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US ELECTION 2024 RACHEL MADDOW ... AUGUST 10TH, 2024 Start aos 40: The Rachel Maddow Show 8/10/2024 \| 🅽🅱️🅲 BREAKING NEWS Today August 10, 2024 PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa1KGHgn6aM Peter Burgess COMMENTARY While Trump may 'lose' the election in November, it does not mean that Trump will accept the result. Sadly, there is mounting evidence that Republicans that support Trump are taking steps to subvert the system at the State and County level so that 'certifying' the election is compromised and maybe even cannot get done! This is dangerous! Peter Burgess
The Rachel Maddow Show 8/10/2024 \| 🅽🅱️🅲 BREAKING NEWS Today August 10, 2024 Start aos 40 Transcript 0:00 but while we are on the subject of worrying um here's here's a thing that I think needs to be on the national radar no matter how you're feeling about the news in general right now or politics in general right now or the stock market or the prospects of Vice President Harris and her campaign there is something that I feel like needs to be on everybody's radar and it's just barely starting to be but we're just getting more and more increasingly strong signals that this is where this whole thing is heading so I talked about this a little bit last week got lots and lots of feedback from people that I had upset you freaked you out got you worried about something you were otherwise feeling good about um I'm sorry to say there's more Grist for that Mill there's more reason to focus on this now even more than there was last week and for this we need to go back to that Georgia rally this weekend the one where Trump congratulated Vladimir Putin for for President Biden getting the hostages released from Russian pris um there were a lot of kind of funny 1:04 things about that rally Trump complained repeatedly at that rally about the fact that he was addressing a bunch of empty seats in the arena this was a particularly sore subject apparently for him because just a few days earlier vice president Harris had held a rally at the exact same venue she had the place filled to the rafters while Trump was addressing an arena that you know there there was a crowd there but there were also tons of empty seats and increasing numbers of empty seats as people steadily filed out while he was still speaking and Trump kept remarking upon that during the rally it clearly bothered him that there were so many empty seats he kept suggesting that there were thousands of people outside the arena desperately trying to get in and there was some conspiracy that the seats were being held open there were not thousands of people outside trying to get in he really just appears to have not been able to keep butts in the seats in the venue also at that rally um and tell me how 2:03 this strategy Works Trump repeatedly took a bunch of really nasty shots at that rally against the Republican governor of Georgia whose name is Brian Kemp Trump repeatedly and in very sort of vicious terms at that rally criticizing Brian Kemp who is again the Republican governor of that state criticizing Kemp for not having helped him overthrow the election results in Georgia in 2020 when Trump lost that state to Biden that is a that is a weird way to try to lock up the Republican vote in Georgia ahead of a hotly contested election right tell Georgia Republicans that they have a terrible Republican Governor that they made a terrible Choice when they picked that Governor Georgia voters after all elected that Governor at the same time they didn't elect Donald Trump but he's there telling them that their governor is terrible and that he's disloyal and he was an awful choice for Georgia what 3:03 a great way to lock up the Republican vote in that state right in addition to all that though there there was one thing that was not only sort of stranger than that but I think more broadly worrying um I'm gonna play you just a little bit of sound from that rally it's a short it's a short piece of sound I promise but you're going to hear him say here a few names that you have never heard before and that's actually what is important about this so please watch again it's a short clip but this was that same rally in Georgia I don't know if you've heard but the Georgia state election board is in a very positive way this is a very positive thing marjerie they're on fire they're doing a great job three members Janice Johnson Rick Jeff and Janelle King three people 4:00 are all pitbulls fighting for honesty transparency and victory they're fighting are they here where are they where are they where are they thank you what a job thank you thank you wow thank you wow what a job where are you are you here wow thank you these people who Trump is shouting out by name you you never heard any of these these names before right these people he's shouting out by name at least one of those people is apparently there at the rally waving back at him and he's acknowledging her the reason you've never heard of these people is because they have a job that's supposed to be an obscure technocratic job they are members of the Georgia state elections board he describes them as three pitbulls fighting for victory and he calls them out by name and he thanks them and he Praises them and he points out at least one of them who's there in person at the front row of his 5:01 rally he says they're doing a great job they are quote fighting for victory Georgia