Morning Joe - Morning Joe 8/15/22

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

Trump’s latest defense for Mar-a-Lago documents: Everyone ‘brings home their work from time to time’

As I'm sure you know by now, on Monday, the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago and seized documents, something that Trump reacted to with characteristic restraint. Mr. Trump said Mar-a-Lago was under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Adding, they even broke into my safe. No, not your safe! Yeah, amazingly, it turns out the FBI even checks your locked safes when they go through your home with a search warrant. The only way around that is if your safe says no FBI allowed on it, then legally they can't look in there.

And we're learning more about the Justice Department's reasoning for searching Donald Trump's home, the potential laws that might have been broken, and why his new excuse for mishandling classified documents isn't exactly adding up. Plus, the Republican Party splits on how to respond to the FBI search as some lawmakers refuse to tone down the rhetoric despite a wave of violent threats against federal law enforcement. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, August 15th. A lot has happened since we got off the air Friday. So since we finished our coverage on Friday morning, we learned that the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago revealed former President Donald Trump is being investigated for possible violations of the Espionage Act, tied to the mishandling of national defense information or classified material. Now, according to the FBI, 11 sets of classified records were

seized from Trump's home, including some marked as top secret, meant only to be available in special government facilities. Two other laws were also cited as a basis for the warrant pertaining to removing, destroying or concealing records and obstruction of justice. According to the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, agents were allowed to search Trump's office, all storage rooms and all other rooms available to Trump, his staff or anywhere documents could be stored. Meanwhile, former President Trump is offering a new line of defense for taking top secret government documents to his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. By the way, it's it's about his 12th excuse. There have been it's I mean, I mean, they keep coming up with excuses.

I mean, somebody put it very, very succinctly. I didn't take the documents. Yeah. But if I did take the documents, they weren't classified. And if they were classified, then they were planted. And if they weren't, I declassified them. And if I didn't, then it's a hoax. And if it's not a hoax, Obama did it. He keeps changing. He keeps going through the lies. You know, first he said that he was working and cooperating with government agents. Then when we found out the truth about that,

he said the agents planted it. Finally, he started lying. And you're going to talk about this in a second, saying that he had declassified them. And then Sunday, on the Sunday shows, after all of these different stories didn't line up, after all of the lies that he had thrown out there and all of the, you know what, thrown against the wall didn't line up, then he had former aides go on TV and start a new round of lies. One thing, well, you know, he was in a rush. He was just, he was packing. He didn't know whether he was going to leave or not. And then when he found out he was going to leave the White House, I'm not sure why he didn't know that he was leaving the White House. He lost millions and millions of votes and lost by what he called his own victory, lost by the same number,

which he said was one of the greatest landslides in American history. The electoral college count, if you take him at his own words. But he was in such a rush that he just accidentally took some of the boxes. Then another former Trumper, well, still a Trumper, but a former advisor said it was the GSA's fault. GSA said, no, actually, the responsibility for making decisions about what materials are moved rests entirely with the outgoing president and their supporting staff. Any questions about the contents of any items that were delivered, e.g. documents, are the responsibility of the former president and his supporting staff and should be directed to their office.

And as John Bolton said, and we'll be playing this clip later to make it John Bolton, national security advisors. Oh, I didn't know anything about this. And he's just making up. He said when somebody begins to concoct lies like this, it shows a real level of desperation. So we all know he's lying. I mean, he's there's been, I guess, if you count it, seven, eight, nine, 10 different lies. And again, we know he's lying. The disturbing thing is his supporters know he's lying and they're still his supporters. I think a lot of people who support Donald Trump, if they heard that, would say, oh, but you're saying he's lying. This is more of, you know,

the way people respond to our guy. The thing is that his explanations defy the way things are done when you're dealing with classified documents. And therefore, you can deduce that they are a lie. Well, and there are no such things as standing orders that you make up out of thin air. Also, if he says I didn't take documents, you find the documents. You can write that down as a lie. If you're saying you're cooperating with the FBI and you lie to the FBI and the Justice Department by saying you've returned all the classified documents, you can mark that down as a lie because they didn't return all the classified documents. If you then say, as he said, that you were, quote, raided. And then we find out

that not only was he not raided and not only was this not a shock, but actually it wasn't a raid. No doors were knocked down. And Donald Trump and his wife were watching on cameras, I guess, the reporting shows on. And by the way, all of this is on cameras, including what they've done with the documents over the past several months. So whoever did anything legally or possibly illegally with those documents, it's all on camera. We'll see if they they burn the tapes the tapes or they throw out the DVR. But so you can say that's a lie. And if you say they were planted, we can now go check. That's a lie. Like his own supporters can just see what's happened over the past week to see that all of these things were a lie. Then we go on to the declassification and the hoax. I mean, it was again, he he he keeps lying. The first thing he says is always a lie.

