Good evening from Los Angeles. I'm Jacob Soberoff in for Chris Hayes. We are 258 days away from possibly the most consequential midterm election in American history. And Donald Trump, the aspiring authoritarian in the White House, is desperately looking for ways to turn the math in his party's favor. One way to do that would be to try to add voters to his coalition. The other is to subtract voters from the equation entirely. In fact, you might have caught the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, last week saying her department was going to help make sure the right people were going to elect the right leaders. And it turns out that is exactly what they are trying to do. New reporting from MS Now tonight says DHS is being deputized to hunt for voter fraud and suppress the vote. We're going to have more on that report in just a moment with the great Carol Lenig, But it is becoming obvious that Plan A, trying to figure out how to sell voters on MAGA, is not working for them, as Trump's average approval rating has sunk to 41 percent. That is its lowest point in a year. Last night, with just weeks before the first election primaries, dozens of White House aides, including Trump's chief of staff and his top pollster, gathered for a closed-door midterm strategy session. Sources tell MSNOW that in that meeting, officials concluded that the economy, the economy will be the top issue and Trump's historical advantage on immigration was gone. So the Republican plan to add voters to their coalition is to talk about affordability, a word Donald Trump says is made up, and avoid talking about the border, which Trump constantly obsesses about. Just pretend that everything's going great, that the wild scandals enveloping the White House are worth ignoring because the Dow. None of them asked Merrick Garland over the last four years one word about Jeffrey Epstein. How ironic is that? You know why? Because Donald Trump, the Dow, the Dow right now is over, the Dow is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing. I don't know why you're laughing. If that case doesn't sound like it'll convince enough voters, Trump and the Republicans have another strategy. An old favorite of President Trump's subtracting votes from his political opponents. At his direction, Republicans have started to redraw congressional districts in red states to gerrymander blue seats out of existence. But Democratic states have responded in kind. So now Republicans are pushing a voter suppression bill in Congress. It's called the SAVE Act, and it would mandate proof of citizenship to register to vote as well as photo ID to vote and to request a mail-in ballot. The bill could make voting a hardship for millions of Americans who live abroad, as well as women and transgender people whose last names do not match their birth certificates. And it would require states to hand over their unredacted voter roll data to the Department of Homeland Security. That bill has already cleared the House of Representatives, but faces an uncertain fate in the Senate. Late last week, Trump posted that if Congress doesn't pass the SAVE Act, he would try unilaterally to make it a law by executive order, saying, quote, there will be voter ID for the midterm elections, whether approved by Congress or not. So, yeah, he can't do that. But Trump is committed to preventing free and fair elections by any means necessary. The Republicans should say, we want to take over, we should take over the voting in at least many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that are so crooked and they're counting votes, we have states that I won that show I didn't win. Ground zero for Trump's effort has been Fulton County, Georgia, the urban locale whose votes cost Donald Trump the state and the election in 2020. Late last month, Trump's FBI raided the Fulton County Election Office, taking away 700 boxes of ballots from the 2020 election, apparently on the basis of the same false election conspiracy theories that he was spreading back then. Today, the Republican-controlled Georgia State Board of Elections met for the first time since that raid, and just after, Trump shared an article to social media calling for the state to take over Fulton County's elections. They may take up that issue as soon as tomorrow while Trump is in Georgia for a campaign appearance. This is all a repeat of 2020, of trying to commandeer an election based on gross claims with no evidence to support them. As I found out back then, trying to get details from then-Trump campaign proxy and now-Trump administration official rick rinnell hey rick rinnell uh we're live on msnbc right now can you talk about the evidence you're claiming thousands of illegitimate votes here in nevada what's the evidence you should go in and ask the question of the no no no which you haven't you guys just made the claim no in fact you also said there's no election observers there's democratic and republican election observers inside and on top of all that as i mentioned earlier we now know that the department of Homeland Security will be playing a role in this year's election, as Kristi Noem let slip last week. I would say that many people believe that it may be one of the most important things that we need to make sure we trust is reliable, and that when it gets to Election Day that we've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country. So what do you mean by the right people voting? According to documents reviewed by MSNOW, the Department of Homeland Security's chief investigations arm this week launched a broader nationwide campaign to investigate and prosecute naturalized citizens who may have