Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/15/22: DOJ Trump Investigation, GOP Messaging, FBI Attacked, Rushdie Stabbed, Alec Baldwin, IRS Agents, & More!

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

Krystal and Saagar break down the documents of the Trump FBI raid, legal debates, political fallout, FBI attacks, Salman Rushdie stabbing, Alec Baldwin case, IRS agents, Trump documentary, & more!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Tickets: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0E005CD6DBFF6D47 Alex Holder: https://www.discoveryplus.com/gb/show/unprecedented  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of big new developments with regards to that FBI search on Mar-a-Lago, Trump's home. Some new details that give us a little bit more of the contours of what's going on, of also his shifting defenses. He's kind of all over the map about what he's saying about it. And there's also a little bit of political fallout now. We can see the Republicans a little bit more divided about exactly how to respond to this. We also see some poll numbers showing that this might not be good for Trump overall, but it seems to be very good for him with regards to the Republican base. We also want to give you the details of this attack on an FBI office in Cincinnati. The gunman was ultimately shot dead by law enforcement and increased threats against the FBI in the wake of this raid.

So we have all of that. Also, the attack on Salman Rushdie is reportedly now beginning to recover, but that road to recovery is very long. We'll tell you what we know about the attacker. And a story we haven't talked about for a minute, but we have some new details about exactly what happened in that horrific onset tragedy with regards to Alec Baldwin, a new FBI report there. A lot of FBI

in the show today. Yeah, that's right. I will tell you about that. We also have Alex Holder on. He is that documentarian who was subpoenaed by the January 6th committee, also subpoenaed down in the Georgia investigation of Trump. He had sort of, well, the film is called Unprecedented. He really did have unprecedented access to Trump and to his family in the run-up to the election. I actually watched the whole thing last night, and it was really weird reliving the whole election because so much happened that there were just pieces I completely memory-hulled. I forgot how close it was to Election Day when Trump got COVID. It was in the hospital and on death's door right before the election. I sort of forgot how close to election day.

It was crazy. Anyway. Reliving it is fun. Yes, indeed. Couple of announcements before we start, though. One at the top. This is for our premium members. So you guys might have noticed we've been having a lot of issues with YouTube in terms of processing our full show.

This only applies to those who are premium members. At the top of your newsletter, you're going to have the ability to vote today. So after talking with our technical crew, we have two options. Number one, we can degrade the quality of our full show despite our beautiful 4K cameras, which you guys helped pay for, which will basically ensure that it will process in time for everybody able to watch it at 11 a.m. EST, or we can send out the show on Vimeo. There's a voting link. We will go with whatever the vote decides at the top of all of your newsletter today. We'll let the vote run, I guess, for the next 48 hours or so. And then depending on what the results are that, that will be what we do going forward.

We promised you guys you'd get the show at 11. So currently, the way YouTube has been processing our show, in some cases, Crystal, some people haven't been able to watch it up until 1140, 1150, and that's just not acceptable to us whatsoever. So let us know what you would decide. If you want to see it on YouTube, that's fine. Vimeo, just so people know, it does have Chromecast so people can still watch it on TV and all of that. And I'm told it has a better processing time, but I haven't been using it because some people didn't like it. So we'll go with what the full community wants, and we'll let you guys know what the results are. So degrade the quality. Yes.

But keep it on YouTube. Correct. Get it on time, degrade the quality, or switch to Vimeo. Yes. High quality, but obviously different platform. Bingo. Those are the choices. And we should also mention, live show down in Atlanta. That's right.

September 16th. Boom, September 16th. We're coming. As we said, mass ticket sales all being there. Exactly one month from tomorrow. Go ahead and buy your tickets. Last remaining tickets are there for everybody. Go ahead and buy them.

That came out fast. It really is. It came out out of the corner. It felt like forever. What is time even? It's literally less than a month. Okay. Okay, so the very latest developments, as you guys know,

we had this raid on Mar-a-Lago. FBI goes in, shocking development, and there immediately were a lot of calls for increased transparency from the DOJ. Hey, we want to see what you're doing. We want to see what you took from here. Merrick Garland gave a press conference and said, OK, I'm authorizing the unsealing because the president revealed the existence of this raid and some of the details. I'm going to go ahead and ask the court to unseal the search warrant and the inventory list of what was taken in that search. After some debate, I think internally, the Trump team agreed. They said, okay, we're okay with this. And so those documents became public. Here's some of what we learned there. Let's go ahead and put the Wall

Street Journal up on the screen. They were among the first news outlets to actually get their hands on these documents. They recovered, the FBI, 11 sets of classified documents in the Trump search according to that list of inventory. And I'm going to show you the inventory list in a minute. It doesn't go into a lot of specific detail, but it does give you some sort of high-level categories that give us a little bit of insight. And also on the search warrant, it indicates which criminal statutes they are actually, you know, that this investigation has to do with. So here's a little bit of the detail from this Wall Street Journal report. They say FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home removed 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret and meant to be only available in special government facilities.

That is according to that search warrant and inventory list. The FBI agents took around 20 boxes of items, binders of photos. Some of the details here are sort of amusing. A handwritten note in the executive grant of clemency for Roger Stone. List of items removed from the property shows. Also included in the list was information about the president of France. There were some additional reporting about some of the specifics of the documents that were removed. I believe it was the Washington Post who had the bombshell report that some sort of nuclear information was included in the documents that they were at least searching for.

New York Times reporting that it included special access programs. That is some of the most highly sensitive information that the government has. Let's go ahead and put the image of the inventory list up on the screen, just to give you a sense of the sort of high-level categories that they have on here. You know, they list sort of like general categories of documents, but they don't get into like nuclear secrets or anything like that. They do indicate, though, that there is quite a bit of secret and top secret documents that were taken out of Mar-a-Lago, or at least they're marked secret and top secret. We'll get into some of the debate about classification, how all of that works,

which we've been discussing on this show already. Next, let's put the New York Times up on the screen, which gets into some of the laws and criminal statutes that were listed in this search warrant. So there were three criminal statutes that were mentioned, one of which, which is the kind of most eye-catching in terms of its name, is a provision of the Espionage Act. It criminalizes the unauthorized retention or disclosure of information related to national defense that could be used to harm the U.S. or aid a foreign adversary. Each offense can carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. Worth noting with regards to the Espionage Act, it doesn't actually require that you're like a spy. As I just indicated, it just requires that you had, as they say, unauthorized retention or

disclosure of information related to national defense. So even just, you know, having it when you're not supposed to and it could be a risk could subject you to prosecution under the Espionage Act. Of course, also the Espionage Act was, in my opinion, abused by the Trump administration to go after Julian Assange, but that's another story for another day. They also have in here obstruction, which could be related to the fact that we now know the Trump administration had been in contact with the FBI and the DOJ and the National Archives. They've been asking for these documents. They've even been issued a subpoena previously for these documents, claimed they'd sent it over. And clearly that wasn't the case.

So that could be what's playing into the obstruction charge that's not charged, but criminal statute that's listed here. He's not been indicted. There haven't been any charges filed. The third law criminalizes, it's called Section 2071, criminalizes the theft or destruction of government documents. It makes it a crime punishable in part by up to three years in prison per offense for anyone with custody of any record or document from federal court or public office to willfully and unlawfully conceal, remove, mutilate, falsify, or destroy it. One thing that is of note that we can talk about more when we get into some of Trump's defenses is that none of been cases in the past where the documents weren't classified and there was a charge. So it would be unusual that predates our system of classification. And so if the classification markings are sort of considered an indicator that this could be a problem for our national defense,, which is a lot of people looked at the actual inventory. There were four separate boxes, Box 10A, 11A, 13A, and 14A, which were labeled as either miscellaneous secret documents, miscellaneous top secret documents, or miscellaneous confidential documents. So the reason that all of that qualification and classification matters is it refers to the various levels of classification. You both have like a normal level of classification, secret, top secret. Then there's special compartmentalized information, which is very, very classified up into the quote unquote need to know basis. Obviously the president is the ultimate classification authority. So previously,

and we will get to some of Trump's defense, where he speaks about classification and how his ability as president of the United States to declassify supersedes anything. It just bears the fact that all three of the laws that are cited specifically in the search warrant do not necessarily mean the information itself has to be classified. That being said, as you pointed out, these are very novel interpretations of the law, not even interpretation. They have not been tested yet in a court and especially not been tested against the former president of the United States. For the Espionage Act, that's the case. For the other, obstruction and, you know, the one that's like criminalizing the theft or destruction of government documents, that one, you know, it's widely accepted that that doesn't have to be classified documents. And I think that they've

been charged that way in the past. The Espionage Act 1, as I said, the idea is the fact that the documents are classified is an indication to the court that these are documents that are very serious from a national security perspective. But you can imagine the situation where, you know, he's doing his, oh, I waved my hand and said they're declassified. But it's information that is clearly extremely sensitive. I think there's some reporting also that some of the documents had to do with our, you know, human assets, like intelligence assets overseas. And when they talk about special access programs, this is the type of information that literally no one can sort of take with them.

You have to go and view it inside of one of these government skiffs that are designed for viewing this sort of sensitive information. So that's what we know about what was in the inventory list. That's what we know about what the criminal statutes are that they were able to take to a federal judge and at least convince that judge that they had likelihood that they would find evidence of these crimes at Mar-a-Lago. So you've got Espionage Act, you've got obstruction, and then you've got, I think that last one, isn't that the one that Trump sort of beefed up because he wanted to- Yeah, that was section 207. Own the libs with regards to Hillary.

Criminalizing the theft or destruction of government documents that makes it a crime punishable up to three years in prison for anyone with custody of any record or document from federal court or public office do willfully and unlawfully conceal, I also do think it's worth reading this particular line from the warrant. Agents were authorized to seize, 2017, and January 20th, 2021, obviously the dates that Trump was actually president of the United States, as well as, quote, any evidence of the knowing alteration, destruction, or concealment of any government and or presidential records, or any documents with classification markings. So they had a very, very wide, basically, authority to seize whatever the hell they wanted in between that period. And in terms of the rooms that they were allowed to search, it was basically anything that wasn't, you know, where the guests are staying in the sort of like, you know, private club part of it.

