sometimes ripping them in teeny tiny little pieces. i still remember that article, so weird and so good, by annie carney at "politico" and the headline was meet the guys who tape trump's papers back together. quote, the president's unofficial filing system involves tearing up documents into pieces, even when they're supposed to be preserved. apparently that habit persisted through to the end. this is the "washington post" reporting tonight. quote, when the national archives and records administration handed over a trove of documents to the house select committee investigating the january 6th insurrection, some of the trump white house records had been ripped up and taped back together according to three people familiar with the records. former president trump was known inside the white house for his unusual and potentially unlawful habit of tearing presidential records into shreds and tossing them on the floor. creating a headache for records management analysts who meticulously used scotch tape to piece together fragments of paper that were sometimes as small as confetti. despite the presidential records act which requires the preservation of notes and faxes and communications related to the president's official duties, the former president's shredding practices apparently continued well into the latter stages of his presidency of the national archives today said in a statement that records turned over from the trump white house, quote, included paper records that had been torn up by former president trump. the statement came in response to a request from the "washington post" about whether some january 6th records had been ripped up and taped back together. yes, all totally normal. so the court had to force him to hand over the documents but when they were handed over, they were torn into bits and scotch taped back together. totally normal. there had been headlines in every major paper in the country yesterday and today, about former president trump this weekend, pledging that he would pardon people, arrested for their part in the mob attack on the capitol on january ofth. he didn't hint at it. he said he would do it. and this is amazing to me. this was the moment at his rally this weekend in which he said he would pardon the january 6th defendants. and we all know what happened on january 6th, right? we specifically know what police officers. 140 police officers were injured by the trump mob attack on january 6th. police officers were tased, beaten, stopped, speared, dragged down flights of stairs, punched, and broken bones and chemical burns. and here's the moment in the rally, here's these folks standing behind trump saying cops for trump t-shirts while trump is saying he is going to pardon all of the january 6th defendants because they had been treated so unfairly, so unfairly. yes, cops for trump. wait, cops for what now? you're going to pardon who, for what? cops for trump. the importance of him promising those pardons is hard to miss, right? i mean for one thing, it will have a current effect on the hundreds of ongoing prosecutions related to january 6th because of those defendants, they think that trump will get them a get out of jail free card if and when he gets back into office, that is reason for them not to cooperate, for them not to provide information about what happened, for them not to agree to plea deal, have to wait it out until trump is back in office and then they'll be free. but you know, trump promising to do something lawless and corrupt if he becomes president, it's like your friend january promising you'll be cold the next time she's around. yeah, duh, i mean we've seen what he does when he hat the powers of presidency and him promising to use the powers of the presidency in a lawless and corrupt and self serving way, it is not a surprise. but he did also use that idea as a sort of segue for something that is new, and that is i think a new kind of danger from him, when in so many words he told his supporters that they should take to the streets if he gets indicted. >> the radical democrats are corrupt beyond belief. they are viciously and unconstitutionally using the federal local and state governments to prosecute and silence, politicians like me, although i never considered myself to be a politician, but that's what they are doing, as an example, for years, they've been going after my company, many years, using every trick in the book, in an attempt to literally, if they can, put me in jail. they want to put me in jail. if these radical vicious racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, i hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had in washington, d.c., in new york, in atlanta, and elsewhere. >> it is one thing to promise pardons, for the mob that you have attack the u.s. capitol to promise them pardons if you are returned to the presidency, but this is something that he has now asked for, he wants his supporters in the streets if and when he is indicted. he doesn't need to be president to demand that. he is demanding that now. any grand jury, any prosecutor, any court that processes these proceedings, he's promising is going to have to bear the physical wrath of trump supporters if they dare to indict him. and those supporters may in fact calculate the level of action they're willing to take on his behalf, in consideration of these promised pardons. these pardons he's promising for those who have already committed violence in his name. it is one thing to promise to do something once you're going to be president again. but him demanding that his supporters take to the streets, if he's indicted, that is a bell that's now rung and cannot be unrung. that is isn't a threat of what might happen if he is president again, that is a threat of what will happen now and try to hold him to account even if he is never