improperly voted in past elections before they became citizens. This is a plan ordered by the White House. As part of its investigation, MSNOW has also learned that senior DHS and Justice Department appointees have held a series of meetings to discuss sending law enforcement to polling places to, quote, secure elections. Law enforcement agents tell MS Now they worry the administration's true goal is to intimidate voters from showing up in future elections. Two current and former DHS officials told MS Now they have never heard of an initiative like this being run by the department ever before, calling it not normal. Carol Ennig is a senior investigative reporter for MS Now. She is the author of Injustice, How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department. She was the lead reporter on that story about DHS hunting for voters. And she joins me now, Carol. It's good to see you. We have heard so much. I think Walls told me, Newsom told me, Pritzker told me they were worried about federal agents showing up at polls on Election Day. Sounds like now there may actually be a plan in place to have some version of that. Well said, Jacob. I feel like I've been hearing from sources just like you have for a long time that they're really worried and have been worried about an effort to kind of chill and frighten people away from the polls. And here we have two ways in which that looks like it's coming true. First, the issue of Invest Abroad national investigation of open and closed investigations into possible fraudulent voting by naturalized citizens. Let's break that down. When the HSI, which is the investigative arm of DHS, goes about these investigations, what do they do? They send letters and they conduct interviews with naturalized citizens asking them, when did you vote? When did you register to vote? Let me see your paperwork to determine that you're a naturalized citizen. It doesn't take very long for you to frighten somebody who's basically gotten through a legal asylum process and immigration process about themselves, their family, their status, and all of their friends, and all of their family members and all of their community. This is viewed as a way to ask a lot of questions, stir up a lot of dust in 50 states, all led by the Department of Homeland Security. And then we'll see if maybe fewer people show up to the polls. The second part, which I'm so glad you focus on, is about armed law enforcement. We are hearing about a series of meetings, and we reported it first today for MS Now, that DHS and DOJ officials have been conducting over the last several weeks to basically plot and plan how to send armed law enforcement to the polls. As you know very well, Jacob, you know this material. It is against federal law to send the military or armed law enforcement within a thousand feet of the polls in any way that would intimidate voters. This has been one of the biggest fears of Democratic activists and free and fair election advocates. And here we now know it's essentially in the works. You cite, Carol, in this report, multiple sources who tell you that the driving force behind the sweeping HSI investigations, which, by the way, HSI is normally investigating human trafficking, sex trafficking, other forms of illicit activity that basically in which people are the victims. You say the is White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. Talk about what Stephen Miller's role is here. Why does it concern insiders so much? So what's so interesting about this is it's not typical for the White House deputy chief of staff to be telling the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice what to do about potential violations of law. But Miller is viewed by both the DHS sources I spoke to and DOJ sources as the architect and the driving force between this effort to investigate naturalized citizens to figure out did they vote before they were naturalized Did they register to vote before they were naturalized Did they make any mistakes that could be claimed to be fraud in their paperwork And that they at DHS at least, have been having weekly conference calls with Miller and his staff about doing this. As well, we learned today in our reporting that the DHS has been asked to essentially report back to the White House directly when they decide not to charge some of these individuals who are viewed as suspected fraud voters. Any open or closed cases that they're asked to review, now if they choose not to charge someone, they've got to tell the White House, which is, again, unprecedented for any law enforcement activity. Carol, what are the number of people, potentially, that we're talking about. Am I right that I read in your reporting is around a thousand for starters? And what does that mean in the larger scheme of things? We have tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people in this country, tens of millions who are voting, maybe more. You know, this is about, ultimately, it seems, the impact that will have on people that are beyond this 1000 people, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, really smart question. So in the timeline of our reporting, and my colleague Laura Lopez and Vaughn Hilliard were critical to this, let me just give them a shout out. In this reporting, what we learned was that in the summer of 2025, HSI was given a list of 1,700 potentially or suspected fraudulent voters who were either foreign-born citizens, immigrants in the process of becoming naturalized citizens, 1,700 cases. But that rapidly expanded as of this memo that we reviewed that came out on Friday, in which there are potentially hundreds of thousands of naturalized