But any place where Trump might have been storing documents, his office, the basement in particular, they were authorized to go. And there was also reporting that's come out that they were actually, you know, because they have closed circuit TV, they were able to watch the search. Yes. The Trump people from, I think he was in New Jersey at Bedminster at that time. So interesting little detail there. So another piece here that could end up being relevant, legally relevant. Let's go ahead and put the New York Times tear sheet up on the screen. So we also now know that at least one of Trump's lawyers signed off on the idea that classified material had all been returned. So the headline for the New York Times is Trump's lawyer told

Justice Department that classified material had been returned. The lawyer signed a statement in June that all documents marked as classified, not actually classified, but just marked as classified and held in boxes in storage at Mar-a-Lago had been given back. The search at the former president's home on Monday turned up more. So this is where, you know, this could be relevant in the future if there was an obstruction charge. The fact that, you know, they had had visits from actually very high level individuals from the Department of Justice. Trump met directly with them. They said, and this lawyer signed the statement saying, we gave you everything that's marked classified. That's all we have.

And that clearly turned out to be not the case. And that's basically not in dispute anymore. And there is a dispute over whether they were technically still classified or not. But they definitely still had the classification markings on them, whatever legal interpretation you go with as to whether they were classified or not. That written declaration was made after a June 3rd visit by Jay Brat. He's the top counterintelligence official in the Justice Department's National Security Division. The way that the New York Times phrases this very sort of diplomatically is it's a possible indication that Mr. Trumper's team were not fully forthcoming with federal investigators about the material. Could help explain why a potential violation of a criminal statute related to obstruction was cited. They also, and this is also I think new in this piece, the Justice Department after that visit subpoenaed surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago that was recorded over a 60-day period,

including views from outside of that storage room where apparently a lot of this material was being held. According to a person briefed on the matter, the footage showed that after one instance in which Justice Department officials were in contact with Mr. Trump's team, boxes were moved in and out of the room. They say that activity prompted concern among investigators about the handling of the material. And then you had, last week we reported they had some confidential source, you know, very close to Trump, possibly a Secret Service agent. They say they had at least one witness provided the investigators with info that led them to want to further press Mr. Trump for material, according to a person familiar with the inquiry. Yeah, this is some pretty wild stuff. And I think this June meeting is going to be very critical in the time in the

times to come, because it's in that meeting that actually Trump himself popped in the door at the very beginning. He didn't speak with the investigators. That's where the Justice Department was basically like, hey, we still have some concerns. And the lawyers signed at least one of the lawyers, and I think that will probably become very contested in a court of law, said that they had turned over all of these documents with classified markings. Why I get confused is because in that meeting they also still said, concerned Crystal, to them that the documents were not being stored in a secure enough location. So why would they care about the storage of so-called materials if they also at the same time thought that they had left with all the classified material? Because apparently in that meeting they had also turned over some more classified material. That's why I don't particularly understand. Why would you be concerned with storage of documents if you also have a written declaration now that classified documents have been turned over?

I guess. I mean, I don't know. There's a lot of pieces of this that I still have a lot of questions on and the timeline and why Trump held on to these classified documents after he had there that are still technically the people's property, even though they're not classified marked documents. That's my guess. Again, I don't really know, but that would be one plausible explanation is like, well, they knew there was stuff that was still there that they thought belonged with the National Archives, but wasn't necessarily like sensitive national defense related or classified information. That's my thought. There's one other piece here.

I don't know what this means. I don't know what to make of it. And we can always take these things with a grain of salt. But as Garland was building up to doing his press conference, making his announcement that he's going to unseal the search warrant and unseal this inventory list. According to this article, they say a person close to Mr. Trump reached out to a Justice Department official to pass along a message from the former president to the attorney general. Mr. Trump wanted Mr. Garland to know that he had been checking in with people around the country and found them to be enraged by the search. The message Mr. Trump wanted conveyed, What do you think of that? I don't know. We'll discuss it also in our next block in the context of some of the attack that we saw there on the FBI and more.

I honestly have no idea. I mean, both it could be a bargaining chip. It could be trying to move things in a conciliatory direction. It also raises questions around whether it's about him, whether it's about the people around him. That could also be one of those things where, I mean, maybe it could be coded as a message of I'm willing to turn over my lawyer or like throw somebody under the bus. I mean, we should also consider that Trump's defense, and let's throw the next one up there from Business Insider, he says that the current defense is that everyone, quote,

brings their home, their work from time to time, and the files were automatically declassified. We'll get to the automatic declassification, considering it doesn't actually matter around classification technically with all of this. I do think that bearing some of the discussion around how he handled the classified information, you and I were talking about this yesterday. And John Bolton, and look, you know, John Bolton, you can always take whatever he says with a grain of salt. He says in his capacity as national security advisor that he often saw Trump ask for different elements of the classified briefing from the presidential daily brief that he would

receive from the CIA director. And so that often would end up on his desk. I mean, you know, it's interesting to recall my own experience. I once interviewed Trump right before he got the presidential daily brief, and there was this entire like coterie of CIA agents, including the CIA director, Gina Haspel, actually right outside the office as I was coming out. And they had all these posters and like all this information. So I guess they do literally carry physical information as they're walking in there. Apparently he would ask to hang on to certain sects of that. And actually I also recall whenever he was president,

when he tweeted out that facility of an Iranian nuclear reactor. And that apparently didn't clear – I mean he doesn't have to clear it with anybody. But they were upset that he had done so. More so, I'm pointing to the fact that it did not seem out of character for him to very willy-nilly just take classified information, put it on his desk. And you were saying that it was long a kind of a Trump strategy to just have everything on his desk just get thrown into a box. There was a pretty good—because this gets to—this is what I'm talking about in my monologue like the competing theories about why right why did he take these documents and i think more perplexingly because that would be easily explained by just like this is what trump does it was chaotic he didn't want anybody to pack in the last two days suddenly they're like oh my god we got to pack

the whole white house and it was just a disaster and mess and so he ends up with stuff he's not supposed to have that i could kind of buy but then the piece that gets more tricky is like, okay, but then you had a long time to make it right and get the documents back that you're supposed to. And clearly you didn't. I mean, clearly you or your lawyer or whoever lied to the FBI about what type of material you still had. So why? Why did you do that? And so one of the theories is this just basically like, yeah, he's a pack rat and he gets attached to this stuff and he doesn't, you know,

he doesn't recognize this as an important law or something that he has to abide by because it's Trump and he thinks that the rules don't apply to him. So over the course even of his business career, according to this NBC News article that had a lot of sources, current aides, former aides, confidants, longtime, you know, everybody who's been involved with Trump sort of attested to this being his practice, that he would have his notes and his scraps of newspaper clippings, classified documents potentially on his desk. At the end of the day, an aide would take it and put it in a box. And then once the box was filled, seal the box, put it away. And so

this practice basically continues into the White House, according to this article. And I've actually also spoken to people who were indicating this might have been what happened. And in particular, in those classified presidential daily briefings, if there was something that sort of he felt vindicated him or he felt had some like historical import that he felt attached to, he would take it and keep it. And so, again, that's one theory of how and why he ended up with all this crap at his beach house in Mar-a-Lago. I shouldn't say crap how he ended up with all this stuff, some of which may be, you know, very classified and sensitive information. So, so anyway, I think the shifting defenses from Trump are also, it's classic Trump. He throws everything at the wall, right? The very first response from him and from a lot of his like Republican allies was the FBI must have planted it, must have planted it. So effectively a denial that he even had anything

that he wasn't supposed to have. If anything was taken, it must be that the FBI planted it. Then it shifts to the one that we had up, which is that as we can all relate to, this is what he says, everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time.

American presidents are no different because I'm sure we can all relate to having top secret classified documents stored away at our private resort down in Florida. Very relatable situation. So that was the next one, which is sort of an acknowledgement that he had materials that had been marked classified. But also in that response, he says that he had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken into the residence were automatically deemed to be declassified the moment that he removed them. So this goes to that question of like, you know, the president is the ultimate authority in terms of what's classified and what's not. And so he's saying, if I had it in my possession, it is automatically the case that it was declassified.

Now, again, as we pointed out before, these criminal statutes don't necessarily depend on this question of, do you have to go through some procedure to make them? Is it enough? It was declassified in President Trump's own mind. Is that sufficient? efficient, some conservative legal scholars in particular say yes. That may ultimately not even be relevant to the criminal statutes involved, but, you know, it's still an important question, especially when you get to the Espionage Act charges, which, again, in the past have always been based on the presence of classified material. Kash Patel, who's, you know, now a top aide to Chinese, talked about being, you know, very high-level Trump advisor now and potentially if he goes back into the White House, he's sort of, I guess, the mastermind of the operation at the current present point.

He went on – I don't know what outlet this was – to defend – It was Fox. What was it? It was Fox, yeah. He was on with Fox to defend Trump, and he takes a very aggressive stance in terms of Trump could declassify with the wave of the hand. Let's take a listen to what he has to say. President Trump made it his mission to declassify and be transparent. In October of 2020, he issued a sweeping declassification order for every Russiagate document and every single Hillary Clinton document. Then on the way out of the White House, he issued further declassification orders, declassifying whole

sets of documents. And this is a key fact that most Americans are missing. President Trump, as the sitting president, is a unilateral authority for declassification. He can literally stand over a set of documents and say, these are now declassified. And that is done with definitive action immediately. This is something I'd highlighted on the day of the raid, because Cash has been talking about this for a while. I think the reason that it also—the counter to what he's saying, though, is that actually there is a whole legal process you have to go through. Even though Trump is the ultimate classification authority, you actually have to change the classification markings, and you have to legally kind of declare them declassified. We went through a lot of this at the height of Russiagate and more, and there were all of these discussions around declassification and FISA and what the CIA and the FBI wanted to declassify and didn't.

Trump actually very often actually acquiesced to a lot of FBI requests not to declassify some documents, much to the chagrin of many MAGA faithful. But what we're pointing to more is that it's not that simple. You can't just say it is declassified. And actually, this will ignite almost certainly a court battle, because if it is that simple, then that simple. Like, you can't just say it is declassification. And actually, this will ignite almost certainly a court battle because if it is that simple, then it actually changes the entire way that the classification process works because he technically has, while he has that ability,

lawyers have to go through and formally mark declassification in order for it to, quote-unquote, take effect. Well, and here's, there's a couple other reasons why this isn't really a sufficient defense. Number one, as we've talked about, the criminal statutes don't necessarily depend on being classified anyway. Number two, if you really like blanket declassified all this stuff, then it would be available by a public records request. Journalists would be able to issue a FOIA, you know, and be able to get access to whatever this is. And at least based on the reporting, this is some really highly sensitive stuff.