The second, third, fourth, always a lie as well until he's finally cornered. But again, first, he said he was working and cooperating with government agents. He wasn't. He lied to him. And now, Mika, we come back to that there's a standing order here. I mean, it's just, again, this is not a matter of opinion, Mika. No, I know. On whether he's lying or not. I know you're trying to be understanding of those who would still want so desperately to believe all of these lies. But they're lies. A statement released by Trump's office Friday night contends everyone takes work home sometimes. No, no, no, they no, they actually they don't in this field. And I'm trying not to get arrested because there was some might argue not a lot of work being done in the White House.

A lot of executive times. I'm not sure why he would bring stuff to his golf course. The statement reads in part, quote, President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents, including classified documents from the Oval Office to the residence. Wait, but I don't understand. If you're not working during the day, why would you work at night? If you're watching cable news all day, why would you? Like, nobody believes that either. This statement goes on to say that he had a standing order that documents removed from

the Oval Office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them. No, that's a lie, too. Trump's former national security advisor, as you said, Joe, John Bolton, says he never heard of such an order. During an interview with NBC News over the weekend, Bolton offered this challenge to the latest line from the former president's office. When I became national security advisor, nobody briefed me or informed me that this policy or order was in effect. I was never aware of anything even remotely approximating that policy. And I haven't heard anything of it since I left. If he in fact said something like that, when was it memorialized? When did the White House counsel write it down? To whom was it distributed? But if he did take materials out of a safe space

to the residents, it would have to be documented what they were, each document so that people would know what had been declassified. And I know of no logistical train, no paper train at all that says what's declassified and what's not. When a document is declassified, it's not just declassified as to Donald Trump, it's declassified for the whole world. So in theory, if that order existed, which I don't think it did, the news media could today file a Freedom of Information Act request for every document he declassified, which over a four-year period could be a pretty high stack. So I think this is made up. And I think a key point here is when somebody's making up stories like that, I think it indicates a level of desperation. So, Mick, he's never heard of any order. If there

were such a standing order, it would change how the documents were held. Anything that he declass recreation for Donald Trump, who's a national security adviser. If anything like this had existed, he would have known about it because he would have been working with other people to take classified documents and declassify that. lawyer for the former president signed a written statement back in June that said all of the material marked, classified and held in boxes in a storage area at Mar-a-Lago had been returned to the government. And that lawyer signed that document for Donald Trump. Donald Trump. We know that the FBI agents seized 11 sets of documents with some type of confidential or secret marking on them during the search on Monday. While the former president said on Friday he had already declassified the material found in his possession, there is no documentation of that. And further reporting by The New York Times goes on to say, quote, the Justice Department also subpoenaed surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago recorded over a 60 day period, including views from outside the storage room.

According to a person briefed on the matter, the footage showed that after one instance in which the Justice Department officials were in contact with Mr. Trump's team, boxes were moved in and out of the room. You see, that's the thing about the Justice Department and about the FBI. If they're coming to search for things at your house, they're going to keep coming. They actually already know they're there and they're going to keep asking. They're going to keep asking. They're going to watch you. And by the way, if they ask you for your security footage and there's a strong likelihood that there's somebody on the inside working with the FBI. of people moving classified documents out of safe areas inside of Moralago, safe for Donald Trump to hide them from everybody else, after the DOJ reaches out and asks for classified documentation.

Sort of like a Perry Mason thing, isn't it, Mika? Yeah. If they ask the question, they already know the answer. That's important for one special viewer of Morning Joe to perhaps think about. But let's bring in the host of. Well, it's also important for other people, Mika, to know. Hi, everybody. You all already know what I'm about to say here.

You know, it's it's I think there are a lot of people with PTSD, whether they're Democrats, independents or Republicans who've seen in the past. It seems Donald Trump is above the law. It's just important to remember that what we've been looking at in the past, Donald Trump in political settings, even the Mueller investigation was an investigation that for the most part was in a political setting. And he had said that he wasn't going to bring crimes against charges against the president. This is not in a political setting. And I will say when I first ran for office my first couple of months on the campaign trail, I was I was a bit surprised that people could just say anything and get away with it because my mind had been shaped

in the law. And there were rules of evidence in the law. There were rules of civil procedure. There were rules that you had to go by or else the judge become quite unhappy with you. So everybody would go by those rules or pay the consequences. We're now in a legal environment. All right. The ring that we're in now is not the political ring where anything goes, any lies stand. All you have to do is convince the dumbest people watching you. That that that you were cooperating with the FBI or that this was a hoax, right, or that the election was stolen. This is this is in court. And because it's in court, it's the same reason Rudy Giuliani could lie at press conferences outside of courts,

