The latest news from the presidential race including the latest on the georgia election board's ruling on counting ballots but first, i want to get right into it with the executive producer of from russia with lev. My colleague rachel maddow who gets to add a new important moniker. You are executive producer to this amazing documentary. Congratulations. Thank you so much ali. It feels great to have it out in the world. Did you like it? not only did i like it, i was set up not to like it. I don't mean that other than any other reason that lev is a complicated character and it's a very honest documentary about the come complexity of lev. So i wasn't sure what i wanted to know about lev that i didn't already know and you just stitched the whole thing together in a way that makes me wish i knew all this back then. It does matter he is a very compelling person. You can tell this story. Lots of different ways. You can tell this story from the perspective of marie ivanovich, the ambassador unjustly forced out. Or the perspective of zelenskyy and the way he was extorted by trump and the crime against ukraine at the heart of the impeachment. You could tell it from the perspective of rudy giuliani or the perspective of trump. But to tell it from the perspective of lev, you get this guy who is obviously a very flawed person. Very open about the fact that he does have a background where he was a hustler. Involved with organized crime. Came up in that environment. The whole reason that characters like tony andre were going after him because he had all those legal judgments and debts. Definitely not a boy scout. But that's part of the story. That he was tasked to do something by the president of the united states. When you layer on top of that, what i believe is his genuine repentance and the fact his phone as terabytes of evidence about what all these people did. It is unlike any other story i know of. The thing that makes this so great right from the beginning is the degree to which lev leans into the fact he is a mob like character. Mob like characters and in some cases actual mobsters were embedded in the trump administration which makes you wonder. Who was really calling the shots during the trump administration during this time you covered? well that's part of a worrying thing. That's why it is a national, it is not just a character flaw, it's a national security problem when you have criminals involved in u. S. Government. When the crooks take over the white house, that's not just bad for the american people but it is good for the crooks. Anybody who is involved also becomes susceptible to blackmail. To extortion and doing all sorts of things that could pervert their work and what is supposed today be the public service so it is bad to have crooks in charge. In ukraine, the fact that the guy who ran the nightclub called mafia rave in ukraine had access to the president of the united states was seen as being a fantastic piece of news for the kinds of guys who would know a guy who ran the mafia club in kyiv. Those sorts of characters shouldn't have access to the american president. To getting an ambassador fired. That is how the trump administration ran. That was a moment in the documentary when lev was relating the way in which he talked about donald trump talking about marie ivanovich being the problem and how literally donald trump looks over his shoulder and says get rid of her, she's done. And you realize in that moment, this is a real story. About a fake story essentially. And lev parnas oversaw an interview with the former ukrainian minister of internal affairs and he describes it very well. Old soviet style state tv propaganda. You have spent so much time talking about the funnel of misinformation in america. Lev says i eventually realized there wasn't anybody who fed us any piece of the story who wasn't working for the russian government or working for russian intelligence. This is a foreign influence. That russia is targeting our elections again in 2024 to try to get trump back in the white house as part of their overall effort to harm and weaken the united states. You know. Using their best weapon against the united states which they think is donald trump in power. So they are doing it now. That's why we have seen all of these indictments for example from the justice department in recent days. Famously, we remember what they did in 2016 to try to get trump in power with the troll farms and the wikileaks and the hacking the democratic party and the clinton campaign and all that stuff. So that is 2016 and 2024. In between in 2020, what they did was lev. What they did was this project to create a story that would hopefully knock joe biden out of the running for the democratic presidential election. Because donald trump knew biden had the best chance of beating him so he wanted him out. So they ran, the russians ran an influence operation to try to essentially spoil joe biden's chances at winning that nomination. And they went at him by what they thought was his achilles heel. His love for his son hunter. His troubled son hunter. Using that, using a father's love for his son against him i think is morally repugnant. It's evil. But it also was really consequential both in hunter's life. It led to the change in lev's life. It led to him going to prison and all this. But that was the origin of it. In a few minutes i will talk to lev and his wife. Central characters in the show. These documentaries don't work without central characters. You can tell it from different perspectives but when you tell it from too many perspectives you lose the effect of the story. So parnas is the central character in the story. He frames himself as the con man who got conned. At the same time, as we discussed, he really did help orchestrate this whole operation. So, i know where i stand on this having watched this. But for the viewer. Why should they believe lev parnas now? it is a very good question, a totally fair question. One we had to confront and i had long conversations with billy and alfred, the director and the producer of the fill. We talked about this a lot because that's core to the journalistic import of the film. Can you believe what he is saying? and there's two things i think powerful. Maybe three things. But two things that powerfully come down on the side lev is saying. One of them is that first interview he did with me in january of 2020 which set this whole process in motion. When, i mean, you know how this works. When somebody gets arrested, somebody gets indicted, the one thing you can be sure they are not going to do next is appear on television doing an interview with a real journalist, right? and yet, after lev was arrested and indicted, he came and did that interview with me at great legal peril. The justice department tried to remand him to custody because he did that interview with me. All of his come to jesus here's what i know. It was not only not in his own interest, it was against his interest directly. It was not selfinterested and i find that important. The incentives went the other way. The other part of it is he had a record of all of the things that he is talking about. He's got thousands and thousands and thousands of text messages, thousands of documents in his i cloud. Thousands of photos and he just gave us full access to all of that to make this film which was the most amazing fact checking process i have ever