Word with lawrence o'donnell. We have sheldon whitehouse joining us. He will tell us something you might suspect. That is that the background investigations and senate confirmation process aren't quite what some people say they are. That is an explosive rep court. Everyone that cares about the integrity in the high court and decisions. I will save you time. Bob casey is joining us and he is the political expert. We will get it settled tonight at the end of the hour with senator casey. That won't be a question anymore. That is not going to be a question. I know this from spending time with him. It is a must watch our. This is for monday night. It is relevant. Bob woodward be on the program monday night to discuss this book which is the surprise of books. Just raise a flag. In our is plenty. Have a great show. The breaking news of the day went from breaking news to a presidential campaign ad in record time. With the harris for president campaign, setting a new speed record. Converting breaking news into a campaign ad. I would like to congratulate him for making another great deal. All of these people at the top of the game. We will get it resolved quickly. It takes 2 to tango. The shocking breaking news of the morning. It is the biggest surprise of the 21st century. It is to refer to jimmy carter's failed attempt to rescue hostages. In october 1980 within weeks of the election. The president tried to rescue the hostages but failed. And then regarded as the october surprise. Just as a successful release of the hostages were rescued by jimmy carter probably would have been the october surprise that won him the election. Today the surprise revealed by the post would have crushed any candidate. The new book will be published next week titled war. It revealed in the darkest hour in 2020 when there was no vaccine and most people in the world and most people in this country. Could not obtain covid tests. Donald trump sent priceless tests to vladimir putin. For personal use. Breaking news headline on this story. He sent testa putin during the 2020 shortage. The post reported as the virus tore through the world and the united states and other countries confronted a shortage designed to detect the illness, donald trump secretly sent tests to vladimir putin for his personal use. And they took pains to prevent fallout. Not for him but for his counterpart. He cautioned trump not to reveal that he dispatched the scarce equipment to moscow, according to a new book by bob putin told trump i didn't want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me. I don't want you to tell anybody. Donald trump followed vladimir putin's advice and did not tell anyone. That is exactly the kind of thing that doesn't stay secret forever when bob woodward was on the case. The fear was on public display throughout the worst of the pandemic with repeated photographs of vladimir putin sitting at the end of a comically long table. Sometimes berating russian generals at the other end of the table for their failures on the war in ukraine. The book is filled with other revelations about donald trump including the conclusion. It was a country at war with an american ally formed the basis of the conclusion that trump is worse than richard nixon's presidency was undone by the watergate scandal, exposed a halfcentury ago by woodward and carl bernstein. Worse than nixon. No one would know better than bob woodward who will join us on this program monday night when we can go into much greater detail about these and other revelations. The post quotes bob woodward writing, trump was the most reckless and impulsive president in american history and is demonstrating the same character as a presidential candidate in 2024. That kind of reporting would have ended any campaign prior to the trump era. Then devastating reporting like that would still destroy a democratic nominee. Donald trump convert them into the trump party and appeared to have established a lock on 47% of the vote. Is by that curse on democracy. The electoral college could win the presidency. Kamala harris is on track to get millions more votes then donald trump just as clinton did and joe biden did. This is the one country in which winning the most votes doesn't mean you become president because of the electoral college which was deliberately established by the founders as an antidemocracy institution that would prevent voters from actually controlling the outcome. That was the purposeful design. Without the electoral college, donald trump would have vanished from politics in november 2016. Thanks to the electoral college, the person bob woodward calls the most reckless and impulsive president in history is still with us. Today, howard stern asked vice president harris about the big breaking news of the day. The book was saying that trump was sending covid tests to putin and he said don't let anyone know. I said it in the debate. I believe that donald trump has a desire to be a dictator. He admires strongmen and he gets played by them because he thinks they are his friend. They are manipulating him full time. Manipulating him by flattery. In the midst to your point as reported by bob woodward, in the height of the pandemic, remember, listeners will remember. People were dying by the hundreds. Everybody was scrambling to get the covered test kits and couldn't get them. This guy who was president of the united states was sending them to russia to a murderous dictator for his personal use. That is the most recent stark example of who donald trump is. He secretly sent covid test kits for the personal use of putin, an adversary to the united state. When he was talking about americans should be putting bleach in their blood. Vice president harris began her appearances today on the view. Donald trump prefers to run on problems instead of fixing problems. He is not solution oriented. If you need to know, watches rallies. He spends fulltime engaged in grievance about what has happened to him. Fulltime perpetuating lies and misinformation. He spends fulltime talking about fictional characters. Namecalling. Demeaning people and belittling people. What he does not talk about is you. He does not talk about what you need and he does not talk about what your parents need and what your children needs. He talks about his needs. Again, to