but then go inside of courts and say, oh, no, your honor, we're not alleging widespread voter fraud here because there are actually rules inside the courtroom. This is this is Donald Trump's problem. And for people thinking this is going to be just like everything else, it's not. We're going to find out either Donald Trump is going to be charged with a crime or he's not going to be charged with a crime. And we will know that there will be a thorough investigation and it will be based on the law. And and that's something that I think people that

are so worried that Trump is going to get away with something or get caught. I think I think they can rest assured that Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice, they're going to follow the law. And I know people are complaining, oh, this is helping Donald Trump. I think Bill Maher had said something like, oh, this this is reviving Donald Trump. So if it revives his political career, it revives his political career. You follow the law where it leads you. You administer justice to all, regardless of the outcome, regardless of their standing. That's where we are right now. I don't think you can call the attorney general and like try and turn the heat down.

I think when the Justice Department, the FBI are working on something, they're not looking at anything else and they're not listening to anybody in terms of their advice as to how to handle. Like I said. So turning the heat down, you then release the name of the agents. Come on. Oh, my God. Who are facing unprecedented levels of death threats. And you release a document so you can get the names of the FBI agents out there. That's that's where we are right now. And the danger. There's a lot of different areas that we need to cover here about the dangerous rhetoric online and finding its way out into the country.

The host of way too early in White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, joins us. Congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany, is here. She's an MSNBC contributor and NBC News senior national political reporter Mark Caputo joins us this morning. So, Jackie, in a new piece entitled Trump's Secrets, How a Records Dispute Led the FBI to Search Mar-a-Lago, you and your colleagues write in part, quote, a Trump advisor said the former president's reluctance to relinquish the record stems from his belief that many items created during his term, photos, notes, even a model of Air Force One built to show off a new paint job that he had commissioned, are now his personal property.

Despite a law dating to 1970s that decreed otherwise, he gave them what he believed was there, as the advisor said. He gets his backup every time they asked him for something, said another Trump advisor. He didn't give them the documents because he didn't want to. He doesn't like those people. He doesn't trust those people. But this goes back all the way to the beginning of the Trump administration, Joe.

But Mika, or Jackie, we'll go to you, Jackie. Model airplanes are one thing. Top secret, sensitive, compartmentalized information. Quite another. There's quite a range of documents and items that the FBI got out of Moralago, isn't there? who completely issued any compliance to the Presidential Records Act and any sort of restraints on classification during his four years in the White House. And obviously, that has continued two years after Joe Biden replaced him in the White House. And the National Archives started this endeavor of trying to get back documents that belong to the American public and don't belong to the former president, contrary to his claims to friends that we spoke with this past week who were in touch with Trump throughout the week, who said that Trump was complaining that these were his belongings. He was entitled to them. But obviously, you know, we've said time and time again that that

is not the case here. He did not adhere to any of the processes that should have been in place in a normal White House. It's unclear, though, where that procedural breakdown occurred. There was a scramble, as we've reported, for the former president to move to Mar-a-Lago at the time. But again, there are regulations in place not only to store those documents, but also the declassification process in general, again, contrary to what Trump has been claiming, that he was able to declassification process in general, again, contrary to what Trump has been claiming, that he was able to declassify everything. And I think the greatest irony of all of this is that Trump signed a bill into law in 2018 that could be used to punish a former president if he's found to mishandle classified information after leaving office. This is something that he signed a law in 2018 and it upgraded the

seriousness of wrongdoing in terms of moving classified information from a misdemeanor into a felony, increasing the maximum sentence to five years. That could be a problem. Mark, in the new piece that you co-authored for NBC News, you write that Trump's style of handling White House documents has been described by people who worked for him as slapdash and ad hoc. You and your colleagues write, quote, When John Kelly became White House chief of staff in the summer of 2017, he said he would remind Trump about the importance of abiding by the Presidential Records Act. A newcomer to public office who was accustomed to running his business his own way, Trump chafed under the regimen, Kelly said.

