i'll see at the end of donald trump's fourth criminal indictment, number four appears to be days away. nbc news is now reporting that voting congress returning fani willis is expected to present her case to the grand jury next week. we know the d. a. willis has been investigating trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election in georgia. her investigation appears to have quite a bit in common with the federal case being brought by special counsel jack smith in washington, d. c.. the case in georgia may prove to be different than dak smith 's case in one very meaningful way. to understand that, we have to go back to 1979. the city of atlanta was experiencing an unprecedented wave of crimes. it wasn't nbc nightly news in august of that year. >> during the first six months of the year, crime and atlanta was up 30%. robbery and aggravated assault were upset many percent. murder was up to. atlanta has had 140 homicides the, highest total since 1973. >> that was the way that the national media was talking about the city of atlanta as the decade closed out in 1979. here is the headline in the new york times that same month. atlanta fearing for national reputation, mounting urgent fight on the crime. but same year the georgia governor sent state troopers to atlanta after a wall street journal story suggested that the city's crime wave might undermine attempts to drug business to the state. state lawmakers started passing tough and harsh new policies to try and crack down on crime. next, year 1980, georgia lawmakers decided that one of the ways they could deal with the rising crime was to adopt a new rico statute. you might have heard the phrase rico used in conjunction with famous mafia cases. it refers to the racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations act, are ico. it is a federal law that the department of justice uses to go after organized crime. during the 19 80s, a young u. s. attorney by the name of rudy giuliani was making a name for himself prosecuting mafia members under federal rico laws. put a pin in that one because we are going to come back to rudy and rico a little bit later. anyways, down in georgia, the rico statute that they were crafting was different than the one that giuliani was using after the mafia dons. the legal scholar told the new yorker that they created the reconstitute in 1980, first to target the mafia, and then black street gangs and non traditional conspiracies. at the time, georgia's predominantly white state assembly said that they needed the new rico law to address the increasing sophistication of various criminal elements. increasing sophistication. and said the georgia legislature made their request last tougher than the ones that the feds were using. for instance, for federal prosecutors to charge someone under rico, they have to show that person is part of a larger criminal organization that has usually been around for sometime. the georgia rico law is much broader. prosecutors in georgia don't have to show that somebody is part of a large criminal operation. the georgia definition of criminal enterprise can encompass a wide range of illegal -- for a single criminal goal. the georgia rico, love the one that was dreamed up by the tough on crime good old boys of the 1980 legislature, that's the law the d a fani willis now has at her disposal to prosecute donald trump and his allies. to prosecute them in a way that no federal prosecutor can, not even special counsel jack smith. >> but we don't know if any changes or charges the danny willis is bringing in her case, but we know some hints. for instance, -- d. a. willis brought in some help. some help from in named jon floyd who is considered an expert in georgia's rico law. she brought in the rico guy. there is that. d. a. willis has also very publicly professed her preference for charging the people under rico statutes. here she was in a planned press conference last year speaking about an unrelated case. >> i am a fan of rico. of told people that. the reason i've told that is because i think the jurors are very intelligent. they want to know the whole story. they want to know what happened. they want to make an accurate decision about somebody's life. rico is a tool that allows a prosecutor's office and law enforcement to tell the entire story. >> i'm a fan of rico, rico is a tool that allows the prosecutors office to end -- to tell the whole story. all right now. i it should be noted that over the course of her career, d. a. willis has been making use of the recall us time and time again. she is recollects to prosecute atlantic teachers who conspired to rig standardized testing scores in what ended up being the longest criminal trial in georgia history. she used we go to prosecute have artist young thug had 27 associates for their involvement in murder and armed robbery, and drug dealing. she is used georgia's rico lie in all sorts of ways that you might not normally think of as racketeering, it begs the question if this georgia statute is broad enough to charge all of those different people, but stopping her from using it against former president and his allies? >> joining us now is michael more, former u.s. attorney for the middle district of georgia. michael, always great to see you. i've got many georgia really the legal questions. do you think that it's a stretch for d. a. willis to potentially