going to hold office again. joining us is former republican strategist steve schmidt. thanks very much for being with us. i appreciate you being here. >> good to be with you, rachel. >> let me ask you about these comments from the president. we've got a statement from him saying i wanted mike pence to overturn the election. we've got him saying if i'm elected president again or returned to the presidency, i will pardon the january 6th defendants. and he's saying in so many ways if i'm indicted i want you all in the streets and i want you in the streets of the various places where i'm considered in potential criminal trials. is this just trump, is this the same nonsense that we have heard from trump, is this a different level of threat to the country? >> well, i think that we have to look at this in the context of his apologias for people who created grave acts of violence including murder of police officers on january 6th. so he's not just simply calling people out to protest and exercise their first amendment right. there's more than a patina of menace to it, and when you look at the totality of all of this, rachel, we have an autocratic movement in the country, most of what trump talks about now is not about the 2020 election, so much as it is about the '24 election, and no matter what, we can anticipate that should the republican candidate lose that election, it might be trump, it might well be trump, but whoever the republican candidate is, they will have pre-conditioned, the overwhelming majority of the republican party, to believe that legitimate elections in this country are not possible. and that the election is stolen. and sooner or later, when you combine all of these things, the conspiracies, the intimations to violence, all of the lies, ultimately, it will trigger political violence. we know that because we've seen on the edges the violence that has already been triggered, and we know what's possible by looking at other countries. but everything that is happening in america right now is happening in the open, very transparently, and the people who seek to take power, including through undemocratic means, are quite clear about what it is they intend to do with it, and we should look at this as a bunch of things all together. including newt gingrich's comments talking about locking people up who are of a different political persuasion. he means it 110%. >> to the extent that what's different here and what's unique about this happening in our country right now, is that it is happening in the open, these promises are being made into a microphone, and they're being made openly and that they're talking about the way that they're going to do it, that should be an advantage for the rest of the country that wants this not to happen and that wants to defend the democracy against this kind of a takeover. is there any advantage to be gleamed from the fact that this is being openly plotted? does it give us, with the sort of advanced notice that we're being given, what should we do with that advanced notice? how do we prepare? >> democracies have this in common, that they are slow to respond to threats. all through history, the second world war is a prime example of this, and we see it today, though that this is playing out in front of us, we seem to be unable to know exactly what is it, what do we call it, what does it mean when in florida there are neo nazis with swastikas hanging out on an overpass in orlando, i believe. what does the rising extremism forbode for the country. and it seems to me you cannot postpone forever the idea of the country in making it central to the debate. because what trump did at its core, was break the compact that exists between us about how we apportion lawful power. who gets to make lawful decisions under a constitutional system that restrains the power of government, that enumerates the powers that it does have, and enshrines individual rights. trump has shattered that concept, and we've seen this epidemic of cowardice, of people looking to enhance their careers like elise stefanik, and others who have been unwilling to stand up, to stand up for their oath, to stand up for the american constitution, and so all of these things working together have brought us to a point of real danger as we head into the next election and the one after that, the presidential, where we can anticipate a lot of instability in this country, and we can anticipate political violence, because ultimately, that fuse which has been lit a long time ago, will ultimately burn to the explosives wherever they may be. we don't quite know yet. >> steve schmidt, former republican strategist, steve, i was really looking forward to talking to you about this and as soon as i heard what trump said, i sought to try to get you here tonight to talk about it. thanks for being here, my friend. thank you for your time. >> good to be with you, rachel. thank you. i will say what steve was just mentioning there about neo nazi groups on overpasses, in orlando, he is not being hyperbolic. that is one of the things that happened this week and what was a pretty dark scoop of news over these last few days. we will have the latest from that, including the state representative who represents the district where this happened, you will want to hear what he has to say about it. a lot ahead tonight. stay with us. he has to say abo. a lot ahead tonight. stay with us genexa is the first clean medicine company. what does clean medicine mean anyway? it's the same active ingredients you know and trust but without the synthetic stuff you don't want. well i don't want artificial dyes in my kid's medicine. is genexa right for me? yes! genexa uses clean non-gmo ingredients. -we've gone vegan. -and talk about it constantly. -is genexa right for us? -yes! -well i have a gluten