And there's no indication that like you can't have the benefits of declassification just for yourself, but not have made it publicly available. I mean, that would be a problem. Another thing is President Biden has the same authority. So Trump could have declassified documents that President Biden then decides to reclassify. Trump is not the same authority. So Trump could have declassified documents that President Biden then decides to reclassify. Trump is not the final authority. Once something is declassified, that's not the end of the story. A future president could say, no, actually, I think these documents should be classified. And if the standard is it's just in the president's own mind and there's no process that has to be followed, you know, Joe Biden could come and say, actually, in my mind, I classified these documents. So it's,

there are legal scholars who take the position that Kash Patel and Trump and John Solomon and all of his people are taking that basically like you don't have to do anything. The markings don't have to be removed. There doesn't have to be a formal process. It is enough that the president had the thought these documents are now declassified to make them declassified. Now, that is not a widely accepted view, but it is a view that could be contested in court and really hasn't, there has not been a lot of legal challenges to define exactly how this is supposed to be, how it's supposed to work. But the last piece that is a problem for them is, as we were mentioning before, his lawyer signed off on a statement that didn't say,

we no longer have classified documents. It said, we no longer have documents with classified markings. So again, that makes it sort of irrelevant whether, you know, they thought that they were declassified or he declassified them or whatever, because they clearly still had the top secret markings on them. So we started with, in terms of the Trump defense, we started with the FBI planted. Anything that was bad, the FBI planted. Then we went to, well, I declassified this all in my own mind, and who doesn't take their work home from time to time? Now we've moved on to another defense, and let's go ahead and put this one up on the screen, which is he's saying that a lot of the material that they took was privileged attorney-client material and also executive privilege material, which they knowingly should

not have taken. And then he says, by copy of this truth, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. So now the defense is like, oh, this was attorney Klein. This was executive privilege material. Now, one expert that we were both looking at was saying that, you know, it's often the case that the DOJ sees as material that turns out to be privileged. What they do, how they handle that is not to not take the material to start with, that they have what's called filter teams to try to weed out anything that's privileged,

imperfect process, but give it all back is not how it works. It's also kind of contradicts something that Trump had said before, which was like, oh, you just had to ask for the docs, and I would have given it to you, right? And it's like, now he's like, I want them all back. So anyway, of course, he's messing all over the place and just throwing everything at the wall that could possibly stick. Yeah. I mean, look, we're spending a lot of time. I think, whoa, we've been going on like half an hour for this. Yeah.

Because listen, this is this. Whether you like it or not, this is the central story in American politics. Like what is going to happen, the heart of the investigation, what we know, what we don't know, what the actual legal wrangling. Because it's going to have massive effect. I mean, ultimately, if this does result in some sort of prosecution, I mean, it would literally be the trial of the century. I can't even imagine. Political ramification, fallout, the integrity of the DOJ, the subsequent congressional record, how it affects 2024. So I do think that it's very, very important that everybody understand all of the details in and out and what the possible ramifications for everything are.

Yes, that's right. And for my own assessment of this is prior to this raid and search, I would have said it is less likely than not that Trump is going to get indicted. I would have said it is less than 50% chance that Trump is going to be indicted. After the search, I think it is definitely more likely than not. Really? Wow. I see. I see. I don't know. I genuinely don't know. Yeah. I mean, listen, I don't either. But my thought is why I've shifted on that is because it is an extraordinary measure to take. I mean, I saw a lot of liberals who were like, don't call it a raid. It was just them doing their job. And really, this is a big deal.

And it's like, no, it is a big deal. You know, you can, and I do, I mean, I think Elise should be held accountable. I think if Trump, you know, committed crimes, I don't have an issue with him being indicted and prosecuted for that. But we shouldn't pretend like this is some, like, small thing, no big deal.

FBI agents showing up at the home of the former president, you know, with a search warrant and going in and seizing top secret classified materials like that is a monumental moment in American politics with potentially seismic ramifications. And I, you know, have I expect that Merrick Garland is intelligent enough to know that this would be a massive political deal and that it would be unlikely to go forward with such a thing if you weren't planning on going that next step and ultimately charging him. But that's just my guess. And really, honestly, no one knows except Merrick Garland and potentially a couple other people. Nobody knows. And I did see some speculation, Crystal, that actually the search warrant may have been just a recovery-like method in and of itself, right? Which is that it wouldn't even be to the end of prosecution, although that is not how it was justified.

It could have just been an end in terms of actual final seizure that was up to their standards. But like you said, I just don't think that they would go through with that if it wasn't to a much broader end, given the massive—and perhaps it might have even changed since that happened, given the fallout politically and the level of pressure that everybody's feeling right now. Yes. So that's how we have it. Indeed. All right. So let's go ahead and get to some of the political fallout here. As best we know, this is also a very murky picture because it's very early early and we don't know how this all ultimately plays out.

But let's go ahead and put this Axios piece up on the screen. So there was a lot of certainty from the Republicans and from the sort of right wing media, Fox News and all the rest. And immediately after it was revealed that this raid had occurred. And then as some of the details started to come out, the response started to be a little bit less certain. So they say here cracks emerge in GOP's Mar-a-Lago response. And you still have plenty of Republicans, Elise Stefanik, who are all in calling the search a complete abuse, suggesting that this is all directly because Trump is Joe Biden's most likely political opponent in 2024. People bringing up, you know, Hunter Biden and Hillary Clinton and all kinds of other things.

Right. But you do have some who are calling for a little bit, taking a little bit more of a cautious approach. I thought this one was kind of funny. So you have this one representative, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who's actually a former FBI agent. He says that it is incumbent upon everybody to act in a way that's becoming of the office they hold that is not casting judgment on anything until you know all the facts. He said his call for transparency about the search is grounded in a desire to restore the FBI's credibility. Quote, there's nothing I want more than the American public to love the FBI, Sagar. Oh, wow. Not something else.

You also had this congressman Republican from Utah, Chris Stewart, who told Politico, quote, I mean, if he had actual special access programs, do you know how extraordinarily sensitive that is? If that were actually at his residence, that would be a problem. You also saw in some of the response, so immediately after this happened, the House Freedom Caucus, which is, you know, super pro-Trump, they were ready to go out and give a presser at 9 a.m. And let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is from my tweet. You had this little detail in one of the New York Times stories that was quite interesting to me that said, some senior Republicans have been warned by allies of Mr. Trump not to continue to be aggressive in criticizing the

Justice Department, the FBI, over the matter because there's possible more damaging information related to the search will become public. And then lo and behold, the very next day, the Republican House Freedom Caucus's press conference, where they were certainly going to go all in on this, the deep state, witch hunt, et cetera, et cetera, was canceled. And instead, they had Republicans who sit on the House Intel Committee give a press conference that was a little bit more muted in tone than what you were likely to get from the House Freedom Caucus. And sure enough, after that is when we got more of the information about what types of documents may have been seized from the House. I think everybody's in the same game we are. It's wait and see. Nobody knows. I mean, we don't know what was even taken. This stuff takes a while. The warrant is probably the most

definitive thing we're going to get out of this in a long time. Because the other thing, and from what I've read, the actual affidavit which was submitted to the court, that has all of the incriminating evidence, all of the actual justification for the search. The warrant, we had talked about this, but frankly, it didn't tell us all that much. Yes, it cited the correct laws, the laws under which they were looking, and it gave us the inventory of what they were seeking. Also, we have a little bit about what was seized, but we don't know the actual impetus for the search outside of what's been leaked, which is what makes it so frustrating, honestly. I mean, and also in terms of political response, how can you calibrate based on that? You have no idea.

Yeah, but it is noteworthy that when the info first came out about the raid, they didn't have any qualms about waiting for, let's wait and see and see what comes out of this. They were all in, and it was a uniform message that whole evening, all the tweets that went out. We covered how every single Trump 2024 potential competitor, Pence and DeSantis and Pompeo and all the rest were singing the same tune. And then as they started to get, I guess, these warnings from Trump allies and also more of the information came out in the press about, oh, this was related to special access programs. There may have been nuclear information involved or whatever, there's been a little bit of a moderating effect where they're taking, some of them are taking a bit more of a wait-and-see approach. You had Mitch McConnell who was asked about the FBI search,

and he just wouldn't respond to the question at all. Let's take a listen to that. What is your reaction to the FBI raid yesterday at Morales? I'm here today to talk about the flood and to recover from the flood. Yep, not saying a damn word. Not a word. That's actually very reminiscent of the approach that Chuck Schumer took on the night when we did learn of the raid. He was on with Rachel Maddow, and he said the same thing.

I'm here to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act. I have no comment on this because, you know, we need to wait and see how the facts unfold. So it's interesting to see them in real time sort of get a little bit less confident in exactly how hard they're willing to go here. And I think some, too, were, you know, when you had Marjorie Taylor Greene and others leaning in to defund the FBI, which I did a whole thing about last week. I think, you know, they also recognize that politically after they spent so much time attacking the left for defund the police, and then they just turn right around and are like, defund the FBI. They realize that politically maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to do.

I think they're also probably scared. I mean, this always gets back to, I mean, Glenn always has that famous clip that he brings up from 2017 where Chuck Schumer's like, I wouldn't mess with the CIA. They can really destroy your career. I mean, if I was in elected office, I would be scared too that these people would come after me for criticism. They may have an extraordinary amount of power. So I think that all of that remains to be seen. I really don't know. I mean, in terms of the official response, it's pretty interesting that everybody kind of has, I think the reason and what explains the initial GOP

reaction is it was crazy. I mean, that's what our, we couldn't believe it, right? We're like, wow, they actually, this gets to the point you're making our previous block. Raiding a former president, you know, you can say it's not a, it's a raid. Okay. They stormed in there. Like they literally broke into the guy's safe. He's the former president and likely, you know, at least a candidate for the next one. That's insane. It's never been done before. So I think that the reaction to that was viewed very much through that context. And now, as these things always go, you're in the wait and see.