prosecute the former president on racketeering charges? >> i'm glad to be with you, and i'll try to answer your georgia questions. i think it's a unique posture to put the case in. and really, you think about rico, the name itself, you talk about a corrupt organization. essentially, and we'll have to see from indicting it. how she identifies the trump campaign, or the republican party, or the state gop. i was going to now call that en masse a corrupt organization? but that will be a different use of the act itself. the beauty for her in having the rico statute available assay you really can't talk about all of the dirty laundry and not just maybe the former presidents pair of socks or something. she can actually talk about things that other people did and how that ties into this grand scheme for the use of various crimes to file with the rico statute. she can talk about that without having to necessarily charge each individual count. it just lets you talk about -- again, she's almost able to give the jury in the book as opposed to simply a chapter or a few sentences out of the book. she can talk about the beginning, the end, the middle, the plot, all the twists, and how that plays in her proof of what we call predicate acts it will be necessary for her to prove under the statute. it was a unique one to do it, and they are generally considered a gift. it's almost like a conspiracy camp for prosecutors, something that is a gift as you move forward. we'll see if she does it in this case. >> sounds like it's a big bucket, for lack of and more artful term. in it, she -- it's not just the call from trump to secretary of state brad raffensperger, is the fake electors plot in georgia. it's the tampering with the voting machines in coffee county. the dismissal of u.s. attorney b j pak. iran has forgotten about him. so much happened in georgia, and that can all fit into a potential rico charge. you just hinted at this in your previous answer, but i would assume that the indictment that comes down is going to be quite illustrative. the special purpose grand jury that sort of handed out its recommendation, it was a very short document. i would assume, and i love your thoughts on this, that this grand jury indictment is going to be something a little bit meteor. is that accurate? >> it likely will be. in georgia, criminal indictment, as we were talking about, it doesn't have to be the long narrative. it can simply list out the offenses that the state intends to prove. in this case, because of the nature of the case, we will see more of that like we have seen some of the federal cases. as she talks about the predicate acts, heather approved, maybe this conspiracy, which i think we will see there as well, she's going to want to go into some detail. you might think about the requests at you like this. it is a little bit like the twine pulls and ties the package together. she can put it all in the wrapping paper, wrap it, instead, she lets her have a sort of a single gift if you will to give the jury. you know, there are some danger to having a detailed indictment. the feds are generally entitled to indictments that are near perfect as you go forward. there can be challenges, and it also sets forth the prosecutor proving it. the danger of having a very detailed indictment is that the defense attorney might be able to find one thing that wasn't quite right, i won it like a thread, start to unravel the case. once you create some of that in a jury's mind, it's often hard to go back. that's why you often see more abbreviated indictments in cases like that, typically in the federal court, or in a state court system. this is a unique case, and i think that they will try to spell out what she was taken, how she arrived, all the charges she's asking the grandeur of out. >> we noted that she brought in the rico guy, the guy in georgia known as the rico expert. a gentleman named jon floyd. i don't mean to put you on the spot but i'm going to put you on the spot. have you heard tell of jon floyd? is he a known character in georgia law? what do you tell us about his heels in terms of rico and painting the narrative essential to making a case in terms of the court of public opinion. >> i know john and i consider him to be a good colleague and friend here in the bar. we see each other at events from time to time and talk. i think he's a good lawyer, he is certainly confident. a very good firm. i'm not surprised to see her bringing him in and using him in this way in her investigation. she has used him before in a rico case, and he is been known when it comes to being a scholar for rico charges. maybe using that a little bit creatively by prosecutors. she is put together a good team, a strong team, we're just sort of now trying the team out on the field i guess. we will see how these things play out. was the indictment comes. and i think it's basically a foregone conclusion. either that or we have a lot of traffic delays and disruptions down around the courthouse because of security. it's a probably next week we will see in a diamond, maybe a couple of indictments. certainly involving several defendants rolling out fairly quickly. >> speaking of security, he's had quite a bit of vitriol for d. a. willis, a new ad taken, out targeting a number of prosecutors. i'll play the part relevant to d. a. willis. we can play that now? >> is news like, eat funny