place this week. so what changed? and playing out in the last few hours, a preview of what will be one of the biggest cases in our nation's history, the united states versus donald j. trump. the former president's lawyers, jack smith's team, and u.s. district judge chutkan all face-to-face in court for the first time. it's high stakes going head to head over the parameters of a protective order dictating who, including trump and under what circumstances should be trusted with government evidence. the dramatic new details from behind closed doors and what it all could mean for the judge's first ruling in the case. and paradise lost in hawaii, a bird's eye view of what's left of lahaina, after wildfires ripped through the island. this apocalyptic scene won't be the last with other fires still burning and hundreds still missing in what has now become the second deadliest fire in modern u.s. history. one local now grieving the loss of his home and his father's ashes. >> that's the one thing i wanted to hold on to forever, now he's just in the ground with all the other ashes. >> i'll be talking to a state senator who represents the devastated town in just a moment. but i want to begin in d.c. where two big legal stories are unfolding simultaneously. a dramatic day in court just wrapped up with new details in the election interference case against former president trump. just one detail to share with you, the special counsel's team has a jaw dropping 11.6 million pages of discovery that they're prepared to turn over to trump's team, and u.s. district judge chutkan had multiple warnings for trump's legal team including a reminder that their client is, quote, a criminal defendant. he is going to have to have restrictions like every single other defendant. and moments after that hearing ended, attorney general merrick garland made an unexpected announcement appointing u.s. attorney david weiss as a new special counsel in the hunter biden matter. >> mr. weiss has told congress that he has been granted ultimate authority over this matter including the responsibility for deciding where, when and whether to file charges. >> i want to bring in nbc justice reporter ryan reilly, nbc's kelly o'donnell covers the white house. also with us, former federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst, carol lam, so ryan, what else do we need to know about this update from merrick garland and why now? >> essentially this is going to be thrown into the middle of the 2024 campaign. because now basically where we are is this is on track for a trial. that's basically the filing that we saw come through just after this announcement saying that they were unable to reach a plea agreement. they don't expect to reach a plea agreement going forward, so instead of this being sort of a settled matter that could be put behind both hunter biden and his father's campaign, this is going to be a hot potato issue that's going to go forward. there's going to be probably new charges brought potentially here in d.c., potentially in california because most of the crimes that we're talking about or the alleged crimes didn't take place in delaware. the only reason it was really happening in delaware is because of that plea deal and hunter biden agreed to waive venue and say he could set aside that fact. but hunter biden has the right to be prosecuted, in fact, can only be prosecuted for a trial in the place where the crimes allegedly took place. so we're talking about d.c. and california here. so potentially you could see hunter biden mixed in with the hundreds of other january 6th defendants that are going through that same process as well as donald trump in d.c. district court just down the road here. what is going to happen next is potentially those charges would be brought and you would see a schedule set out going forward. so very quickly, this just gets smack dab into the middle of the campaign and no longer becomes a one-day story or a one-week story about how hunter biden took a plea deal, and here's the sentening date. it now becomes this ongoing narrative. here's the next hearing we're going to have for this. when's jury selection going to take place, and probably what you're going to see is hunter biden's team being kind of in the same boat as donald trump's potentially, sort of kicking the can down the road here, not wanting to necessarily resolve this on an expedited basis, you know, potentially kick this back until after 2024, and it's just going to be really this ongoing issue for the president because it's a matter that is still, you know, within sort of his wheel house. he has the potential to, of course, pardon his son at some point whether that be during the ongoing prosecution or whether that be further down the road after this all takes place. it's just going to be something he's going to continue to get questions on, especially with all the ire that is focused on him from republicans on the hill who are very interested in the business dealings. and we really don't know whether that's going to be part of this ongoing special counsel probe because that's something that the now special counsel from delaware has the ability to do, to look into things that grow out from this ongoing investigation, chris. >> so carol, what do you make of what you've watched unfold over just the last hour or so? how often, if ever, have you seen something like this, and what does it say to you about what's going on here? >> chris, it's very unusual to see not only a plea fall apart in court, but the fact that they've had several weeks to try to repair whatever lack of meeting of minds that they had, they should have been