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Hi, everyone.

It is 4 o'clock here in New York.

I'm Alicia Menendez in for Nicole Wallace.

Day 26 of the war with Iran.

Here's where things stand.

The Pentagon is deploying 3,000 more troops to the Middle East,

even as the U.S. sends a peace proposal to the Iranian regime.

Here at home, gas prices continue to rise and a new poll shows that

60% of Americans think Donald Trump has gone too far in waging war against Iran.

And brand new reporting shows that Donald Trump's grasp of how the war is going

is based on clips of, quote, stuff blowing up.

Let's begin with that astounding piece of reporting.

Three current and one former U.S. official, telling NBC News, quote,

each day since the start of the war in Iran.

U.S. military officials compile a video update for President Donald Trump

that shows video of the biggest, most successful strikes on Iranian targets

over the previous 48 hours.

Will officials say that Trump has plenty of conversations about the war

with foreign leaders and his aides and cabinet members.

NBC News reports the, quote,

the video briefing is fueling concerns among some of Trump's allies

that he may not be receiving or absorbing the complete picture of the war

now in its fourth week.

But right now, the reality of war is puncturing Trump's delusions.

Just a day after Trump said the U.S. won the war,

a day after Trump said talks with Iran were going well.

And that he got a, quote, very big present, but would not say what it was.

A diplomatic source inside Iran tells us that the U.S. regime has rejected a

15 point piece proposal sent by the Trump administration through the government of Pakistan,

which is acting as an intermediary.

Iran has now issued its own set of demands.

And the New York Times reports that, quote,

privately, however, some Iranian officials had said as late as Tuesday that Iran

was considering meeting with U.S. negotiators in Islamabad, Pakistan, over the next week

to discuss Mr. Trump's proposal, but would not entertain a temporary ceasefire.

The gap, the growing gap between what Trump says about the war,

and the reality of the conflict and potential negotiations

is where we start today with Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.

She served as a combat helicopter pilot in the Iraq war,

and is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senator, no one better I can imagine to speak to today.

Donald Trump says we have won this war.

Does that comport with your own assessment?

No, Donald Trump has done has actually immersed us in yet another unending war.

Let's be clear, no one is winning this war.

It's unnecessary and it's incoherent.

Trump can't articulate a justification that has already, you know,

for a war that has already killed 13 of our troops and with thousands of Americans in danger

and sent costs through the roof here at home.

He launched a war without true justification and without an idea of how he was going to end it.

This is the so-called America First President.

Well, that's below me because, you know, he promised he wouldn't get us into a war like this.

Listen, I served in Iraq. That was another endless war,

but at least that one at some point had an administration going in front of Congress

debating the war and having a vote on it.

And that's what we're demanding here in the United States Senate,

that Trump and his administration come forward and tell us and American people,

what exactly he's trying to do here and why it was justified.

And how does it end on ending this?

Senator, let me ask you on that point.

If you were, in fact, giving the oversight hearings that you have not yet been offered

by this administration, who would you want to hear from and what are among the questions you would

want answered? I would absolutely want Pete Hexeth in front of the committee.

I would want the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in front of the committee. I would want Marco Rubio

in front of the committee. This is a deeply consequential moment for our military and our democracy,

probably in my entire lifetime. And Secretary Hexeth and Secretary Rubio want to hide behind closed

doors when they attempt to justify putting out troops in harm's way. We've had many briefings,

but this administration continues to classify those briefings as top secret,

even though so many of the details are actually out in the public.

And in fact, the Chairman of the committee, I can't talk about what was said by the people

presenting, but I can say that the Chairman's committee has actually expressed the sentiment that

the American people would not like what they share if these briefings were out in the public.

And Senator, your reaction to the reporting that the President of the United States is watching

video montages of U.S. strikes as he makes his own assessments about what to do next.

Well, I am deeply worried for our troops who are in harm's way. They deserve a commander in

chief who has a grasp on reality and isn't thinking that they are characters in a video game

for him to use any way he wants. In fact, he is using how many women in uniform us cannon fodder

for his own war of choice. And he has a Secretary of Defense who is incredibly incompetent that's

going along with it. I don't think Trump is getting the advice that he needs. And in fact,

they are just feeding his ego and his narcissism. And this idea that this war is a video game

is a real disservice to the men and women, our heroes who will always show up and do their job.