willis. on her watch, quite violent crimes have exploded. >> we can expect more of that i'm sure. i would wonder that given all of the back and forth over protective orders in the federal case in and around trump's efforts to subvert democracy on january 6th, do you think that there is going to be a similar battle to protect the discovery evidence, just effectively curving trump's impulses to target witnesses, prosecutors, judges? how is that going to work in atlanta? >> his mother is his biggest enemy. i hope whoever put that edgy gather was fired immediately, because it's one of the dumbest things he could. do he might as well be pouring gasoline and the engine of the prosecutors office in a case like that to run that kind of nonsense out there. it is silly. prosecutors expected, that they expect to be called names. it fired him up at times, i think he's just energize that. it also causes sometimes courts and other things to circle around and protect folks as well. i just think there is a dumb move, and that's about the kindest word that i can think to say better right now. i wouldn't be surprised to see if there is some effort for a gag order. i think that he's shown a pattern, his team has shown a pattern of trying to intimidate witnesses. that might very well be an added provision on the rico statute if he continued that kind of conduct. he might see a follow-up indictment. certainly some proof about it. we are balancing here the rights of a defendant, a punitive defendant at this point, but a criminal defendant, to have access to information. making a criminal discovery, criminal documents against him in court, see what the witnesses say the, identity of those witnesses, what they're expected to testify to, what they have testified to in the past. a defendant does have those rights. you couple that with a unique posture that we are in a political season, the same time trump is attacking, his team is attacking the prosecutors, maybe you've got his republican opponents and rivals that want to take his old job. they're attacking him now, they've seen the grown a background after several years. they want to come out now and take a shot at him, and you've got the current president, who if trump is a nominee, will be running in a campaign against trump. he is going to have ads out there. they will have to be a balancing of trump's right to campaign, his right to free speech, his right to political speech, his right to respond to attacks and attack ads that are in the political season. when you cross over that place where you start doing those things the jeopardize the safety of witnesses, it becomes criminal. i don't think that the judge is down here going to take kindly to it. >> that is definitely over the line. we haven't even gotten an indictment yet. michael moore, former u.s. attorney for the middle district of georgia, good to see you sir, thank you for your time tonight. >> always a pleasure. thank you. >> we have lots more ahead tonight, including why jack smith might be interested in trump's twitter account, and prosecutors asking a judge to limit what trump can say publicly about his legal peril. a heavily armed man in utah made threats against prosecutors and political figures, and president biden's shot and killed by the fbi. we're talk about that coming up next, stay with us. metamucil gummies make it easy to get the fiber you need. promoting your digestive health for a better you. metamucil gummies. the easy way to get your daily fiber. meet the portable blender we can barely keep in stock. blendjet 2 gives you ice-crushing, big blender power on-the-go. so you can blend up a mouthwatering smoothie, protein shake, or latte wherever you are! recharge quickly with any usb port. best of all, it even cleans itself! just blend water with a drop of soap. what are you waiting for? order yours now from blendjet.com before they sell out again! what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ first, there's an idea and you do something about it for the first time with godaddy. then before you know it, (it is a life changer...) you make your first sale. small business first. never stopped coming. (we did it!) and you have a partner that always puts you first way. (no way!) start today at godaddy.com. become an aunty. book a flight. stay 4 nights. meet the baby. make the baby cry. give the baby back. fly home. silver tier in a single trip. join one key and move up tiers fast. every business that's why comcast business sil de is launching theal.ip. mobile made free event. with our business internet, new and existing customers can get one year of unlimited mobile for free. it's our best internet. powered by the next generation 10g network and with 99.9% reliability. plus one line of free mobile for an entire year. it's the mobile made free event-happening now. get started for just $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get one free line of unlimited mobile. >> president biden is in salt comcast business, powering possibilities. lake city tonight. final stop of a three stage tour, and it also happens to be his first to utah since he became president. early this morning, about 45 miles south of salt lake city, in provo, the fbi shot and killed a man who allegedly made numerous violent threats against president biden and other democratic politicians and public figures. the fbi was attempting to serve