add to the point, people are ready for a new generation of leadership that is about fixing problems. Medicare was created in 1965 by a democratic congress and democratic president, lyndon johnson. No republican president ever would've created medicare. No republican congress would have ever done that. It is the most popular government healthcare program in the united states. Also one of the most efficient and admired government healthcare systems in the world. Have talked to health ministers from around the world and they all point to medicare as the system may think works better than their own. Medicare was designed to help people over 65 primarily with hospital bills but medicare coverage expanded as the accepted definition of necessary treatment expanded over the years. Today, kamala harris announced an expansion of benefit that she would like to enact to deliver the kind of healthcare that people often need in the final years of their lives. I took care of my mother when she was sick with cancer. It is a personal experience for me as well is something i care deeply about. Taking care of the parent, that means trying to cook what they want to eat or what they can eat. It means picking out clothing that doesn't irritate the skin. It means trying to think of something funny to make them laugh or smile. There is so much about that that is about giving folks dignity. To your point about being in the sandwich generation, there are so many people that are right in the middle. They are taking care of their kids and their aging parents. It is almost impossible to do it all. Especially if they work. So many then have to leave their job which means losing a source of income, not to mention the emotional stress. What i am proposing, what we will do is allow medicare to cover inhome healthcare. They want to stay in their home. Plus for the family to send them to a residential care facility or to hire someone is so expensive. Here's the other thing, people say how are you going to pay for it? here is how. Part of what i intend to do is allow medicare to continue to negotiate drug prices against pharmaceutical companies which means we're gonna save medicare the money because were not going to be paying these high prices. Those resources are best of them put in a way that helps the family like the one you were describing which we have already done with insulin. Healthcare policy experts in government and outside have known for decades that the most expensive place to deliver healthcare is in a hospital. The least expensive place to deliver healthcare can be in many instances at home. The new proposal recognizes the new reality of the way we live and the way we die. After vice president harris announced two new medicare home health care proposal, her running mate, tim walz said my dad died after a long battle with lung cancer. Anyone who has cared for a loved one knows it takes a toll. Caregiving is stressful enough and it shouldn't be this it spans the. We have a plan, let's strengthen medicare to cover homecare. With florida expecting to be hit by possibly the worst hurricane we have ever seen, that means we are just days away from donald trump lying about federal disaster relief in the aftermath of another hurricane just as he has repeatedly about the federal response to last week's hurricane which all of the governors involved, republican governors, actually praised. Right now there is a monster storm barreling toward florida. It is still reeling from hurricane helene. Trump is lying claiming the biden administration is intentionally withholding aid from the areas where republicans live in that fema funds are being redirected to migrants. Ironically, that is something he did in 2019. What do you think the effect of these lies are and why is he doing masking that this? we are talking about real human beings in their lives. Then losing everything. This woman lost her husband and her child lost her father. People are losing their home with no hope of ever being able to reconstruct or return. The idea that somebody would play political games. This is consistent. He puts himself before the needs of others. I fear that he really lacks empathy on a basic level, to care about the suffering of other people and then understand the role of the leader is not to be people down, it is to lift them up. Especially in time of crisis. Today, the campaign released this ad. I worked in the trump administration. Never in 1 million years did i think it would be working in the white house with the president that didn't care about the people. He would suggest not giving disaster relief to states that hadn't voted for him. I remember one time after a wildfire he wouldn't send relief because it was a democratic state. We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those areas. To show him, these people voted for you. This isn't normal. The job of the president is to protect americans. Regardless of politics. If he is elected again there will be no one to stop him. There will be essman implementing project 2025, unchecked power and no guard rails. We will be serving one man. I am voting for kamala harris because she will put safety and security for every american first, whether they voted for her or not. One of the other huge revelations in bob woodward's new book which we will discuss on monday is that donald trump has spoken to vladimir putin as many as seven times since he left office. The new york times reports that bob woodward's findings this way, donald j trump has secretly spoken with vladimir putin of russia as many as seven times since leaving office. Even as he was pursuing pressuring republicans to block military aid to ukraine to fight russian invaders. According to a new book by bob woodward, book titled war and scheduled to be published next week, describes the scene in early 2024 at maralago, mr. Trump's estate in florida. The former president ordered an aide out of his office so he could conduct a phone call with mr. Putin. The unidentified aide said the two might have spoken half a dozen other times since mr. Trump left the white house. Leading off our discussion is former fbi general counsel and chief of the criminal division in the eastern district of new york. Is a legal analyst and co author of the book the trump indictments. I want to begin