citizens that will be reviewed. The White House, by the way, I want to emphasize something. When we spoke to White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson, she said, look, it's fair for the administration to be looking for criminals, people who are engaged in fraudulent voting. The problem with that is that all of the research done, including by the pro-Trump Heritage Foundation, have concluded that over the course of a decade, there were only 24 identifiable cases of non-citizen voter fraud. So, you know, expanding to look at further and further and further concentric circles to try to find fraudsters when so far there are so few is raising a lot of hackles with people who want to protect the election and protect voters from being intimidated. Caroline, incredible reporting as always. Thank you so much for joining me tonight. Thank you, Jacob. Greg Blustein is the chief political reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He covered today's meeting of the Georgia Elections Board, and he joins me now. Greg, it's good to see you. Just before this, I was watching a little bit of it today on YouTube, just before the election board met, Trump shared this article on social media saying that the state Republicans should just they should just take over Fulton County's elections. What was it like today in that room? How open are they to this plan that Trump is voting? Yeah, well, of the it's a five member state election board and of of the three member majority is very MAGA, very pro-Trump. And two of those three have told me that this idea is very much on their radar. The state takeover of Fulton County, which is the most populous and one of the deepest blue counties in Georgia, is very much on the radar that it could happen. They're not saying it's going to happen, but they're also not explicitly ruling it out. And this is exactly the fear that Democrats and voting rights advocates in Georgia had, even as the FBI raid of Fulton County's election hub was going on, was that that would be used as a pretext to take over Fulton County's election. And frankly, way back in 2021, when this underlying voting law passed in response to Donald Trump's narrow victory, narrow defeat, I should say, in Georgia, that law, that sort of allowance in the law for the state election board to take over a local election process was the number one fear for critics of that law. To remind everybody, by the way, back in 2024, Georgia conducted an audit of its voter rolls. And Brad Raffensperger, who the secretary of state, he said they found that 20 to zero of the 8.2 million people registered to vote in the state are not U.S. citizens. 20 and none of those 20 had voted in that November's general election. Is there any as anything come from Republicans at all about having more evidence of these fraud claims or this is just 2020 all over again? Rick Grinnell running into a van in Nevada when I saw him. It does feel like 2020 is clouding everything in 2026 here in Georgia. I feel like maybe Georgia is the most ripe example of that happening, but I feel like it's happening across the country where candidates, campaigns, the internal divisions we see in the Republican Party that we thought would be long gone, long behind us, they're sharper than ever as these midterms approach and as primaries here in Georgia approach in May because you have the same MAGA versus conventional Republican divides that you had with many Republicans saying they just want to move on and others, you know, parroting and amplifying Trump's false claims of widespread election fraud here in Georgia. What are Republicans saying about all of this? How's it playing with voters there? Are they concerned at all about a backlash against the measures that look like voter suppression in the way that we've seen before? Yeah, you know, it's interesting because you go back in Georgia, 2018, even 2020, voting rights and access to the ballots and integrity was a big part of the debate. And it had not been as big of a part of the debate until that FBI raid. Now, suddenly, a lot of candidates who didn't necessarily want to talk about this, they're having to talk about it. Frankly, Democrats weren't really talking about voting rights as much in Georgia. They were talking about the economy, affordability, issues like that. They see poll after poll after poll shows that those are the top issues that Georgians are concerned about. Republicans, for the most part, are veering towards those issues all over again. The MAGA Republicans who are jockeying for Donald Trump's favor, they're playing right into the 2020 narrative, even though senior Republican officials, Governor Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the people who kind of bucked Donald Trump back in 2020, they are once again saying, hey, move on. Focus on 2026, focus on the next round of elections, not on the past. Yeah, it was so it was extraordinary, actually, Greg, to see that turn out the John Ossoff event not long ago in the wake of that raid. And it's very clear that people are starting to pay attention again and come out and show up at these things because of this exact issue. Greg Blustein, thank you very much. Thanks for starting off the show with us tonight. I appreciate it. Thank you. Coming up, a big show tonight, including an inside look into that closed door deposition with Epstein associate Lex Wexner, plus the very latest on President Trump's saber-rattling with Iran. But first, Senator Chris Van Hollen on the DHS plan to hunt down voter fraud that's coming up next. Elections is another one of those critical infrastructure responsibilities that I have as well. And I