been through for a guy with such an incredible story to tell about such important people. We watched together a powerful moment at the end of the film. And now that it is out there, we can talk about the end of the film where lev parnas finally meets hunter biden. How did that come together? so we had a totally different ending planned for the film. And in his final interview, in his final interview, he said to director billy corbin, i'm going to go to my probation officer and ask for permission to leave the state of florida because i would like to go to california and apologize to hunter biden face to face. Wow. Billy was like yeah, okay, sure, i want a pony. It doesn't mean it's going to happen. But lev made it happen. He figured out how to contact hunter biden. He asked him. He said listen, i'm doing this documentary. I would like to apologize to you face to face, you don't have to say yes. Would you consider it? if so, would you bring a calendar? i never thought it would happen. And it just did and we didn't know when lev walked in that room whether hunter was going to punch him out or talk to him or accept his apology. It was just a really remarkable moment given what lev was the author was. Lev understands the role between what he did and where we are now with the invasion of russia and the russian invasion of ukraine and we are still waiting to see what the outcome of that war will be. Throughout the ukraine war as i was covering, it lev was maybe, and this was maybe part of his penance, he was trying to be helpful to me. Saying what do you need when you are in ukraine and doing things to allow us to cover it. What is your sense of lev? is he a changed man? i mean i think he still is the same person. I think he is very smart. I think he is charismatic. I do think that nobody has ever forgotten meeting him. There's a sort of charisma. But he has been through a real transformation. He talks about it having been in a cult. He thinks of himself as having effectively been in a cult and come out the other side of it. It has been brutal. Very compelling. Very compelling. She's the star of the film in many ways. I'm interested in seeing your interview with her, but she is amazing. When lev says what he would like to do is help people get out of the trump cult and come out of it the other side, i believe him. This is the story of his life and he wants to try to help. And i'm interested to see what he does. I think he has a lot to offer. It was a marvelous film. What does it feel like to be a film maker? i don't know. I hope that it is the first of many. It feels like giving birth to a 6,000pound baby. Doesn't feel like you are ever going to do it again. It is a total privilege to work with film makers that talented. So i don't know. I don't know if i will ever be able to do something like this again. I would love to. It's hard to sell documentaries right now. There's a lot of content out there, but this was amazingly compelling. Congratulations, my friend. Well deserved. It was an enjoyable watch. I will be watching it again the next couple of days. It is one of those things you need to see again to hear it all again. So i'm grateful to you and thank you. Thanks ali. When we come back, as we promised, lev parnas and his wife svetlana. And vice president harris campaigned in the state of georgia where the state election board passed last minute rule changes that could make a mess on election night and for days and weeks to come. The 11th hour just getting underway on a friday night. Ay for more than a decade farxiga has been trusted again and again, and again. farxiga farxiga farxiga farxiga ask your doctor about farxiga. You'll love this! centrum silver is clinically proven to support memory in older adults. 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Is that love island? trump inspired me for the first time in my life to vote and i did. I voted for joe biden in 2020. Hopefully it's not too late for other people. I betrayed ukraine. I betrayed america. I'm sorry. That is lev parnas and his wife svetlana. Good evening to both of you. Lev, i haven't told a lot of people. I just told it to rachel. On the first trip to ukraine, i wasn't even at the airport. I wasn't even at jfk and you were the first person to call and say what do you need when you get there. I appreciate that you reached out on that very day. Svetlana, i didn't know you. And lev is the narrator of the story, you're the color commentary about the whole thing. What did you think of it? i loved it. I think it was so special the way billy directed it. I think it was really special. Overall, i think that the documentary is really important for our country. It speaks to the power of truth, redemption. Reconciliation and unity. If that could be taken away tonight from the documentary, that would make us very happy. Let's talk about reconciliation. Let's start at the end. Where we saw your meeting with hunter biden. You are in the car. She asks you if you are ready. You get out of the car. I didn't expect hunter to accept my apology. I never expected that. I was blessed and thankful that he would meet with me. I wanted to get the opportunity to apologize to him. I wanted to give him the opportunity to ask me questions and be able to let him know if there was anything i could help out with. When hunter embraced me and accepted my apology and said some of the strongest words i ever heard. It is so important because people don't really know hunter biden. You know. They hear these narratives that i helped create, paint of a human being. Of a father, a son. That was the sick part about it. To have him sit there and embrace me and accept my apology and say he is proud of me, it was so emotional. I can't believe it. I'm grateful and i'm thankful to hunter and his wife melissa and to the whole biden family. It's my mission in life to apologize to everybody. Everybody that i have hurt. But especially the biden family and hunter. Whatever i could do to clear their name. So lana, you were the model of what is partner should be. You were supportive of lev the whole time but it was clear to you that lev was in over his head doing things he shouldn't have been doing. How do you reconcile that now? ultimately, you helped pull him out of this. Ultimate, isn't that what marriage is about? to be there through thick and thin and better and worse. If only for the sake of our family, i need today be strong. We both needed to be strong and get first in the same book. Then the same chapter. Now we are on the same page. And i think that is kind of where we have been. Yeah. Lev, there were so many interesting moments in the film. You're right, svetlana. It was done in such an interesting way. I kept leaning in not wanting it to stop. There was an interesting moment when lev talked about the postcard that you got from rudy giuliani. I couldn't believe that was actually the postcard he sent you and it seemed like that was a turning point for you. When you realized that someone you had trusted so much and relied on and relied on you seemed real ready to throw you to the wolves. I couldn't believe it. You got to understand where i was. I was locked up under espionage charges. I had nothing. Not a piece of pauper. I get something slipped under my door. Thought i was hallucinating. I couldn't believe it. I didn't sleep all night. I wouldn't be sitting here today to tell the story. That morning