State elections board is not supposed to be the kind of entity that has its members shouted out at a candidates rally for all they're doing to assure the victory of that candidate right the state elections board is responsible for administering elections for in the words of Georgia State statutes they're responsible for conducting quote Fair legal and orderly elections for the state of Georgia and here is Trump shouting them out by name for all the great work they're doing for him since the 2020 election in which Trump tried mightily and failed to overturn the results of the presidential election in Georgia since a Georgia grand jury indicted him and multiple codefendants on multiple felonies including Rico charges for trying to overturn the election in contravention of 6:04 law Georgia Republicans have since replaced the membership of the Georgia State Board of Elections so that it's now stocked with election deniers and trump super fans who Trump is now shouting out by name at his rallies while they sit in the front row and wave back at him they have also stocked election deniers and trump super fans on County election boards throughout the state of Georgia and in other swing States as well but why is that important these elections officials who are doing the kinds of jobs that shouldn't make them famous why is it important that they are election deniers and trump super fans that have been installed since Trump tried and failed to overturn the results of the last election well those County elections officials in multiple counties in multiple swing States since 20 they have refused to 7:01 certify local election results dozens of times right the state election board members who Trump shouted out at his rally this weekend they're now pushing through a new rule in the state of Georgia that will give any County official at the at the County elections board level give them the leeway to refuse to certify election results in that county or at least to delay the certification of election results in that county and why does that matter because no matter how people people vote in a particular state right no matter who gets the most votes in a particular state election results get tallied locally and then they get certified by each County and then they get certified at the state level that's how we get official election results from each state if individual counties whether they're big counties or small counties even little rural really trumpy counties with almost no people in them if counties refuse to certify their county level results the idea is that will stop the state from being able to certify its 8:01 results because they won't have official results from every County it'll stop them from being able to certify Statewide results or at least delay the certification of Statewide results and that will have two effects number one it will serve as propaganda right it will serve as sort of smoke to tell the public that there must be something wrong in the election so the election results must be suspect and maybe emergency measures of some kind are going to be necessary but L it prevents the normal counting of votes which prevents the normal allocation of electors in the Electoral College which is how we get a president right it stops that process which then does what to the process it throws it into the courts maybe throws it into Congress to decide maybe Republicans may like both of their chances in both of those places better than they like their chances with voters 9:04 where are they thank you what a job thank you thank you wow wow what a job shouting out the state elections board before the 20120 election and Trump trying to overturn the results of that election it just didn't happen that local election refusals local election officials would refuse to certify election results it just didn't happen it was unheard of since the 20120 election it has become a thing in Republican politics since Trump lost that election and then said it was all fraudulent and tried to have it all overturned on the basis of those bogus fraud claims Republican officials are often refusing to certify or delaying the certification of election results they've done it more than 25 times in Nevada and in Pennsylvania and in New 10:03 Mexico and in Michigan and in North Carolina and in Georgia the list goes on and on and they're not doing it because there's something wrong that they know of in these elections they're doing it to show that they're not going to certify election results anymore because they as election deniers and trump super fans have gotten a hold of this part of the technocratic process of conducting elections in our country and they have done that and they have no intention of certifying election results not because they think there's anything wrong with the way the election was conducted but because they don't think elections are a good way to do things today we just uh posted the last episode episode eight the finale episode um of this podcast that I've been working on for a long time it's called Ultra today was the finale of the second season um second season of ultra is about Americans um in the late 40s and 11:02 50s who were involved in really really radical anti-democratic organizations and movements including some of whom were tied up with the Nazis in Germany and those Americans ended up getting sort of tapped basically brought into American electoral politics and the result was explosive