search warrants and an arrest warrant to a suspect identified in charging documents as a man named craig robinson. robertson. he posted these threats to social media. robertson referenced biden's visit to utah today, saying that he needed to prepare his guilty suit and sniper rifle. this, if you didn't, know is what a guilty suit looks like. as part of the fbi's investigation into robertson, which began in march of this year, the agency says that it reviewed numerous posts in which robinson threatened violence against government officials. his alleged threat to manhattan d. a. alvin bragg called him a political hack linked to george soros. in gruesome detail, it described the plot to assassinate him in a parking garage. he also targeted new york attorney general letitia james, attorney general merrick garland, and california governor gavin newsom. joining us now is frank -- former fbi assistant director for counter intelligence and msnbc international security analyst. frank, thank you so much for being here. i just want to get your thoughts. let's first talk about the source, the mention of soros in their. you hear that a lot. you hear that a lot in right-wing conspiracy circles. i mean, to state the obvious, but can you talk to me about the linkage between what is happening there, how that is feeding the most violent corners of the universe, and folks like apparently this alleged would be assassins. >> sure. if you think you've seen this before, is because you have. it is a common theme, this concept that somebody is controlling the globe, controlling elections, and politics. it is all bad. they are vile, subhuman, salsa something like stochastic terrorism, this concept that some leader figures are pulling out people as less than human, dehumanizing them, they are evil, and therefore it becomes easier for people to respond to that ideology and react violently. we saw it in large numbers of people in arrested a january 6th. we saw people willing to die, including ashley babbitt, who consumed these trump conspiracy theories, wrapped up in a trump campaign flagged as she's reaching security at the capitol. we saw it in cincinnati where a man breached security, or tried to at the fbi's cincinnati field office. ended up dying in the cornfield after hours of standoff. i'm afraid this isn't any way the end of this, but rather just the beginning as we continue to see trump and his cohorts, making vile accusations against people that are now prosecuting trump. whether they are prosecutors or judges. there is more of this coming. law enforcement's challenge, of course, it's to get out in front of this before the really bad thing happens. >> and tonight on newsmax, trump is -- you used the word dehumanizing, it's a great description of what he's trying to do to prosecutors, including fani willis and alvin bragg laetitia, james, jack smith, this is what he had to say this evening. >> biden's newest lucky, atlanta d a fani willis. so incompetent, on her watch violent crimes have exploded. >> this woman is not a capable woman. jack smith, he's like a deranged individual. he's a sick puppy. >> really striking to me that on a day where we are talking about the fbi having to kill somebody who is presumably armed in a configuration with law enforcement trying to serve arrest warrants and search warrants, because he's fired up about hurting the president of the united states, and not actually killing him. the former president is in that kind of thing about law enforcement officials. given the role of the doj, prosecuting donald trump, and now giving the focus of trump on all of these prosecutors, how dangerous is it for field agents at this juncture? that is the fbi handle this sort of thing without intern making these individuals martyrs for a cause? >> alex, the threat environment is is the highest right now that i can recall during my 25 year career at the fbi. the personalization of going after specific agents by name, and in fact, this individual specified the two agents that were actually investigating him, launching threats about killing them. but it illustrates the challenge of trying to get out in front of this problem. it is extremely dangerous right now for federal law enforcement. it is going to get worse. they need to get it right every time. the bad guy only has to get it right once. and yet they're still doing their job. the irony here is that while a gym survey showed the 12 million americans support the concept of acting out violently to restore trump to office. and seemingly moving to die for trump. the irony is that fbi agents come to work every day putting their life on the line, not for trump, but for the constitution and their country. >> let me ask you, frank, the fbi has been keeping an eye on this individual since march. while he had had a series of violent posts, in some ways, they are something that's not unusual in this day and age. how did the fbi decide that okay, you are somebody we are actually going to visit physically? we are going to go in with an arrest warrant. was it because he was in utah, and the president was going to utah today? >> it was certainly something that prompted the quick action. in reading the complaint in support of the arrest warrant, it seems like they will go together fairly quickly in terms of some formatting. here is where the line gets crossed. they did pay this guy a visit