us. but in telling this story, what you quickly find is that there are stories from all over the place. there is a bunch of stories from all over the world that keep unavoidably getting dragged into it, whether we like it or not. so even this is about us, you have to start, at least for a second here, with poland. just a few days ago, mayor of the capital city of poland, the largest city in that country, he held a press conference. he announced at the press conference that the city of warsaw will be setting aside tens of millions of dollars in its new budget to build bomb shelters for people in that city. now poland is not currently at war. the capital city of poland is not getting bombed. for them and for us, that's a good thing and an important thing, because poland is a member of nato. so if somebody was bombing poland, if polish citizens, polish civilians needed to use bomb shelters in the capital city of that country, that would be very bad news, not just for poland, but for us as well. because poland is our nato ally. and if somebody was attacking them, that would mean that we would soon be at war as well. if you attack one nato country, you attack them all. it is a treaty of mutual defense. so our nato ally in poland scrambling right now to build bomb shelters for civilians in their capital city, that is not great news. the reason they're doing it is because poland borders ukraine. russia has invaded ukraine. poland now has to worry about these things because the war is at their door stop. poland has to worry about the war being at their door stop. and because poland has to worry about it, so do we. and then there is also another nation, much smaller nation called moldova. now moldova isn't in nato, so they don't have the kind of protection that affords. they don't have a mutual defense treaty with a country like the united states. but moldova is also, like poland, right on ukraine's border. they're squished right in between ukraine, where russia has already invaded and romania, which is another nato country, and moldova is really feeling the heat. this past weekend, putin met with the hand-picked pro-kremlin leader of part of moldova that putin wants to break off from that country to make it part of russia. just like he has been breaking off pieces of ukraine and taking those pieces for himself and forcing those parts of ukraine to be part of russia now, he also appears to have designs on parts of moldova to do the same thing to them. when putin brought this pro-kremlin leader of a breakaway part of moldova over to moscow to meet with him, the president of moldova got so alarmed by putin taking that meeting, by what putin said about how russia might need to go in and take care of things in moldova some time soon, the way it has in ukraine, she was so alarmed by that, that she flew in person to the first european nato country that would agree to form a defense agreement with her country. the president of moldova flew to france, signed a new agreement with france, where france hereby agrees to come to the aid of moldova if indeed putin attacks there too, just like he attacked ukraine. poland is building bomb shelters. moldova is forming new defense alliances as putin is threatening to invade moldova too. now a third one, the nation of georgia, reuters reporting this weekend that in the nation of georgia, which doesn't border ukraine, it borders russia directly, another one of these hand-picked pro-kremlin officials from part of that country that putin wants to break off and make it part of russia instead, that local leader in georgia has, quote, discussed its possible inclusion into russia with moscow, according to russian state media. so he brings over a pro-kremlin hand-picked leader from a part of russia that russia wants to break off from georgia and make it part of their own country. so putin has invaded ukraine. he is in the third year of his war with ukraine. he is threatening two more countries on his border. another country that borders ukraine, is threatened enough the way he behaving toward them that they're building bomb shelters in their capital city. just a few days ago in a fourth country, in lithuania, which borders both poland and russia, we had a vicious hammer attack, what appears to have been an attempted murder, broke the guy's arms, smashed him up. a hammer apac on an ally of alexei navalny. alexei navalny himself was recently assassinated in a russian prison. so you put all this together, and what you're talking about here is a geopolitical wrecking ball. this isn't one war. this isn't a country with a border dispute, right. what putin is making happen in the world right now is constant war and destabilization and threats and terroristic violence and assassinations in multiple bordering countries and pushing right into nato. and of course when he pushes into nato, that directly implicates us. putin was asked ahead of this weekend's potemkin election in russia about whether he wants to engage in peace talks with ukraine since that war is now in its third year. putin scoffed at that. he said why should he bother doing that just because ukraine is running out of ammunition now. and indeed, ukraine is running out of ammunition now. and that's largely because of us. it's because of the republican party, at least, in the united states of