When we tell them in a women in uniform, we want you to go do this. They carry out the mission

and they will always do their job and they deserve leaders who will do theirs and ensure that

their sacrifice is justified. And unfortunately, we don't have a person of that caliber in the White

House right now. In addition to that sacrifice that you reference there, gas is almost $4 a gallon

nationwide. The price of food soon will likely go up. Meanwhile, you have the Iranians saying they're

not even entertaining a ceasefire, your sense of how much longer Americans could continue to watch

this unfold. Well, from what I'm seeing from reporting and from what economists are saying,

even if the war were to end today, the consequences of this war is going to last for many years to come.

And in fact, you know, even one of the things that Donald Trump wants to negotiate with Iran is an

open streets of Hormuz. Guess what? The streets of Hormuz was opened before he launched the attack.

And now we've got Iran charging ships a million dollars a ship to pass through the streets of

Hormuz. I'm pretty sure Iran is going to continue to charge that even after the war ends.

And so what is he trying to do? Get us back to where we were before he launched his war of choice.

You know, with the $200 billion that Trump wants to, once the Congress authorized Iran,

we could actually fund a decade of free universal preschool for four-year-olds or provide seniors

with dental vision and hearing and coverage through Medicare for three years. Heck, we could build

over two million affordable homes. We could extend an ACA premium tax credits by seven years. The

American people are going to suffer for many years to come as a result of Donald Trump's war of

choice for his ego. Meanwhile, Senator, let me read you what your Republican colleague,

Lindsey Graham, tweeted today. Not only do I support POTUS and his team's efforts to negotiate

with Iran to find a solution to the threats this regime presents to the region and the world,

I encourage it. It is the outcome I seek, not the method. I have confidence in President Trump's

negotiating team to make sure that any deal would meet the military objectives laid out

early on. You already referenced the fact that those conversations were already ongoing.

The fact that they reached an impasse is how we have ended up here in the first place.

We are no longer negotiating from a place of strength. We are now negotiating from a different

marker in the sand. When you talk to your Republican colleagues, are they with Senator Graham or

do they realize what a political liability this has become for them?

Oh, listen, Lindsey Graham never impasses up an opportunity to suck up to Donald Trump.

So let's be clear. But what I say is, you know, I want to be clear to my Republican colleagues,

no one is winning this war. It's an unnecessary, incoherent war that Trump cannot articulate

a justification for. And my Republican colleagues have a choice. They can vote on the war power's

resolution. We've put it up three times for a vote now. We're going to continue to put it up for a

vote. It stops the war until the administration comes to us to justify why they are launched

this war. And importantly, what the end state is, unlike Republicans, I'm going to keep doing my job

and my constitutional duty and using the tools of the Senate to demand public hearings.

So we can put the Trump administration under oath and give out troops in the American people

with the answers that they deserve. Senator Tammy Duckworth, thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you. I want to bring in Wall Street Journal National Security reporter Vera

Bergen-Gruin and staff writer at the Atlantic and contributor to the Atlantic Daily Newsletter.

Tom Nichols joins us as well. He is a professor emeritus of National Security Affairs at the U.S.

Naval War College. Vera, all right, as far as I understand it, the Iranians say they've rejected

that 15 point plan that the Trump administration has sent through intermediaries saying they are

not interested in a ceasefire, but some reporting here that they may be open to having conversations.

What is your reporting about the state of negotiations?

Right. I mean, ultimately what the 15 point plan is is not really a given take. It seems to be

much more of just a kind of maximalist political endgame that the Trump administration wants. So

they're definitely not going to be on board with that. And they've made that clear. They've sent

through a counter-proposal, which has a couple of things that they want. They want reparations for

the war. They want sovereignty over the street of Hormuz. So for now, these two sides are kind of

talking past each other, having these really maximalist public postures while privately acknowledging

that they're open to talk indirectly. But as of now, I mean, these sides are really not at

the same table at all. Tom, we are judicious about the sound we play from Donald Trump,

but I think something he said yesterday about the state of this war is worth hearing from him himself.

Take a listen. I think we're going to end it. I can't tell you for sure.