early on. low and behold, he actually pretty much threatened them and said yes, i did, that but you know, i said that some of that was just a dream. he is trying to play with the line there legally. here comes then even more threats against the fbi and biden, and by the, way in there is not only alvin bragg, but in the affidavit, you will see kamala harris threatened, merrick garland is threatened, and by the way, democrats generally, he specifies in one of his social media post as targets of violence. where is the line? specificity, time, place, method, these all play into a prosecutor's decision to say yes, i think we need to charge this guy. then the lack of denial, just saying no, i didn't mean it. i didn't do that. and rightfully, correctly, thankfully, they sent a sweaty to execute the restaurant. preliminary information is quickly turning into a barricade situation. they sent a drone into try and scalp things out and negotiate. eventually he grabbed a weapon, swung in towards an agent, and that was the end of his day. >> what a time that we live in. frank fouzi, you're so wise and knowledgeable with breaking news information here. thanks for your time this evening, frank, we really appreciate it. >> my pleasure. >> more ahead tonight including governor desantis and his continued purge of state officials that he doesn't agree with. first, what's jack smith looking for in donald trump's twitter account? why did he have to keep it all the secret? stay with us, that is next. ♪ on your period, sudden gushes happen. say goodbye gush fears! thanks to always ultra thins... with rapiddry technology... that absorbs two times faster. hellooo clean and comfortable. always. fear no gush. what causes a curve down there? can it be treated? stop typing, and start talking. it could be a medical condition called peyronie's disease, or pd. and it could be treated without surgery. find a specialized urologist who can diagnose pd and build a treatment plan with you. visit makeapdplan.com today. and build a treatment plan with you. but blendjet■s back to school sale is in full swing! blendjet gives you ice-crushing, big blender power on the go so you can whip up a mouthwatering beverage wherever you are. enjoy 15 plus blends before rapidly recharging via usb-c. cleanup is a breeze! just blend water with a drop of soap. stand out even when you're accidentally twinning with our kaleidoscope of colors. don■t be tardy for this sale! head to blendjet.com and order yours now. (vo) ninety-two percent of students in high-needs schools can't afford essential school supplies. head to blendjet.com subaru and our retailers are there to help by giving millions of dollars in funding along with school supplies students need. we call it “the subaru love promise” and we are proud to be the largest corporate supporter of adoptaclassroom.org. it's just one of the reasons forbes ranked subaru the number one automotive brand for social impact. subaru. more than a car company. >> there's a good news, mister president, we're going to give you a smart and sort of a blackberry. all right, this is cool, i'm nsync sasha do, this michele has got three of them. she's texting and all of this. i'm excited. i get the thing in there like, mister president, for security reasons, it's a great, from state-of-the-art, but it doesn't take pictures, you can text, the phone doesn't work, you know, you cannot play your music. basically it's like does your three-year-old have one of those play phones? >> that was former president obama in his last year as president talking about how for security reasons he was not allowed to have a normal smartphone, he is a toddler phone without spotify or anything cool. when donald trump took office, one of the norms that he smashed, one of them, was that he was not going to defer to the security protocols reserved for president. some trump wouldn't give up his iphone because he liked tweeting too much. it now looks like trump's refusal to give up to her for the sake of national security, it looks like that decision would be coming back to haunt him. today, we learned that earlier this, year special counsel jack smith's office entered a search warrant that forced twitter to turn over everything they had from trump's account at real donald trump. the question now is, what kind of evidence could mr. smith get from a search warrant like that, and how might he use it? joining us now is christie greenberg, former deputy chief of the southern district of new york's criminal division. thank you so much for being here with me. i know you have a theory about what the special counsel is looking for here. what isn't? >> and i was a prosecutor, i did many search warrants. among the things that would look for it was to be able to show that the person who is being on the account, sending the tweet from that account, was actually the progress i was looking to charge. and so it was not somebody who might have been authorized or unauthorized to use the account. it was the actual person who was looking for. here, not a trump could potentially say that i didn't send that tweet. it was some other aid, a social media manager, somebody else, right? they want to be able to say that they have it throughout the indictment, the defendant tweeted the following. the fact there are so definitive about that in the indictment, they didn't say this isn't a tweet from the