america. since pro-trump hard-liners installed a new trumpier republican speaker of the house, american aid to ukraine has stopped. and so, yes, ukraine is running out of ammunition to fight russia. so why would russia stop and hold peace talks or anything else right now? putin can see how this is going the end, as long as the republicans in the united states of america keep doing their part to help. geopolitical wrecking ball, with apparently limitless ambitions. it's one thing to start the largest land war in europe since world war ii. it's another thing to be three years into that and starting to rattle your saber at multiple other countries on your own borders and the borders of the country you have already invaded. you know, in 2016, there was a lot that was strange. like just weird. gonzo, wacky, hard to believe weird about putin's decision, russia's decision to get their claws into our american election that year, in 2016, to try to get donald trump into the white house. i mean, there is the overall fact of it, which itself is crazy. but the details of it were just -- they were nuts at the time. they're nuts looking back at it now. do you remember him signing the letter of intent to build trump tower moscow, which would have been the biggest real estate deal of his life? he signed that letter of intent to build trump tower moscow. he signed that letter of intent right in the middle of the republican presidential primary. literally, he signed it the night of the third republican candidates debate. and then he and his campaign lied about it and said he had done no such things, that he had no business interest in russia whatsoever. he signed the letter of intent to build that thing the day of the third republican candidate's debate. there was that meeting the summer before the general election when his son and his son-in-law jared kushner, they took a meeting in trump tower in new york with somebody who said she had dirt to share about trump's election opponent in the campaign, and she wanted to share that dirt with jared and don jr. as part of the russian government's help for trump's campaign to become president. that's -- that happened? that's an insane thing to have happened. that happened. there was russia running the social media campaigns out of st. petersburg to try to get americans at each other's throats and to spread conspiracy theories and to boost trump. there was the russian intelligence operation that hacked into the computer servers of the democratic party. and when russia started releasing that hacked material to try to help trump and hurt the democrats, trump came out during the democratic national convention and asked russia to please do more. during the republican national convention. that was that incredible moment when the trump campaign took an interest in precisely one part of the republican party's national platform. they didn't care about any of it. they didn't want anything. they didn't ask for anything. they didn't try to change anything, except for one thing. the only thing they intervened in at all in the 2016 republican party national platform, the only thing they changed, the only thing they even showed any interest in is that the republican party had a plank in its platform that said the united states should support ukraine to stand up against russia. and that was the one that they said had to go. it was the only part of the platform that they cared about. there was so much that was just -- i mean bizarre at the time. honestly, looking kind of less bizarre looking back at it now maybe. but covering it at the time, it was just -- it was hard to believe these things were happening, right. russia helping trump in that election and trump so obviously welcoming it, overtly welcoming it, asking for more of it, trying to pretend that it wasn't happening. it was just -- it was crazy times. but the craziest of all was when they brought that new guy on board to run the campaign. in the summer of 2016, the summer of general election, this guy appears out of nowhere. he had not been a political figure in the united states in years and years and years. it was just completely unknown to almost everyone in contemporary politics. he had been like a gerald ford era guy and a reagan era guy, but nobody had seen him in washington for years, until he popped up, hello, as the newly announced surprise campaign chairman for the donald trump for president campaign in 2016. who is this guy? where has he been? why hasn't he been in washington for years? what's he been up to? well, it turned out what ehad been up to for years was working for kremlin-alined oligarchs in the former soviet union. that's what his job was. that's what his expertise was. that's what his life had become. he was running political campaigns and pr campaigns to benefit vladimir putin and the kremlin. and then, inexplicably, flies back to washington to offer his services for free to run the donald trump for president campaign, while the russian government was engaged in a hand over first, no limits whole of government effort to mess with the u.s. election to try to install donald trump in the white house. i mean, it was like -- you couldn't script something like this for a pot boiler trashy spy novel with a shiny cover. it was crazy. it was crazy at the time. it's insane looking