and terrible and very dangerous for our democracy and among other things it led to a plot very much like what Trump and his supporters tried to pull off on January 6th it led to a very similar plot to dispute the election results in multiple states to stop the normal tallying of the votes to stop the normal tallying of the electoral vote because Republicans thought they could seize control of the government even without winning the election it has happened before which is why I wanted to do this podcast because it is helpful to me at least to get my head around the fact that Americans have had to contend with things like this 12:03 before so you know if you've been waiting till all eight episodes of ultra were out before you started listening because you don't want to wait between episodes you want to binge them all now you can do that the final episode of Ultra season 2 posted today but for me the the reason I wanted to do this project in the first place is because I do think it helps us get our heads around what is happening today the American system of government is not perfect but it was a hard system to get and it has been repeatedly hard to hold on to when Americans who don't want this as our system of government have repeatedly tilted against it they've made clear that they would prefer the kind of system that they have say in Russia or that they had in Germany in the 30s or that they had somewhere else where there's authoritarian leaders there have there have over time always been a subset of Americans who would prefer that they just had their preferred leader in control who could run things the way he 13:05 wants there are always forces like that at some level in our country and usually they're On The Fringe and nobody pays attention to them but occasionally they ascend from time to time they get closer to achieving that kind of goal when they have a political leader or a political faction inside real electoral politics and they attach themselves to that figure right they're here to undo this dumb weak American system that relies so much on elections in the first place well you get somebody who's got real power inside that system and it's a very very powerful place from which to attack the system these are the forces that today look at Victor Orban and Hungary look at Vladimir Putin and Russia and they say oh yeah you know they have elections sure but they're ornamental they're cute they don't actually decide anything why would you let anyone other than Victor Orban and and and Vladimir Putin decide anything 14:00 right this there are Americans who feel like our elections should be the same thing that technically we should have them but there shouldn't be any doubt as to the outcome and you know even that fetish for foreign dictatorships isn't that unusual in history when there was the America first movement before World War II that movement really was lousy with elected politicians in the US Congress who were taking money from and working for the Naz top propaganda agent in the United States the subject of Ultra season 2 it happens around McCarthy and the Red Scare and that was a supposedly anti-communist movement right around Joe McCarthy but it really was creepily entangled with this pro-russia American fascist theorist who argued that it was really Russia that had it together and we ought to try to be more like them it's not about fighting Socialism or communism or Marxist whatever it's not about America first first it's not about some deep state that needs to be 15:04 uprooted it's about wanting our system of government to go away it's about creating a sense of emergency a sense of an enemy Within so that the public at large can be pushed and persuaded into giving up this system of government and just letting their guy their real man their strong man take over and when that is what you are up against no do not be surprised when it turns out they're not going to respect election results because they don't want elections to be the way we decide things anyway Trump is now telling his supporters you will never have to vote again he's also even more frequently telling his supporters that he doesn't even need them to vote for him this time he doesn't need their votes why does he not need their votes because he apparently thinks he can get back into Power without them Republicans really have stacked election boards in all of the Swing states with dozens of officials who are bent on not allowing the certification of the vote totals in their counties and thereby hopefully 16:07 messing up the certification of the vote totals in their states it is happening and yes kamla Harris on the Democratic side she really is running a juggernaut of a campaign it is going to get turbocharged all the more tomorrow when she announces her running mate but on the Republican side they are doing something entirely different which is not about winning the most votes it is about stopping the votes from being counted the country's top lawyer who is working both to sound the alarm about this and to try to stop it is going to join us live here next stay with us in 2020 just as officials in Wayne County Michigan were about to certify the vote in that Year's president election two of that County's election officials both of them Republicans got a 17:04 surprise call from the president of the United States Donald Trump himself and the then chair of the Republican Party Ron McDaniel called them personally