account. they say, the defendant tweeted. it means that they know. how do you know this tweet came from downtown? beyond just affected it's his account? part of the way you do that as a prosecutor, you look for location information. you look for device information, twitter, they store and collect your precise location information unless you disable the setting. they can say information like jbs, release precise location information, being exactly where he was at the time and date that the tweets were sent. they can also have information about the device being used, and the ip addresses, which is like a digital address. all of those things are going to let the prosecutors be confident in saying that this tweet was tweeted by donald trump. >> and i'm assuming the tweets we are talking about include the tweets he sent on january 6th as the insurrection is unfolding, most famously a 2:24 pm, mike pence didn't have the courage to do what should've been done to protect our country and constitution. of course, the december 19th tweet of 2020, a big protest on jittery, 60 there, we'll be wild. they seem instrumental in proving not the incitement for insurrection, which isn't a charge listed in the indictment, but that there was a pressure campaign on mike pence, which was part of the larger fraud against the united states of america, and that the sort of foot soldiers of the insurrection gathered there by trumps urging. and they use effectively a battering ram against democracy. it is important, i guess you are saying, the prosecutors show that it was definitely certainly donald trump behind that message. >> 100%. it is interesting. that tweet the mention about mike pence not having the courage to reject or delay the count, that came after -- that tweet came after his advisers told him that there has been a riot at the capitol, the capitol has been breached. he sends it anyways. that goes against intent. what is his intent? to delay that certification of the count. and that is the key to this objective of the conspiracy. that tweet is critical to proving his intent. >> you say you have served lots of twitter search warrants, something that a newfangled investigative device i was not aware of. there was a back and forth between twitter and the federal government in charge of executing the search warrants. that was during the period that elon musk was in charge of the company. he is famously sympathetic to donald trump and some of his allies. how unusual is it that there was that sort of resistance on the part of this private company to an order from the court? >> incredibly unusual. a criminal defendant, when you are investigating them, you don't want to have disclosure of that search warrant to the criminal defendant under investigation. they can destroy evidence, they can flee prosecution, they can have other potential coconspirators. any number of reasons why, you want to keep that search warrant try quiet. what was interesting about twitter's response, they had -- they actually agreed that this was a valid search warrant, and you are entitled to the information that is sought to be in taint in the search warrant. we just want to tell donald trump about it. we are not going to be giving you the information that we acknowledge you are entitled to under the warrant, because we want to fight about whether or not we get to tell him, which is completely absurd. there are two very different things that could've turned over the information, letting the investigation continue, and then litigating the nondisclosure issue based on a first amendment claim that was completely bogus. >> i mean, i think that underneath that, is probably a political concern given the fact that elon musk has made this name for himself in recent months in terms of protecting and defending the right wing and zealots like donald trump. the reason that this had to be kept secret is because prosecutors were worried that donald trump would destroy evidence -- >> that was the incredible part about this, the government was concerned he would destroy evidence and let others know, others connected to this know about it. and that the district court would accept that. >> and you're right. >> yes, you can't disclose this to the former president of the united states, it's quite an incredible opinion. >> baked in the cake is tampering with evidence. unbelievable. christie greenberg, thank you so much for your time and brilliant theories this evening. still to come this evening, what do you do when you're trailing donald trump by double digits? take a page from his playbook. governor ron desantis is trying his hand at your fired. it's not going exactly as planned. oh stuffed up again? so congested! you need sinex saline from vicks. just sinex, breathe, ahhhh! [sniffs] what is — wow! baby: daddy. sinex. breathe. ahhhhhh! >> i am today announcing the suspension of state attorney monique worrell from the ninth judicial circuit, effective immediately. >> florida governor ron desantis took some time off the campaign trail today, where he is pulling at about 16%, to suspend another democratically elected state attorney, monique worrell. last year it was tampa area state attorney andrew warren who was on the chopping block. desantis ousted him for refusing to enforce -- on gender therapy. perhaps not understanding the irony, governor desantis accused warren of a political