back at it now. i mean, specifically, what paul manafort specialized in, what he had been doing for years at that point was that he was being paid by pro-putin oligarchs in ukraine to keep ukraine under russian control, to keep ukraine in putin's sort of sphere of influence. paul manafort was paid very well to be the spin doctor and the campaign guru for the pro kremlin puppet leader of ukraine. until he mysteriously popped back up in america in u.s. politics for the first time in decades to run things for trump. and he said no, no, trump didn't need to pay him for that, he would do it for free. probably out of a sense of deep patriotism i'm guessing. one of the things that was so insane about the appearance of this guy paul manafort on the trump campaign is that it was soon evident that in any normal political sense, this guy was a bad idea. i mean, you know, trump campaign manager paul manafort had multimillion-dollar contract with russian oligarch. paul manafort reportedly offered to help putin advance moscow's interests. trump campaign chief proposed strategy where he would influence u.s. politics in a way that would benefit russia. trump campaign chief linked to putin interests. manafort allegedly wrote confidential strategy plan to influence politics, business dealings and the news to benefit putin's government. trump campaign chief paid millions by putin ally. i mean, these were the headlines of the paul manafort era in trump politics. this was not good press for a guy being paid millions and millions of dollars for his genius in shaping press coverage. those were the kinds of headlines that he attracted. and once that strategic brilliance helped sharpen the focus on what the heck was going on with this campaign and russia, manafort also showed off his chops in handling questions about this very sensitive issue on camera. >> so to be clear, mr. trump has no financial relationships with any russian oligarchs? >> that's what he said. that's what i said. that's obviously what our position is. >> just indulge me for a second. it's been a long time. would you mind if we play that for a long time. just focus on his answer here, just once more. >> so to be clear, mr. trump has no financial relationships with any russian oligarchs? >> that's what he said -- that's what i -- that's obviously -- what our position. >> that -- that -- that that's what i -- that's what he. thank you. ultimately, paul manafort left as trump's campaign chairman when his on-camera spin doctor brilliance was not able to spin away the fact that he had taken millions of dollars in off-the-books payments from a kremlin-supported political party in ukraine, the so-called blackledger scandal. it then emerged while he had served as trump's campaign manager, he had met repeatedly with a person to whom he had secretly handed over nonpublic sensitive campaign strategy information from the trump campaign. and this was not some other person who worked on the trump campaign to whom he was giving secret information. at least somebody working on the trump campaign you might think. the person paul manafort repeatedly met with to whom he gave this nonpublic sensitive internal campaign information, this person was later identified as a russian intelligence officer, one who may have been involved in the attack by russian intelligence to hack, steal, and then leak democratic campaign materials in 2016 to benefit trump's campaign. and that's not me saying it. that is the bipartisan report of the republican-led senate intelligence committee. paul manafort as trump's campaign chairman repeatedly met with a russian intelligence officer to give him inside information on the campaign, nonpublic secret information while russian intelligence was trying to help trump win the election. i literally keep on my desk a print-out of the page 1 "new york times" story that ran about that report when it was finally released in 2020. you see the headline here, "republican-led senate panel details ties between 2016 trump campaign and russia." yeah, it turns out not a hoax. weird, huh? quote, a sprawling report released today by a republican-controlled senate panel laid out an extensive web of contacts between trump campaign advisers and kremlin officials and other russians, including at least one intelligence officer and others tied to the country's spy services. the nearly one thousand page report about the expansive russian campaign to sabotage the 2016 election provides a bipartisan senate imprimatur for an extraordinary set of facts, the russian government disrupted an american election to help donald trump become president. russia intelligence services viewed members of the trump campaign as easily manipulated. some of trump's advisers were eager for the help from an american adversary. the report showed extensive evidence of contacts between trump's advisers and people tied to the kremlin and campaign chairman paul manafort whom the report identified as a russian intelligence officer. mr. manafort discussed campaign strategy and shared internal campaign polling data with the russian intelligence officer and later lied to federal investigators about his actions. the report cites manafort's ties to a russian oligarch described as a proxy for russian state intelligence services. it described at length manafort's relationships