according to the Detroit News Trump and Miss McDaniel then told those two County election officials they needed essentially to take back their vote to certify the election results and those two County officials did actually try to take back their vote to certify then when it was time to certify the elections at the state level Republicans in Michigan again tried to block the vote total from being certified it was only after one very brave Republican election official broke with his fellow Republicans that Michigan State results were finally able to be made official Republicans pioneered this in Michigan in 2020 now Republicans have kept trying this kind of thing in every election since including in congressional election in the primaries in the 2022 18:00 midterms Republicans in at least 10 counties refused to certify the vote in the general election in the midterms that year County county level Republicans in in Pennsylvania and in Arizona tried to block the certification of the results this year Republican elections officials in multiple jurisdictions have refused to certify lawful elections repeatedly and now they're laying the foundation to do it again for the next national election over the weekend Donald Trump held a rally in Atlanta where he randomly shouted out by name three members of the Georgia State Board of Elections those three officials have all refus to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election they are now trying to push through new rules that would make it easier for county level officials to refuse to certify election results this seems to be part of a unified strategy encourage Republican 19:01 elections officials at every level to refuse to certify the elections no matter what the results are doesn't matter where it doesn't matter if it's a county that Democrats won or a county that Republicans won refusing to certify the election at the local level just sticks a wrench in the works right it makes it impossible to certify if you make it impossible to certify a county then you make it effectively impossible to certify a state and then ultimately that puts the whole tallying of the presidential election result into question veteran Democratic elections lawyer Mark Elias writes quote it is worse this election than previous ones because this year the GOP is far more organized they might have tried to subvert the results in a handful of places in 2020 and 2022 but this year they will try to subvert them all setting the stage now for what is to come in November joining us now is Mark allias who specializes election litigation he's the founder of democracy 20:01 docket Mr Elias thank you very much for joining us tonight I appreciate you being here thank you for having me so we've been talking about this on and off for months we've been talking about it pretty intensively for the last few weeks let me just ask you as an as as an expert if not the expert in this field um am I getting any of this wrong or seeing any of this the wrong way around or am I presenting this in a way that you think basically captures the facts I think you captured entirely correctly I mean the fact is that when we talk about who won an election we're really talking about two things we're talking about the unofficial results that people get on Election night which is what AP reports what NBC and NB and MSNBC use to call elections on Election night but then we are really talking about the certified results and these are the results that are first uh approved at the polling place and then at the county and as you point out then at the state and then ultimately in presidential elections that Cho the electors and then those certificates from the governor go to the uh go to the Congress and Rachel if you 21:05 think of it this way January 6 was the culmination of a certification dispute which as you point out began among other places in Michigan at the county level and when Republicans couldn't achieve what they wanted to at the county level they went to the state level when they couldn't achieve that they launched a fake elector scheme which was just another way of undermining accurate certification of Elections when they couldn't do that they launched a series of frivolous lawsuits and finally they attempted to block what on January 6th the certification of the election so this has been on their radar screen for some time and I and it would be on their radar screen for sure in 2024 we have seen them not just planning to do this for the 2024 election but trying it out um in multiple jurisdictions you among others have pointed out that this is a tactic at the County elections board level that was essentially unheard of before 2020 but now it has happened literally dozens of times sometimes in very off the radar like Municipal elections sometimes in primary sometimes in general elections there hasn't yet 22:04 been another presidential election during which they've tried it but what have you learned about how this process works how these um essentially concocted controversies can be resolved when they do this stuff at the county level yeah I mean look I have done more recounts and election post-election litigation than any other person ever um and I've never I had never seen it before 2020 in 2020 I represented President Biden in the DNC in 60 plus cases we saw it in Michigan but before that I had done recounts in for Al Franken in Minnesota for for various Senate campaigns Statewide