When I got there, said Kelly, a retired four-star Marine Corps general, the staff secretary wasn't taking stuff out of the trash cans and taping it back together. He was. That continued while I was there. My God. A former senior White House aide who was there at the time told NBC News that internal procedures tightened for a bit, but there was invariably slippage. We had something approximating a process, this person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing criminal investigation. He's a total pack rat, keeps all sorts of stuff. Trump could be cavalier about material, crumpling up his papers or tearing them into pieces and leaving them on the floor,

the former aide said. So Mark Caputo, obviously, this recklessness, not just with documents, but also with classified information, was known by most of us from the beginning of his term, of course, most famously or infamously going into the Oval Office with Sergey Lavrov and also the Russian ambassador to the United States without any U.S. reporters in there and and and revealing classified information that could have put lives or, of course, an ally's means of collecting intel at great risk. And that was that was from the start. Yeah, that was 2017. So, you know, here we are in what, 2022? I guess when you look at the broader arc of Donald Trump's political career or history in the White House, maybe this shouldn't come as a shock. The reality is, is we really don't know how these various documents got into these

boxes over time. In some cases, it looks as if he had gone through some sort of process. In other cases, you just put things in boxes over time. There's also the possibility at the last minute moving out of the White House, he was grabbing things. John Bolton had told us he was grabbing papers all the time and the history of how these documents wound up here. That's part of what the FBI is doing. Not sure when the investigation is going to end. They hauled away a whole bunch of material on Monday. And there obviously is an ongoing criminal investigation. But I guess the big overarching question is this. What were in those records? I mean, some of them are really surprising. Like they mentioned the commutation of Roger Stone was there. Well, why was that there? Like even Roger Stone says he doesn't know. Like if Roger Stone doesn't know why Donald Trump has Roger Stone's commutation form, it really raises the question of just like, what was he doing in that period of time? How was he doing it and why was he doing it? And, you know, it's just a kind of a big mystery. Yeah, a big mystery.

But Jonathan O'Meara, again, this recklessness with classified information followed Donald Trump from the start. And I'm curious what you're hearing from the administration, what you're also hearing from your your Trump contacts about where they think this investigation is going, because I know there's a lot of screeching and howling. But the facts are the facts. The evidence is the video footage of reaching out to Trump and then him having his people move classified documents out of a storage room at his at his country club. What's the what's the feeling in there on the ground from Trump people? Are they they have the attitude of, say, right now, spirits of Yankees fans or Mets fans? Well, as someone put it to me recently, Joe, there are a few things the government does not have a sense of humor about. National Security classified documents, one of them. This is something that is indeed going to

be followed through the very end by the Department of Justice with a charging decision over the horizon at some point. First part of the question, the Biden administration is keeping their distance from this. They want this thing. The Department of Justice is acting independently. We have no influence. They're not talking about it. President Biden on a well-timed vacation to avoid reporters questions on the matter. But in Trump world, there is growing concern. There are some people that I've talked to over the last week who sort of play this down. Like, look, Donald Trump's got in trouble before. He always seems to get out of it. Like, this will be, you know, this maybe even people are talking about again. Look, we're raising all

this money. This could be good for Republicans. We have something to rally around as the political momentum had turned against them. So you are hearing some of that. But to those close to the former president, there is worry. This one's different, that they feel like this is not some political scandal that he can just try to shake off. This is a different matter, one with real serious consequences. And we have seen from Republicans in the first two days after the search, incredible incendiary rhetoric against the FBI, against the federal government condemning what's happening. That's toned down a little bit, in part because there's been some word, I am told, from people close to Trump who are saying, look, hey, this one might be serious. Let's not totally go on the offensive just yet. Let's let this play out a little while longer.

So this is there is a there is registering some concern in Trump world that this one is different and deeply serious. You know, Mark, when I when I hear people whining, there's a great, great quote I saw somewhere. Ben Collins tweeted and we're going to have been on in a minute. But Ben tweeted something like I can't find right here, but it was something along the. Oh, here we go. We're at everybody steals nuclear documents much faster than I expected. So when people are making excuses for Donald Trump, I just think back to being in Congress, think back, being on the Armed Services Committee, thinking back at the extraordinary care the intelligence community had when they were going to give me a briefing and and the procedures that you went through. I mean, I I was, you know, I was sufficiently intimidated by the process and understood that what I learned in those briefings, I kept to myself.

And I have even 20 years later. So I just think about these double standards, like, for instance, his hundred and fifty thousand dollar payoff. I think it was to Stormy Daniels a week or two before the election. If a member of Congress had done that, not reported it for their election prospects, they'd go to jail. If a member of Congress had taken two or three of these documents, chances are good they would go to jail. We saw what happened to two former CIA directors. We saw what happened to a national security advisor when when they did far, far less than this. So I guess what what surprises me

is just the raging double standard by Republicans who understand if they did this themselves, they would already either pled a deal with the FBI or they would be in jail right now. Well, it's a different Republican party now. And there is a huge political cult of personality now in the GOP. And that personality is Donald Trump and his defense. And I hesitate to say this because so many people get angry merely for us raising it. And while it is widely disputed, including by John Bolton, the defense of Donald Trump is essentially one of the unitary sort of imperial executive.

