As President Trump continues implementing his ambitious agenda, follow along with the MSNOW newsletter, Project 47. You'll get weekly updates sent straight to your inbox with expert analysis on the administration's latest actions and how they're affecting the American people. The American people are basically telling the president that they are not okay with any of this. Sign up for the Project 47 newsletter at ms.now slash project 47. and in that context i made it clear i did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff which i told the president was and uh you know i didn't want to be a part of it and that's one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when i did i observed uh i think it was on december 1st that you know how can we you can't live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that there was fraud in the election. Hi again, everybody. How bad is it? It's so bad that we're going to call that point A, okay? And we all know what Bill Barr's record was, Attorney General. But because of statements like that and testimony like that, that was before the January 6th Select Committee. Point A represents the safe and secure presidential elections, national elections, we have enjoyed in our country without interruption over the course of this century. And then point Z, that is the nightmare scenario. A president who has already exhibited a willingness and interest and effort to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, encouraging violence if it's necessary, with an unfettered control over our election systems. It is difficult to pinpoint precisely where we are today, right now, this hour, on that sliding scale between A and Z. But this afternoon's developments make it abundantly clear we are straying further and further from point A and lurching ever closer and closer to point Z. The latest reporting from MS Now, quote, Donald Trump has directed his White House counsel's office to explore the feasibility of an executive order requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration and photo identification at polling locations nationwide, even as his own lawyers have warned the moves would likely run into legal trouble, according to a senior White House official who spoke anonymously. Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vogt and White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf are among those overseeing the effort to determine whether a legally viable path forward on this stuff exists. It is the latest sign that Donald Trump intends to reshape American elections and unilaterally and without congressional buy-in test the limits of his executive authority. The only part of that that is more chilling, more chilling than the idea of a unilateral executive order that could disenfranchise a large number of American voters with the stroke of a pen, was that phrase toward the end of the reporting, quote, the latest sign, because it is, as we've been chronicling here, just a piece, albeit a very important one, of that drift ever closer to point Z on the spectrum. Case in point, brand new reporting in The Washington Post out late this afternoon, quote, pro-Trump activists who say they're in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting. Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and to ban mail-in ballots in November's midterm elections. The activists expect their draft will figure into Trump's promised executive order on the issue. The White House declined to elaborate on Trump's plans. Considering those two pieces of reporting from today as a pair, you can ask yourself, in our nation's 250-year history, have there been 250 days more important to the health and well-being and survival of our democracy than the span between this afternoon and Election Day? because point Z is calling and we might be closer to it than you think. That's where we start the hour. With me at the table, senior White House reporter Vaughn Hilliard, who's bylined on that reporting we read from. Also joining us, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. Michael Wallman is here with me at the table. Democratic strategist and Columbia University professor, MSNOW political analyst Basil Smeichel is here. And Michael Feinberg is still with us as well. Vaughn, take me behind your reporting. The president of the United States is currently surrounded by a White House staff that is trying to keep him focused on the economy around the midterm elections. But the reality is that Donald Trump is not in the same headspace. And there are people like Cleta Mitchell, Kurt Olson, Steve Bannon that are keeping this issue alive. That is how it's made its way into the State of the Union address. The SAVE Act is not going to be passed in Congress, not just Democrats, it's Lisa Murkowski. And so the president is seeking potentially to use this executive order to try to institute not only proof of citizenship requirement for voter registration, but also proof of identification at polling places across the country this November. The reality, though, is the legal part of this. And it is quite clear that, number one, states and localities administer elections, and that if there are going to be federal changes to the rules of voting, it has to be passed by Congress. That is what the Constitution says. And so the question here, though, is how does this White House try to effectively try to appease Donald Trump so he feels like he is doing something? This executive order is it, while also understanding we are seven months away and there are other people, Cleta Mitchell, Steve