Nobody knows how it's going to go. Trump himself has now got like nine different explanations as to what the hell is going on. Things are not good, you know, given that legal disclosure. You said at the end of our previous one you think you're much closer to him being indicted. I don't know if that is the on. Things are not good, you know, given that legal disclosure. You said at the end of our previous one, you think you're much closer to him being indicted. I don't know if that is the case, but the fact that it's, you know, at least a 50% proposition, that's nuts. I mean, ahead of 2024. So you can't disentangle this in politics. Oh, not possible. I wanted to, one thing I wanted to say about, because, you know, we got the search warrant and we got the inventory list, and now there's calls for that affidavit to be released.

I hope it is. I would love to see it. I don't know that it's, I don't know that it would be fair to Trump if you release it because. It's true. You know, this is. If you ever want to try him in court. Then you end up basically trying him in the court of public opinion versus, you know, if you are going to go through a legal process or if you're not going to go through a legal process and you're not going to ultimately indict him. I'm not sure it's

fair to have that full affidavit out that will have a lot of suggestive material, which has not been, you know, fully like vetted down in a court of law. So I don't think that he would necessarily want to have that affidavit released. And I think it's highly unlikely that it is going to be released. And, you know, part of why this happened now, we suspect, is because we were right outside that 90 days before the election window. Now we are inside of that window. So it is likely that we may not learn or hear a lot more on this until after the midterms. The other big question that we have been pondering, and reportedly Trump is

being pushed by some of his allies to go ahead and announce for president because this has sort of hardened his base back to him. If there were people flirting with other candidates, Ron DeSantis and others, this has been, it appears in the early numbers thus far, like it has been galvanizing for the Republican base. That's different than the overall electorate. But in terms of the Republican base, the early indications are this has been galvanizing. We have some numbers from Trafalgar about how the raid might impact the midterms. Fairly speculative, but let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. So they asked, does the FBI raid on President Trump increase your motivation to vote in the 2022 election? This graph that we're looking at here, I believe,

is, yeah, this is just Republicans. And Republicans say, 83% of Republicans say that it increases their motivation to vote. When you have, you know, people who are independents, they're more like 70%. Democrats are less likely to say that this increases their motivation. They, 55% of Democrats say that it increases their motivation. So, you know, this could be something that further motivates the GOP base. Of course, I think the GOP base was already fairly motivated to come out and vote against Joe Biden and the Democrats. And then with regards to Trump and where he stands in a, you know, potential GOP presidential primary, let's go ahead and put this up on the screen.

Again, early indications that this has done nothing but help him in a potential GOP primary. This is Morning Consult. They say Trump's 2024 primary support reaches new heights after FBI raid. 58%, roughly three in five GOP voters now say they would vote for Trump. That is the highest level since he's been, since he lost the last election. So, you know, it didn't jump up like an astronomical percentage. I think it may even be within the margin of error. Last time this was tested last month, he was at 54 percent. Now it's 58 percent. But still, it shows, you know, that this seems to have in order to his benefit, the person who suffered actually in terms of where the vote share came out of was Ron DeSantis. You also had a, you also had a high number,

71 percent, say that they wanted Trump to run again. That is also different. That had also gone up from previous polls about whether Republican voters even wanted him to run or not. So, look, it's early days. There's still a lot more that could come out. There's a lot of ways that this could play out. But I think to me, the most telling thing is what we covered before, which is the way that all of these potential competitors immediately bent the knee to him, just showing this is still his party. Trump's party, there's no question. Even if he's convicted, he'll run it. I mean, I just think that there's a lot of cope in this town. Here's the truth. He will be the leader until the day

he dies. Even if he doesn't run, he will be kingmaker. I mean, I actually predicted a lot of this whenever he lost. I was like, look, if you think you're rid of Trump, you're nuts. And as I said, I said, he will require everybody who wants to run for office to have a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago and beg him for his endorsement. Well, that's pretty much exactly what happened in the last two years. I mean, look, even if he's somehow legally wrangled or whatever, the idea that he won't be and won't be the leading driver enforcing so many of the people like Kerry Lake, like Arizona. Look at what has happened to the state of Arizona and the GOP there. Not indistinguishable from – sorry, completely unrecognizable to the Arizona GOP of 10 years ago. The same in Wisconsin.

We covered there that Wisconsin primary, the lieutenant governor, who's like this Scott Walker teacher union busting icon, loses a primary. Unbelievable. He rewrote the GOP across this entire nation. And I think that this just tells you the same story. And it's a very clarifying event, which honestly, look, it would have been clarified in a primary regardless, but it's also- Right. I mean, he has successfully made the Republican Party about one thing and one thing alone, which is him. I mean, there is no issue set, no value, no principle that is above Trump and above your loyalty to him, your fealty to him, your willingness to embrace any and everything that he says.

He has successfully made the party just about the personality of him. So how are you going to beat him? I mean, I just—listen, Kyle and I actually had this debate on his channel over the weekend. Yeah, so what is his theory? His theory is just basically be a little humble because anything can happen. This guy could end up in prison. You know, we've had a lot of times before in the past where people are very certain that it wasn't going to be Trump or very certain that it was going to be Hillary. And Hillary was definitely going to.

So his whole argument is basically like have a little humility. It is possible that someone could come out and defeat him. And, you know, having the FBI raid your home isn't actually a good thing. Sure, but that doesn't preclude his political influence, and I think that is what I would say. I mean, look, defeat and a head-to-head, him actually on the ballot, I don't think so. A lot of viewers did, by the way, write in,

Eugene Webb did run while he was in prison and received two million votes. There you go. So there is a historical precedent. Oh, wasn't there like a guy who was in prison who was on the ballot against Obama in West Virginia?

Remember that? You know, that I honestly don't remember. There was some, anyway, yeah, so I guess you can run

for president from prison. Yes. It has been done is all I'm going to say. You never know. He was a socialist. He won a million votes

actually. Oh, that's right. Sorry, Eugene Debs. Yes, yes. Eugene Debs in 1920 ran from his prison cell. I knew about this. He got a million votes, actually. Oh, that's right. Sorry, Eugene Debs. Yes, yes. Eugene Debs, in 1920, ran for his prison cell. I knew about this. He got a million votes.

There you go. It can be done. It can be done. All right. And, I mean, I don't put it past him. So, listen, like I said, I debated on the other side of the coin. I think it's just, I think it's a lot of wish casting to imagine that Trump is losing his grip on the party. I think this whole event demonstrated what

a stronghold he continues to have. But listen, you never know. In American politics, you never know. That's what at least makes it fun to cover. All right, let's talk about the FBI. This is a very serious story. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Police went ahead and shot dead an armed man who tried to breach the Cincinnati, Ohio FBI building. This was all on Thursday where an armed standoff ensued where a man approached the FBI building in Cincinnati. He was basically pushed back from the FBI building onto a nearby interstate in kind of an hours-long standoff, eventually culminated in a gun battle, and he was shot dead by police who were on the scene. Later, the suspect was identified

as Ricky Schiffer. He's a 42-year-old man. Now, Mr. Schiffer, let's go ahead and put this next one up on the screen, actually was at the Capitol on January 6th, a diehard Trump supporter. And what has really come out since then is not just his presence at the Capitol on January 6th, but a series of tweets, Crystal, that he sent. Truths. Not tweets, sorry. Truths. Truths that he sent before all of this began. His very last truth actually was this.

Quote, well, I thought I had a way through bulletproof glass. I didn't. If you didn't hear from me, it's true. I tried attacking the FBI. It'll mean either I was taken off the internet, the FBI got me, or they sent the regular cops. Now, in previous truths, what he had said is, quote, it won't matter if we don't get violent. We see the courts are unfair and unconstitutional. All that is left is force.

And he says, I'm having trouble getting information. He was citing previous YouTubers and others talking about people who are gathering outside of Mar-a-Lago. I mean, clearly Mr. Schiffer was like a diehard. He was all in. Not a Trump supporter. He was absolutely all in and attacked. He thought he was fighting a war. Right, and this is where things get dicey. And I hope, we have a lot of people

of varying political stripes who watch this show. And I would just say that there is nothing regarding this situation which is worth you laying down your life. So please would just say that there is nothing regarding this situation which is worth you laying down your life. So please don't do that. And unfortunately, we have seen, let's put this up there on the screen, Ken Klippenstein talking about the FBI and DHS issuing joint intelligence bullets to their entire staff, warning of, quote, the potential for domestic violent extremists to carry out attacks in reaction to the FBI recent execution of a court-authorized search in Palm Beach. We've seen also some targeting of the actual FBI agents

who were in charge of the raid itself, and just some other crazy stuff happening here in Washington. I want to be clear at the top. We have no idea who this guy was, who actually did what I'm about to tell you, but let's put this up there. Overnight, over the weekend, a man set his car on fire, drove into the barricade near the U.S. Capitol, very close to where our studio is here right now, started shooting indiscriminately, and ultimately shot and killed himself. So went ahead, drove his car into the barricade,

shot indiscriminately, and ultimately killed himself. Was he a crazy person? Nobody knows. Ran himself into the barricade, shot indiscriminately, and ultimately killed himself. Was he a crazy person? Nobody knows. Ran himself into the barricade. Now, to be clear, it is not uncommon. We've had barricade incidents in the past. We had some Nation of Islam people, you know, like earlier this year. So it's not like it doesn't happen at least once or twice a year, but obviously the timing happening so close to what happened with the FBI, everybody's on very, very high alert. I think that, again, look, nothing is worth taking up arms and going to go shoot. At least currently, it probably won't be there ever in our lifetime. More what I'm saying is that tensions are high. There's a lot of

irresponsible rhetoric. And actually, I want to call back to what you discussed in our earlier block, which is when Trump conveyed to the Department of Justice, he was like, hey, there's a lot of people who are very upset. How can I, quote unquote, bring down the heat? I think this may be what he was referring to. Because also politically, what do we know? Which is that events like January 6th and more, I mean, it's not like it isn't ultimately used against many of the people for the cause that they were supposedly trying to do. It only justifies- It could ignite more of a police- It only justifies more of a police state.