able to resolve those differences, and apparently they haven't been able to do that, which indicates that there was really a fundamental misunderstanding when they walked into court about hunter biden's continuing criminal liability. the prosecutor said the investigation continues and apparently the defense said, well, what do you mean, not according to our discussions before. so highly unusual that that happened in court, even more unusual that they weren't able to work it out subsequently, and i think at this point merrick garland really didn't have any choice but to change the status of the prosecutor, mr. weiss, from a u.s. attorney to now a special counsel where he has more, even more independence, even though the justice department said he had independence before. now we have circumstances where they say, all right, we're going to make you a special counsel. >> so also put this into terms everybody can understand who's not a lawyer about obviously the escalation of danger for hunter biden. he thought he had a deal. he thought he knew what was fg going to happen here. he thought he was not going to prison, now what happens, carol? >> where hunter biden is is where every criminal defendant finds himself when he doesn't have a plea deal with the government. he is now a continuing target of the investigation, now mr. weiss who was acting as a u.s. attorney now acting as the special counsel can bring charges against him in an indictment that was returned by -- that would be returned by a federal grand jury, and those are most likely to be felony counts. both the gun charge and the tax counts, and i will say the tax counts involved a lot of money, so the usual equities at play, aside from the fact that he was suffering from addiction, if there is no plea deal reached here, hunter biden will be charged with the most severe charges that the government thinks that he can be convicted on beyond a reasonable doubt. >> kelly o'donnell at the white house for us, kelly, any response at all from that building behind you? >> reporter: well, chris, as you would expect, the white house is saying that it will not be commenting on this matter and is encouraging us to look to the department of justice and to hunter biden's private counsel. we know that they did not, according to officials here, did not get any advanced warning about the content of what merrick garland would say, announcing that special counsel in the hunter biden case. so this presents the same kind of really complex and awkward circumstance for the white house where the president's son, who is frequently here at the white house, is a guest at different white house functions, is a part of the family, of course, and is doing the things that a first family would do. so he's a regular presence here, even though his residence is in california. we see him often. he's obviously very close to his father. at the same time, they are going through the legal and political matrix of investigations on capitol hill, now with special counsel, and when they thought they were putting this piece of that difficult and dark chapter in hunter biden's life behind him, what the president has said more broadly is he loves his son. he's proud of his son. they -- he and the first lady have been supportive of his recovery from addiction. trying to put that behind them. that is now off the table by the actions today, and we have seen, chris, you and i over the years, when this kind of special counsel level prosecutor is involved with all of the powers they have in matters going back over time, those investigations often go down new paths and tributaries that were not a part of what was originally the expectation or the concept of why a special counsel was needed or an independent counsel in other times in the past. so it means real potential jeopardy if there are other matters that prosecutors will examine, and if they find criminal conduct, they can charge it as carol was talking about. so it just means the difficult time is certainly extended, the exposure and vulnerability is magnified, and all of that has political and legal consequences for the first son and by extension, obviously, for the sitting president. carol. >> all right, yeah, as we've said repeatedly, there's no indication that president biden had any liability, that he knew anything, did anything that wasn't above board. having said that, we have seen how it's been used as political ammunition for sure, kelly, so that's not the only big story today, ryan. the other big legal story in washington was that highly anticipated hearing in the case of the united states versus donald trump, the hearing over the protective order, so tell us what happened and when we might see a decision there. >> yeah, something i had expected to dominate most of the day but not necessarily the case. a very big pivot here. but you know, basically what the judge laid out is basically, i think, sending a warning, sort of a shot across the bow to both donald trump and his -- and his attorney saying to be very careful about what they're saying here and making clear that donald trump doesn't have his full rights. there can be restrictions because he is a criminal defendant, not only in this case, but also in florida, and that's leaving out of course the other state, the case in new york as well as a potential case we could see coming soon out of georgia. so in any other case, there are always restrictions on pretrial defendants especially who are facing multiple felony counts, there's restrictions on travel, for instance, restrictions on are your liberty. many times there are people who have been held pretrial and basically