thing. -yes! -well... -yes! -well.. -yes! is this just another stupid big pharma ad? -no! look for genexa, the first clean medicine company. the district attorney in fulton county, georgia, is named, in february of last year, just after her office publicly confirmed she was investigating president trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of georgia, she appeared on this show, did an interview, in and in that interview at the very beginning of her investigation, she told us live on the air here that her security had already been doubled to handle increased threats from president trump's supporters, since they had announced in her office that this investigation was moving forward. >> i have to ask if it has crossed your mind if you are worried about your own safety and that of your staff if opening this investigation could make you targets. >> oh, absolutely. since we've opened this, we've gotten, my security has doubled, we've gotten a lot of comments, interestingly enough, the comments are always racist, and it's really just a waste of time and foolishness. it's not going to stop me from doing my job. and i don't think that it's an insult to remind me that i'm a black woman. so it is a waste of their time, but we do understand that some people are unstable, some people think the nerve of me to actually do my job, but i took an oath, i made a commitment to the citizens in my community, and i'm going to do my job. >> do my job. and that was february of last year. home county district attorney fani willis saying her security had doubled already at the start of that investigation of the former president. well, now a year down the road, district attorney willis has convened a special, or is convening a special grand jury to consider the particulars of that case. and she has now called for backup in terms of her security. she's written a letter to the special agents in charge of the fbi, the fbi's atlanta field office. because of new concerns for the safety, not just of her team, prosecutor's office but of everybody who is even just physically close to her investigation. the letter says in part, i have an obligation to ensure that those who work in and visit the fulton county courthouse, the adjoining fulton county government center and the surrounding areas are safe in close proximity to the courthouse, the georgia state capital, and georgia houses and georgia state university including student dormitories. security concerns were escalated this weekend by the rhetoric of former president trump at a public event in conroe, texas. specifically president trump said quote if these radical vicious racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, i hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we've ever had in washington, d.c., in new york, in atlanta, and elsewhere, because our country and our elections are corrupt. willis continues, these statements are more alarming including those convicted of crimes for actions at the u.s. capitol in january 6th, 2021, if elected in president in 2024 he may pardon people who have been convicted of crimes related to the illegal acts at the u.s. capitol that day. and then she makes this very direct ask of the fbi, quote, i am asking that you immediately conduct a risk assessment of the fulton county courthouse, and government center, and that you provide protective resources to include intelligence and federal agents. quote, it is imperative that these resources are in place well in advance of the convening was special purpose grand jury on may 2nd, 2022. so this is the district attorney of fulton county, georgia, who has opened an investigation into whether state laws were broken when the president pressured state officials in georgia to try to overturn, falsify the election results in that state. this is her asking the fbi for assistance, including federal agents to protect her and her staff, during their investigation of president trump. that's where we are. and that is a heck of a picture of where our democracy is at, and where the defacto leader of the republican party is leading the country. but here's a practical question. what can the fbi actually do here? are they the right agency to ask for help? and what are they likely to do in response? joining us now is my friend chuck rosenberg, a former senior justice department official and former senior fbi official, he knows these things. thanks for being here today. great to see you. >> my pleasure, rachel. >> is this letter addressed to the right entity? is the fbi the right agency to assess this kind of perceived threat from the d.a.'s office and potentially to provide help? >> partly no, and mostly yes. so let me explain that. the fbi isn't in the business of securing courthouses or other facilities. they don't harden buildings. it's not their expertise. and i assume district attorney willis knows that. there's another interesting fact, rachel, which is that this letter was public. i imagine the press may have received it before the fbi did. and in all my time in government, if i needed something from another u.s. attorney, elsewhere in the country, or a chief, or a sheriff in my jurisdiction, i would never write a letter, i would pick up the phone and call and i would expect them to call me. she wrote a letter. so she very clearly wanted to make it public that she was asking for help. let me tell you the mostly yes answer to the question. throughout the country, including in atlanta, the fbi leads joint terrorism task forces. sitting on these, jttfs, including in atlanta, i suspect are the georgia bureau of investigation, the atlanta pd, the fulton county sheriff's office, and all of their state and local partners. together, as part of the jttf, they can certainly provide to the district attorney what she needs. they can advise her about hardening the facility or