He is in charge, solely in charge of the executive. And anything he says goes within the executive branch. Therefore, he is vested with these supreme powers to automatically declassify things in his head. And he needs to leave no paper trail. Again, a lot of people disagree with that. Most experts that we've spoken to have, including John Bolton. Now, there are people in Trump's orbit who say, yeah, that's true. That includes Rick Grinnell, his former director of national intelligence. Of course it does.

So that is what you're going to be hearing over time. And if that doesn't really count. Yeah, I understand that. That's what they're raising. Grinnell doesn't really count. We don't we don't we don't get our intel evidence from clowns. But go ahead. I'm sorry. That's OK. I think one of the reasons you're hearing this argument is they're preparing for the inevitability or the possibility that this could wind up in court. That is, the president, the former president could get charged and ultimately this case would be therefore decided by a jury. And that is a sneak peek, a preview of what his defense is going to be. There you go. So, Jackie, there are three buckets of legal woes for Donald Trump. There's the New

York State situation. There's the January 6th committee. And now there's the FBI search of documents that were found inside Mar-a-Lago President Trump's Florida club, where the public often goes. How much of this that has been revealed in the past week dovetails or could be, might be of interest to the January 6th committee? That's a really good question, Mika. It's something that we have been asking our sources because it's unclear so far what is included in those documents. We haven't been able to quite figure that out. But I do think it's worth noting that all of this does emanate from the January 6th committee's work. When they first made those requests months ago, we reported that

the committee found that a lot of the documents that were turned over from the National Archives, these documents related to January 6th and were from not just federal agencies, but from the Trump White House were destroyed. They were they were shredded and had looked like they'd been taped back together from from there. We then were able to piece together that the National Archives was missing documents and that they were trying to to go after them, to bring them back, not for the January 6th committee, but just for the purposes of presidential the Presidential Records Act and historic preservation, creating the most comprehensive account of the Trump presidency. There's a myriad of rumors going around about what these documents are related to exactly other than what we've previously reported, which is that they were related to—the Feds were looking for documents related potentially to a nuclear program. But I do think it's worth repeating that according to the search warrants, Asians at Mar-a-Lago were seeking evidence of three potential violations of federal statutes,

including a section of the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to possess or share national defense secrets without authorization. And these documents, as we've been told, the former president was not authorized to disclose them or have the Washington Post, the Washington Post, Jackie Helimany and NBC's Mark Caputo. Thank you both for your reporting this morning. We shall see where this leads us. We'll have much more on the growing wave of violent threats online coming from Trump supporters. And they're coming from Trump supporters and they're inspired just like January 6 was inspired

by Donald Trump. Yeah. He revved these people up to commit acts of violence. He's doing the same thing now. And people close to him are saying they're coming after you. They're coming after, making his alleged crimes part of their problem. And so, you know, the lies about the planted evidence or it was a raid. He's purposefully doing it. He's releasing the names of the FBI. So it's really important we

talk about this rising violence that's occurring. It's important everybody understands and that the media reports that this is happening because of one person, Donald Trump. He's fanning the flames. NBC's Ben Collins will join us with his latest reporting. Also ahead, we'll look at new polling since the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, how the former president is doing compared to the man many see as his strongest GOP challenger in 2024. Plus, two solidly red states hold primaries tomorrow with voters deciding between prominent Republicans versus Trump-backed challengers. And it's been a year since the Taliban took over Afghanistan. We'll be joined by two reporters who have covered all of the changes inside the country. We'll of the day.

6.89. That's Albert Puholz with the first place St. Louis Cardinals. Hit two home runs in the National League, and that's career home run 6.89 right there coming up. That's pretty good, right? Unbelievably on 700 home runs. Yeah, that's really, really good. And it is actually great to see him doing that in a Cardinals uniform where he belongs.

Jonathan O'Meara, the American League, the Red Sox, the last place Red Sox, took two out of three from the first place Yankees. Masai Iwaka looked like a Cy Young winner last night, but the story here, as much as we would like to make it about the Boston Red Sox, is about the New York Yankees. The wheels have just fallen off. I think Alex told me one of the worst records in baseball since the All-Star break. We take absolutely no pleasure in saying any of this. We're just baseball reporters. That's what we are.

So what in the world has happened to the Yankees since the All-Star break where they now, I mean, they were chasing history. They now have only the fourth best record in all of baseball. Again, not bad, but you do not want to be skidding off the side of the road like this going into late August. What's up with Joe? We deal just the facts here, as you say. And here are some of those facts. The Yankees have lost nine of 11. They have had one of the worst records in baseball since the All-Star break. They are under.500 over their last 50 games. That's a pretty significant sample size in a 162-game season.