judge chutkan said that nothing is off the table, and she's going to stop this from becoming a circuit, that she's going to keep regular order and proceed with this case going forward. she also hinted at what we could see going forward for the trump campaign. she sort of rightly predicted what we're going to see coming from the defense team, from donald trump's defense team saying that, hey, we're going to need more time to go through this discovery. we're basically trying to kick the can down the road. whereas the special counsel's office is trying to get the show on the road, get this on the books, they want this scheduled for december really when the jury selection they'd like to begin and then january 3rd, just before that three-year january 6th anniversary is when they would actually like to start opening arguments on this trial. so it's a jump ball. i think it's unlikely probably that we're going to ultimately settle on that because you're going to see so much opposition from the trump team, and especially when they have all those documents to review, you might end up getting later into the year. i think they definitely want to sort of move this forward. it really was extraordinary just to note, hearing these discussions about what donald trump could access, at one point the special counsel prosecutor made a crack about how donald trump, you know, isn't necessarily that great at keeping on -- keeping hold of documents or not sharing documents that he isn't supposed to be kind of referring to obviously the ongoing case in florida, but there's this discussion sort of that reminded you almost of dealing with a toddler, whether or not donald trump could be trusted to be left alone in a room reviewing this discovery with a phone, and that was a discussion that they had to have between the judge and between the defense and the prosecutors there because there are sensitive documents around this, and what judge chutkan wanted to make clear is that she's not going to tolerate any threats against potential witness, which of course in this case, and just sort of a remarkable historic case involves the former vice president of the united states who is now running against donald trump for the republican nomination. so just a really complicated set of issues, but judge chutkan said she wants to put as much of that aside as she possibly can and handle this as close to normal as you possibly can. >> i want to bring in msnbc legal analyst lisa rubin who was in the courthouse. if i can just pick up on what we were talking about there with ryan, i'm reading the notes as they're coming in, and i couldn't even process in many ways some of them as he just referred to it, it almost sounded like there's a conversation about whether or not donald trump essentially needs a sort of baby-sitter there with him as he's looking at these documents. ultimately they decided no, although there were, as i understand it, restrictions. tell us what your impressions were and what your headlines are out of this. >> reporter: yeah, so chris, one of my big headlines out of this is judge tanya chutkan wanted to make perfectly clear to both sides that she is running the show here. and not only is she running the show, but it may be that donald trump's day job, as she referred to it is running for president, but the fact that this is existing against the backdrop of a political campaign is of no moment to her. she's going to treat donald trump as a criminal defendant, no more, no less, and give him the same rights that she would be protective of for any criminal defendant. at the same time, her job is to protect the administration of justice from outside interference, and that means protecting witnesses from harassment and reputational damage. that means protecting the jury pool from being tainted with. that means also ensuring that people who are still perhaps under investigation don't have access to these materials, and at the very end, she issued a note of caution to all involved, basically saying you have put before me or made reference to today various social media posts or lines that you're trying to advance in the campaign, and i have tried to ignore them, but the more the rhetoric gets incendiary here, the closer you will be to forcing me to have a trial sooner rather than later. why? because i can't tolerate a carnival like atmosphere in which all of those conditions that i just laid out, intimidation of witnesses, possible taint of the jury pool, other people under investigation having access to that information could possibly happen, so if you, donald trump, and you your counsel continue to escalate the rhetoric in the ways that you have been, what's going to find you on the other side is a sooner trial date. >> so as lisa points out, sooner rather than later is clearly what the judge wants to see here, but jack smith and his team said they're prepared to hand over 11.6 million pages of discovery in their first production, and in fact, the judge even joked, quote, i can just imagine your motion for a trial date now. is that as jaw dropping as i think it is, first of all? and second, what is the real world impact of that amount of discovery in a case? >> well, let me put it into context a little bit. it is very difficult to figure out what 11.6 pages really means in the real world. when you turn over discovery, you turn over a lot of different types of documents. and there have been instances where, let's say whole s.e.c. filings have to be turned over, and each document runs hundreds of pages, but most of that document is not relevant in any way, so it's very hard to determine what's relevant in the 11.6 million