with a cluster of pro-russia oligarchs who had paid him tens of millions of dollars. the report said, quote, manafort conducted influence operations that supported and were part of russian active measures campaigns, including those involving political influence and electoral influence. before, during and after he was forced out as trump's campaign chairman, the report said, manafort offered inside information and assistance to these russian-aligned interests. don't take it from me. take it from the republican-led senate intelligence committee and its report on what happened the last time around with trump and russia and paul manafort. and so now, today, what's more surprising? that the republican party is running that guy from that campaign as their candidate for president again? or that that guy has just announced plans to bring paul manafort back to put him back on his campaign this time around as well? "the washington post" was first and then cnn and "the new york times" are also both reporting that trump intends to bring paul manafort, that same paul manafort, the paul manafort described by the republican-led intelligence committee as a grave counterintelligence threat to the united states of america. trump is reportedly going to bring manafort back and put him on his campaign again. and this comes at a sort of amazing time when you think about how far we've come. because that was only 2016, right? but now russia is in the middle of a full-scale war against ukraine, a war that is now into its third year, a war in which ukraine started off not just valiantly defending itself, but effectively defending itself and punching back at the russian invasion thanks to what started as as rock-solid support for ukraine and their allies around the world, first and foremost us, but when trump reentered republican politics in the announced plans to run for president again, the republican party dissolved almost instantly on that point, and now pro-trump republicans in congress have effectively stopped american support for ukraine. which has put ukraine on the brink. trump has literally said on the campaign trail that when he is president again, he'll tell russia to do, quote, whatever the hell they want, including to our nato allies. and now in today's news, this week, we see the other bordering countries, moldova, georgia, even our nato ally poland scrambling, because they see what's happening, and because putin is telling them what's going to happen next. so they're frantically building bomb shelters. they're trying to find some country that might help defend them because apparently america won't. hungarian dictator viktor orban came out of a very friendly personal meeting with trump about a week ago and said that trump told him in that meeting that if and when he becomes president again, all american assistance of any kind for ukraine will stop on a dime. and so that means that ukraine will become russia again. and then, you know, who knows what's next after that. paul manafort himself in the time since he left the trump campaign the first time around, he's been through his own kind of war. investigation of his financial dealings with russia and pro-kremlin oligarchs led to multiple federal criminal indictments, and ultimately, multiple felony convictions on tax fraud and bank fraud and hiding money overseas. he plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud the united states and to witness tampering. started serving a long federal jail term. his sentence ended up being longer than it might otherwise have been when the judge in his case ruled that even after pleading guilty, he had continued to lie to the justice department about, among other things, his contacts with that russian intelligence officer while he had been trump campaign chairman and while russian intelligence was helping trump's campaign for president. trump ultimately, of course, pardoned manafort, which is why manafort is out of prison now. but that's just in time apparently for trump to bring him back to his campaign for 2024. and given paul manafort's background, that's amazing. the part of it that's not so amazing anymore is just the like -- he just got out of jail, he is a felon part of it. that's kind of par for the course in this moment in republican politics. i mean, in any other world, the president bringing back a former campaign chairman who had just gotten out of prison, bringing him back again after he got out of prison would be crazy pants. but in trump republican politics, hey, i mean, get in line. it wasn't just trump's campaign chairman who went to prison. trump's campaign vice-chairman rick gates was also charged and convicted and sentenced to prison. trump adviser and campaign aide roger stone was charged and sentence to prison. trump national security adviser michael flynn was charged and convicted. trump's campaign adviser george papadopoulos was convicted and sentenced to prison. allen weisselberg was sentenced and convicted to prison. trump's chief strategic steve bannon was sentenced to prison pending appeal for defying a subpoena. trump's business was itself found guilty of tax fraud. two trump lawyers kenneth chesebro and sidney powell have pleaded guilty to election related crimes. and now tomorrow peter navarro is due to report to start serving his sentence in federal