It only justifies more of a police state. Ultimately, if your end is to reduce the police state, that is not the impact you are going to have here. Yeah, this guy reportedly showed up at the FBI office with a nail gun and an assault rifle. I guess maybe he thought the nail gun was going to pierce the bulletproof glass. That's an interesting one. Yeah, and I do want to read a little bit more of what he posted because I think it's kind of important. Just like, you know, we've dug into the manifesto of that white supremacist killer. And I think it's really important to understand the mindset.

And especially when you have right-wing commentators who, listen, it's a free country. You can say what you say, but the rhetoric is wildly irresponsible. But, Stephen Crowder out there, like, tomorrow is war, sleep well. Charlie Kirk saying similar things. Really? He said that? Yes. That's terrible. I mean, it's people, you may think it's all a game and that people aren't really taking you that seriously, but this asshole was taking you seriously. And so he was truthing the following.

He said, people, this is it. I hope a call to arms comes from someone better qualified. But if not, this is your call to arms from me. He goes on, go to the Army, Navy store, et cetera, et cetera. They've been conditioning us to accept tyranny and think we can't do anything for two years. This time we must respond with force. If you know of any protests or attacks, please post here. Somebody replies and says, are you proposing terrorism? To which he said, very important question. No, I am proposing war. Be ready to kill the enemy, not mass shootings where leftists go, not lighting buses on fire with transsexuals in them, not finding people with leftist signs in their yards and beating them up.

Violence is not all terrorism. Kill the FBI on sight. Be ready to take down other active enemies of the people and those who try to prevent you from doing it. So all of this over-the-top rhetoric about this is a civil war and it's 1776 and sleep well, tomorrow's all this stuff. This guy believed you. He believed you and committed an act of terrorism and violence. Yeah, he sacrificed his own life. Tried to murder FBI agents and, you know, and yeah, ultimately ended up dead himself. So again, I'm a major free speech advocate. We both are.

Absolutely. Which relates to what we're about to discuss. Yeah. If you have a platform, be responsible. Think about the people who are listening to you and who are taking actually literally seriously the words that are coming out of your mouth. Yeah. I couldn't agree more with that. Yeah. I mean, it is important that you read that.

People need to understand, like, how deranged. It's also just always remarkable to me how similar all radical rhetoric actually is. Yeah. You could replace that with Black Panthers in the 1970s. Yeah, right. It really, really, literally. Muslim extremists. The same thing.

Yep. Anyway, look, let's wait for the facts. Let's see what it is. I understand the tensions are high. And if anybody's out there talking about war, shut your mouth. Because, first of all, you're probably not going to be the one actually doing anything. And it's actual people like this guy. I don't know this guy's story, but I don't want to see anybody die for no good reason. Okay. Let's talk about Salman Rushdie, which relates obviously very much to this. And Mr. Rushdie, I want to give a brief top-er to all of this,

because some of you may not even know who this person was or what the background is. So Salman Rushdie is kind of a famous figure because all the way back in the 1970s and 80s, he wrote a book called The Satanic Verses. Now, in The Satanic Verses, there were provocative passages written. It's like a fictionalized work about Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, and more. Now, this recalls very previous controversies from the mid-2000s around Charlie Hebdo and Danish cartooners who would draw the Prophet Muhammad in likeness or that guy who was going to burn a Koran. Anyway, they were denounced by Muslim extremists. Rushdie is important because an actual fatwa was issued against his life by the Ayatollah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini. Now, the reason that matters is the fatwa is

essentially like a license to kill or like a sanctioned death by an Islamic cleric. Mr. Rushdie has essentially been under security guard since that time for decades. Yes, it's 1989. Mr. Rushdie has essentially been under security guard since that time, for decades. Yes, since 1989. 1989, that's right. Since he's had protection, either by the US government or various police authorities, he's essentially been traveling the world. Rushdie himself is a free speech absolutist, somebody who has really stood up and given the middle finger, both to the Iranian regime, but to anybody who criticized him. And I do think it's actually worth remembering. A lot of people in this country criticized him at the time for writing the satanic verses, including former president Jimmy Carter. They're like, this is needlessly

provocative. Look, I mean, the man can write whatever he wants. And if people are so sensitive that they're going to issue a literal license of death over it, then I think they're the idiots. So what happened is Rushdie was in New York. He was giving a speech and actually was going to discuss some of these themes when he was actually attacked by a 24-year-old man who was in attendance in the audience. So we have a little bit of the video from that incident. I'm going to speak over it. You can see here, let's go and put it up there, guys, which is that all of these people who are rushing over to Mr. Rushdie's aid, this happened right before the event was actually set to take place. This gentleman, the 24-year-old, got up out of the crowd, rushed the stage, which calls into a question a lot about what exactly was happening with the security procedures, and was repeatedly seen. At first, they identified as

punching, but eventually they identified as punching, but eventually it was identified as stabbing Rushdie repeatedly all throughout his body. Rushdie was stripped and given medical attention. He was actually airlifted away from the venue to a nearby hospital. The update that we've gotten from his family is that he is likely to lose an eye.

He is on his way to recovery. He was in the ICU in critical condition. He's very, very lucky to be alive, but he's an old man. He's in his way to recovery. He was in the ICU in critical condition. He's very, very lucky to be alive. But, you know, he's an old man. He's in his 70s. So it's not exactly going to be an easy road. Now, the actual guy who went ahead and attacked Rushdie, let's put this up there. This is reporting from Vice News that just broke last night.

The 24-year-old was accused of stabbing Rushdie, had been in, quote, direct contact with members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on social media. That is according to European and Middle Eastern intelligence officials who told Vice World News. Now, this morning, we got some even more interesting information, which is that the attacker's mother. So this attacker, he was actually raised here in New Jersey. His name is Hadi Matar. He himself was raised in a secular household. His mother has said that he became a, quote, moody introvert after returning from a trip to the Middle East in 2018. And, Crystal, you were telling me from reading the interview, he's an odd guy in that he really didn't have a lot going on in his life, went to the Middle East in 2018, came back, started living in the basement, became very strange.

Like a recluse. Strange from his family. This is a classic story for ISIS. I studied a lot of this, which is that these guys, like, disaffected, raised in the West, get some sort of tangential connection to their, quote, unquotequote heritage, withdraw from secular life that they're raised in, basically radicalize themselves online. According here, at least advice, he had some contact with the IRGC or with IRGC representatives or probably enthusiasts or whatever, cutouts on social media, which inspired him to go

and carry out this final fatwa against Salman Rushdie. I mean, what strikes me is he's only a 24-year-old. I mean, he's so young. So he was not even alive. I was not even alive when Satanic Verses and Fatwa and all. So it's such a longstanding. I mean, you know, when it first happened, I was like, I can't even believe this. This is a story out of 1995.

Right. I had to go back and refresh my mind. Exactly. I was like, oh, my God. Yeah. What is the controversy? Obviously, I'd always known Salman Rushdie, but I mean, this is really something which, if you're Gen X or a boomer, you're much more likely to be familiar with. So that's the state of play. Now, to be clear,

the IRGC connection and more has not been confirmed by the United States. The Justice Department or nobody has yet indicted him for terrorism. And, you know, actually, let's go and put the last element up there, please, on the screen, because I think that this, D4, please, because it actually connects to this story, which is that days before the attack, the Justice Department actually charged Iranian individuals in a plot to both kill John Bolton and also to target former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. So this was seen as retaliation for the strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, who was the head of the IRGC.

I also think it's important for us to explain the structure of Iran. Iran's government is kind of insane in order to try and understand from a Western perspective. You have the Ayatollah, who is like the spiritual leader of the country. You have the IRGC, which is actually fully separate from the rest of the Iranian military and political regime. They only answer to the Ayatollah, and they're much more – they have their own aims in the government and also in the economy and more, aside from the actual political leadership. And, you know, you could call that a democracy if you want, in terms of who exactly gets to get elected. Then you have these council of clerics, and then you have an actual quasi-parliament. So anyway, these all kind of answer to the Ayatollah,

but they're very distinct and separate from one another. The IRGC itself is probably the best known for our purposes as the major opponents to any Iranian nuclear deal, largely because, well, both they are extremists in terms of their ideology. But as I understand it, they make a hell of a lot of money doing smuggling operations, going around sanctions. Like sanctions to them are the best thing that's ever happened because they control in and out flow. They profit off of the black market. Exactly. So they have been trying desperately in order to make sure that no new Iran deal or any friendly relationship with the West goes forward. Also, they get a lot of money for missile development and all that

stuff. Things that we've been viewing for over the years. So I think that that probably explains the domestic political condition as to why they're trying to sink any opportunity at some sort of new Iran deal domestically. Obviously, look, I mean, we should believe extreme people when they are. They literally want to kill John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and clearly are sanctioned, or at least are okay with and are celebrating this hit on Salman Rushdie. They have come out and said, no, we didn't have anything to do with it. We'll see what the ultimate indictment is. Yeah, but some of the newspapers in Iran were celebrating this. Of course. I mean, they were like, yeah, they basically were like, he got what he deserved.

I think we should just, you know, before we even comment any further, we should listen to a little bit about what Salman Rushdie himself had to say about free speech and its importance to a civilized society. Let's take a listen. And now the moment somebody says, yes, I believe in free speech, but I stopped listening You know, I believe in free speech, but people should behave themselves I believe in free speech, but we shouldn't upset anybody I Believe in free speech, but let's not go too far The point about it is the moment you limit free speech is in free speech, but let's not go too far. The point about it is the moment you limit free speech, it's not free speech. The point about it is that it's free. Yeah, I think that's really well said.

And this is a man who's risked his life for free speech. I mean, he's lived his life literally under, I mean, the majority of his adult life at this point has been spent under guard for writing a novel. Like, come on. This is stuff that drives me insane. Total insanity. And as I said, there are a lot of people in this country who were like, well, how irresponsible at the time, who have shamed themselves for basically standing up for the Iranian regime saying, oh, he shouldn't have done that. Look, the guy can do what he wants. And actually, our producer reminded us, Crystal, he signed that Harper's Letter, remember, in 2020. Yeah, I had forgotten that. Kind of the last time that his name kind of

came up in contemporary circles. He really was almost a forgotten figure. And that lent a lot of weight to that letter. I mean, the fact that his name was on it, you know, gave it a lot of sort of intellectual heft and made it land with the force that it did. I think it's important, as you note, in terms of the context, you know, that the Biden administration, I'm very critical of how they have handled the negotiations to restart the JCPOA or the Iranian nuclear deal. We were the ones who walked away from it under the Trump administration. And now we're, you know, placing all sorts of demands on the Iranian regime when we're the ones who walked away. They could have gotten back in from the beginning. The political conditions in Iran and also here domestically were better at that time for them to reenter the agreement.