would say that many people believe that it may be one of the most important things that we need to make sure we trust is reliable, and that when it gets to Election Day that we've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting. electing the right leaders to lead this country. On day five of the DHS shutdown, we now know what Kristi Noem means when she talks about the right people voting. Thanks to excellent reporting from our MS Now colleagues, we have this White House memo driven by Stephen Miller. It directs DHS agents to, quote, focus largely on immigrants who have eventually become naturalized citizens, asking Homeland Security investigation offices to identify naturalized citizens who may have registered to vote or voted illegally by doing so before they were officially citizens. Joining me now is Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland. Senator, it's good to see you. Thanks for being here. Good to be with you, Jacob. Senator, I know you have read this reporting and you heard Carol at the beginning of the show. What concerns do you have with this rolling out less than nine months before the midterm elections? Well, excellent reporting. And Kristi Noem gave away the game. You've played that segment where she says that they want the right people voting and electing the right people. And so their goal is to use this false claim of fraud, which we know is virtually non-existent, as you've reported, in order to suppress the vote, in order to take these actions to intimidate American citizens from going out and casting their votes. That is their goal. We've seen in Minneapolis that American citizens are scared. They're having to take their papers with them wherever they go. We've seen American citizens shot and killed in Minneapolis. So what they're aiming to do is to prevent the American citizens that they don't want voting from coming out and casting their votes. You know, you've been so watching you, you were so incredibly effective in bringing back Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the work that you did at the beginning of this administration. But when you look at what's happening now with DHS, even though there's this partial shutdown, they've got funds now for all of this from the big, beautiful bill. Is there are you thinking about what you can do, what you and your colleagues can do about this task force and stopping it? Well, Jacob, look, look, you're right. We have to figure out exactly what the overall approach is. And I do think the people of Minneapolis are the example for all of us And that includes going into the next election So first of all one thing that definitely motivates people to go out and vote is when they know that people like Donald Trump are trying to stop them from voting and suppressing the vote. But that's not enough in itself. We need to have people at polling places who are essentially going to be holding accountable anybody that sends Donald Trump, that Donald Trump decides to deploy. Obviously, we want to do everything we can to stop those deployments. But at the end of the day, we have to take matters into our own hands. We have to take action and we have to organize at the local level and be prepared, because one thing we've learned is you can count on Donald Trump to do the worst. Yeah, I wonder what happens, what that confrontation ultimately looks like if the American people show up to watch the, I guess, so-called poll watchers that will be sent by this administration. I'm curious what you make of our MSNOW reporting. This is what it says. Senior DHS and Justice Department appointees have held a series of meetings to discuss sending law enforcement to polling places to, quote-unquote, secure elections. What is this going to look like on Election Day? Well, I should say, Jacob, one of the things that we've, one of the points we've made in these discussions with the White House over DHS and ICE agents is that we don't think, We're saying they should not be allowed to be deployed to these polling areas in order to intimidate American citizens from voting. So that's still part of our push. But, you know, my view is the White House is not interested in any meaningful change, any meaningful protections. So what does it look like? It looks like those folks in Minneapolis who were very organized in protecting their neighbors, blowing the whistle on, you know, ICE actions and also blowing the whistle to protect their neighbors. So I can tell you that my view is that we've got to start planning right now. We know Donald Trump is working to suppress the vote. He talked about nationalizing the elections. I mean, can you imagine a system where Donald Trump actually counts the votes at the White House? He'll get exactly the number he needs, as he tried to do in Georgia in 2020. So, look, I don't think we can plan on Donald Trump, you know, deciding not to try to steal this election in every way he can. So we need to prepare to make sure that we're ready for that. And at the end of the day, it is we the people who are going to have to do that together. Should the Democrats regain control of the House and the Senate? I have heard time and again, I heard it during the first Trump term, during family separation, that there was going to be accountability for that policy that was called torture by Physicians for Human Rights, government-sanctioned child abuse by American Academy of Pediatrics. I've heard Tim Wall say he wants to have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the wake of the killing of René Nicole Good and Alex Preddy. What are you and your colleagues going to do on the Hill in terms of accountability? should