I don't like to say this. We've won this. This war has been won. The only one that likes to keep

it going is the fake news. It's not won. We don't need to litigate that. But it does articulate

one of my concerns, which is no matter what happens, he is going to claim victory. No matter what

happens, he is going to say he has won. And on some level, he has left that escape valve for himself

because going into this war, he never declared what the actual objective was. Was it regime change?

Was it nuclear, denuclearization? How do Democrats, how does a free and fair press hold his feet

to the fire when no matter what happens, he's going to claim victory?

We would almost be better off if he just claims victory and then starts winding this back down

at this point. I think the thing that we're all hesitant to say at moments like this when the

president wanders off into these flights of fancy is Senator Duckworth walked up to that line as

well, is that the president just doesn't have a grasp of reality. He's not stable. There's

something not right here. On his initiative and for his reasons, and I think Senator Duckworth

was right, it's ego, he started a war and now he can't get out of it and he doesn't know where

to turn now. And so he's getting a very filtered view of reality. They're showing him heroic montage

of every morning. That's bonkers. That's not how you brief. I worked for a politician. I worked

for a senior senator during a war. That's not how you brief a senator, much less a president.

And so this whole process has become completely haywire. So there really is no way to hold him

accountable in the sense of did he achieve his war aims because as you say, he's been all over

the map. I will say I think I think everyone's been letting him off the hook though about what his

war aims were. That first night, he said he was going to destroy the Iranian military and then

hand the government over to the people of Iran. That's a regime change operation. His his goal early

on was obviously regime change. We have other reporting that when General Kane said, you know,

the Iranians could close the strait of war moves. He said, fell capitulated by then. It'll be

over by then. They can't do that. He really did count on this whole thing collapsing. This whole

regime just collapsing in a matter of days. And that's why I think you're seeing all this flailing

about. And I think that's why you're also seeing other people in the administration who are also

in way over their heads at this point, especially Hegg Seth and I assume Tulsi Gabbard and JD

Vance are in there somewhere. But that's that's why they're backing off now to say, well, we're

now we're going to make sure they don't have nuclear weapons. Well, they didn't have them before

and they weren't two weeks away from them. So, you know, how does this improve matters? But they're

going to dial through all of these excuses, all these explanations and say at the end, we achieved

our goals, except the one that clearly motivated the start of this war, which was an attempt

at regime change in a country of 92 million people. What does it tell you, Vera, that if the

objective was, in fact, regime change, not only have we not seen that, but you now almost have

an emboldened Iran that is not even willing to discuss the possibility of a ceasefire?

Right. I mean, today we heard the press secretary at the White House say there has been

regime change because they've killed many layers of leaders, which obviously is not the usual

definition of regime change. But when it comes to President Trump, what we know is that they keep

citing the Venezuela model. They keep, you know, citing this, some many people would say a fantasy

when it comes to Iran, which is finding a government insider going deep down enough in this

infrastructure that they're going to find someone willing to work with them and, you know, basically

give them the concessions the United States wants. And that way they're going to basically, you know,

manage out the regime eventually. That's what they, you know, Trump mentions Venezuela and the same

breath with Iran almost every day. And when you speak with people around him, many of them know that

that's not a, you know, it's an entrenched theocracy, that's not a model that's going to be able to be

replicated. But the president seems stuck on that. He's still talking like they're going to be

able to find that person, even though they keep killing, you know, again, like some of their families,

their colleagues, the people above them. It just seems to so far as far as we know only entrenched

this regime further. So, you know, obviously regime change seems really, really unlikely at this

point, but they don't seem to have given up on that playbook. Well, and to your point, if you're

using Venezuela as a corollary, finding a government insider like Delsea Rodriguez doesn't mean liberation

for the people of Venezuela as it does for the people of Iran. It simply means the US may or may not

have their own demands met. Tom, there is some just incredible reporting in the Wall Street Journal

about the fears of what is happening in Iran turning into a forever war. They write,

when Peter Mansor, an ex-US Army colonel who did too long tours in Iraq, considers the unfolding

war in Iran, he worries the US risks getting dragged into another long and costly fight in the