It's a few things. First of all, they were one of the most healthy teams in the league in the first half, and some injuries have finally caught up to them. Giancarlo Stanton is hurt. Matt Carpenter, who came over and suddenly was Babe Ruth when he put on the pinstripes, he's hurt. Luis Severino's hurt. Some of the pitchers have cooled off.

They've lost some arms in the bullpen. Look, they're still nearly 30 games over 500. They're going to be one of the top two seeds in the playoffs, so it gets them some home field advantage. But Yankee fans getting nervous. It's a team that didn't do perhaps quite enough at the deadline. Some feel and they are vulnerable. And right now you'd have to say that they're looking up at the Houston Astros, not just in the standings of the American League, but as potentially the favorite to go to the World Series. And they are being upstaged by their crosstown rivals, the New York Mets, who have now gotten Jacob to Grom back, who has not missed a beat.

And he's amazing. He's amazing. They're amazing. And right now, the talk of the town. I was going to say the New York Yankees go from being a team that was chasing history, one of the best teams we've seen in a very long time, to now being in second place in their own hometown. The New York Mets, it's just unbelievable. They've been battered with injuries all year.

I mean, it's like they had a roster of Chris Sales, like, you know, looking at an oven and, like, burning a hand or falling, you know, or standing on the street and, like, just falling over and breaking something. Whatever could go wrong with the Mets this year has gone wrong, and yet they're tearing it up 75 and 40. And the Sox, any any hope for the Sox to get out of last place? Jonathan, you see anything good going on there? Out of last place?

Sure. It'd be hard to make the playoffs. So you can see it here. It's not just that they're four and a half games out in the wild card, but they're seventh on that list. and only the top three make the playoffs. Look, they had a good week. They finally won a series against an American League East opponent the first time all year with that two out of three against the Yankees. They won Thursday night against the Orioles. They've won three out of four. They've got a

little bit of a soft spot in the schedule coming up, which perhaps could help. Trevor Story should be back in a week or so, but they won't be getting Chris Sale back because he keeps standing under anvils apparently. But they will need a run. They would need to win something like eight out of ten, ten out of twelve to really get back in the race.

And I'm just not sure they've got the pitching to do it, despite Waka pitching so well last night in a game that only lasted two hours and 15 minutes. Which most games last about 12 hours if it's the Yankees and the Red Sox. So, yeah. Yeah. So, well, we'll see what happens. I mean, let's just say it straight out. They need to sweep the Pirates and the Orioles over the next six games.

And we'll see what happens then. Alex told me, Mika, that he said good luck with the transition. Let me just say the only thing uglier than the New York Yankees bullpen are the threats that are being leveled against Americans. That's actually true. One week after the FBI. A lot of things uglier than that. That's the only transition I had, though.

I hope it's going to happen. Descended on the home of former President Trump in a planned search where the Secret Service was given a heads up and Donald Trump and his wife were on video watching it as it happened and it was peaceful. Threats against federal law enforcement officials remain high. Three senior officials tell NBC News that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a joint bulletin on Friday warning of the increase in violent rhetoric. The five-page document reportedly advises officials to remain cautious and vigilant in the face of threats largely being made on the internet. Last week, an alleged Trump supporter was killed in a confrontation with police after firing a nail gun into the FBI's field office in Cincinnati. He was also reportedly armed with an assault rifle. And on Saturday, armed supporters of the former president

gathered near the FBI's office in Phoenix, Arizona, to protest the search of Trump's home. Meanwhile, a far right media outlet is facing criticism after publishing the names of the FBI agents who searched Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. The website Breitbart published a leaked version of the FBI's search warrant on Friday. That version included the names of the special agent and supervisor who participated in it just hours before. And by the way, let me just say, they knew, Mika, exactly what they were doing. There was so much online chatter. We'll hear from Ben Collins, where people were desperate to get the names of these agents

so they could kill them. The threats all over, all over the Internet saying that they were desperately searching for the agents' names that had been redacted because they wanted to find them so they could hunt them down and kill them. Under that environment, Breitbart decided to go ahead and let those people see their names. The Justice Department had released, as you said, Joe, a redacted version. The move is now prompting criticism that Breitbart essentially took put a target on the agent's backs. Yeah, they did. But they did it on purpose. They're not the only ones. Trump or someone on his team is believed to have leaked the unredacted version. The former president was the only one in possession of those documents ahead of the

official DOJ release and his truth social platform sent out a notification to followers that included a link to the Breitbart article. So Jonathan Lemire. So not only did the president release the names, they sent a notification out on his social media platform for everybody to look at it. I mean, everybody had already known what was contained in it, other than the FBI agents names who were receiving death threats. I mean, you look at this and look at the recklessness of this. Look at the recklessness of media outlets regarding the Florida federal judge already receiving death threats? And and they're they're trying, you know, they're superimposing Jeffrey Epstein's face or his his face on Jeffrey Epstein's body. It's again, there are a lot of people out there that that want to see this federal judge killed.