pages. i will say that having read jack smith's pleading asking for the january 2nd trial date, the prosecution has gone to extraordinary lengths. i've never seen anything like it. to make sure that the defense can get through the discovery quickly. what they said is we've organized it by category. we've organized it by witness. we've laid out a road map not only in the indictment but also in the discovery as to what's pertinent to which charge of the indictment, and most extraordinary, they said, we have even pointed out which discovery we think would be helpful to the defense. now, that is not required in any way. one of the big complaints that parties to a lawsuit often have is that, oh, well, they just dumped a truckload of documents on us, and now we have to go through and try to find the relevant pages. jack smith is saying we are not doing that. now, the prosecution always has to be careful that they turn over everything, particularly prior statements of witnesses and anything that could be helpful to the defense. if they fail to do that either intentionally or inadvertently, they can be punished for that with a reversal of a conviction. what usually happens is that the prosecution goes overboard and turns over absolutely everything. look at this indictment, they have to turn over everything from the january 6th committee investigation. they have to turn over everything from fani willis's investigation. they have to turn over everything from the michigan fake electors charges, that investigation, so they had to coordinate with all of those entities as well to make sure that they are turning over absolutely everything. so that's what they're doing to try to make sure that judge chutkan has what she needs to move for a sooner trial date. >> so lisa, we can talk about what a normal case might be, but then we also have to talk about the fact that the defendant here is donald trump. donald trump does not in any way, shape, or form, trust the people on the other side, quite to the contrary. he calls them names. he believes they're going after him. so if you're taking directions from your client and you're donald trump's legal team, does he trust the fact that in with all this organization, that that makes it easier for you to look at all of that discovery, or is his expectation i expect you to make absolutely sure that what they say is there is there and where it should be? >> it's really the latter, chris, and they have actually raised that previously within the space of the classified documents case where the department of justice similarly bent over backwards to try to provide donald trump with sort of a guide to the key documents in the case. and as carol said, witness by witness or charge by charge to make it easier to find those needles in the haystack. and the response by trump's lawyers in that proceeding is similar to what i imagine it will be here. you can't just ask us to trust you. you of course have made clear that you don't at all trust us or our client. and so it will be incumbent upon us to review or at least try and figure out what's in those 11.6 million pages of documents. chris, the other thing i want to make sure that you and our viewers understand is that's not all. in court today, tom windom from the special counsel's office also represented that is there a hard drive that he is turning over to trump's lawyers today as soon as the protective order is entered, and among the things on that hard drive i expect will be audio recordings of what he characterized as hundreds of interviews of witnesses in this case that were conducted outside the grand jury. he also said that they were consist of what are known as 2703d materials. that's a reference to the stored communications act. that twitter opinion that we saw earlier in the week where the special counsel's act had issued a search warrant to twitter for things relating to donald trump's twitter account, that is exactly the type of stuff that we expect to find on this hard drive. when asked to dimension how much of it there was, tom windom was at a loss for words. he said that's electronic data, i couldn't possibly give you a handle of how much volume there is. we're talking about 11.6 million pages and then some in this hard drive as well. >> if we're going to sort of put this all together in one final question, carol, it is this, in this case what are you watching for next and how quickly? >> well, i think that one thing we have to do is watch for an upcoming anticipated indictment from georgia because i think that will -- that's -- the calendar's already crowded for donald trump. it's just going to get more crowded, but what we need to see soon, sooner rather than later, is judge chutkan's protective order because once that's entered into, the government will turn everything over. i expect we will get complaints from the defense that there's a lot of discovery they have to go through and that a january 2nd trial date is simply not possible. and i will say that's a pretty aggressive trial date. the prosecution makes good points about similarly complicated cases that have gone to trial in just a few months in the district of columbia, but this is a complicated situation. and then we're going to have judge chutkan set a trial date, and that's going to -- a lot of things are going to have to shift once we have the trial date. >> ryan reilly, lisa rubin, carol lam, i appreciate you all on this day. the gruesome and heartbreaking search for bodies in the rubble of maui, unlike anything ever seen before in hawaii. the lives and historic landmarks lost in what's being called the largest natural disaster in the state's history. we're back in 60 seconds. with 85% more tide in every pod. who needs that much more tide? 