Middle East. It's deja vu all over again, said Mansor was a Brigadier commander in Iraq shortly

after the 2003 invasion and later atop ed to general David Petraeus. He is now a professor of

military history at Ohio State University. In Iraq, we focused on combat operations which were wildly

successful, Mansor said. We had very little thought about what would follow the collapse of the

regime. This is a president, Tom, who promised that he would not engage in foreign entanglements

that he would put America first. Talk to me about the possibility not that we're going to be

enduring the realities of this at home for the next three months is the number we keep hearing

from experts about. Even if the straight-of-remuse was open today, there is still a log jam there,

but the possibility that this could go on much, much longer. One of the first things I wrote about

this war was that Trump clearly has what strategists and what I used to teach back in the day at the

war college, what strategists call victory disease. Mistaking operational victories for

strategic success, he's also clearly been intoxicated by the success of these kind of one-and-done

operations, a snatch and grab in Venezuela, bombing a terrorist camp in Nigeria, operations in Syria,

and so he just figured, you know, this will be the capstone achievement that he will be the

liberator of Iran, and there will be statues built to him and song sung. That's not happening.

So I suspect because he doesn't know what else to do, he's going to escalate. And then

once you've put ground forces somewhere, the problem with having ground forces holding territory

is they either have to hold it or give it back. Air campaigns, you fly in, you drop a ton of

explosives on something, you fly out. I think what Mansour and others are worried about is

at this point we have thousands of troops headed for the region. They're going to have to grab

something and hold on to it and then stay there, which is exactly what we did in Iran, excuse me,

in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in those two cases, we actually had clear motives. We had clear

strategic goals. Here we're sending people in because we're almost, I've described the president

as a gambler who's chasing a bad bet. Now he's going to keep investing more money and he's

going to up his bet and he's going to stay at the table until something pays off. And I don't think

that's certainly not the way to run a war. It's certainly not the way to gamble with the lives

of American men and women, but I don't think he sees any other way out because anything else

would be a kind of humiliating climb down form, which goes back to what we were talking about

earlier. He may just, at this point, declare victory and come back. But I think that many,

that many truths headed for the region, you know, as I think it was Bob Dylan who said,

when you got a lot of knives and forks, you got to cut something. So I'm concerned about that as

well. You're a broken grue and thank you for joining us today, Tom. You are sticking with me when

we come back. How the war is forcing right wing TV personalities to twist themselves into not

just defying Donald Trump's actions in Iran, which more and more Americans continue to disagree

with. Plus, exclusive new reporting. We are learning for the first time what Jack Smith uncovered

as to why Trump took classified documents with him from the White House. One hint, it is always

about the money. And later in the show, when you've lost Mar-a-Lago, a state house seat in Trump's

backyard has flipped to the Democrats, why his own neighbors have had enough and what that says

about expectations for November. All those stories and more when Dead Light and White House continues

after this.

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As Donald Trump's War of Choice with Iran continues to drag on with no clear off ramp,

a massive cheerleading campaign is underway over at Fox News to justify or spend to their loyal

mega audience. Why Trump betrayed a core campaign promise of no new wars? Here was Jesse Waters just

yesterday. In Jessica asked a question that a five-year-old would ask, when is this thing going to

be over? Stop it. That's not a serious contribution to the discussion about a war, Jessica.

Okay. We knew what was the objective and we're going about it methodically. If you don't know what

the goal is, you weren't listening. Tell it. Let me explain it to you this way.

I heard it out with a regime change and ending the nuclear program. It was never a regime change.

Yes, it was. He said today where he did a regime change.

Well, we did. I had told the I had told it. Stop stop your hyperventilating. Relax. Let me explain

the war to you. The mystery record is fine for our enemies. It's not okay for the American people

and we deserve a timeline, especially when people are worried about it. I don't think you want to

put a time on on something like this. It'll be over when he says it's over and the objectives

have almost been accomplished. Is this a 20 year war? Is this a 20 year war? It's three weeks,

everybody. Take a break. Let the man cook. I want to bring in my colleague, Catherine Rempel.

She's co-hosts of the weekend prime time right here on MS now and economics editor for the bulwark.

Tom Nichols is still with us. Catherine, let him cook. No need for a timeline. It's over when he

says it's over. I don't even know how reassuring that is to his own base, Catherine.