Bannon, that have much greater and grander ideas of how to impact these midterm elections. I mean, it brings you back to the, we've been talking about the January 6th Select Committee investigation a lot today, but it brings you back to the cinematic scenes of lurching and lunging and swearing and cussing and whatever else was going on in the Oval Office, which makes my stomach flip over a few times, over his efforts to seize voting machines and do things like this before. Just help me understand why. I mean, I guess it's because the quality of the people around him is underneath the quality of the people that were around in 2020. And Donald Trump is ultimately going to get what he wants, right? You can talk about Kash Patel and whether his job is on the line or not. But guess what? Kash Patel is going and executing an FBI search of Fulton County, is director of national intelligence. He doesn't have to agree with her assessment about Iran's nuclear capabilities, but she's down there in Fulton County. And if you are looking here at the ways in which they can impact this election ahead, that from the sources that we have talked to, it is these very folks that Donald Trump continues to turn to, those that are willing to execute on this here. And if you go back, I think we have to go back to 2020. If you go back to the dissent of Justice Sotomayor, She was very clear in the question there of whether the president had absolute immunity. She said, organizes a military coup to hold on to power, immune. That was her interpretation of the opinion of the Supreme Court. And the president of the United States could potentially use his military, trying to use emergency powers, which Brennan Center has done a great job in understanding that there are no legal statutes that allow him to move forward with that. But that doesn't mean that Donald Trump is not going to try, because we have seen him try before and especially in the hours before the election there's a big question here of especially if they try to lay claim to iran or china trying to use foreign influence the president could try to make the case that there is a foreign threat here domestically that it makes it a compound upon him to whether it be c's voting machines which he considered doing uh michael schmidt did a great report there in real time about that and this is a moment here where the president of the United States is more eager than ever, clearly based off of our reporting, to push the ball forward on this. And simply having Congress not pass the SAVE Act, that's not going to satisfy it. I mean, Michael, it seems that the immunity decision protects him from being criminally prosecuted for doing that, but it doesn't make that which is unconstitutional lawful. What is in the system, what remains in the system as an antibody to protect against his unconstitutional conduct. Well, you're exactly right. The Constitution is very clear. States run elections. Congress has a legitimate role in passing national legislation. Presidents have no role. And already this year, as we've seen this campaign to try to undermine the midterms, courts have stepped up. He had an executive order last year purporting to take personal control of elections and require people to produce a passport, not even a birth certificate, but a passport. And it was blocked by the courts, which said it was illegal. There is no legal basis for any of these things that are being reported. And this notional executive action claiming Chinese influence in 2020, it seems to be based on sort of wackadoodle theories by election deniers with no basis in reality. Courts are willing to step up and states have a role as well. They run the elections. So I do think that if we are aware, if we're calling out these efforts, and if we all do what we need to do, we can have secure and free and fair and hopefully uneventful elections in November. Michael, the November elections were an absolute political calamity for Republicans. The margins were so massive. It's my experience from being on campaign sides that voters internalize dynamics and it's almost a GOTV, it's almost a get out the vote message to tell voters that their vote is at risk. It's going to be harder to vote. They don't want you to vote. It's just a piece of sort of human psychology in my time in elections, that the harder you make it, the more you drive up incentive to vote. Other than that, what is the thing that voters can do to protect their right to vote? Well, you're absolutely right. There's always been a worry that calling attention to efforts to suppress the vote might accidentally suppress the vote because people wouldn't want to vote if it's too much of a bother. But we now see that if you think about in Georgia in 2020, people are angry when their rights are being threatened and they know what's going on. And the more attention he brings to it, the more that happens. Voters, first of all, should make sure that they are registered. They can vote by mail. They can vote early. They can demand that their local officials protect them. And they should certainly make sure that the Senate doesn't pass the SAVE Act, because that would really be an egregious voting restriction bill that would knock millions off the rolls. Basil, I feel like we've come to this table and we've covered every one of Trump's audacious and outrageous moves together for the last 10 years. Never before have I seen one so flagrantly wrapped in political impotence. I mean, he's only doing this because people dislike him and his presidency so much. And that to me is a big