prison. it's not like manafort is the only one in stripes, right? that's how these guys role. you sign up for the trump campaign, they ask you what size should they make your jumpsuit. but even apart from all the indictments of trump himself, he has surrounded himself with people who are very comfortable with the criminal side of the ledger. manafort because of his background stands apart as a very specific kind of criminal in donald trump's world. and as such, there is just one last aspect of this that is truly amazing, that it's like -- the part of it that we won't believe years from now when we look back on a news day like this and say do you believe this happened? and the last part of this, i would just ask you to consider is the very specific timing, as in what happened today. what paul manafort went to prison for, what he was found to have done when he inexplicably rose up out of russian oligarchville to return to washington to become the trump for president campaign chairman in 2016, what was his purpose in life at that time? his purpose in life at that time was extracting money from russian interests, from pro-kremlin interests to serve the interests of vladimir putin and the kremlin. that was his life's work. paul manafort has announced today as coming back to the trump campaign again on the same day that donald trump also announces that he is out of money and he cannot secure a bond to pay the half billion court judgment that is due from him one week from today. that is a court judgment. that's not some bank being please pay us back. that's a court judgment. if he doesn't pay it, the new york attorney general can start padlocking his buildings and taking everything he owns. as of one week from today. donald trump has never been more desperately in need of money than he is right this sec today, the day it is reported that this guy, for all his baggage, for all his ex con sparkle, this guy is coming back, the guy who specializes in extracting money from kremlin-aligned interests to serve vladimir putin's long-term goals. i wonder why today of all days is the day we learn that paul manafort is coming back. that's next. stay with us. meet the jennifers. jen x. jen y. and jen z. each planning their future through the chase mobile app. jen x is planning a summer in portugal with some help from j.p. morgan wealth plan. let's go whiskers. jen y is working with a banker to budget for her birthday. you only turn 30 once. and jen z? 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[splash] before advil: advil dual action fights pain two ways. advil targets pain at the source, acetaminophen blocks pain signals. advil dual action. business. it's not a nine-to-five proposition. it's all day and into the night. it's all the things that keep this world turning. the go-tos that keep us going. the places we cheer. and check in. they all choose the advanced network solutions and round the clock partnership from comcast business. see why comcast business powers more small businesses than anyone else. get started for $49.99 a month plus ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. don't wait- call today. so the first one was big. maybe not insurmtbly big, with help from the federal insurance company, which is a subsidiary of chubb insurance, former president donald trump managed to post a $91.6 million bond in the defamation case he lost to e. jean carroll. that bond allows trump to avoid paying e. jean carroll for real while he attempts to appeal that judgment against him. if he were to lose the appeal and not pay up, the federal insurance company and chubb would be on the hook to pay ms. carroll. that has given the company's investors and brokers and some of their customers apparently a little bit of heartburn judging from a letter the ceo of chubb sent around defending the decision, saying, quote, as the surety, we don't take sides. we're supporting and are part of the justice system plumbing included in this case. in other words, we're just that trap thing at the bottom of the sink. we are not the stuff that got stuck in it. don't get mad at us. we're just doing our jobs. but if a $91.6 million bond was a doable one for the former president, a $454 million bond and counting is proving to be another matter entirely. lawyers for mr. trump today told a new york appellate court that he can't find a company to help him with the nearly half billion bond while he appeals the new york civil fraud case involving his business. according to the filing, more than two dozen companies, including chubb, have decided on that bond they cannot do it and they will not do it. that leaves trump in a very vulnerable position for somebody who brags about his personal wealth as much as he does, who's key to his political appeal is he can't be bought because he has so much more money than everybody else. in this case what he has more than anybody else is a need for money, quickly and desperately. new york attorney general tish james has said she is ready and willing to start seizing trump's properties in order to satisfy the judgment, the clock is ticking. the former president may have to put up more than the half billion bond that is giving him trouble all right. trump might have to post an appeal bond worth more, possibly above a half million to reflect the interest in order