agenda. like warren, monique worrell ran on a progressive platform. she won 60 per 7% of the vote in orange and osceola counties, becoming the only black woman to serve as a local prosecutor in the state of florida. also like mr. warren, miss worrell supports criminal justice reporter reform, seeking to reduce incarceration rates and make the justice system more equitable, which was effectively the thing that got her fired. governor desantis, flanked by the state attorney general and the law enforcement commissioner today accused miss worrell of neglecting her prosecutorial duty by failing to pursue mandatory minimum sentences for criminals. and boy, those optics were not an afterthought. the orlando police union has repeatedly criticize miss worrell for being allegedly soft on crime. these union recently blamed for the shooting of two police officers by a man who was out on bond for sexual assault. in fact, miss worrell says much of the information used to build a case against her came from law enforcement officials, who opposed her because she prosecuted officers, including one who shot an unarmed civilian. miss worrell so she was will find her suspension in court, but given the limits of the courts authority over governor santos, she may have a better likelihood of being reelected then reinstated, a path she says she is also pursuing. tonight she spoke with my colleague, look joy reid. >> all of the blue counties in the state of florida are having their democratically elected officials removed, and that is because this is all about politics. he is weaponizing politics so that he can have gains in the polls for his failed presidential campaign. >> now whether or not ousting do elected prosecutors in democratic counties is a winning strategy in a democracy, we'll, our next guest has something to say about that. former state prosecutor andrew warren, who was ousted by governor desantis this time last year. he joins me, next. one key to earn and use rewards across expedia, hotels.com, and vrbo. rsv is in for a surprise. meet arexvy. ( ♪♪ ) the first fda-approved rsv vaccine. arexvy is used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. rsv can severely affect the lungs and lower airways. arexvy is proven to be over 82% effective in preventing lower respiratory disease from rsv and over 94% effective in those with these health conditions. ( ♪♪ ) arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. rsv can be serious. talk to your doctor or pharmacist about arexvy today. rsv? make it arexvy. meet the portable blender we can barely keep in stock. blendjet 2 gives you ice-crushing, big blender power on-the-go. so you can blend up a mouthwatering smoothie, protein shake, or latte wherever you are! recharge quickly with any usb port. best of all, it even cleans itself! just blend water with a drop of soap. what are you waiting for? order yours now from blendjet.com before they sell out again! with amazon's back to school deals, you can save money by spending less of it. makes sense! oh, i see what you did there! - what? - what? i don't get it. hehe. how can you sleep on such a firm setting? gab, mine is almost the same as yours. almost is just another word for not as good as mine. save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus, 36 month financing on select smart beds. >> florida governor ron shop now only at sleep number. desantis suspended a top county prosecutor in his day today. it wasn't the first time. the same thing happened almost exactly a year ago, after the supreme court's decision striking down roe v. wade. when andrew warren, elect unelected state attorney and hillsburgh county, refused to press charges against abortion providers or patients seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care, governor desantis suspended warren in august of 2022, and made an example of him. and either the governor has basically done it again, this time to state attorney and democrat monique worrell, we have just the person to talk to about what is happening here. joining me now is andrew warren, florida prosecutor desantis is suspended last year. he was never reinstated. andrew, thank you so much for being here. i'm sure you have a lot of thoughts on what is happening. but i would ask, first, do you think the governor was emboldened by what he was able to do to you and effectively turn that into a playbook for other democrats working at the state level? >> absolutely. when i was suspended i said that. i said this was going to turn out bad for democracy in the state of florida if we couldn't win in court. and we still have a case pending, but certainly the governor has been -- he thinks he can get away with it. he's broken the law so many times as governor. he has violated his oath of office to protect floridians. and he keeps getting away with. it why would he stop now? >> what is secondarily striking about this is how little recourse there is to fight the governor on this. can you talk about the ways in which desantis has populated the institutions that might otherwise hold him a can double with his own allies? >> the governor has amassed power in a very eastern european soviet autocratic type of way, where the legislature has advocated there response billet-y to be an equal branch in government, where the courts have been very deferential to the governor who appointed them. but the bottom line is, we