difference. He liked to at least pretend that he was politically strong in the first term. Oh, no, this absolutely smacks of his insecurities. It reeks of Republican fears that they're going to lose in these midterms. And I was sitting in this chair when Fulton County was the Board of Elections, the FBI went in, and I was like, why is Tulsi Gabbard there? Because it reveals that it is part of a grander strategy. But I like the point that you made about GOTV, because the operative in me goes back to 2020, when Joe Biden was saying, make a plan to vote. And it is incredibly important that at the local level, we should assume he's going to do this. We should assume he's going to get away with it, at least, you know, in terms of Congress and their oversight ability or inability to hold him accountable But it fair to assume that he going to impede our elections It fair to assume that he going to use whatever means necessary No evidence, just doubt is enough. And if you think about the ways in which they've used ICE to deter and to instill fear, where you have students not even going to school because they don't want to get caught up, you could assume that they know that that might be the same strategy for voting. People will stay home because they're afraid. So at the local level, it's one thing to register folks to vote, which I know Democrats do and everybody's doing, but you've got to start instituting a plan to get out and vote, especially when the post office has changed the rules around a postmark. Something as simple as that, so that you have to now be be mindful not just when you put the mail in the post, in the drop box, in the mailbox, in the drop box, but you have to now in your mind calculate, well, how long might it take for that piece of mail to get processed? Because that's when it'll count as being submitted. So there are going to be myriad rules and regulations that the average voter is not going to be able to navigate. So that's where the state parties and the local elected officials are going to really have a huge burden. And the media has a huge burden to make sure that the voter stays informed. I don't want to gloss over the Tulsi Gabbard of it all. It always struck me as insane, even for Donald Trump, the way Chris Krebs was maligned. Chris Krebs was in charge of making sure that our elections were secure. He simply goes on 60 Minutes and said, we did our job. Trump doesn't just fire him. He's one of the most sort of vilified and competent former national security officials of the first term, a lifelong Republican who did nothing wrong other than make sure and then say publicly that our elections were secure. All the Chris Krebs are gone. What could go wrong? A lot. I think people are giving themselves a false sense of comfort by saying it would be too difficult for him to steal the election. You would have to do a lot in a lot of states, in a lot of cities, and it's just too complicated. He doesn't need to steal it. He needs to throw it into confusion. And if you throw it into confusion and you are the federal government and you control law enforcement, you control intelligence, you have a bully pulpit unlike no other, that is enough to undermine the process. And if he has a director of national intelligence like Tulsi Gabbard, whose grasp on reality, I will just say, is not particularly firm, she would be willing to say things that in the intelligence community we would say have very low confidence. This notion that China interfered in 2020, I worked Chinese intelligence my entire career. There is no validity to that theory whatsoever. And nobody who's ever examined the Chinese intelligence services or the government of China would argue otherwise. But he now has a national security council, an intelligence community, and a law enforcement apparatus that is willing to say the most unhinged, untethered things possible if it will help him throw the election into turmoil. Can I ask an idiotic question? How is it that his base is swallowing the idea that while Barack Obama was president and Joe Biden was president, the elections were fine, both in 2016 and in 2020, and at the end of Joe Biden's presidency in 2024, and while he was in charge as the only one that got effed up? Because none of this is actually about factual assertions or about the truth on the ground. This is not a political movement. It is a movement based on personality. It is almost a quasi-religious dedication to a public figure in a way that America, thankfully, for the past 250 years has been immune to. But we're seeing whatever inoculation we once had break down at an alarming rate. Vaughn, what is the next step? I think that, number one, all of the folks that are at the top echelons of the White House were there in 2021, 2022, 2023, during the indictment, during the January 6th committee hearings. All of them know exactly what took place if they were not even working in the White House themselves. So they know what they've signed on to and they know what their boss is capable of doing here. They also understand that people like Steve Bannon can pass along documents and articles directly to key aid and get into Donald Trump's ear. And suddenly he's posting it overnight. Here's the one thing that I think is different from our reporting this go around. I've been talking to local officials to hear, you know, if you look at Georgia, right, the folks understand that three of the five Georgia state election board members are MAGA Trump allies. and they are preparing, understanding the enormity of the power that those three election board