to prevent ms. james from seizing his assets on march 25th. and i mean march 25th this year, as in one week from tonight. joining us now is susanne craig, pull lizzer prize winning reporter for "the new york times." it's really good to have you here in person. good to see you. >> you too. >> we have seen mr. trump put up one bond and now we're seeing him say he can't put up the second one. did we learn anything from the circumstances around which he put up that first bond that tell us if he's getting help, that tell us how many of his assets have been tapped already, that tell us whether or not he really might be having trouble with the second one. >> what really came into focus for me today when i was reading this was that there has been a lot of speculation he is going to put up a building. what are they going to accept for this appeal bond. i think we're all learning a lot about appeal bonds as we go. and what we really saw today was that they want hard cash. they are not accepting assets. and allen garden, who is a senior officer, is a lawyer at the trump organization, he said that they tried and with chubb in particular. none of them wanted real estate. these aren't real estate companies. they want things they can liquidate immediately. they want cash. and they talked to chubb about doing this larger one that he is facing a week from today. and chubb last week backed away. they're not going take real estate. so now we know for certain that he needs to come up with cash, and he does not have enough cash, according to the filings today. >> so can he -- what are his options? can he sell things that he currently owns, liquidate assets, real estate assets or other assets in order to convert into cash since that's the only thing he can pay with here? >> that said, and it's going to have to be like today. like soon. he is going to have to figure. we don't know. he may be already in the process of potentially negotiating a sale. he may have gotten a deal with somebody that he knows. and we don't know if that's in progress or not. these are sort of things that i'm speculating on. it's important to say that but that could be going on. but what we do know is that the filing today was sort of -- they're raising their hand saying they don't have the cash to meet this. so they want -- they want it stayed. and i think the other thing that's really important here is this is a legal maneuver because they're asking a judge to set this aside. and if it's rejected, they may go to the appellate court. so they may buy themselves some time. and the attorney general also has the option of saying you can have another 30 days. if they were to come and say we have a plan. >> uh-huh. >> there is a lot of things. we just never have seen anything like this. so there is a lot of things that could happen. but right now he is looking down the barrel of a gun. you can hear the clock. he has got one week. and if nothing changes, the attorney general of new york can come in and start to seize assets. >> seize his accounts? >> seize his buildings. seize his business. >> so the thing that i am worried about now that i didn't think i would be worried about when this whole process started is that i'm worried that he is in such a crunch, and i'm worried that that means in terms of a national security threat for the united states. there anything about the process of putting up bonds that prevents some angel from coming in and paying it for him? and if that happened, would we know? >> well, that can happen. and if that happens, there is going to be tax consequences for the person who gives it. >> because it's a gift? >> it's a taxable event. >> okay. >> but and i've sort of been wondering how much transparency are we going to have? we do know with the e. jean carroll case, the bond was posted and he posted as collateral some filings, a brokerage account that he has. it has liquid securities in it. . >> okay. >> so there is some visibility. and keep in mind there is also a monitor over the company that is going to be watching this. so i suspect at the end we're going know. i never want to say never with anything. but right now i feel like we should know at least who comes forward with it. but that's another -- another possibility is someone could come up with the money and write a check to cover it. he also has other wealthy family members, ivanka trump and her husband come to mind. so there is still i think a range of possibilities i think over -- they're exploring them all. i can guarantee it. they have to be. so i think that next week, we're just going have a lot more visibility into exactly how this is going to be dealt with. but we could be faced in a week with a situation where the attorney general says the day has come and i'm going to appeal to the court and we're going to move forward to seize the assets. >> he recently changed his position on the culture war issue around bud light after anheuser-busch did a fundraiser for him. he then changed his position on tiktok and the chinese government after he met with a guy who has a big financial stake in tiktok. he now needs a half billion right now. he has to pay it on monday. so i'm just worried about what's for sale. i hope you're right, there will be some transparency about it. thank you so much. susanne craig is an investigative reporter for "the new york times." all right. we have more ahead. do stay with us. we have more ahead do stay with us. it's doug... ...of doug and limu. we help people customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. anyway, we got a bit of a situation here. uh-huh. uh-huh. mm-hmm. sure, i can hold. only pay for what you need. ♪(sung) liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪ ghostbusters: frozen empire. in theaters march 22. alice loves the scent of gain so much, ♪(sung) liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪ she wished there was a way to make it last longer. say hello to your fairy godmother alice and long-lasting gain scent beads. part of the irresistible scent collection from gain! hi, i'm tali and i lost 85 pounds on golo. 