have a governor who has shown that he is willing to abuse his power to violate the law, to break the rule of law, to further his own political ambitions. what you have here is just the latest incident. another example of an unconstitutional and illegal attack on democracy by a small and scared man who is desperate to rescue his flailing presidential campaign. >> it sounds like you think this is directly tied, i mean he's pulling it 16%, he has not been able to gain traction with voters and is being eclipsed by donald trump. this is the response, to eviscerating the will of the people at the state level. why does florida stand for this? after you were taken out of office, governor desantis is reelected by a healthy margin in florida. i look at what happened in ohio last night, which is a clear referendum on what happens if you try and undermine the will of the voters or threaten their democratic, the ability for them to have a representative democracy, and i wonder why the same sort of lesson doesn't appear to be the same in the state of florida. what is it about his ability to hold on to power in that state? >> it's a really good question. the reality is our politics nationally and in florida have been so divisive that people fall into this party tribalism where they put partisanship over country. the simple fact is, whether it's a republican governor suspending a democratic state attorney attorney or a democratic stating a republican state attorney, when you have an official willing to abuse his or her power to promote their own political agenda, that is something that should send chills down the spine of every single american who believes in the rule of law and our democracy. >> i am stunned that he is so explicitly autocratic or dictatorial, not just in strategy but in language. the way in which desantis corrode about this after suspending you. he bragged that he was the only elected official in america to remove a progressive soros funded district attorney. these are autocratic tendencies that he is bragging about, and i wonder what that does to other democrats in the state? do you have a sense of what the environment is like right now for democrats who are operating at the state level inside florida? >> he has shown that he is willing to punish people who disagree with him, whether it's the elected state attorney, disney, the tampa bay rays, teachers, people who want to teach history accurately, this governor has shown that he has authoritarian tendencies, just like you said. what's crazy about this is that you have people willing to support him who are okay with what he's doing because they're like, well, he's on my team and i agree with his policies. this is not about left or right. this is not about good policy or bad policy. this is about what is illegal, what's constitutional unconstitutional, this is about what american, or in this case, very un-american. >> i'm also struck by the inherently punitive nature of everything that desantis does. it's almost in line with the trump threat, if you come after me were coming after you. and you see this cruelty and the vindictiveness and the punitive nature and everything from a arresting felons who are trying to vote, to migrant flights out of this state, scrambling people to various states across where they have no resources. this, punishing democrats, largely for the crime of being democrats, and that seems to be quite central to the republican brand right now. this is very much what he appears to be running on international campaign. do you have thoughts on that? >> i do. you hit the nail on its head. he has orchestrated these criminal stance for the poor migrants. he's championed laws that courts are thrown out is unconstitutional. he has flirted with have not violated campaign fly nantz laws. when he speaks, to his left the building. you referenced him talking about my suspension. he goes out and brags about what he, this completely ignoring the fact that the court said it was unconstitutional and then it violated state and federal law. but he continues to brag about it. he has shown that he is willing to say anything and do anything to get elected. and right now while his campaign is floundering he is being desperate. his desperation, unfortunately, is jeopardizing our democracy. >> andrew warren, daegu so much for your time and thoughts. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> that is our show for tonight, now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, alex. we have laurence tribe with us tonight. he was with us last night in what turned out to be breaking news about him. andrew weissmann, harry litman also joining us on the latest defendant trump news. and as you know, donald trump's vile attacks on twitter to district attorney fani willis have reached a new level and gwen --, her friend is going to join us tonight. she used to be the district attorney of the neighboring county i. want to get her reaction to this. this is something we've never seen before in the history of american prosecutions. georgia has never seen it, and i just want to get her feeling about what the impact of it is. >> yeah, i mean, fani willis is not issued an indictment against on trump and he's already using everything at his disposal to undermine her and threatened her. so this is absolutely tara incognito it should not go under noticed or under discussed. i wbe