members have. And so folks on the ground are preparing. Out in Arizona, Maricopa County, there are several Republicans on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. They've lived through this before and they're preparing. There's the recorder who's in charge of Maricopa County elections, Justin Heap. For example, he said just a couple of weeks ago that his office claimed that there were disenfranchised voters. You know what that Republican-led Board of Supervisors did. They called him in and made him go and testify to his claim, essentially saying, you're not going to get to election day claiming that voters are disenfranchised. We're holding you accountable now. He and his office were unable to answer the question. I think that is going to be the difference is at the local and state level here, because we know exactly what the White House and Donald Trump have up their sleeve. Right, right. I just think, but I want to talk about that. I think we make a mistake in not covering the act and then the react. So let's do more of that. No one's going anywhere. A little update. Hillary Clinton's deposition before the House Oversight Committee is ongoing. It's supposed to be about Jeffrey Epstein, but a source familiar with the deposition tells my colleague Ali Vitale that Republicans on the committee are talking to Secretary Hillary Clinton about UFOs and about Pizzagate during that closed door deposition. We have a camera outside of it. We'll see if Hillary Clinton decides to talk about what is going on inside on her way out. Also, I had an alarming story from Columbia University right here in New York City, where early this morning, an international student in this country on a student visa was snatched by federal agents. Agents, Columbia University says, were pretending and lying about what they were doing there. They said they were searching for a missing person. What we're learning and the outrage that has ensued over that arrest is coming up. Deadline Whitehouse continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. The U.S. military deployed on the streets of America. Whole communities targeted for removal. There was tremendous anxiety as they saw neighbors and friends being taken. And when accountability finally came knocking, the burn order to cover it all up. I never believed that America would be doing this. A stain on this country, one that we said we would never repeat. Rachel Maddow presents Burn Order. All episodes available now. We're all back. Michael Wallman, let me read you the New York Times reporting on this today. The Times reports this. As the political environment darkens for his party, Donald Trump is again warning Republicans that Democrats are going to rig the results. At the same time, he's taking actions that make Democrats fear that Republicans are actually going to subvert the election. Trump has shown himself unbound by precedent in his second term and with prominent election deniers in powerful federal posts and top cabinet officials on the hunt for evidence of voter fraud. His moves have heightened anxieties about potential interference. He has called for Republicans to nationalize elections, though the Constitution leaves their administration to the states. The newly politicized Justice Department is suing states for private voter rolls. The FBI has seized ballots from the 2020 election from a Georgia election center. And Trump is so personally invested that he praised some of the agents by phone. Just give voice to some of the bulwarks that don't get as much attention as, you know, flashy FBI raid with Trump beaming in on speakerphone and Tulsi Gabbard staffing it with Pam Bondi saying, of course, she should be there. well it can be scary because this is an unprecedented thing in history to have the federal government which to the extent it gets involved usually is trying to protect voting rights to be involved in this way but for example states have a really important role to play states can say no to improper requests for sensitive voter records and in fact most of the states that they've made these demands of have not turned them over. And already three courts have said, no, you don't have to do it. And the Justice Department under Pam Bondi and the other election deniers, they don't have any right to ask for it. States run elections and they have the ability to say no. Law enforcement has begun to play an important role at the local level, working with election officials and making sure that things are cool and calm on election day. There's a group called the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, and it's half law enforcement and half election officials. And on Election Day in November, in every single state in 2024, beat cops were carrying around guides saying, how can I protect elections? So there's a mobilization that can happen. It shouldn't have to happen. But it's not only the fevered imaginings of Trump with his conspiracy theories or these executive actions, which sometimes are just kind of, you know, malevolent press releases. Puzzle, it strikes me that the people most endangered by Trump's lies were largely Trump supporting Republicans. Brad Raffensperger, Gabe Sterling, all of the Republicans in Arizona was Governor Ducey and the. The Russ, right, who testified before the select committee about how they called him a pedophile on an electric billboard that they drove back and forth in front of his house with a very, very ill family member inside. I mean, the heinous destruction of sort of civility, the threat of political violence was