I can't imagine it is. These are the words spoken by someone who apparently either has never

experienced sacrifice or is indifferent to the sacrifice of others. Donald Trump is asking this

country to risk and in many cases lose American blood and treasure and he cannot explicitly explain

what the objectives are, let alone how we will judge when they are met. And so of course,

you end up seeing his fellow allied propagandists twisting themselves into knots, trying to justify

and just justify whatever this war is, which sometimes it's not even a war, and dismiss the very

valid concerns of the American people who worry about not only our reputation abroad, the destruction

and humanitarian carnage we are wreaking abroad, but the very real costs that are being inflicted

here at home as well economically among other things. These are valid questions for the American

people to ask. And you just see Fox News circling the wagons trying to deflect them so that the

president doesn't have to answer. Tom Nichols, these are valid questions for the American people to ask.

They are valid questions for a fair and free press to ask. In fact, it is never more important

that we ask these questions than in moments of international conflict. Meanwhile, you have

former Trump advisor Keith Kellogg workshopping, pushing a talking point that Fox has been using to,

I guess you could say, prepare their audience for the possibility of boots on the ground. Take a listen.

I look, I'm a big believer in putting boots on the ground, not necessarily into a ran,

but taking carg island and also taking the straight of her moves. Look, we kind of need a

do it the way the Romans used to do it. Tom, I just want you to fact check me here. Boots on the

ground in carg island. That is still boots on the ground. Yes. And it's boots on the ground in Iran.

You know, I live in Rhode Island. I would really object if someone said, well, we're just taking

Newport. We're not actually invading America. It is a psychological preparation for whatever it is

Trump wants to do because the guiding philosophy of everyone who works for Trump and that includes

people like Jesse Waters who works for Fox and, you know, the other propaganda Trump is never wrong.

The dear leader can never be wrong, no matter what he does, no matter how many times he flip flops

or doesn't 180 or screws up, whatever it was, it was a brilliant masterstroke. I know we've become

exhausted by asking this question, but one more time, imagine if Joe Biden had gone on television

and sort of stared off into space and said, well, I had a present and it was beautiful. And we won,

and there are some people, Jesse Waters would be jumping up and down on his desk in prime time,

screaming about the 25th Amendment and leading us into a forever war. This is purely servicing a cult

of personality. It's almost beneath taking seriously. It's beneath a serious comment, but it's

going to happen. And unfortunately, that's the message that's going to be sent out to millions of

Americans. I'm not sure it will work with all of them. You know, I think at this point, no matter

how much they try to put a gloss on this, this was all supposed to be over. And one more time,

the goal was regime change. You know, that Jessica Tarlov is absolutely right. And that's why

you see these sheepish looks around the table and why Waters goes into his sort of full, you know,

arrogant goofball mode, you know, about kind of shushing the hyperventilating female at the table.

But she's right. This war did begin about regime change. And now it's a hot mess. And, you know,

Fox will never admit that because it's not a real, these are not actual people who are interested

in sending any kind of dose of reality to their viewers. Right. Catherine, I agree with Tom's point

that the analysis is on the serious. I think what is interesting to us is sort of the delta

between what is actually happening and what a broad swath of Americans understand to be happening.

And while there can, I think they can spin this piece about boots on the ground and they can

spin the timeline. What they can't spin is the price that people are feeling every time they

go to the pump. I will match that with some of this new polling showing that 45% of Americans

are extremely or very concerned about being able to afford gas in the next few months.

That's up from 30% in just after Trump won reelection. That's the problem, Catherine, that you both

have the stakes of this war as it relates to everything you said. America's role on the world

stage are safety and a security. And then just the very pedestrian reality of needing to fill your

tank to get to work and being afraid that you may not be able to do that in the coming weeks.

Absolutely. Americans voted for this president because he said no new wars and lower prices.