with what we just reported. Those seven phone calls including a phone call with vladimir putin this year. In the middle of donald trump's third campaign. During his first campaign, we saw him publicly ask for vladimir putin's help when he said russia, if you are listening, please help us out and help us campaign against hillary clinton. Russia was listening and they did help. Here's the same person picking up the phone and alone on the phone with vladimir putin in the middle of the campaign. What might he be asking for? we know from the department of justice criminal indictments and other actions that there is russian interference in our election going on in significant ways. Far more significant than what we investigated in 2016 and proved up. That could be one subject. The other is of course, doj documented, vladimir putin has a strong interest in seeing donald trump elected because he wants the war in ukraine to be over with russia winning. There is a mutual interest that is compelling on both sides here. One of the interesting things, donald trump needs to be asked about it. He may lie about it. It will be quite interesting. The intelligence community, while i don't think they are in any way tapping the american side of that call, i wouldn't be surprised if they actually know about these calls because they wouldn't be shocking at all that with they would be able to intercept it. If they didn't, you can imagine other foreign intelligence services are doing that. There probably is some record of what happened. The intelligence community would be prohibited from disclosing what they might know about the call. Absolutely. Just saying it may be pierre louis. To lie about without being caught and you are correct, they would be all sorts of reasons that the united states wouldn't want to reveal exactly who they are tapping or how they are able to do that. That may not be the case with other foreign allies doing similar things. We know that donald trump wanted and solicited russian help. The mueller investigation proved that he got it. He got russian help in his campaign. Donald trump wanting russian help and asking vladimir putin for that is not difficult to imagine, especially with him on the phone to vladimir putin this year and prior to that when he was also a candidate. Donald trump is transactional. The issue of whether it is legal or illegal does not seem to be anything that prevents his taking action. You just have to look at the criminal verdict in new york to understand that. From a transactional point, he is fine with getting the vote of anyone. It doesn't matter if they are racist, sexist, xenophobes. He is unwilling to say that the proud boys are bad or unwilling to say vladimir putin is bad. It is all a transactional interest on his part with no principles involved. At least that is the record that we have. It would either be very little reason for him to change his stripes from what we saw in 2016. Especially when you consider if he loses, he will have one if not two federal cases that he has to deal with. Criminal cases. He has strong interest, not just for the upside at this huge downside in losing the election. I think we have every right to suspect that vladimir putin wasn't asking for more covid tests at this point. On monday we will see what else we might know about those phone calls. Thank you very much for starting off our discussion tonight. You're welcome. Coming up, a senate report said the trump white house blocked a full fbi investigation of the sexual misconduct accusations against nominee brett kavanaugh during his senate confirmation procedure. The author of that report, sheldon whitehouse, will join us next. Will join us next. . And struggle with cpap. You should check out inspire. No mask. No hose. Just sleep. Learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep. Com speaker: my little miracle is beckett. [christina perri, a thousand years] i have died every day waiting for you. We wouldn't be where we are without saint jude. And in turn, we wouldn't be where we are without those people that have donated. [coughing] hi susan, honey? yea. I respect that, but that cough looks pretty bad. Try this robitussin honey. The real honey you love, plus the powerful cough relief you need. Mind if i root through your trash? robitussin, with real honey & elderberry. Autumn is here. 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Switch today! one of the biggest conversations revolves around a woman's body. Can we try to think of any law that gives the government the power to make a decision about a man's body? no. Is there any law? no. That is the same question that vice president harris and then senator harris asked brett kavanaugh during his senate confirmation hearing. Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body? i'm not thinking of any right now senator. The confirmation to the supreme court, the second of three nominees helped conservatives get one step closer to the super majority that they needed to overturn roe versus wade. He managed to get confirmed despite allegations of sexual misconduct by dr. Ford while they were both in high school. I believed he was going to me. I tried to yell for help. When i did, he put his hand over my mouth to stop me. This is what terrified me the most and has had the most lasting impact on my life. It was hard to breathe and i thought that brett was accidentally going to kill me. The details that bring me here today, are the ones i will never forget. They have been seared into my memory and have haunted me as an adult. Deborah ramirez, a classmate of rick cavanagh at yale, came forward with an allegation of sexual misconduct against matt cavanaugh, accusing him of exposing himself to her at a college party. Two senators, jeff flake and chris managed to get the vote delayed for one week so the fbi could investigate both accusations. Today the washington post with words that after a sixyear inquiry, sheldon whitehouse found that the trump white house hampered the fbi investigation, including preventing them from interviewing relevant witnesses and following up on tips. Our next guest, senator whitehouse said, his rep port shows the investigation was a sham controlled by the trump white house for political cover to senate republicans to put judge cavanaugh on