uh campaigns and and the idea of tinkering with the certification at the local level was be was was just out of bounds I mean that is part of the pageantry of democracy It Is What Makes Us great as a country that after a hard-fought election the election officials celebrate the results by by by certifying these election results and whatever takes place in court after that 23:03 takes place after that in court but you know Rachel we saw in 2022 that they refused to certify the elections in coachi County Arizona and in several places in Pennsylvania I sued them we won the folks in coaches County subsequently got indicted for it and you might think that would serve as a deterr for 2024 but you know as Donald Trump proved the loyalty to his crimes and misdeeds is stronger than people's for self-preservation briefly Mark what can people who are concerned about this do to try to make sure it doesn't happen yeah so we all play a role so first of all you know thank you for calling this out lawyers we go to court but you know making this public is the big part of the battle and I'd ask every person listening to this to to speak out on this you know don't stay silent you know you all have a Town Square you don't all have millions of viewers like Rachel mattow but each and every one of you can post on social media you can attend these canvas board meetings you can file comments in Georgia uh before the state election board in your own counties you 24:03 can know who is on these boards and you can attend their meetings every citizen has a role to play here and if we all do that I am confident that we will defeat these efforts and kamla Harris will be swor in as the next president of the United States Mark Elias lawyer specializing in election litigation the founder of democracy Ducket Mark I have a feeling this is the start of several conversations we're going to have on this uh thank you so much for your time tonight keep us surprised okay all right we got much more hater tonight stay with us I cannot improve on the opening lines of this I'm just going to give it to you verbatim ready quote five days before Donald Trump became president in January 2017 a manager at a bank branch in Cairo Egypt received an unusual letter from an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service the letter asked the bank to quote kindly withdraw nearly $10 million from the organization's account withdraw it all in cash as in green bills quote 25:05 inside the state-run National Bank of Egypt employees were soon busy placing bundles of $100 bills into two large bags four men arrived and carried away the bags which weighed a combined 200 pound the bags contained what was then a sizable share of Egypt's entire reserve of American currency but when those four men came and carried away those hundreds of pounds of cash bundles of $100 bills where did the cash go what could Egypt's intelligence service possibly need with 200 pounds of $100 bills well FBI agents in the United States thought that cash might have gone to Donald Trump explosive reporting from Aaron Davis and Carol lenck at the Washington Post on Friday revealed a yearslong criminal investigation into whether Egypt illegally funneled $10 million in cash to Donald Trump for his 26:05 2016 campaign two years into Trump's presidency Federal investigators in the in the United States had come to know the following things first classified us intelligence had indicated that Egypt's President at least wanted to give Trump $10 million to boost his presidential campaign in 2016 also in September 2016 just before the election candidate Trump did have a very chummy meeting with Egypt's President in New York after which Trump praised him as a quote fantastic guy a few weeks after that meeting just before the election look at this time on this October 28th just before the 2016 election Trump miraculously produced $10 million of his own money to dump into his campaign which at the time was quite strapped for cash that $10 million infusion though wasn't a gift from Trump to his campaign it was structured as a loan so Trump would get the money 27:05 back Trump just a few days later won the election and then just a few days after that or a few days before his inauguration there was that unexplained cash withdrawal of American dollars by the Egyptian intelligence service from a Cairo Bank $10 million the same amount that Egypt's President had reportedly wanted to give Trump according to us intelligence the same amount that Trump had miraculously found to loan to his own campaign Egypt's President then inexplicably became one of Trump's first guests at the White House as president Trump later released over a billion in military aid for Egypt Trump at one point even called the Egyptian leader quote my favorite dictator and for him there's a lot of competition for that title but us investigators didn't ever prove that the money from Egypt that 28:00 cash from that Egyptian bank went to Trump to prove or disprove that they would need access to more of Trump's Financial records but they would never get that access and that is its own Scandal Carol lenck and Aaron Davis reporting that Trump's attorney general Bill bar stepped in to make sure that FBI agents wouldn't be allowed to subpoena Trump's Financial records he also then removed the us over us attorney who was overseeing the investigation and then he removed her replacement as well until he finally got a US attorney