There are a lot of people out there that want to see these these FBI agents killed. At least it certainly looks that way. Yeah, and a huge rise of threats against law enforcement, the FBI in particular, in recent weeks. The incident at the office in Cincinnati just a few days ago, underscoring that danger. And you're right, whether it was Trump personally or someone very close to him, they're the ones who had a copy of that document. They're the ones who put it out to a friendly right wing media source and, of course, then promoted it on Truth Social. So Trump's fingerprints all over this. And it does. It has put a put a target on the backs of two officers who are simply doing their jobs. And again, for a party that has the Republican Party

for has long tried to tout its support of law enforcement. Boy, they are not doing that. Let's remember, of course, this comes on a year and a half after January 6th, where Capitol Police officers were attacked and badly beaten by Trump supporters, supporters who were there because Donald Trump himself called them to violence. Now we have threats being made against these agents because Trump or someone very close to him put out their names. We have Republican lawmakers calling for the FBI to be defunded and that federal law enforcement should be disbanded. It is yet again more hypocrisy from a Republican Party that has long strayed under the leadership of Donald Trump

from being supportive of law enforcement and two lives are in danger. Yeah, I mean, yeah, lives are in danger. And again, they hate law enforcement and law enforcement doesn't do their political bidding. They're fascists. These people who hate law enforcement when they actually try to do their jobs, they're fascists because they want to be able to use political violence against them, against anybody that doesn't further their political agenda. You look at January the 6th. Do they support law enforcement? No, they didn't support law enforcement because they wanted to overturn a peaceful democratic

election. And so they beat the hell out of law enforcement officers with flags, bludgeoned their heads, jammed them indoors. Officers died after January the 6th, their families say, because of the January 6th rioters. And now you look at this, Mika. Yeah. They hate the FBI again. Republicans have hated the FBI, the premier law enforcement agency in America. They hated it from the start because they tried to blame all of Donald Trump's bizarre activities on the FBI. And now they hate him here. Yeah. I mean, and so so they're back to hating the FBI again because the FBI is trying to protect Americans by keeping classified documents

classified and keeping top secret documents where they're supposed to be for the protection of America and their allies. But they're siding again. They're siding with this guy who's been behaving like a fascist. Yeah. And they're against law enforcement officers. They don't they don't support cops. Not just far right websites. It's Fox News. And I watched a good amount on Friday and saw a lot of people twisting themselves into pretzels to try and figure out some way that this possibly was some sort of attack and assault by the FBI and the Justice Department on Donald Trump. And there were really uncomfortable moments where people were screaming and calling Merrick Garland a loser and screaming at each other and screaming at the situation. And it upsets people. It gins them up.

And I was listening for the logic, and there was none. There was no journalistic integrity, and there was no logic to it. And I don't understand how this could be allowed in light of everything that is facing the network overall in terms of the credibility here. I say that very carefully. Nobody is perfect. And, you know, all the cable networks have gone through a lot of changes and in the past decade and everyone's trying to do better. I'm not seeing it on the part of Fox. I'm not not even in light of this.

Let's bring in NBC News reporter Ben. You certainly expect much, much more, Mika, after January the 6th. You would think. You would not expect the same mistakes to be repeated. The ginning up of Trump, of Trump's most rabid followers leading into January the 6th. That's. And then hosts being shocked and stunned and deeply saddened when actually the riots took place and police were getting the hell beaten out of them with American flags. And suddenly they're desperately texting and calling saying, please stop.

Yeah, stop. And then the next day, pretending like nothing happened. And now it's happening again. It's happening again. How many times is so? So how many how many police officers have to be killed before people wake up on the far right? How many FBI agents have to be be shot before they wake up on the far right. How many FBI agents have to be shot before they

wake up? How many FBI offices need to be attacked before they stop this? Like, we don't know how this is going to turn out. Maybe Trump walks again. I'm thinking he probably does. If past his prologue, he'll walk again. But we don't know. So why the hatred? Why the deliberate targeting of law enforcement officers, whipping people into a frenzy when they all know these law enforcement officers are only doing their jobs. Yeah. Ben Collins is with us. He's been monitoring the rhetoric, among other things. And Ben, what do you make of the