And now you have opened the process up for rogue independent elements like the IGRC to potentially sort of meddle and try to keep this thing from coming together. And it's important to recognize that context, even as we, you know, should continue to make clear, we don't know if there was a direct connect here or not, even though we know that, you know, he was potentially, according to the reporting, in touch with some elements there. That's not a definitive anything conclusion. But the context here that there was recent reporting, that there was progress on the nuclear deal, you know, I think is important to understanding what happened here. Bottom line is we hope that Salman Rushdie continues to improve and recover. This is a horrific attack. The last thing I'll mention here is, you know,

this was such a hot and dangerous situation that actually the novel's Japanese translator was stabbed to death. Yeah. Its Italian translator was badly wounded. In 93, the Norwegian publisher was shot three times outside of his home in Oslo and seriously injured. So this fatwa that was issued in 1989 has already maimed and claimed lives. And it's just, I mean, it's completely insane and indefensible.

And we, you know, wish him the best, wish him a speedy recovery. I really do. I mean, he's an old man already. He literally is going to lose his eye. And look, I think the best thing he could do, he could do whatever he wants, but I think that he should come out and again, forcefully, you know, stand by his principles. And I think all Americans should be able to stand behind him in a time like this. Indeed. Okay. Let's go ahead and move on. Alec Baldwin. So we wanted to give an update and we cover this case a lot, you know, at the time, obviously it was very much in the. And there's a new FBI report, as you

said, FBI forensic report that has been obtained by ABC News, which really cast doubt on a lot of Alec Baldwin's story. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. So according to this FBI forensic report, the gun that was used in the fatal shooting on the Rust movie set could not have been fired without pulling the trigger. Now, the reason that this matters is that Alec Baldwin had come out and said that he believed, number one, he was handling a gun without any sort of live ammunition, and that when it went off, the live bullet went ahead and struck Hutchins. Now, he claims in the past that he could not – he did not fire the gun. Now, you'll recall this was a big controversy here because I think it was back in December.

You and I discussed it. I remember because you talked to your dad. Yeah. Where he said, quote, the trigger wasn't pulled. Quote, I didn't pull the trigger. He said it twice on the record in an ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos. Very clear about what he did. Now, this is, and this also, again, ignited a debate because your father was saying,

well, technically, accidental discharge could happen. All of these things are possible. Other gun experts were like, yeah, you know, theoretically, it's possible, all of that. Well, according to the FBI forensics, they said that that is not possible. With the hammer fully cocked, quote, the gun could not have been made to fire without a pull of the trigger while the working internal components were intact and functional. That is, again, according to their actual report. And it could, could, I want to be clear, is that it could lead to developments in the case. However, I want to represent Mr. Baldwin's side. His attorney put this statement out in response to this. Quote, the critical report is the one from the medical

examiner who concluded this was a tragic accident. This is the third time New Mexico authorities have found Baldwin had no authority or knowledge of the allegedly unsafe conditions on the set, and that he was told by the person in charge of safety on the set that the gun was, quote, cold and believed that the gun was safe. The FBI report is being misconstrued. The gun fired in testing only one time without having to pull the trigger when the hammer was pulled back and the gun broke in two different places. FBI was unable to fire the gun in any prior tests, even when pulling the trigger, because it was in such poor condition. But then that even leads to questions of like, what is going on with this gun? How did it even make it onto the set?

It was interesting. I remember George Clooney was like flaying the situation because he's like, look, I work with a lot of guns on set. He's like, every single time I do, I take it. I take it open. I show it to all the camera guys, everybody who's around me. He goes, I've never even heard the phrase cold gun. And I mean, Clooney worked on a lot of these movie sets. So whatever the hell was going on in this set, it wasn't good.

And, look, it's just a further development. It does at least say that, look, Baldwin is clearly a tragic situation. He may not remember. He may have convinced himself in his mind that he didn't pull the trigger. That's true. But, I mean, look, according to the FBI, he probably did. People's capacity for self-delusion is very, very high. It's a crazy situation.

Horrific. Yeah. I mean, very tragic situation. No one's saying that he wanted to kill this person. The response, because remember, part of what came out and what we covered a lot of at the time too was how lax and chaotic and haphazard this film production was.

And in particular, there was a lot know, a lot of scrutiny on the, what's called the armorer, who is in charge on the set of handling all the weapons and making sure that they don't have live ammunition in them, making sure they're in proper condition, like you are in charge of dealing with all of the weapons that are on the set. And there was a response also from her attorney who said these new filings demonstrate various production member, Reed Alec Baldwin, attempts from the very beginning to shirk responsibility and scapegoat Hannah, a 24-year-old armorer, for this tragedy. Hannah was tasked with doing two jobs, including props assistant and the very important job as armorer, but not given adequate time and training days to do so despite repeated requests or the respect required of the armorer's position and responsibilities. Remember, there were crew members who had quit shortly before this because of working conditions, because they weren't able to, you know, sleep because the conditions on set were chaotic and

haphazard. And then this woman, Hannah, was, you know, really, I think this was her first time in this job. And so none of this ultimately answers the big question of how the hell did live ammunition end up in this gun? Yeah. And we still don't know the case. But at least, you know, Baldwin's defense that he basically did everything right and he didn't even pull the trigger. A piece of that now appears to be debunked. Because it's one thing to say, okay, in theory, if you had this type of gun, maybe this could have happened. But the FBI was examining the specific gun to see whether this was possible, and at least their conclusion is no, it's not. Takeaway for me is when the union guys are like, hey, there's some really screwed up stuff going on here, listen to them.

And guns are involved? Yeah. Listen to them whenever they're like, this is insane, a crazy workplace. Don't try and just hire scabs in order to bring down your production budget, because I actually think that's a massive takeaway, which is when you're handling live ammunition,

firearms, and all this stuff, maybe work with the professionals. Yeah, don't cut corners on that particular aspect of the production. That's right. Okay. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? At this point, we do actually know a lot of the contours of the events leading up to the Mar-a-Lago raid and are beginning to get a feel for the type of documents Trump retained, even after he and at least his lawyers claimed he had handed everything

over. We know from the inventory of the search and from Trump's own statements that he held on to some highly classified material. After all, Trump himself is no longer even arguing that the feds didn't find anything, switching from suggesting that material was planted by the FBI to arguing that whatever documents he did have was totally cool and fine because everyone, quote, takes their work home from time to time. I mean, who among us hasn't stored nuclear secrets in their private beach resort, am I right? And then gone ahead and lied to the FBI about it. Highly relatable situation. Now, no one knows exactly what's going to happen now, whether Trump will be indicted for this or for other alleged crimes, whether this latest chapter will be a

political death knell or ultimately some kind of political resuscitation. But we are starting to get the outlines of two competing theories as to why he might have held onto these documents, concealing them even after it was really clear that the feds actually meant business. Now, Trump's actions just in general are usually motivated by one of two things, reckless impulsivity or shameless cash grabs. That's how he navigates the world. Any grand schemes ascribed to Trump

generally fall apart under scrutiny, Russiagate being the perfect example. He is not playing 5D chess. He is just responding at all times to the most base of human instincts. And accordingly, two relatively plausible theories of Trump and the docs have emerged. One based on the idea that he is a narcissistic pack rat, and the other based on the idea that he is a narcissistic pack rat, and the other based on the idea that he saw billions in profits from potentially selling government secrets. So let's consider them both in turn. NBC News has the most complete accounting of the narcissist pack rat theory. In their telling, according to advisors, confidants, and former aides, Trump is a, quote, pack rat who tends to leave the actual packing to underlings. At the end of the day, they clear his

desk of paperwork, note scribbles, newspaper clippings, printed out emails, the new tree alignment for a golf course, a new grill for Mar-a-Lago, and then the contents are placed in a box on the floor. When filled, the box is removed by an aide and stored elsewhere. When he travels, an aide sometimes brings boxes along. This longtime practice then collided with his stop-the-steal conspiracies in what turns out to be a catastrophic fashion. Trump would not allow anyone to pack up the White House because he wouldn't admit that he had actually lost. This led to a frantic and chaotic exit where those boxes filled with God knows what notes and documents he had grabbed and retained throughout his term were

all packed up and sent wholesale down to Mar-a-Lago. The logical conclusion of this theory is that he either didn't want to give up the documents when the Fed started asking because he and his ego were too attached to them, and so he lied about what he still had, or he just was too lazy to actually even know what he still had, and so had his lawyers claim they had given up all the documents with classified markings out of sheer disorganization and incompetence and laziness. Accidentally concealing nuclear secrets seems like a bit of a stretch, but it is certainly possible. Now, Trump-Russia has never been the real story, though, of grift and corruption for Trump. It's always been Trump and the Saudis.

Saudi Arabia, and I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me, they spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much. Trump and the Saudis are a match made in heaven. They share an amoral transactional view of the world justifying absolutely anything in the name of money and power. They even share a gaudy golden marble style aesthetic. And Trump's first overseas trip was to Saudi Arabia. Saudis were big spenders at Trump Hotel while he was in office. A single Saudi lobbyist racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in Trump Hotel tabs. Trump's New York Hotel saw a massive revenue bump from Saudi spending when MBS came to town. And it just so happened that Trump gave the country

everything they wanted while he was in office, backing their devastating war in Yemen, covering for the Crown Prince after he had his goons dismember journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Post-presidency, Trump and his family have only become more financially entangled with the Saudis. Jared Kushner landed a $2 billion investment in his investment fund from the Saudis. The details of that are actually extremely sketchy. The initial review board in that country rejected the Kushner investment before being ultimately overruled by the full board, which happened to be led by Crown Prince MBS himself. Now, the Saudi money is nearly the entirety of what Kushner has raised into his fund thus far and was given at better terms than what former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was able to secure.