in that jurisdiction who would shut down the investigation entirely now what investigators thought might have gone down here an illegal $10 million cash payment to a presidential campaign from a foreign dictator I mean if that were ever proven that would be one of the biggest presidential scandals in American history if not the biggest that said hasn't been proven and Donald Trump has denied it the reason it hasn't been proven is because nobody was allowed to look at 29:05 the evidence that would prove it or disprove it thank you Bill bar thank you Us justice department for never apparently looking into any of the things that bill bar did as attorney general to bring grave shame and discredit upon the US justice department that's a story for another day I will say though Trump is denying the the implications of this reporting in this investigation he could easily disprove the claims here himself by simply allowing his Banks to release his financial records to show that he has nothing to hide because he had nothing to do with this in a hard-fought presidential campaign you might think that would become a political pressure point for Donald Trump I mean if you're going to tell people they need to release their long form birth certificates seems like maybe you ought to release your bank records especially when you're credibly accused of potentially taking a $10 million cash bribe from your favorite dictator joining us now is Washington 30:03 Post National investigative reporter Carol lenck Carol thank you so much for being here I really appreciate it of course Rachel did I misconstrue any of that did I get any of that the wrong way around no you got every part of it right and especially the chronology I like the way you tell it because it's very clear um people who who had credible information from the CIA jaw-dropping intelligence the CIA was warning the Department of Justice we have an informant and additional corroborating intelligence streams suggesting that Egypt's President wanted to get $10 million to Donald Trump the doj began investigating largely under then special counsel independent special counsel Robert meller and then when they actually found corroborating evidence of $10 million walking out the door of a Cairo Bank just as the intelligence foretold through the account of the the Egyptian spy agency the general intelligence agency when they found that 31:03 incredibly and compelling evidence they were barred from trying to figure out whether any of that money ended up in any of Donald Trump's personal or business accounts how um what would the scope be how big a proverbial subpoena would it need to be um in order for investigators to get the kinds of Records that would prove or disprove these implications The subpoena that was drafted and proposed in April of 2019 by the US attorney's office in D.C and again proposed in June of 2019 and again proposed in the fall of 2019 was fairly limited it basically asked for records around the time of this bizarre cash withdrawal in Egypt uh January 15 2017 a few weeks before and several weeks after it was not a very broad amount of time 32:03 it was scoped down and careful uh but they could not get the US attorney's approval for that after she met with attorney general Bill bar she decided that uh they didn't have the factual basis or the predicate to seek the records of the sitting president and just so you know Rachel if you walked into the FBI field office today and said you believed you had information about me laundering money or taking money illegally the FBI could get a subpoena for my bank records in about 10 minutes it wouldn't take very long um in this case this group was blocked for two years from Gathering any evidence Carol what would you and just your reporter's take on this from what you what you understand and the sources that you spoke with how would you describe the confidence level of the investigators who thought that this $10 million might have gone from Egypt to Donald Trump I mean the Trump appointees of the justice department who ultimately 33:02 shut this thing down and didn't let them investigate it they sort of made it seem like these folks were looking for evidence for some cockamamy Theory but the people who spoke to you who were involved in the investigation how did they characterize their level of confidence or suspicion um that that something really was truly wrong here the sources we spoke to who are very close to the pro described a group of Agents FBI agents and prosecutors who were Gob smacked that they had found this level of information first the intelligence was pretty stunning and came from reliable a reliable source who had provided reliable information in the past in this field then they had a document that proved a movement of $10 million from exactly the intelligence agency that was suspected in the intelligence to have been the source of the funds in the exact dollar figure then they had Donald 34:06 Trump basically flipping the switch on all of this US policy on Egypt in a way that was extremely beneficial to the president of Egypt the first meeting that was ever held with the with the U new US president was with the Egyptian president a a pretty big kiss if you will to that country that we had held at Arms l these investigators and agents were described to us as stunned because they had never gathered this quality of Investigation in a money laundering or financial conspiracy case