And of course, he has delivered very much the opposite. And even if the typical American is not

paying close attention to what happens beyond our borders and what's happening with these military

excursions to use Trump's apparent malaprofism, they do notice what happens when they try to fill

up their tank. And they notice that gas has gotten more than a dollar per gallon more expensive

just over the past month. These are things that the president cannot wish away. They are the worst

possible political circumstances going into a midterm. I mean, I remember in 2022 when Joe Biden

was looking under every rock trying to find ways to reduce gas prices because for the most part

presidents do not have a lot of control over the price at the pump. It turns out they have the

ability to raise them. They just don't have the ability to lower them. So yeah, I mean, I understand

why this administration and again, their propagandist allies are trying to spin all of this,

but they cannot argue with the facts. And the facts are that the affordability problem that

drove the last election that will drive this coming election is only getting worse precisely because

of the actions their president has taken. Right. And that is where you see Tom Nichol some of the

fracturing among not just the MAGA base, but the MAGA messengers. Right. The fact that a lot of the

brover, so a lot that even the Megan Kelley's of the world, Nancy Mase, congresswoman Adam

Helena Luna. I mean, they are they are starting to message around the fact that this is unpopular.

And it is almost as though we are seeing the beginning of their internal resistance.

I don't know if it's an internal resistance, but I think that the delta you talked about earlier

becomes overwhelming. You know, there are these people have a lot of these people have just

mortgaged their souls, sold their souls for pennies on the dollar to keep trying to explain and spin

and rationalize for Donald Trump like parents trying to explain, you know, their juvenile delinquent

child. But the problem starts to come when you yourself start to look crazy by joining the president

in his break from reality. That's I think that's where people say, you know, even if they want to

and I think some of them would gladly do it, they can't sell it. That at some point, you know,

spin, that's a skill. You can spin things and you can say, well, the president has goals in

Iran, you know, Iran's a terror state, bad regime and so on. But then to say the prices at the pump

that kind of then Catherine's talking about, you know, you're not seeing what you're seeing.

Don't believe you're lying eyes. And I think, you know, there are people, especially now that Trump,

you know, we're not going to live forever with Donald Trump in the White House. There are people

saying, I can't look, I literally cannot look that crazy to tell people that what's happening in

front of them isn't actually happening. And the president's ask of his of his sick offense,

frankly, the ask is getting higher and higher and more expensive every day for them.

Tom Nichols, Catherine Rumpel, thank you both so much for being with us today.

After the break, one of the reporters on that big exclusive today that Donald Trump had a

personal financial motive for taking classified documents with him when he left the White House.

We're going to dive into that reporting next.

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Newly released documents reveal what a top Democrat calls

damning evidence about the years-long mystery surrounding why in the world Donald Trump

legally kept hundreds of classified documents at his private residence after leaving office.

MSNR reports that according to the new memo before a Trump appointed judge dismiss the charges,

special counsel Jack Smith had evidence indicating that after leaving office,

Trump had shown a classified map to passengers on a private plane, including his future Chief of Staff

Susie Wiles. That at least one document Trump took was, quote, so secret that only six people

had authority to review it. And that then candidate Trump took many top secret documents that

related to his worldwide business interests, which investigators considered a likely motive for

Trump concealing them. In a letter to Trump's Attorney General, House Judiciary Ranking Member,

Jamie Raskin writes, quote, this glimpse into the trove of evidence behind the cover-up

reveals a president of the United States who may have sold out our national security to enrich

himself. In response to this reporting, the White House insists that Trump, quote,

did nothing wrong. Attacking Jack Smith instead, who Republicans in Congress continue to target

two, while ignoring everything he found. Want to bring in senior investigative reporter Carol

Lenning, joining me at the table, legal analyst and former US Attorney Joyce Vance,

she is a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law. All right, Carol, talk us through

this new memo. Well, you see, what this memo shows, and we were able to review it last night,

is that in January of 2023, Jack Smith's team believed they had some evidence of Donald Trump's

motive. It doesn't mean that they confirmed it. It doesn't mean that they decided to present this

at trial, but they were talking internally about how many business records, or rather classified

records, that Donald Trump had both taken and concealed at Mar-a-Lago, pertained to his personal

businesses worldwide. And they viewed that as particularly curious and suspicious. And as you

have said at the very beginning, Alicia, this was the biggest mystery. Why would Donald Trump put

himself in such huge criminal liability and exposure, taking so many documents that included

national defense information, and then lie about them to his lawyer and to the government

when saying that he had returned all these classified records. As you know, in August of 2020,

after Trump said he'd returned everything that was classified, FBI agents conducting a surprise

search at his residence found hundreds more pages of top secret records, including these that

pertained to his business. Joyce, can you pull back the curtain for us and give us a sense of how

teams develop motive, the way in which documents can inform motive, and whether once they had a theory

of the case, if that theory of the case needs to then apply to all of the documents in their

possession. So one of the interesting things here is that motive is not an element of the case.