the Democrats regain control of Congress? Well, accountability is absolutely important in order to make sure that people can't continue to act with impunity or believe they have a license literally to kill in the case of the two Minnesota citizens that were killed. So that involves a couple of things. Number one, obviously bringing administration officials down before the Congress. But more importantly, And this may not just be in 2026, but in 2028, holding people accountable in the courts. And again, one of the things we've said we have to see at DHS is an independent accountability system. Right. Because how can you possibly trust a Trump administration to prosecute and investigate people who committed these acts and these crimes when they are calling the victims? Alex Preddy and Renee Good, the domestic terrorists. So I think Congress needs to use all the tools it has at its disposal to bring the administration down. But more importantly, in terms of real accountability at the end of the day, we need to take this to the courts. Senator Chris Van Hollen, it's great to see you. Thanks so much for being here. Good to be with you. Still to come, the House deposed Jeffrey Epstein's associate, Les Wexner behind closed doors today. Congresswoman Yasmin Ansari was in the room where it happened, and she will tell us all about it. That is coming up next. Today, Democratic members and Republican staffers of the House Oversight Committee took a field trip as part of their Epstein investigation. They spent the day deposing the billionaire, former CEO of Victoria's Secret and former Epstein benefactor, Les Wexner, testimony that the 88-year-old Wexner gave at his mansion in New Albany, Ohio. Wexner maintains he had no knowledge of Epstein's criminal activity and that he was, quote, duped by a con man. But Wexner was named as an Epstein co-conspirator in an internal FBI memo in 2019. And today he told members of Congress that he was never questioned by the FBI or Department of Justice about Epstein, something Democrats found pretty hard to believe. How outrageous is that? He's someone that's been named by survivors, someone that's in the files more than most people, someone that's clearly the financial benefactor to Jeffrey Epstein and has not been contacted or interviewed by the FBI or the DOJ? What the hell is going on? Congresswoman Yasemin Ansari is a Democrat of Arizona. She was in that deposition today, and she joins me now. Congresswoman, thanks so much for being here. What was it like to be there? Well, it was fascinating. And unfortunately, I think that we heard a lot of lies and continue to understand how much more to the story there really is and how much of a cover up is ongoing. We spent the entirety of the day in Ohio at Les Wexner's mansion. And we went in with many important questions because, again, Les Wexner is somebody that is crucial to getting to the bottom of this case and getting justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and others. He's a billionaire who is arguably the person responsible for Jeffrey Epstein's wealth. There would be no Epstein Island or Epstein Plain or any conversation about Jeffrey Epstein if it wasn't for Les Wexner. And there's a lot of evidence that points to their longstanding relationship and friendship and close ties. And we learned a couple of really notable things today. First of all, we learned that Les Wexner, despite being in the Epstein files listed as a possible co-conspirator, has never been contacted by the Department of Justice or the FBI. That is outrageous. That is egregious and part of the Pam Bondi and Donald Trump cover up. We also heard what I believe to be outright lies from Les Wexner. It's very interesting to me that somebody who had a decades long financial relationship. I mean, Jeffrey Epstein had power of attorney over all of Wexner's properties and financial assets. And when asked about their relationship, Les Wexner would not even admit to the term friends. He wouldn't say they're close. He tried to act like they barely knew each other. We asked him about the well-documented reporting that people around him early on when they met back in the 80s warned him about Epstein and that he may be a fraud and a con man. And we know that that advice was ignored. He said he did not remember that advice. So there was a lot of, you know, responses from him in the vein of I don't recall, I don't remember, I don't know. But how do you not know when you gave this person hundreds of millions of dollars and then they went on to commit the most heinous and violent crimes against children in this country? We as I mentioned, we were watching all this pretty closely today and we saw several Democratic members speaking to the press, including Congressman Garcia there during a lunch break at one point. Were there were there any Republican members at all at Mr. Wexner's mansion today? No, and it was shocking. Not one Republican member decided to show up, even though we're in the middle of a district work period. And quite frankly, it's a pretty easy flight to Ohio for many states in this country. I don't think the Republicans have ever been serious about this investigation from the get go during last summer in the oversight committee. We forced them as Democrats and backed them into a corner. they were forced to vote for the subpoena, the original subpoena, to get the Epstein files released. We, of course, know the story of how Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey brought about the discharge petition to get the files released. So I think their no-show today just demonstrates they're not really trying to get answers for the