before uh certainly not one that had been closed down and and not one in which they'd been barred from continuing to investigate the leads right in front of their faces wow stunned and Gob smacked again there there is an easy way to sort this out the um those those financial record don't have to be subpoena a candidate who wanted to dispel the sorts of allegations and said they were not true could simply release that information um publicly but we will 35:06 await um that development Washington Post National investigative reporter Carol lenning thank you for the reporting thank you for helping us understand it Carol thank you Rachel all right we'll be right back and thanks to at home for joining us this hour wow there really is so much going on um and first of all before we really start tonight I do just want to note here please indulge me just for a second because there has been a resolution a a not bad news resolution to something that we have repeatedly covered on this show that you might not have seen anywhere else and so I want to sort of settle this matter for you bring you up to date so a few different times here on the show we have covered what happened to this woman um she was arrested and ultimately tried and convicted and sentenced to years in prison for the crime of putting tiny little notes on Supermarket 36:01 shelves putting little notes on on on store shelves where the price tags usually go it's basically the tiniest Act of protest imaginable against Russia invading one of its neighboring countries and starting a war with Ukraine she used Little Price Tag labels in a Russian store she replaced the existing ones with ones that looked like the real ones but they had little statistics on them about what was happening in Russia's war in Ukraine now this effort sort of like an art project and protest effort it started in countries outside of Russia um it started like for example in Poland people did this at a hardware store that decided to expand its operations in Russia even when lots of other companies were pulling out because of the war so people started doing it outside of Russia but then some very brave people inside Russia started doing it too including this young woman this this artist in St Petersburg in Russia um we covered it here on the show when she was arrested in St Petersburg we showed you this photo of some of her friends 37:04 turning up at the police station to to bring her her things to try to support her when she was put on trial behind closed doors for again this this tiniest Act of peaceful protest this was her being brought out of that closed door court hearing uh the day before they took her off to jail this young woman was ultimately given a 7-year prison sentence again for the grave crime of posting like 2in Square tiny pieces of paper on stor shelves because they protested the war and told the truth about it so we covered her story here a few different times uh now we can tell you that she was among the Russians who President Biden got out of prison among the Russian dissidents who President Biden was able to get out of prison was this young woman when the hostage swap happened last week there of course was a lot of attention in this in this country to Evan gershkovich uh the 38:02 The Wall Street Journal reporter and Paul wheen the former US Marine who had been held for so many years in Russia uh you might have even seen news coverage about Vladimir kerza you might have recognized him as a Rachel mow show viewer you might have recognized him from the times he appeared as a guest here on this show as a leader in the opposition to Vladimir Putin Vladimir Kera survived two assassination attempts he won the pulit RIS for commentary and he was at the start of what looked like it was going to be decades in prison on a treason charge when President Biden got him out of prison last week too got him sprum but Alexandra sceno she too is now free and out of Russia thank God and you know thank God there's an American Administration in place who was capable of pulling this off right the biggest and most complex hostage swap in Generations possibly ever 39:02 involving a half dozen different countries all with different interests and different Stakes the Biden Harris Administration was able to pull all the necessary strings in exactly the right order at exactly the right times in order to get this miraculous thing done so anyway thank you for indulging me on that any anytime it's a weird thing to ever rule about right anything anytime guest on this show or a person who has been the subject of multiple segments on this show gets freed by a fascist dictator because of the skilled intervention of an American president I feel the need to say something about it here on this show feels sort of superstitious to Let It Go unremarked upon right so knock on wood let this never happen again um but they're out they're out you might remember when Donald Trump was President um he had a a call with Putin right after one of um Putin's dictator style fake elections in Russia 40:02 where he got like you know 160% of the vote or whatever it was um and Trump's staff gave him a card a note card before that call which said on it in big black block all capitals letters do not congratulate and then Trump got on the phone with Putin and immediately said oh congratulations on your big election Victory immediately congratulated him something like that happened again this weekend at