conversation we're having right now? We're trying to have it carefully. But at the same time, we're seeing sort of an incitement and even an attempt to delude viewers to look away from what's happening. And then, of course, you're monitoring the violent rhetoric that you see online. Yeah, it's all one big strategy. What Joe said is right. You know, Donald Trump in these spaces cannot fail. He can only be failed, basically. And that's the larger part of the strategy here, is give people a litany of excuses. Steve Bannon said, flood the zone with stuff. He didn't say stuff. He said something else. But give people enough things to throw at the wall. They can just pick it off the wall, right? Throw spaghetti at the wall. Take whatever strand that you find

on the floor that best suits your narrative. But with that, because everybody else is a different excuse for why he didn't do the thing that he clearly did, you have to intimidate the people on the other side, because then it turns the conversation from, did he do this thing? Was it right? To who exactly is doing this deep state coup? And that's exactly what is part of this whole thing is, you know, the New York Times reported Trump sent a note to Merrick Garland saying, what can I do to reduce the heat? The country is on fire. He knows what he can do to reduce the heat. He can not release the names of FBI agentsaid, for example, Garrett Ziegler, release the social media profiles of the family members of those FBI agents, which is what he did on Truth Social and Telegram. You know, there are a lot of ways surrogates for Donald Trump can reduce the heat.

They can make it so these FBI agents aren't specifically targeted. The new thing, by the way, in these spaces is to ask for the affidavit. Because the affidavit will say who signed up on all this. Not just the FBI agents that they can target, but the higher level figures they can target. They can add them to their cinematic universe through villains. And at the end of the day, the goal is to intimidate those people into hiding. Yeah. So so many you said that not only did Trump's former aide on Trump's platform target the FBI agents, but also targeted the FBI agents family.

Yeah, that's correct. This is about intimidation into stopping the investigation. That's all this is. When you're out of excuses or you have so many excuses that it's even impossible for your base to comprehend which one they're supposed to be parroting, the goal is to intimidate. And it's not that hard now. These people, docs, these people, their email addresses, their phone numbers, all that stuff. And then once that becomes not enough, they start going down the list of Facebook profiles and other people who they think could hypothetically be associated. By the way, it's not clear if these are actually their family members. Could be random

civilians. Their goal is to muddy the waters, is to just instill a culture of fear. That's what happens when you're out of legal remedies, by the way, is to try to get people to stop the investigation extrajudicially by punishing them, by, you know, making them feel as if they will feel a world of hurt if they continue doing justice. Yeah. You know, Ben, Ben is so right. Jonathan Lemire, it's always about intimidation. It's about disruption. It's about shocking your opponents. I mean, when you talk to Democrats now, you've talked to Democrats on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue. Whenever I have over the past six months, they're just so shocked and they're thrown off the disruption, like the fear, the intimidation, the lies.

And it all creates this environment that they don't know really how to operate in. And the only reason I'm laughing here is this on before I tried it on the FBI. Because all they're doing, all they're doing is they're just making the FBI agents work harder to protect their agents, working around the clock to track these people down who are making the threats. I mean, it's it's really it's it's just extraordinarily stupid what they're doing. It's it's dangerous. Yes, it's dangerous. But again, these people aren't targeting like Disneyland, right? They're targeting the Federal Bureau of Investigations. They're targeting

their families. They're talking about killing these people. And all they're doing is getting the FBI to pay attention to them. Doesn't seem to be a smart move. Doesn't seem to be a smart move, not only for them, but for Donald Trump and all of his people who are trying. If you look at these, if you look if you look at what's what's been happening, trying trying to get their supporters to commit acts of violence against FBI agents, law enforcement officers, just like they did on January the 6th. Yeah, I'm not sure it's wise to poke the bear here with the bear being the FBI. And certainly to Ben's point, we have seen this before from Trump and his orbit.

The idea of just throwing everything up against the wall, the smoke machine, as Rudy Giuliani once described it to me. We saw it in the Mueller probe most vividly. But any time Trump has run into trouble since, he has tried to do this exact strategy. It's worked, quote, quote, for him to get out of political trouble in the past. We'll see if it can now for legal one. But there's certainly the more serious undercurrent here of these threats, not just against these two specific FBI agents who were named, but against agents across the country with real rise in threats and fears of violence growing online and manifesting itself in the real world. The fear is that that would have we saw in Cincinnati a few days ago won't be the last time. Yeah. And Ben Collins, thank you so much for your your great work. You do such important work. And an August, 12th, tweet of yours caught my attention.

I have comments from Trump forums right now trying to ID the specific FBI agents who were part of the raid so they can be, quote, helicopter passengers. A reference to Chilean dictator Pinochet murdering dissidents by throwing them out of helicopters. There you have Donald Trump supporters. Thank you so much, Ben, not only for being with us, but for all the great work you do.