victims, because I met with the victims as recently as last week, and there is not a name that the victims and their lawyers bring up more than Les Wexner. I mean, Les Wexner is a crucial part of this investigation. Again, Jeffrey Epstein would not be Jeffrey Epstein if it wasn't for Les Wexner's money and his billions of dollars to get to that point. And so I think it's very telling. Of course, there's the deposition with the Clintons next week. My guess is a lot of Republicans will show up to that. For them, this is just a political stunt. For us, we want to get to the truth. I have been devastated talking to countless victims and survivors. And just the mere fact that so many of them have shared their testimonies with the FBI over the years and that we know that, you know, related to Les Wexner, Virginia Giuffre actually named him as somebody who she was trafficked to. And this man has never been questioned by the Department of Justice about this That disgusting I so glad we got to hear your account from being inside the room today Congresswoman Yasemin Ansari thank you so much for being here Appreciate it Thank you. Still to come, new reporting on the president's plan for war in Iran, what we know about what's going on and why, next. Despite ongoing nuclear talks between the United States and Iran, all signs are once again pointing to a military escalation. Late last week, a second aircraft carrier strike group was ordered to the Middle East, joining the USS Abraham Lincoln already in the region. This adds to reporting by NPR today that, quote, in the last day or so, the U.S. appears to be adding about 50 or so fighter jets to the region and a sizable force was already in place. There's no buildup of U.S. ground troops anywhere in the region, but it's well beyond what's needed for leverage against Iran. Today at the White House, Trump press secretary Caroline Levitt did not dismiss a possible strike. Well, there's many reasons and arguments that one could make for a strike against Iran. The president has always been very clear, though, with respect to Iran or any country around the world, diplomacy is always his first option. And Iran would be very wise to make a deal with President Trump and with this administration. Michelle Goldberg is an opinion columnist for The New York Times. Robert Malley served as a lead negotiator for the Iran nuclear deal back in 2015 and as special envoy for Iran under President Biden. They both join me now. Robert, let's start with you. What do you make of all the military equipment being moved into the Middle East? Well, listen, I mean, with President Trump, everything is unpredictable because he has this capacity to, you know, paint himself in a corner, then paint himself out of the corner and to spin anything as a success, whether it's a strike, a deal or anything in between. But at this point, you know, there's that saying that Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright, that if there's a gun at the beginning of the play, expect that at some point it will be used. When the United States mobilizes this massive, massive military force, the most, no, the most massive military force the U.S. has mobilized since the 2003 Iraq war, everything points to the fact that at some point it will be used. It will be used illegally. It will be used unlawfully, but it will be used. Michelle, one of the things in that clip that we played of Caroline Levitt there that stuck out to me was that she said there's a lot of reasons to attack Iran. Yes. What do you think about how Iranians are going to react to that? Well, not just how Iranians are going to react to that, but just the fact that, yes, there are theoretically many reasons, but the administration has not actually articulated what they are. Besides, they want Iran to make a nuclear deal. You know, they still are claiming that they destroyed Iran's nuclear capabilities when they bombed when they bombed it last year. They haven't articulated what this potential war is supposed to accomplish, what its ends would be, what success would mean, whether they intend it to be regime change. And they also have not, you know, as Rob said, this is an illegal war. There is no legal justification for starting a full scale war without without the consent of Congress. And what's so astonishing about this is that, you know, I never in my life thought that I would feel nostalgic for being lied to by George W. Bush in the run up to the Iraq war. But this is an administration that doesn't even feel the need to propagandize the population because it doesn't feel like it needs the consent of the governed at all. Robert, Trump is is ranting. I think it's fair to say about an island in the Indian Ocean that the United Kingdom is giving up control of. He's saying that the U.S. might have to eradicate an attack were the words that he used from Iran. Does this does this make you think an attack is more likely than not? As I said, listen, with President Trump, I'll say it again. It's very hard to predict him. And I really don't know what goes through his head. But when you amass this kind of military force, it's unclear what other purpose it would be for other than for the president to do what he appears to have decided to do, which is to strike Iran. So, you know, if you'd asked me a week ago, I would have said I wouldn't be surprised if I'd woken up the next morning and we'd heard that a deal had been struck between Iran and the United States. nor would I have been surprised if I had heard the next morning that the United States had struck Iran military. At this point, the odds, everything just seems to be pointing to the fact that