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>> reporter: stories very similar to the ones that you just played, chris. people who just made it out alive and are happy to be alive with a lot of cases the clothes on their back. that leads to another situation that people have left medication, crucial medication in a lot of cases that they need in order to keep surviving or to stay healthy. that has been one of the things i've heard at this shelter. this maui high school one of six shelters spread out across the island. hundreds of people here getting access to food and clothing and blankets, whatever they can, and thankful to be here. the stories are still heartbreaking. i spoke to one resident of lahaina not too long ago. she says her house still stands, but it's charred. her neighbors lost their home, her families lost their homes, her parents lost their jobs because as we often don't think about, maui is built on tourism. both her parents worked on front street. those jobs are gone. we're hearing that the governor is now starting to lift the order and allowing people maybe to see some of their home or what's left of their home. it's going to be a very, very difficult next 24 to 48 hours for a lot of people. as you're looking at these images, there is just not a whole lot left. another woman i spoke to, a tourist, was at a hotel, and she said she could feel the flames as she was trying to get out with her family, been here the last two or three nights and many more stories. listen to this, just people getting out as fast as they could. take a listen. >> we jumped out of the car and ran as fast as we could and got out. there was debris everywhere, fire falling down on top of us, but we got out safe. >> i think everybody feels safe that they've gotten into the airport and there's food because there was no food on the island. >> reporter: of course fires are still burning, but they are largely contained. that's the good news. the bad news is that now the number one operation is to try to connect the missing to their families. there is a growing list. we don't know how many, but there could be as you mentioned upwards of a thousand. and with the amount of devastation that we've seen, based on what we've heard from the mayor and the governor, that they have just basically searched and pulled bodies from the outside of that rubble. they have not gone to the interior of many of the buildings that you're seeing on screen here, so that is why we think the death toll will increase, if not precipitously, exponentially over the next few days, chris. >> steve patterson, thank you for that. i want to turn to hawaii's state senator, angus mckell vee, he himself had to evacuate. angus, what is the situation with you and your family, and how are you holding up? >> i'm holding out okay. my heart and my thoughts and my prayers are with all the other families out there who have lost everything. as your reporter previously mentioned, you know, they had to flee with what little they could grab at a moment's notice. and it's all gone. we still have many people living with friends, in their yards, in their cars. people are running out of gasoline. much more is needed. it's really just trying to ensure that, you know, everybody else is okay, you know, lahaina's a community, we stand together. we care about each other first. my thoughts and prayers are with all the families, especially those with young kids and pets who are, you know, really just lost everything, and now they don't know what tad. and it's just trying to get communications back here. i think my number one priority, i think we got a little bit of a boost from a cow that was put in. that will help us in reuniting people and getting, you know -- and also letting people know what, you know, relief is available and where they can go and what for visitors, they're here, we're trying to get them out. ing it -- doing that is important and getting food in here, and everyone's prayers and donations and aloha is appreciated. as you can see by these horrific images, there's a lot to do. the fact that it was so severe and literally swept so fast and just absolutely steam rolled so quickly, just caught so many people by surprise. i mean, you had explosions going all afternoon, like in your opinion ukraine. -- like you were in ukraine. you could see embers flying. it just explodes in fire. so at this point, i think it's just a matter of i appreciate from the bottom of my heart from the president's declaration to the governor. we still need more support, more help here desperately because so many families are still stuck on the north side of town and of course are in shelters in other islands and, you know, that to me is really the priority and again, i'm kind of at a loss for words obviously. >> you used that phrase like ukraine. can you tell us a little bit more about how you were able to escape, what you saw, what you heard, what you felt, and what your thoughts are when you see what's left behind? >> i mean, it was surreal. it was like, you know, it went -- the smoke was pouring over the town rapidly. you could hear the explosions getting closer and closer. i retreated back to get my brother'sfiancee's dog from their place. came back again and looked over and three, four homes over just huge fire balls roiling into the sky. as i said, the fire is jumping with the wind. it's landing on everything and causing fires to erupt all oaf over the place, and people are panicking, leaving their cars, fleeing as fast as they can. it was an absolute surreal