securing the courthouse. they can get her intel from their own holdings, they can search their own holdings, they can query or task their informants so it is a very good thoughtful public way for the district attorney to say i think i need help. >> and chuck, i was struck in the way that she phrased the request. she explicitly mentions president trump promising pardons to people convicted even of violent vanes around the january 6th attack on the capitol. she's connecting the threat posed by trump calling for supporters to get in the streets if there is an indictment, essentially, and casting the aspersions he did with all of the various prosecutors we're looking at, she is connecting that threat and the promises of those pardons who have committed violent acts on his behalf in the past. i wonder if you could with your fbi experience, your law enforcement experience, if your justice department experience, if you can talk about that nexus, whether that is a fair connection for her to draw and whether that does affect the nature? >> it is a fair connection for her to draw. it does affect the nature of the threat. and rachel, here's why. a defendant, somebody charged with a crime, makes a series of calculations. should i go to trial? should i plead guilty? if i plead guilty, should i cooperate? they're all looking to minimize their exposure. mitigate the risk. to undue the harm. and so many defendants, most plead guilty and many defendant, most try to cooperate. but if the president of the united states, former, perhaps again, tells you, i got your back, i'm dangling pardons, in fact, i've given them out to people who have kept their mouth shut in the past, if the would-be president of the united states dangles a pardon, maybe it changes the calculation of the defendant who would otherwise cooperate. maybe it changes the behavior of a supporter in the street who might not otherwise commit a crime. so i think this is a pernicious threat. this is a dangerous thing to do. not just because it changes the calculations of people who have already been charged with a crime, it changes the calculations of people who may not have yet committed a crime. >> this pernicious is exactly the right word. chuck rosenberg, former senior justice department and fbi official, chuck as always, thank you for your clarity, thank you for your time, thanks for your help. >> my pleasure. thank you. we've got much more ahead tonight. stay with us. u. we've got much more ahead tonight. stay with us . i'm going to show you a little local news report from orlando, florida and warn you up front that some of the images of the speech in this clip are gross and they can be upsetting. this contains some anti-semitic and white supremacist blather that you might not want to hear or you might not want your kids to hear if you're watching with kids. that is your fair warning if you do not want to hear it but the reason i want to show it even a few seconds of it is that it does us no good to prooep pretend that this isn't happening and if you take a look at a little bit of this, you will understand why the citizens of order florida may be a little shaken up today. this is from news 6 orlando. >> men and women with neo nazi arm bands, flags and posters stood on the corner of this waterford lakes intersection on saturday shouting words of white supremacist hate, sheriff's deputies concern this video is part of their active and open investigation into the demonstration and this part of the video, a fight in the street, investigators say involved the demonstrators and a passer-by, also over the the weekend troopers broke up this demonstration of hate on an overpass in orlando, telling news 6 it is illegal to obstruct traffic or hang signs on overpasses. >> so that's two owe rert nazi gatherings, and two successive days this weekend out in broad daylight in central florida. at the shopping center, over the highway, just out harassing the locals, and there is no word yet on whether there is going to be any charges for the fight on saturday or obstructing traffic and hanging signs on overpasses on sunday, but to be honest, it's not even the potentially illegal parts of what they did that are the most disturbing, right? i'm going to show you a tiny bit more of that video that's part of the investigation by the orange county sheriff now in florida. because with this bit that i'm going to show you, you can get a sense of the way they were going after the locals, and innocent bystanders trying to freak people out and provehicle people. this is just a few seconds but i will warn you it is a little -- >> heil hitter for what he did. . >> white hour. >> look at him. guess where you're going back to. >> believe it or not we actually carefully cut that to show you the least vulgar excerpt we could find from that tape, right? still makes you, it makes your skin crawl. i will also just note that when the nazi groups took to the highway overpasses yesterday, one of them right next to the swastika banner, they draped a banner that said let's go brandon, but because of actually the geniuses you think they are, they misspelled the word brandon, like that's a hard one. why were they saying let's go brandon, if you are unfamiliar with that flaz, it's like -- that phrase, it's like code among the pro trump crowd for f joe biden. it's become a rallying cry for pro trump folks all over the country and even for republican elected officials, but for whatever reason, this particular group of nazis feel like that's the right message along with all of the kill the jews stuff, and for whatever reason, they believe this is the right moment to go out and gather in broad daylight, orlando florida. joining us now is florida state representative carlos smith, his district includes the area where the nazi group gathered on saturday, and he said