he's just waiting for enough of the military force to be assembled. I hope I'm wrong. I hope that, in fact, he finds a way out of what seems to be this irreversible decision, but just hard to see any other reason for this kind of mobilization. And Michelle, whether it's Venezuela, Iran or the streets of American cities, the president just seems like he keeps gambling that that he can take military action with no consequences, including here in Los Angeles. What happens if the luck runs out? Well, yeah, I mean, I think that that's part of what was so dangerous, both about the first strike in Iran and then about Venezuela, that he you know, he's been lucky so far. And he obviously when, you know, a president kind of has more freedom of action when he doesn't care about international law, when he doesn't care about American law, when he doesn't care about, you know, sort of human rights and reconstruction, it gives him maybe more freedom of action. And I think that what it's made this president do is feel increasingly invincible. But, you know, Iran is obviously not like Venezuela in that you can't just remove the person on top and then make a deal with the people below. Right. I mean, you can't do I don't see any way in Iran that you can do the sort of, you know, not regime change, but leader change that you did in Venezuela. And so, look, this is the same man who bankrupted casinos. And you do that by doubling down over and over and over again. Only now he's doing that with the future of the United States of America. And Robert, Iran partially closed the Strait of Hormuz for military drills. What is the telegraphing that's happening here to the White House about what might happen if indeed there is an attack? I mean, I think they're trying to project that there would be consequences for the United States. Of course, there's no comparison, no comparing the military capabilities of both countries. And I suspect that depending on what the United States does, the Iranian regime is going to think twice before retaliating, because it knows that if it retaliates, all bets are off in terms of how far the United States would go. If it feels that its existence is at stake, if it feels that what the United States, what President Trump is doing is to try to topple the regime, then of course all bets are off in any event and then we could expect that the regime will do whatever it can in its power to wreak havoc in the region close the straits of Hormuz go after targets American or otherwise but again I want to emphasize this point I mean Michelle said it this war has there's no authorization for this war there's no justification it's not just as it's illegal internationally it's illegal domestically there's no justification the justification seems to change every day it is incumbent on Congress members of Congress to be even louder and saying at a minimum they need to discuss this, vote on it, because at this point we seem to be barreling towards an outcome that, as I say, is unnecessary, unjustifiable, and illegal. And Michelle, of course, there's the politics of all of this. This is Donald Trump of no new wars. You know, I think that, well, that's correct, although I actually think that people who, you know, kind of read sort of a pacifism into Donald Trump or fundamentally misunderstanding him. What Donald Trump is against is American sacrifice of any kind. He's not against the sort of unilateral projection of American power. Although there's certainly some of his followers who, you know, kind of, I think, misunderstood what Donald Trump was about. Some of them are able to, you know, sort of turn on a dime and decide that, no, we've always wanted to start a war with Iran. But certainly some of them are falling away. What I worry about is that as he becomes more and more unpopular, rather than that becoming a check on Donald Trump, it makes him even more unhinged and even more kind of desperate to assert himself on the foreign stage where there's fewer constraints on him than there are domestically. Michelle Goldberg, Robert Malley, it's so good to see you both this evening. Appreciate you being here. We'll be right back. Hey, so one quick note before we go. As some of you might know, I recently published my second book, Firestorm, The Great Los Angeles Fires and America's New Age of Disaster. It's about the deadly wildfires that devastated my hometown of Los Angeles one year ago. 16,000 structures were destroyed. 31 people died. 400, if you look at the excess mortality figures. In the most populous county in America, two communities entirely wiped off the map. I am currently in the middle of my book tour, where I have been talking about all of this, including the Trump administration's impacts on the recovery from these fires. And it has been so amazing to meet so many of you guys. If you are interested in coming out and hearing me talk about the book, Maybe get your book signed. Come on out. Good news. We're adding some stops. I will be doing an event at the Santa Monica Library. That is two weeks from today, March 4th. We have also got dates scheduled at both the Tucson Festival of Books here in Los Angeles and in Tucson, LA Times Festival of Books, too. You can learn more by scanning that QR code on your screen or visiting my website, JacobSobaroff.com. It has been one of the most extraordinary and greatest privileges of my life, just like this job, being out on a polling line on election night or on the floor of the convention. or being face-to-face with all of you in community is just the most wonderful experience. And I'm looking forward to more of it coming up. That is All In on this Wednesday night.