turmoil. and you know, it's -- and of course i'm just, you know, after seeing all of this, i mean, after doing the visual flyover, i don't think there are any words. i mean, my heart is broken. this entire community has been destroyed. it was pointed out earlier, it's not just their homes. it's their businesses. their schools, their day care, their grocery stores, their gas stations, everything is gone. and so rebuilding this morning is going to be a long road, so right now it's about getting people the relief and support they need and getting the visitors out of the area. i think, you know, that's really critical so we can try to ensure that the resources that are coming in here are going to the community that lost everything. >> do you feel that that's moving in the right direction, understanding as we -- those of us who aren't there just looking at the pictures know that the logistical challenges must be tremendous. when you talk about communication, shelter, food, how quickly do you think that people will get what they need, at least in a temporary basis? >> we're working hard on all levels of government to do that. you know, there are a lot of logistical challenges in getting things out here. i'm very happy. it looks like we've got progress on the town to get cell signal restored. it is our emergency network here in west maui is the cell system. getting that up is critical. getting food and supply in there, and it was really great to see the county getting trashed, recovery into the area today too because people's refrigerators and freezers have been off for three to four days. rotten food is piling up. trash is piling up. getting that up there and getting the trash out of the area where people are unfortunately, you know, on the north side of the town is really critical. we need more supplies faster. we need more help faster, and really what we really need to do is look on the how are we going to provide, you know, stronger support for people going forward? they have -- a lot of people have no money. a lot of people left their wallets and their accounts and cars behind. people are going to need resources quickly, and you know, going forward is so important that we ensure the people have the financial means and ere support necessary to be able to live while we try to dig ourselves out of the ashes and rebuild lahaina. >> your personal story is so much like the other stories that we've heard from people, literally running for their lives. the ap is reporting that hawaii emergency management records show there was no indication that warning sirens sounded before people ran from those wildfires. what more do you know about the warnings? did they go off? did you hear them go a you have? >> there were no warnings at all. i brought that up in another interview, sorry, another interview yesterday, there were no warning sirens. the sirens should have sounded immediately in my mind and been activated. i think if they'd blown people would have understood this is serious. this is coming, you know, you need to evacuation now. and i'm hoping as we look -- as remove -- right now it's all about recovery. it's about taking care of our families, fixing our community. as we move toward, i think we need to look at what could have been done as far as warning signs or other things to get people out quicker before it turned into this. right now my thoughts, my concerns is about getting relief out here, getting, you know, getting service restored, trying to get people's ability to get out to the other side of the island 20 miles away so they can resupply themselves and ensure that they have medicines especially. i mean, we had food in here. we have medicine in here. we have clothes in here, and then people are getting the help they need now immediately, but also we need to really plan and that's why -- for the people to be able to, you know, provide housing for them, and this is a long road ahead for this community. >> hawaii's state senator angus mckelvey best wishes to you, everyone there, i thank you for taking the time. aloha. >> thank you so much. thank you for your thoughts and prayers for our people in our community, aloha. >> appreciate it. coming up, how key republicans on capitol hill are now reacting to the new special counsel appointed to the hunter biden matter. you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. rts" onlc g but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. my frequent heartburn had me taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. when people come, they say they've tried for olots of diets,artburn relnothing's workedc. or they've lost the same 10, 20, 50 pounds over and over again. they need a real solution. i've always fought with 5-10 pounds all the time. eating all these different things and nothing's ever working. i've done the diets, all the diets. before golo, i was barely eating but the weight wasn't going anywhere. the secret to losing weight and keeping it off is managing insulin and glucose. golo takes a systematic approach to eating that focuses on optimizing insulin levels. we tackle the cause of weight gain, not just the symptom. when you have good metabolic health, weight loss is easy. i always thought it would be so difficult to lose weight, but with golo, it wasn't. the weight just fell off. i have people come up to me all the time and ask me, "does it really work?" and all i have to say is, "here i am. it works." my advice for everyone is to go with golo. it will release your fat and it will release you. let's get back to our big breaking news that attorney general merrick garland has appointed a special counsel in a completely unexpected