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it has superior absorption compared to regular turmeric. qunol. the brand i trust. for your most brilliant smile, crest has you covered. ♪♪ (laughing) nice smile, brad. nice! thanks? crest 3d white. 100% more stain removal. crest. before he died suddenly in a russian prison last month, opposition leader alexei navalny had urged his supporters, at urged people who oppose vladimir putin, had urged them to turn up at the polls this past weekend for the russian presidential election. even though the outcome of that election is a forgone conclusion. protesting may be illegal in russia, being an actual opposition figure to vladimir putin may be illegal, may be fatally illegal in russia, but putin does still like to make it look like the country still has elections. so navalny said basically, take advantage of that. show up to vote, all at once. everybody show up at noon on sunday specifically. and that will be the way we register our opposition to the putin regime. and this sunday, yesterday, people did it. polling places that moments before had been empty, suddenly at noon yesterday had lines down the block. those lines in russia were inspiring, impressive in terms of what people are willing to do, the risks people are willing to take to show their independence, to show their opposition. but of course it was ultimately futile. that russia even held a vote this weekend is a farce. everybody knew the outcome the moment putin announced he would run for a fifth term. he is president for life. this is the way it goes. it's an autocracy that pretends it is still a democracy. you make it look like there is an election, but there is no suspense because they don't really let anybody run against you. and the vote itself does not matter. the results of the election have nothing to do with the preference and behavior of the voters. when you start doing that, when you start turning elections into these potemkin affairs, it doesn't really matter if you've done anything formal to announce or mark your transition into something other than a democracy. once you have a situation where the vote in advance is determined to be irrelevant, so whatever happens, whatever the voters do, there is only one possible results. once you have that, you're kind of there, right? you are no longer in a real democracy. you may remember that after election day in 2020, when joe biden had decisively won the state of michigan by over 150,000 votes, you may remember two election officials briefly refused to certify those election results in largely democratic counties. then republicans in one county in georgia, another state joe biden won, they also refused to certify election results in part of that state as well. that county's refusal to certify the results was used as evidence in a draft executive order trump never issued, an order that would have commanded the seizing of voting machines across the country as a prelude to the military running some sort of redo of the whole election. because something had gone wrong the first time around and it appeared that trump didn't win. those local attempts at invalidating election results in 2020, those were effectively improvised responses to trump losing that election. this next time around in 2024, elections officials, republican election officials seem like they are more planning it out in advance this time. this is the headline on new reporting published today in rolling stone. quote, potential 2024 chaos. election deniers refusing to certify results. quote, in at least 15 instances since november 2020, local republican officials in eight different states have refused to certify election results. if local election officials nationwide decide en masse to refuse election results this year, it could slow certification of statewide tallies crucial to determining the next president. it could create chaos as well as a false basis to challenge the next november election. local republican election officials in some of the cases the last few years have demand audits and hand recounts. even when they show the same results, they still refuse to certify the election, because it's not about what the voters ohave actually voted for. it's about setting up a system that can deliver only one possible result. this is the way it works in many parts of the world. it has not been the way works here. they're trying to change that. and we've got more on that story, next. stay with us. us ma, ma, ma— ( clears throat ) for fast sore throat relief, try vicks vapocool drops. with two times more menthol per drop, and powerful vicks vapors to vaporize sore throat pain. vicks vapocool drops. vaporize sore throat pain. nice to meet ya. my name is david. i've been a pharmacist for 44 years. when i have customers come in and ask for something for memory, i recommend prevagen. number one, because it's effective. does not require a prescription. and i've been taking it quite a while myself and i know it works. and i love it when the customers come back in and tell me, "david, that really works so good for me." makes my day. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. (screams) bleeding gums are serious, jamie. dr. garcia? woah. they're a sign of bacterial infection. crest gum detoxify's antibacterial fluoride works below the gumline to help heal gums and stop bleeding. crest saves the day. crest. feeling sluggish or weighed down? could be a sign that your digestive system isn't at its best. but a little metamucil everyday can help. metamucil's psyllium fiber gels to trap and remove the waste that weighs you down and also helps lower cholesterol and slows sugar absorption to promote healthy blood sugar levels. so you can feel lighter and more energetic. lighten everyday the metamucil way. feel less sluggish & weighed down after just 14 days. sign up for the 2 week challenge at metamucil.com i love that my daughter still needs me. but sometimes i can't help due to burning and stabbing pain in my hands, so i use nervive. nervive's clinical dose of ala reduces nerve discomfort in as little as 14 days. now i can help again. feel the difference with nervive. at rolling stone today, reporter justin glau reports on election officials across the country in republican-controlled states and counties who since the 2020 election have refused to certify election results. they have demanded things like hand recounts. they have demanded that results simply not be certified. glau describes it as what appears to be a sort of constellation of local events, but ones that pose a potential real challenge for 2024 heading into what is certainly going to be a contested election in the presidential race and potentially other levels. also troubling because it appears that some of these would appear to be separate and discordant efforts may be linked, at least by perpetrators of these events who are taking funding from the same sorts of people attending the same sorts of conferences and ascribing themselves to the same conspiracy theories about elections being fraudulent. joining us now is justin glau who has reported this piece for rolling stone. he is also the author of "american doom" which is a newsletter on substack. mr. glau, i appreciate you being here. thank you so much for your time. >> thanks for having me. >> so how much commonality is between the different types of instances that you found, 15 different instances you reported since 2020 in which local republican officials have refused to certify election results? >> well, the commonality is that they're not based in reality. they're carried out by people who believe lies and conspiracy theories about widespread election fraud that just doesn't exist. >> in terms of where this is coming from, is it a centrally organized effort? you did describe some sort of links and some sort of network patterns between these groups. they seem to be in some cases be funded by the same sorts of entities and attending the same sources of conferences, subscribing to the same sources of information. are they effectively working together to try to seed doubts about 2024? >> only in that they are reading and absorbing the same type of materials about, you know, election fraud and conspiracies, as a lot of other americans are. you know, it's sort of like decentralized coordination, i guess, where they're involved in these networks. they're reading this stuff. they're listening to what trump says about it. and they're believing it. >> one of the experts that you cite in your piece from the brennan center says part of the strategy is to create chaos and to create a false basis for trying to find some way to challenge the outcome. is part of the idea here, part of the threat here that you can create smoke for any number of reasons that aren't, as you say, based in reality. but if you create enough smoke, you can convince people that there is a fire, you can use disparate false claims of irregularities to create a sense that there must be something wrong otherwise i wouldn't be hearing about all of these local controversies. >> yeah, i think that's definitely the case. and i think you can look to that never issuing an executive order that you issued earlier about seizing voting machines. but i mentioned one of these instances refusing to certify as evidence of the sort of phenomenon of creating smoke and then saying that there is a fire. so they did that the last time around and said well, they refused to certify in this count, therefore there is fraud. let's seize the voting machines. >> justin glawe, reporter for rolling stone. the piece is potential 2024 election deniers refusing to certify the results. i feel you did a really good job here as we see this inevitably spread. justin, thanks for your reporting. >> thank you. >> all right, we'll be right back. stay with us. 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