largely meted out against Republicans. Yes, that is absolutely true. And it's an American phenomenon because this has been happening since people who were, quote, undesirable were able to vote. The terrorizing of women, the terrorizing of African-Americans and people of color, if they don't want your voice, they will find a way to silence it. And I think that's the takeaway here that Donald Trump has identified. And make this point. At the State of the Union, when he talked about, as he often does, he pillories and speaks ill of Somali Americans. He said in the State of the Union, when these cultures come into the country, he didn't say people, he didn't say criminals, he said cultures. And if you zoom out a little bit, what is he saying? That there are people who are taking part in our processes. that he does not want. Their input, their ideology, their viewpoints, he does not want. And the people around him don't want that either. So they will do anything in their power to get rid of it. Doesn't even matter if you're in his own party, because he sees you as a pawn. The crony capitalism is not just about the capitalism, it's about all the systems that make that possible, including elections. It strikes me that the people who hate Trump the most or the Republicans he's humiliated the most. Mitch McConnell told reporters he was the worst person he knew J Vance called him America Hitler What his name Kevin McCarthy who picked out his favorite Starburst flavors and I don know what he did with the oranges and yellows, which I don't like either, gave him a jar of candy with just his flavors in there that Donald Trump likes. He described impeachment and the 25th Amendment as too slow on a phone call with other Republicans and said that he was going to have to resign because impeachment in the 25th Amendment were too slow. There's never been an instance where an investigative piece of journalism or a leaked tape has a Republican saying something nice about Donald Trump. It only ever has them saying horrible things about Donald Trump, including grand jury testimony from Lindsey Graham, who I believe is still willing to carry his golf bag, is that current reporting, says to a grand jury in the state of Georgia about the election for the conspiracy, the RICO case there. I think the quote was something like, if you had told Trump that aliens had stolen ballots, or Martians was Lindsey Graham's word, he would have believed it. Privately, all Republicans know that the claims of voter fraud are what Bill Barr said they were, quote, bullshit. What does the country need to demand from all the Republicans who run cover for him knowing that they are exactly what Bill Barr says? They are BS. I mean, if we put it in its most simple forms, we need them to uphold their oaths of office and oath to the Constitution. You just named a lot of people who have said honest and critical things about the president. I am unaware of a single one of them who has ever actually stood up to him in public or been willing to face a primary challenge in order to do the right thing. And until they find their moral courage, and I'm not asking for a lot, I'm not asking- Just maybe making sure we make it to 251 years as a democracy. Yeah, like let's start small. And just until they start willing to act as if what is required of them by the Constitution matters, it doesn't matter what we demand of them. Um, we just, I hate to phrase it in such a politically calculating term, but all we can do is endeavor to outnumber them at the polling place and hope that the attempts to thwart the election are not effective. Yeah, I mean, it is, you know, Republican, former President Bush used to call it the soft bigotry of low expectations to describe failures in education. Our entire political system has collapsed under the soft bigotry of low expectations. We expect them to simply say out loud and in public the things they say about Donald Trump in public about losing the 2020 election. And because there's never a mechanism for holding them to account, here we are questioning whether or not the elections continue in America. It's an unbelievable moment. Michael Wallman and Von Hilliard, thank you for illuminating exactly where we are today. Basil and Michael Feinberg, stick around. When we come back, that disturbing case from Columbia University this morning, officials say federal agents pretended to be someone else. Cops looking for a missing person when they entered university housing and arrested a student. We'll bring you that story after a short break. We'll be right back. Now, delivered to your inbox. Sign up at MS.now. An extremely disturbing story to tell you about today off the campus of Columbia University right here in New York City. Students and community members are protesting right now after reports that immigration agents deployed by the Trump administration that still claims to be going after the worst of the worst, pulled a student in the early hours this morning from university-owned residential housing, which Columbia says they accessed without a proper warrant or without even telling the truth about why they were there. Columbia University's acting president adding this, quote, Our understanding at this time is that federal agents made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building to search for a missing person. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that the student, Elminia Igaeva, said in a statement she is a, quote, illegal alien from Azerbaijan whose student visa was terminated in 2016 under the Obama administration for failing to attend classes and that she has no pending appeals or applications with DHS. The New York Times is reporting that her friends identified her by a slightly different first name, Ellie, and said that she is a senior in the University School of General Studies majoring in neuroscience and political science. There is a video of her arriving back home this afternoon. She posted to her Instagram account after being released that she's safe and OK, but, quote, in complete shock over what happened. New York City Mayor Zoram Amdami said he raised her arrest in a meeting he had today with Donald Trump and says Donald Trump told him she would be released. I want to bring in our reporter on all this on the ground at Columbia University. Josh Einiger, Basil and Michael are still with us. Josh, take us inside what happened. Nicole, there's frankly so much that is hard to understand about what happened here today at Columbia. Mostly why this student, who has no apparent nexus to any kind of protest movement here at Columbia, had a target on her back by DHS, which showed up here at 630 in the morning, as you say, the building behind me, which is owned by Columbia University. Columbia sources say that these federal agents showed up. They rang the super, the guy in charge of the building. They said they were local cops looking for a missing person, and he let them in. And only then did he realize that that was not who they were. And at that point, it was too late. They had taken this student. They detained her and taken her downtown to one of the federal buildings downtown. On the way in the car, she actually posted to her 100,000 Instagram followers that she had been detained by ICE. She's an influencer who posts videos about what life is like at college. This continued. There was a protest that started around midday here, a very loud protest, a video of about 100 people at Columbia, a bunch of elected officials. The DHS put out that statement that you read saying she's an illegal alien whose visa had been terminated back in 2016. And then a couple of hours later, Mayor Zoran Mamdani had a meeting with President Trump previously scheduled and then tweeted that the president had said that she would be released. And about an hour after that, she's posting on social media that she's been released. So we don't really know why they went after her in the first place. We don't actually know, aside from the meeting with Mamdani, why she was released. And there just really are a lot of questions about why Colombia is back in the news. Of course, it's been several months of quiet, but Colombia, of course, was maybe the epicenter of the protest movement, about the pro-Palestinian movement, anti-ice movements. And of course, DHS was quite active here, notably with Mahmoud Khalil, who was the leader of the pro-Palestinian movement here. But this is different. This is an Instagram influencer with a lot of followers who studies neuroscience and, according to all her friends that we've talked to today, has just kept mind at her own business and kept to herself while studying here at Columbia. Nicole? Pazel, this is your place. These are your people. What's going on? I appreciate you guys reporting. I don't see it as, actually, I don't see it as different. I see this is part of a larger tactic of fear and intimidation. I have students that are concerned, work up this morning to hear the news. And, you know, you have to be emotionally available for yourself, but also for the students that you see every day. They're scared. You know, when we try to talk to students about coming to the school, this is a question that they have. It's not just about the academics. It's about allaying their fears and concerns that they're going to be pulled off of campus. And so it certainly has a chilling effect. I think that's the point. I know that Mayor Mabdani, I have to be honest here, I understand that Mayor Mabdani has perhaps been instrumental in her release. But frankly, whatever kind of relationship that he has with the president that maybe we can chuckle at at some point and say, you know, it's like minds, you know, being respectful of each other, he has got to take a stand. He has got to now really be against ICE and against this president and be firm in defending New Yorkers. That is what he said he would do. He would defend all New Yorkers. And he's got to do that and not play nice with him because it is clear that as he's doing this on the other side of the equation, this president and the administration are going to use whatever tactics they can to gain entry to people's homes. and the Supreme Court said that's okay, they can profile as many people as they want and they can gain access without these warrants, that they have the ability to go in and take people and disappear them. And not everybody's gonna be able to have the benefit of the mayor's conversation with the president to perhaps get them. Or their own. Is it legal to say you're a different law enforcement agency? Generally, yes. Federal law enforcement very frequently uses uses what we would describe as ruses in order to get a dangerous suspect out of a position where he or she can protect themselves to one where arrest can be more easily effectuated. Now, there's a problem with that, though. I use the phrase dangerous subject. I don't think an undergrad Instagram influencer who has no history of violence really falls into the category where you would need to use those techniques. Columbia has a very febrile activist population, and we know this administration loathes dissent. I don't