move and in what has been an ongoing probe of the president's son, hunter biden. we're getting a lot of reaction from key republicans on the hill. nbc's julie tsirkin is following this for us. julie, what are you hearing there? >> reporter: republicans are largely blasting the appointment of the special counsel. we have reaction from all top republicans really from jim jordan to speaker mccarthy to senator lindsey graham who's on fox news railing about this appointment saying that it is too late, quote, a sweetheart deal. graham also reacted to the big question, which is will it be harder for david weiss to come before congress as house republicans have wanted him to. there were discussions about having him appear before the committee, that date has not been settled, but now it will arguably be harder for him to make that, whoa. what graham had to say on that is become ago special counsel does not absolve him, being david weiss in this matter, of the obligation to answer questions legitimate by the u.s. state members and house members. he thinks they are trying to shut the congressional investigation down. i want to read you a couple of other reactions we're seeing here including from james comer who's the chair of the oversight committee who's been leading the charge on these financial transactions on hunter biden as it relates to his dad and his foreign business dealings as well. he said, quote, this move by attorney general garland is part of the justice department's efforts to attempt a biden family cover-up in light of the house oversight committee's mounting evidence of president joe biden's role in his family's schemes. mccarthy also tweeting saying, quote, if weiss negotiated the sweetheart deal that couldn't get approved, how can he be trusted as a special counsel. obviously there's some fact checking required here. of course the committees heard from those irs whistle-blowers last month who alleged that david weiss had more evidence than he was ready to share. that he was disproven countless times including by weiss. now he's been appointed special counsel of course in this case, but it doesn't look like republicans are in any way satisfied with that. there's also, of course, talk of a potential impeachment of the president himself, which we know republicans are certainly looking to move forward on. they've opened the door to that. i don't see the appointment of a special counsel quieting that anytime soon, chris skpl julie tsirkin, thank you so much. we appreciate that update rjt . coming up, five americans in iran take the first steps to coming home. the next step in that fight, you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. g "chrisg reports" only on msnbc (christina) being all over, all at once. 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( ♪♪ ) ( ♪♪ ) ( ♪♪ ) ( ♪♪ ) constant contact delivers the marketing tools your small business needs to keep up, excel, and grow. constant contact. helping the small stand tall. when you shop wayfair, you get big deals for your home - every day. so big, we'll have you saying... am i a big deal? yeah you are, because it's a big deal, when you get a big deal. wayfair deals so big that you might get a big head. because with savings so real... you can get your dream sofa for half the price. wayfair. it's always a big deal. ♪ wayfair, you've got just what i need ♪ david: as we start a new school year, there's something new happening in california's public schools. they're called community schools. leslie: it really is shared leadership with families, students, educators, and communities. jessie: i feel like we're really valued as partners. david: it's a more innovative, holistic approach. grant: in addition to academic services, we look at serving the whole family. narrator: wellness centers, food pantries, and parental education. jessie: they're already making a difference. david: california's community schools: reimagining public education. today a teenager pleaded not guilty to stabbing and killing a gay man who had been voguing to beyonce at a brooklyn gas station. the 17-year-old suspect, demeet ri popov was arraigned this morning on a count of second degree murder as a hate crime. prosecutors allege he stabbed 28-year-old professional dancer o'shae sibley because he was gay and black. moments before he was killed, sibley stepped in to defend his friends from homophobic and anti-black slurs. right now the u.s. and iran are engaged in a delicate diplomatic dance around a possible prisoner exchange. five americans, all wrongfully detained for years have been moved to house arrest, a potential first step towards freedom. if the deal goes through, they'll be exchanged for five iranians now in u.s. custody and the release of billions of dollars in frozen iranian assets to be used for humanitarian purposes. secretary of state antony blinken putting it all into perspective. >> this is a positive step, but i don't want to get ahead of its conclusion because there's more work to be done to actually bring them home. my belief is that this is the beginning of the end of their nightmare, and the nightmare that their families have experienced. >> i want to bring in nbc news national security and global affairs reporter dan de luce. so, dan, what happens next? >> so now, there is this difficult waiting game where $6 billion worth of money in south korean yuan currency is going to be converted into different currencies and transferred to the central bank of qatar which will oversee this money and iran will have access to to purchase medicine and food and other things that are allowed under u.s. sanctions and when that money is