That in spite of the fact that, unlike Kushner, Mnuchin at least has an actual track record of success in a similar space. Now, Trump himself is getting a massive payday from his partnership with Live Golf from Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Golf League upstart that is luring players away from the PGA Tour with big checks. We don't know exactly how much, but given how much money they are throwing around in general, speculation is Trump is getting perhaps $100 million to host tournaments for that league. So, the Trump-Saudi financial connections and entanglements are very real. They're massive. They're well-documented. But what does any of this have to do with classified

documents, including some potentially containing nuclear secrets? Well, it just so happens the Saudis have a long-standing interest in developing their own nuclear program and have spent millions on lobbyists to try to achieve those aims. As Jed Luggan points out, whistleblowers under the Trump administration actually raise concerns about Trump officials attempting to transfer nuclear secrets to the Saudis. The kingdom has made no secret of its ambitions to start a civilian nuclear program, but they've also refused to agree to normal non-proliferation standards. Those standards are designed to prevent countries from moving from civilian use into bomb production.

So, the Saudis have a clear interest in some of the classified info regarding our own nuclear capabilities and also that of our allies like Israel. You don't need a P-tape and elaborate schemes of useful idiots or secret computer servers and multi-decade intelligence assets to understand the Trump-Saudi relationship. It's about mutual self-interest and it's about money. It's very simple and it's very direct. Now listen, personally, I tend to still lean towards the dumbest possible explanation being the correct one. But the Saudi-Trump theory does have a few things going for it. Namely, it provides an explanation for why, even after the FBI came calling,

and even after they issued a subpoena, Trump continued to conceal information about nuclear secrets and special access programs. On the other hand, it seems less plausible to imagine that as his aides were rushing in chaotic fashion to pack up the White House, that anyone would have had the foresight to purloin these specific documents that would have held the highest possible dollar value for the Saudis. I guess there is a third possibility here as well, a sort of mesh of the two, that Trump ended up with the documents by accident because he's a narcissistic pack rat, but then kept them and lied about them because he realized they had some financial value to the Saudis, bumbling into selling out his country.

Listen, we may ultimately never know exactly how it all unfolded and why. And in terms of his legal jeopardy, it might not ultimately even matter. Because even the most exonerating possible narrative here, that Trump is just a bumbling narcissist pack rat, it doesn't actually get him off the hook legally. The statutes he's being investigated under, as we covered before, they don't require him to sell secrets to the Saudis. As Ken Klippenstein notes, quote, prosecution under the Espionage Act doesn't require proof of espionage, just that the subject

willfully retains classified material and fails to deliver it upon official request. And even if you buy the rather novel legal theories conservatives are now offering, the documents can be declassified at any time in a president's mind without even telling anyone, the criminal statutes that he's being investigated under don't necessarily require that the documents were classified in order for him to be in violation of the law. As far as the legal requirement that he be in willful violation of the law, the inaccurate statement from his lawyer that everything had been turned over goes a long way towards proving that. We'll see. Trump's greatest hope at this point might be that the DOJ just doesn't have the stones to charge the case in spite of the fact that I think it's pretty clear

at this point, if this was any other private citizen, they would build the jail on top of them. In other words, I'd like to see old Donnie reel his way out of this jam, Sager. Famous last words. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at?

Well, I've had this one in my pocket for some time now, but of course the Trump raid kind of shadowed everything. I still think it's worth spending a lot of time on and actually parsing fact from fiction. By now, you may have heard that the new so-called Inflation Reduction Act partially paid for its spending by spending billions of dollars on IRS enforcement

and specifically hiring 87,000 new IRS agents. The GOP has been made a lot of the hiring of these new tax agents since the bill's passage, noting that it will dramatically increase the number of audits of working class people, that those audits will inevitably, of course, touch the working poor. Democrats counter that by saying that, in fact, the point of the funding the IRS was to make sure that higher income households who are not paying their taxes will instead face all of the scrutiny. Now, part of the reason why historical basis tells us that increasing IRS tax enforcement almost always is a winner for the U.S. government treasury is that it returns many multiples in dollars invested historically by recovering unpaid taxes from the current system. Now, to start with, I want to say that while I think a lot of GOP rhetoric today is not grounded in

genuine concern, they are not wrong about the fundamentals. This has been a personal crusade of mine for years to highlight the fact that Americans who make less than $25,000 a year are audited five times more than any other income group in the United States, and that often Congress seeks to rip money from the hands of working poor by penalizing small businessmen or tradesmen who use payments apps like Venmo to force compliance rather than to close the carried interest loophole or the step-up basis. And if you look at this bill, that story is still present. Kyrsten Sinema insisted on shutting down even a small effort to extend the carried interest loophole, which literally only

helps multimillionaires in the private equity industry, and even went to ensure that they got a tax advantage in the bill. She did not object, however, to new IRS agents. And this brings us further into the facts. Why are working poor more likely to get audited in the first place? It depends on who you ask. Democrats and the IRS themselves say it's because the GOP has for nearly a decade underfunded the IRS. The national taxpayer advocate Aaron Collins wrote in a 2021 report that the budget cuts and more duties foisted on the IRS during the pandemic have created a disaster situation where the IRS is nearly unresponsive to asks from tens of millions of Americans. Thus, they rely on so-called easy

audits and automatically generated ones, which are disproportionately against the working poor while not targeting the richest Americans. Furthermore, they actually point to the fact that bringing an audit against billionaires or multimillionaires who are far more likely to actually cheat on their taxes is no small feat. Such individuals have legions of lawyers and accountants who can cost the IRS millions of dollars in legal fees should they decide to bring an audit. Thus, the democratic justification for funding the IRS specifically is to give them the resources to do so. If you look into the details, there is some justification for funding the IRS specifically is to give them the resources to do so. If you look into the details, there is some justification for this.

The current IRS is made up of approximately 100,000 individuals. Approximately 50% of them, according to IRS data themselves, are scheduled for retirement eligibility in the next five years. Thus, the figure of the 87,000 tax agents that you've heard about is spread across 10 years is meant, according to the IRS, as a way to backfill retirements. Now, onto the audit question specifically is where things get very dicey. House Leader Kevin McCarthy noted recently, as I just showed you, that if you make less than $75,000 or less, there will be approximately 750,000 new audits as a result of the bill. That is basically derivative of a lot of GOP messaging, which is that this new legion of IRS agents will intrude on the lives of Americans and ruin

specifically the working poor. Once again, I have deep sympathy for this idea because that is literally what the IRS has been doing now for years. But let's look very closely at the facts too. Democrats have promised that the new IRS funding will not target anyone making less than $400,000 per year, citing the correct data that the audit rate for people reporting higher than $10 billion has plunged from 21% to 3% in the last 10 years, and that further data that audit rate generally has shown a plunge of nearly 20% for most Americans while actually increasing on the working poor. However, and this is where it's

important to note the specific details, all of this is based purely upon the word of the IRS. It is not in the law. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, he wrote a letter to Congress seeking to allay GOP concerns. He said, quote, it is absolutely not going to increase audits on those making less than $400,000 a year or on small business owners. Rettig cited the so-called Green Book, which is published by the U.S. Department of Treasury, and it outlines their policy. Furthermore, Rettig's statement is also important to parse.

His quote said households making less than $400,000. But the actual quote from the Treasury Green Book is, quote, The proposal would direct that additional resources go toward enforcement against those with the highest incomes rather than Americans with actual income of less than $400,000. Actual income figure means that the IRS is giving itself significant leeway to audit anyone that it suspects is hiding income and makes a so-called actual income of less than $400,000. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office, which is supposedly nonpartisan, at least, agrees, saying that at least $20 billion will be raised from audits on those who are lower to middle income. Now, to be fair, that is not what the majority of the bill is supposed to raise. But the claim that no money and no audits will be targeted towards those under $400K and specifically towards the working poor does not in fact seem to be true.

So that is where I have landed after reviewing everything for myself. The doomsday scenario being painted is not true. But the promises of only targeting the rich are not true either. And in general, I think that we are at a point where the IRS and the Treasury Department don't deserve a lot of our trust after they have now targeted the working poor for nearly a decade. Simply because they pinky promise us something does not mean that we should just take their word for it. And that is where, with the final word, I have to blame some Democrats. Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho, during the voting process on the bill, actually offered an amendment which would have forced the IRS to actually promise this under 400K stipulation into the law. Now, Senate Democrats voted against it on a party line

vote because it would have cost approximately $20 billion in raised revenue, which they needed to pay for the rest of the bill. That single clause may open the IRS and any future administration to use these resources to target any income group that they want. That is not acceptable with the Trump's deficit that we have in our society. And frankly, if the Dems know what's good for them politically, they will close that loophole and pass similar texts immediately. Republicans, by the way, are already on record supporting it. It should be a very easy vote and an easy fix. If they don't, it will also tell us, and everybody who votes against this deserves to be punished at the ballot box for

the consequences. So that's where I ended up, Crystal. It took a lot of digging. Yeah. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. So joining us now, we're very lucky to have a filmmaker who actually had extraordinary access to the trump family building up to the election after the election through all the stop the steal stuff and all the way up through january 6th alex holder that documentarian and filmmaker joins us now and alex you've become even more sort of central to the news because you were subpoenaed and testified in front of the January 6th committee. You've also been subpoenaed as part of this investigation that is going on in Georgia into the fake elector scheme there. So pretty

extraordinary how you've ended up in the middle of this. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So before we talk about the film and what you've learned from your process, you know, your interactions with the the congressional and legal system here, let's take a look at the documentary. It's called Unprecedented. I watched it last night. It is very well done. You know, you did have incredible access to the family and it was really something to relive all of those moments. Let's take a look at the trailer. The new revelation is making some members of former President Trump's inner circle nervous. The January 6th House Select Committee is examining the three-part docuseries. Unprecedented.

Unprecedented. Unprecedented. What do you think we'll learn from this new documentary footage of former President Donald Trump as well as his oldest children and some of his senior advisors? Has Ivanka Trump responded? Did he express any remorse? Your show, when it goes on, I'll be putting out a statement. Go watch it. It'll be on Discovery. Okay, who knows where it's going to be on, right? So you talked to all the Trump children. You're there at their events. You're there, you know, at January 6th.

You got all this incredible footage. I guess my first question was, why do you think that they agreed to do this? That's a great question. And also, just before, you know, in that trailer where he says, I'm going to put out a statement, he did not put out a statement to say go watch it. I'm shocked. Yeah, exactly. Me too, right? I think the reason they agreed to participate was a few factors. And this is just my speculation.