think we can discount that they were trying to set an example just to sort of slap down the student body in a particularly cruel and vulgar way. And this is not to make light of the situation at all or to minimize it. There is a supportive community at Columbia for this person, and she was an influencer with a lot of followers. There are hundreds of thousands, if not more, Americans throughout this country to who this is happening who do not have those advantages. So just, we need to remember, yes, the mayor of New York was able to help this individual, but that's a happy ending for one individual. Because she got her story out immediately. Everything might have gone right for her. Exactly. And I'll just say very quickly, the university has now routinely given so many of us faculty members, and I am a director of a program there, instructions on what to do. Like we now have to be mindful and have been actually for quite some time. What do we do if ICE comes to the door? Like we have to practice this. We have to rehearse this. This is not a way to run a college, a university where students are supposed to be safe. But now we have to be mindful of who's coming to the front door of a classroom when we're in the middle of instruction. But that's the world we live in today. Say more about the mayor. You know, I like, listen, he's new in the job. And I was on with you and talking about, and others, talking about why he and the president may find some kinship. Because they both have populist, if you will, populist support. They know how to sort of manage the media and their supporters in very different ways very different reasons But the reality is that when you are elected to the mayor of a city like any mayor but certainly mayor of the city of New York as diverse as it is with the attention that comes to everything in this city, and because it's such a target by the president who, to your point, doesn't like dissent, and we are a very blue city in a very blue state, he's got to be on the lookout for anything that this president is going to do. And it's not, and I would imagine, may not ever be on the nose. It's going to be backdoor. And while it may look good for him to be seen with him as being able to connect to him, all of this is happening behind the scenes. And he's got to make sure that he's sewing up the sort of backdoor. It's such an important conversation. Josh, thank you for your reporting on this. So important. Michael and Basil, stick around. We have to finish a short break. We'll be right back. We believe former Senator, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has been behind closed doors in a deposition with the House Oversight Committee at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center since about 1120 this morning, is expected to exit and head to the podium and perhaps field some questions about the substance of that six and a half hour deposition. Breaks were taken, but she has been with the oversight committee today with Democrats and Republicans on that committee. News that has been released since she's been in there includes a photo that was taken and released by Lauren Boebert, reports that they had turned to asking her questions about UFOs. Here she is, Hillary Clinton. Good evening. Well, I have just finished testifying. I answered every one of their questions as fully as I could based on what I knew. And what I knew is what I said in my statement this morning. I never met Jeffrey Epstein, never had any connection or communication with him. I knew Ghislaine Maxwell casually as an acquaintance, but whatever they asked me, I did my very best to respond. It was disappointing that they refused to hold a public hearing so I wouldn't have to be out here characterizing it for you. You could have seen it for yourself. We had asked for that. We think it would have been better for the committee and its efforts to gather whatever information they are seeking. We had a bit of a challenge in the beginning because we had agreed upon rules based on the fact it was going to be a closed hearing at their demand, and one of the members violated that rule, which was very upsetting because it suggested that they might violate other of our agreements. So we had to cease the hearing for a period of time until we could get assurances that no rules would be broken going forward, and we returned to answer questions repetitively, literally over and over again. I don't know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Hepstein. I never went to his island. I never went to his homes. I never went to his offices. So it's on the record numerous times. It then got, at the end, quite unusual because I started being asked about UFOs and a series of questions about Pizzagate, one of the most vile, bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the Internet that was serving as the basis of a member's questions to me. So I can only say that the best exchange that I had came at the very end when contrary to every other deposition they have taken, no Republican member asked any questions about Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell to anyone else they have deposed. And in fact, the Republican members didn't even show up for the deposition of Les Wexner. And when I said that, I had to point out that the only questions that any Republican member asked of any of the people they deposed was of former Attorney General Bill Barr, when Chairman Comer asked him about the allegations, in his view, about Russia's involvement in my election in 2016. So at the very end of this hearing, after I