yesterday online, quote, hatred and anti-semitism have no place in our community. i'm apauled to see nazis rallying in east orlando district i represent. they are never welcome here. representative smith, i appreciate you taking the time to be here tonight. thank you so much. >> thank you for having me, rachel. >> first, i'm sorry that this happened in your district. it is at least at some level, it is a terrorizing thing. for people to come up against this on the street corner or on the local news, their commute to work or whatever. let me just ask how your constituents are reacting to this, what the community reaction has been. >> well, folks in the east orlando-based district that i represent, near the university of central florida, were appalled. i remember getting tagged and getting texts, and you know, getting posts on my social media feed, that it was happening in waterford lakes, you know, it's a place that i am very familiar with, it's near my east orlando home, and folks were really alarmed, and scared that this was actually happening in their community. like i said before, in my social media post that you read, this type of hatred and anti-semitism is not welcome here in orlando. orlando is a really diverse community that is an inclusive community, that is an accepting community, and these neo nazis that were rallying around orlando, they don't represent who we are, but it's not just those of us here in orlando who should be concerned and alarmed, all floridians should be concerned because we're seeing a rise of extremism and white supremacy in our state and we have to understand that didn't happen here overnight. according to the southern poverty law center, florida is number two in the nation for the number of hate groups that are based in our state. and that number is growing. we also know that unfortunately, there were more floridians that were arrested, and that are seeing charges brought against them, who were involved in the violent insurrection on january 6th in the nation's capital and many of those individuals were tied to some of these hate groups, like the proud boys, and so it's really incumbent upon folks to speak out, to denounce this type of hatred and bigotry, and really just kind of be aware and open their eyes to this rise of extremists and hateful behavior in our area. >> were any of these groups at all recognizable to you? has there been previous white supremacist activity like this in your district, or is there any sense in which these guys were sort of usual suspects for this sort of thing? or was this a surprise, and were these, were these strangers? >> well, we understand that one of the groups that was involved, one of their leaders is based in kissimmee, which is just around the corner from the east orlando district that i represent. we also saw in south florida, some leaflets and some paper, some anti-semitic documents and flyers that were being left in our communities that were promoting the same hateful message. but i think what's important to contextualize here is what are we doing in our state that is potentially affecting the rise in hatred and extremism in florida. our legislature right now is actively considering proposals pushed by governor desantis, to for example shield floridians from discomfort or guilt, by censors conversations about race, about lbgtq identities in our schools and in our workplaces. somehow, some of these extremists and white supremacists are getting the message that it is okay for them to be public with their hatred and anti-semitism, that they should come out of the shadow, because we're seeing this rise in extremism, and it's incumbent upon all elected officials, republican and democrat, to unequivocally condemn this type of hatred and ask why are individuals feeling empowered, these neo nazis, to come out from the shadow, and why has florida become such a haven for anti-semitic extremism white supremacists? >> state representative carlos guillermo smith, representative smith i appreciate you be here, i'm sorry this happened in your district, it's a pleasure to have you here to speak out about it. thank you. >> and encourage those viewers who want to beat back against anti-semitism and to donate to the holocaust center of central florida because we think education is such an important part of combatting this type of hatred. >> also a good point in that it will absolutely drive crazy those guys who showed up in orlando today to know that anybody outraged by them isn't just outraged and scared but actively contributing to a cause like that, thank you sir, much appreciated. we'll be right back, stay with us. appreciated. we'll be right back, stay with us ♪♪ hey, do you know if i work sunday? sure do! clover does that. who are you? he's from clover. clover does that so i can do this. i like that green. chef, can we hire another hostess? umm... psst. yeah. i was gonna add an exclamation point. and one chicken salad. anything else? yeah, do you also take orders online? yeah, we do that. yeah, we do. thank you. clover does that. this is really good. secure payments, the tools you need, people who can help, we do that. 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"way too early" with jonathan le mire is up next. is up next. new reporting on donald trump's efforts to overturn the election and how he bounced from one government agency to another seeking someone to help his effort. the question is, who are the key players that reportedly kept him from seizing voting machines. plus, diplomats for the u.s. and russia clash as the u.n. security council meets over the escalating crisis on the ukrainian border. the question is, where do things stand now? and new reporting that pfizer is expected to seek emergency approval for its covid vaccine for young children. the question is, how soon could it be