Trump's rally in Georgia Trump brought up the Biden Harris Administration pulling off this miracle getting all those Americans and those Russian dissidents out of Putin's prisons in this big hostage negotiation and and Trump's immediate comment on that before his crowd in Georgia was to say quote congratulations to Vladimir Putin on the hostage deal not for President Biden and vice 41:00 president Harris who got it done but congratulations to Vladimir Putin do not congratulate my friend do not congratulate but of course he congratulated the Russian dictator on the release of Evan gershkovich and Paul Wheeland and this artist from St Petersburg and Vladimir kerza and all the rest congratulations to Putin great job Putin who says this kind of thing today marks three months exactly from the presidential election today's August 5th the election is on September October November 5th three months from today regardless of what happens in that presidential election President Biden will be president vice president Harris will be vice president for the next five and a half months until the next president is sworn in today the White House released this photo of President Biden and vice president Harris and key cabinet and 42:01 security officials meeting in The Situation Room meeting on the roiling crisis in the Middle East Israel is warning that they expect retaliation of some kind from Iran after the assassination of a Hamas official inside Iran's Capital City uh today a number of American Personnel American troops were reported to be injured in a rocket attack on the al-assad airbase in Iraq which is sort of northwest of Baghdad about halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border we don't know more about that attack on the al-assad airbase we don't know if it was a lucky shot or if it was a skilled targeted attack we don't know if it was Iranian backed militias or some other Force we don't know anything about the nature or the extent of the injuries to the Americans on that base yet but the statement from President Biden that he put out alongside the photo from the situation room today said quote we received updates on threats posed by Iran and its proxies diplomatic efforts to deescalate Regional tensions and preparations to support Israel should it be attacked 43:05 again we also discussed the steps we are taking to defend our forces and respond to any attack against our Personnel in a manner and place of our choosing there does appear to have been some attack on American Personnel today we have yet to again understand the full scale and import of that attack let alone the exact nature of the injuries to Americans who were said to be hurt in this attack we certainly do not know what the American response will be to that attack or when it will happen but we'll let you know more about that tonight as we learn more so one side of the presidential election um is sort of free to campaign and just do that the other side has to attend to the business of government so while comma Harris is attending briefings and discussions like this in the situation room today vice president president Harris is also preparing to announce her running mate for the presidential election this 44:02 running mate announcement we're told will happen definitely by tomorrow by Tuesday we're guessing probably sometime early in the day but who knows and we think we know who the short list is but who knows you know she and her new running mate whoever that person may be uh are due to appear together at a rally tomorrow night in Philadelphia thereafter she at least is due to seven different swing States in 5 days in preparation for the running made announcement and frankly making the most of the fact that it hasn't happened yet and there's tons of anticipation as to who she might pick um the Harris campaign today told their supporters that for a $20 donation you can now buy an official kamla Harris and running mate yard sign but look at the picture they've got the name of the running mate covered up with tape and question marks so that's not how the sign will come the sign will come Harris and then the running mat's name but we don't know who it is yet they're asking you to buy it 45:04 sight unseen obviously that is very clever they also put out this text message tonight again making the most of the anticipation it says quote hi it's kamla Harris I know many of you are eager to find out who I will be selecting to join me on the campaign Trail and hopefully in the white house as my vice president though I have not yet made my decision it is important to me that Grassroots support like you have direct updates about the state of the race that's why I want you to be the first to know who I am selecting to serve alongside me as my vice president add your name to this exclusive list of supporters who will be notified immediately when the news breaks and since there have been legitimately no leaks and only more or less well-informed speculation as to what the choice may be telling people they'll be the first to know if they sign up on this list to receive the information by text direct from the campaign there's a lot of 46:00 anticipation and people really want to know and so that is a pretty good way to build a contact list of potential supporters um here at MSNBC for e get tell theee speech spee speech for me some more foreign speech fore speech m for come back

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