finally transferred, then those american detainees, if this all goes as planned, will be released and allowed to leave the country, and of course one of them has been in prison now for nearly eight years going back to the obama administration. so a really difficult limbo here, and a lot could still go wrong, and of course previous sorts of negotiations have sometimes failed, and hopes have been dashed. so it is a really tricky moment right now and a sensitive time. >> dan, what would this mean potentially for diplomacy between these two nations going forward, especially since we know that a key concern has been iran's nuclear ambitions? >> there is a lot of geopolitical diplomacy here, and even though u.s. officials say this has no connection to iran's nuclear program and those talks related to that, clearly there is an inevitable link there, and i think a lot of people will tell you, former officials and others will say, this swap would not have happened, this agreement, without some kind of progress on the nuclear file, on other issues. so really the aim the u.s. and iran have had lately, they've had these unofficial talks that we haven't really heard much about, but they've had these talks on the side where they're trying to come to an unwritten agreement to avert a crisis over iran's nuclear program. so kind of freezing the status quo, where the u.s. wouldn't put any more financial pressure on iran, and iran would not increase their uranium enrichment up to weapons grade level, the 90%. i'll give you one number that's key here. for the past 14 months in iraq and the past roughly three months in syria, there have been no attacks directly on u.s. forces by iran-backed militias and that is being interpreted as a sign that there is some kind of unofficial agreement between the two sides to keep a lid on things. >> dan de luce, thank you so much. and still ahead, an nbc news exclusive, how china is allegedly threatening people beyond its borders in an effort to cover up human rights abuses. we'll be right back. astepro allergy, steroid free allergy relief that starts working in 30 minutes, while other allergy sprays take hours. with astepro's unbeatably fast allergy relief you can astepro and go! - you like that bone? 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(sfx: family screams in background) you know that feeling of having to rewash dishes that didn't get clean? i don't. new cascade platinum plus... with double the dawn grease fighting power and double the scrubbing power. for a no rewash clean... and a cabinet ready shine. upgrade to new cascade platinum plus. dare to dish differently. oh, hello! hi! do you know that every load of laundry could be worth as much as $300? really? and your clothes just keep getting more damaged the more times you wash them. downy protects fibers, doing more than detergent alone. see? this one looks brand new. saves me money? i'm starting to like downy. downy saves loads. we're back with an nbc news exclusive on china's human rights abuses. the lengths they're allegedly going to to cover them up, and efforts to get to people who have already fled the country. nbc's keir simmons has more. >> idris isan is in a prison in morocco. his wife and young daughter thousands of miles away in young turkey, listening to our phone call as he tells us about his two-year nightmare. >> sometimes i cannot breathe. >> reporter: arrested by moroccan authority, wanted by china under an interpol, a member of the muslim, uyghur minority in china. the chinese government accused by the u.s. of committing genocide against uyghurs. china wants him extradited. his wife and three children live in fear. >> you must miss them. >> i miss very much my family. i have a picture of my family. if i see this picture, i'm crying for my child. >> reporter: tonight, a new report obtained exclusively by nbc news documents disturbing efforts by china to allegedly target exiled uyghurs. we have your father and sister. you'll never see them again if you don't collaborate with us, the report says, one anonymous victim was told. the report by safeguard defenders, a nonprofit human rights group highly critical of the chinese government describes cases like shamemet, living in turkey who says his family was forced to call him from china and urged him not to speak up on human rights. when you got that phone call, did you believe they were speaking -- the chinese embassy in washington tells nbc news china is ruled by law, it can't be accused of torture, persecution or attention against uyghurs. it's not about human rights, ethnicity, religion, but fighting violence, terrorism, and separatism. keir simmons, nbc news. >> a u.n. appeal is delaying the extradition back to china for now. we've got a lot to cover in our second hour of "chris jansing reports." let's get right to it. at this hour, the grim search in a hawaiian town reduced to ashes. officials warning that the death toll will climb as we see harrowing images from the wildfire zone. the cost to rebuild estimated in the billions. plus, the fight over how to handle evidence in donald trump's election interference case. the judge ruling he won't be allowed to have a cell phone or anything else that could create a copy anywhere near those sensitive documents, as prosecutors reveal there's more than 11 million pages of evidence involved so far. breaking news in the investigation into the president's son, hunter biden. the attorney general naming trump appointed u.s. attorney david weiss as special counsel in the case. we'll get reaction from the white house. plus, alabama senator tommy tuberville playing defense about where he actually l.