One is that at the time when I met them, they were convinced that they were going to win the election. Even though the polls were against that, it was the same thing they were saying at the time in the previous election, which is the polls are wrong and we were going to win and we're going to prove everyone wrong again. And, you know, Don Jr.'s famous line was, during the campaign, was let's make liberals cry again, which I thought was pretty cruel. That was sort of their mentality at the time, where they thought they were going to win. So here was a guy that was going to film them actually win the election. Unfortunately,

some of them still think they won, but at the time, that was the premise. And then the second reason, I think, was that I was foreign, and so I didn't really have any skin in the game politically. So I think that was also an important point. And maybe the third was my British charm. But certainly...

Listen, we are suckers for that. There's no denying it. Especially Trump. His mom was british remember he has great reverence for the queen so it makes a lot of sense alex just tell me the general uh what did you learn through the course of the documentary which applies to everything that we have going on right now with the fbi raid the context in which trump views both the rules and stop the steal and so many of the issues that are at the center of, you know, the subpoenas that you're now kind of drowning in.

What was your general impression having dealt with the people around him and with Trump himself at this very critical and pivotal time? I mean, well, one is that he was totally not suitable for the role. I mean, it was just very clear. He is somebody who believes that everything belongs to him. Everything that he touches is brilliant and superb. He's got this unusual, we say ego, but I mean, it's this narcissistic quality where everything that he is, everything that he is surrounded by is just brilliant.

And one of the things that's so interesting about Trump, I mean, you were saying before that, you know, you've interviewed a few times, and you get to see this sort of quality where Trump doesn't actually understand why people don't like him, unless he doesn't like them first, right? Like, he has this inability to,

how could anyone not like me? Ah, the only reason why they don't like me is because I don't like them, right? That's how he's sort of rational and so you know i was in mar-a-lago interviewing him for the second time and this is after january 6 a couple of months after he left office and you know he walks into the room and you know mar-a-lago is actually very beautiful and the room we were in was also very beautiful it's beautiful chandelier and anyway the last thing that was beautiful in the room we were in was also very beautiful it's beautiful chandelier and anyway the last thing

that was beautiful in the room was the flooring okay so he walks in and I go hello Mr President so nice to see you again and he totally ignores me and he just says look at this floor isn't this the most beautiful floor you've ever seen and I'm just like really like I mean it was the most nondescript flooring in the whole and so you, you know, he comes in, he sits down and we start the small talk. And I said, you know, Mr. President, the last time I saw you, we were in the White House. And he says, oh, yes, of course. But this is much more beautiful than the White House. You know, Trump, all he cares about are these these these sort of immaterial things that are just so unimportant and doesn't actually understand the gravity and sort of what he was doing and what he was responsible of and what he's doing now by maintaining this insane conspiracy and lie,

which is so dangerous. And we saw how dangerous it was and how it played out on January 6th. I mean, he is just, you know, really, I mean, honestly, I mean, there were times where I couldn't really grasp how this man was actually in charge of America for four years. And it is pretty astonishing, frankly. And obviously with the FBI. It is pretty. It is pretty astonishing. Talk to me about what it felt like on the ground on January 6th. Did you have any inkling that this could turn violent, that it could turn, you know, sort of catastrophic in the way that it ends up turning?

What was the energy like on that day? So I did. The night before, I'd said to Michael, our director of photography, that he's going to get, we were in an elevator going up in the hotel the night before, and I said, you know, he's going to get them all to march on the Capitol tomorrow. And as I said that, we sort of half laughed because just the idea of that is so extraordinary and horrific. But after having witnessed not just sort of the rhetoric that was coming out after the election but even during the campaign there was this sense of at the beginning i was trying to work out is it just because i'm british and british elections are very different to american elections and so this is sort of an accepted thing to happen in american election campaigns or was this something that was beyond the line

and it was quite clear that they were going well beyond the line that's acceptable. And so the rhetoric that was coming out during the campaign and obviously after the election itself, and then Trump's maintenance of this position that the election was stolen, like what does anyone expect is going to happen when you tell 75 million people that their vote didn't count? And the person that's saying that isn't the candidate. He's the incumbent president of the United States. And so to me, it was like this was going to be bad and it was going to be very dangerous.

So on the day itself, we had a plan that when things did kick off, and I say when because I was really pretty confident that it was going to happen. And the moment for me where it really crystallized was people in the crowd already saying, based on all the build-up for Trump's vote, you know, Giuliani's speech and that lunatic lawyer speaking and various others, you know, they were already talking about, oh, there's enough of us here. These were people in the crowd saying there's enough of us here to storm the Capitol. So there was already that fervor in the crowd. There was this feeling of like, it was almost like, you know, religious people praying that actually Trump's ridiculous idea that he could intervene in this ceremonial process, certifying the results would result in him being able to maintain his position as president and so there was this very uncomfortable feeling that I felt all the way through that morning and then when people started moving to the capital I grabbed a lot of Michael's equipment

took it to my car to try and drive closer to the capital so that if things got really dangerous I could extricate him and we could go away. But that part didn't work because it was impossible. By the time I got to as close as I could get, my car was surrounded by people. Michael was already in the midst of it all. And in the series, you see this tragic moment of one of Trump's own supporters dying on the steps of the Capitol building. And when you think about this, right, this is American citizens being told to go to the Capitol, essentially being incited to, for all intents and purposes, assassinate the vice president of the United States. So by Americans in the American parliament, right, by American people being told to go there

by the American president. I mean, it's just absolutely extraordinary and horrific. And now with all the things that have come out from the January 6th committee, we know that Trump knew exactly what was going on and refused to intervene to try and save the congressman, the people working in the Capitol, obviously the Vice President himself. I mean, and then obviously people tragically died. So it was just an extraordinary, horrific moment. And I'll never forget when we finally managed to get out. I remember driving down Pennsylvania Avenue and all the way through on the road you could see DC police all with their hands

on their gun holsters which was just absolutely wild because it was so dangerous that day. It was a wild time we were both here and I remember coming in that morning actually and it was a bad vibe. Our studio was right near by the Washington Mall. I felt the same thing. Close to the White House. It was very close to the White House

there was this attention in the air. It was very early in the morning. It was a very weird vibe. It was a strange. Very weird vibes. My main question to you, Alex, is, you know, based on the subpoenas and more, to the extent that these Georgia investigations are probably going to be looking at these false elector schemes, what did you claim from your documentary, from footage and more, that is going to be relevant as those investigations come forward

in terms of machinations by the people around Trump, the false elector schemes. And also my real question is to the extent of what did these people believe at the time? I have no question in my mind Trump believes the election was stolen, but like some of the apparatchiks around him, like what was their varying thinking as they were moving forward with these schemes then? So I think there were a few camps that I noticed, right? One is that Trump, certainly towards the end of his administration, surrounded himself by people who just said yes

to everything he said. And he always had the people around him. I mean, one of the things that I always found just totally crazy was really one of his closest aides who was given the title of director of Social Media or whatever, but really essentially his right-hand man for all intents and purposes, was his former

golf caddy. These are the people that are surrounding him. These are the people with access to these secret documents that he'd kept at Mar-a-Lago. So you had that camp, which were essentially people that were like,

yes, sir, three bags full, sir, and they'll do whatever they can to make their boss happy. And they believed everything he said. Then you had another camp for people who really hoped that Trump would pull off his attempted coup, essentially, but were unsure and weren't particularly believing in the madness and then there were others who sort of saw it as typical trump but they didn't really think it was going to work out and then maybe there's a very few number of people who thought it was a really bad idea and thought you should do something else and those are the people and the interactions i had with some of those people around and during the making of this. But with respect to Georgia and Trump, I mean, what I saw was when I interviewed him in the

White House, this is about four days after his own attorney general had spoken to Associated Press and made the statement that there was no evidence whatsoever to support his claims. He is literally sitting in the diplomatic reception room at the White House with the portrait of George Washington, which the $1 bill is based on, looking down at him. And he is undermining democracy in that room. But not just saying Joe Biden didn't win the election. He's saying sort of the very conspiratorial ideas that he'd been saying for all the way through, but then coming up with remedies as to how they should be proven. So, for instance, he said we need to find brave judges. So he's now undermining the judicial

branch of the American system, which is one of the first things you do as a dictator, right? You need to get the judges that agree with you. So we need to find brave judges, he's saying to me. We need to move the decision about reopening the ballots to the Georgia legislature. Why? Because they agree with his position, right? He needs to find a better Secretary of State in Georgia who isn't, as he calls, you know, a bonehead, right, and a stupid person. So this is the President of State in Georgia, who isn't, as he calls, a bonehead, right? And a stupid person. So this is the President of the United States, the man with the nuclear football,

meters away, and he's undermining democracy in the most profound way in the seat of power of the biggest democracy or one of the most powerful democracies in the world. I mean, it's absolutely extraordinary. And that was my witness.

One of the most bananas things of the many bananas things that came out during that time was that call that he had with the Georgia Secretary of State, where he's literally like, I need you to find me 11,870 votes. I mean, that was what you have in the documentary. I'm sure that I'm sure that down in Fulton County in Georgia, where they're investigating the fake elector scheme in that state. I'm sure these are some of the very things that they will be very interested in hearing from you. What Trump and the people around him had to say. I really do recommend the documentary to folks to go back and rewatch and remember how all of this went down. There were a lot of big events that I just, you know, I was telling you, I forgot how close it was to election day that he got COVID. You dig into some of the family dynamics of, you

know, the kids, especially Don Jr. and Ivanka and Eric sort of competing for his affection and how that plays out in some of the dynamics with regards to the Stop the Steal conspiracy. So I really recommend it to people. It's definitely a worthwhile watch. Tell folks, Alex, where they can actually find Unpressed 10 in the documentary. Sure. It's on Discovery Plus. And if you sign up, you get a one-week pre-trial. Well, there you go. All right. Well, it's the second Discovery Plus documentarian we've had on the show, so I guess we're happy to

support it. We'll have a link down in the description and we appreciate you joining us, Alex. It was really interesting talking to you. Yeah, great to have you, Alex. As a reminder, premium subscribers out there, vote on whether you would in order to make sure you get the show on time, we can either degrade the quality not significantly, but it would degrade

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