made that point, I want to commend Chairman Comer for raising a series of significant questions that I responded to about the nature of the investigation and the areas that I thought should be explored. So I appreciated that. I want to see the truth come out. So that was a reassuring way to end a very long, repetitive deposition. Madam Secretary, you spoke in your opening remarks about how heartbroken you have been for the Epstein survivors as these files have come out. Can you talk to us a little bit about how you have processed and reacted to the fact that the former president, your husband, Bill Clinton, is referenced in the Epstein files numerous times, including in some photos featuring women? And how have you been personally preparing for the deposition that is coming tomorrow? Are you 100 percent confident that there isn't anything that the former president knows about Epstein's crime? I am, and I think the chronology of the connection that he had with Epstein ended years, several years, before anything about Epstein's criminal activities came to light and that he was charged and sadly given a sweetheart deal, which, as I said in my statement, had that not happened, perhaps his predatory behavior could have been stopped earlier. but I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people who had contact with him before his criminal pleas in 08 were like most people they did not know what he was doing and I think that that is exactly what my husband will testify to tomorrow. Madam Secretary, Madam Secretary, why was the lady Maxwell? Do you believe this was a fair hearing? And do you still want to testify publicly even though you gave this deposition? Oh, I'm not going to do it again. You know, they had a chance to do it in public, and I wish they had done it in public. And I think they're making the wrong decision avoiding doing it in public. I thought it was very repetitive. I thought that they asked literally the same questions over and over again, which didn't seem to me to be very productive. And then, as I said, toward the end, you know, there were other questions that were totally off subject. So if they are going to fulfill their responsibilities to literally investigate the investigations, which is what they originally said was the scope of their work, I think they could have spent the day more productively. Madam Secretary, can I ask? James Matthews from Sky News. Can I ask, why was Colleen Maxwell invited to your daughter Chelsea Clinton's wedding in 2010? She'd already been mentioned in a civil lawsuit by Virginia Jufri before that. Jeffrey Epstein, already been convicted before. She came as the plus one, the guest of someone who was invited. Thank you, everybody. Thank you all. I don't know when the video will be out. I don't know when the transcript will be out. We've asked that they be out as quickly as possible, and then you can see everything. Thank you. Hillary Clinton describing today's deposition in her own words. Interesting color there about how it ended with some questions about 2016. Yeah, look, I think so much of what we've discussed on this show and what America has been discussing seemingly endlessly is because we're constantly relitigating 2016. Trump still throws tantrums in almost every press conference about the intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered on his behalf. He has somehow rewritten history and painted the Mueller investigation as a, quote, hoax, despite the fact that almost everybody from his circle who was charged either pled guilty or was convicted, oftentimes of lying to Congress or lying to federal agents. this is a wound that will never heal for him, and rightly so, because it does call the legitimacy of his initial election into question. Hillary Clinton describing her relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell as, quote, casual and saying that she was at her daughter's wedding because she was the plus one of an invited guest. Yeah, I got to tell you, when she walked out, having worked for her when she walked out, I could tell I was like, yeah, she's going to she's tired of people playing in her face. And she was ready for the BS that was coming. I take her at her word, and we should, that she wanted this in public. She said that. She wanted it in public because she doesn't want it to be a circus. For that reason, that there are legitimate concerns that people should have because they're victims here. And if you have this kind of conversation behind closed doors, then they're going to come out and spin it any way they want. But she wants to be able to stand up for those victims. And she consistently says that. But then if it goes into the UFOs and Pizzagate, it's Benghazi all over again, that 11 hours where, or whatever it was, where she's like, give me a good, reasonable question, so let's get to the bottom of it. And I gather she did not get that today. Basil, thank you for being here with me. Thank you for being here across two hours. It's double duty around here. We appreciate both of you. And thanks to all of you for letting us into your homes tonight. We are grateful. Subscribe to MSNOW Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content to all of MSNOW's original podcasts, including the chart-topping series, The Best People with Nicole Wallace, Why Is This Happening, Main Justice, and more. Plus new episodes of all your favorite MSNOW shows ad-free and ad-free listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, including Rachel Maddow Presents Burn Order. Subscribe to MS Now Premium on Apple Podcasts.