In other words, the government doesn't have to charge the motive in the indictment. It doesn't

have to prove it at trial, but juries are human beings like the rest of us and they're curious.

And so motive helps you as a prosecutor tell the story of the case to jury and convince them

that the proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt matters. So you can easily understand why this

would have been so important to Jack Smith and his team. They would have been looking for witness

testimony, but importantly, the documents themselves, once they got access to them, you'll recall

there is a real hassle over whether or not they could use these documents that lungered for weeks,

but they would have scrutinized them to look for potential motives. And then they would have

tested each of those motives. This is one document. We don't know if they concluded that this

was in fact the motive. We don't know if they intended to offer this evidence at trial,

but it certainly suggests that the public in many ways lost when this case didn't go to trial.

We never got the narrative of motive, which is as important to us as it would have been to the

jury and to the team. I have a million more questions for both of you. Please stick with us.

We need to sneak in a break. We're going to talk about how Republicans are continuing to target

Jack Smith. Another quick break. We're going to be right back.

We are back with that exclusive new reporting about why Donald Trump illegally kept hundreds

of classified documents as private residents after leaving office. We're back with a reporter

on that story. Carol Lettick and our friend, Joyce Vance. Carol Congressman Jamie Raskin says

prosecutors also warn that some of the documents posed an aggravated potential harm to national security.

What does that mean? And do we know any details about those documents?

Yes. There are quite a few documents that were found in Mar-a-Lago in the unannounced

FBI search in August 2022 that were part of what's called SAP special access programs.

And that means that the material and the information about that program is so sensitive and so

important to national security, possibly human spies, undercover operatives abroad, special

covert operations that we have in foreign countries that we don't want those foreign countries

to know about that only the president or the CIA director or another cabinet level official

can approve individual people having access to the information. So there were quite a few

documents like that in Trump's possession, which was shocking enough given that it was a semi-public

club. And some of these were kept near like the pastry and the wine and the vodka supplies in

the closet at Mar-a-Lago and some were kept in a shower room. So that was very striking to the

investigators. But also I think the most important thing that's referenced in this memo is that one

of the documents Donald Trump had only six people in the entire world were authorized to look at it

and that included the president of the United States. So five people, besides the president,

were able to view this document. That's how sensitive the material was. That's how carefully

our country kept this under lock and key until Donald Trump walked out of the White House with it

in January of 2021. Do you think that revelation is stunning on its face? The reporting,

the Carol and our colleague Jackie Elimini have done on this memo and the way in which Jack Smith's

team were beginning to coalesce potentially around a motive. As you said, we are not certain

that that is ultimately where they landed. It's a reminder, Jack Smith has been largely barred

from sharing details of this case. How much more does he potentially know and how much more does

he have to tell the American people that we may or may not ever know? Yeah, I mean, limitless

universe, right? It sounds like this was a misstep by the Justice Department that this one document

which sounds like the sort of summary investigators might prepare for their supervisor. Maybe in this case

on a weekly or a daily basis, there was reporting. That has what they are beginning to look at,

but what Jack Smith knows is the totality of what they had put together by the end. Pieces of

evidence like this that might have come into view along the way. At the end of the investigation,

they would have known how it fit together with other pieces of evidence. I feel certain that they

would have had a very good sense of motive or motives. By refusing to release volume two of the

special counsel's report and prohibiting its release by Jack Smith, Judge Aileen Cannon

in Florida, the judge who's done that, the same judge who had the case in front of her,

has really restricted our ability to learn about the case. Not only was the case dismissed

and ultimately kept from getting back on track by Donald Trump's re-election,

the American people don't know the truth. As you say, the fact that he had a document that only

six people were authorized to look at and that that document was sitting wherever it was found in

the ballroom or somewhere else, utterly stunning. Just to underline a point that you made there

in that analysis, what does this all tell us about the current DOJ? The fact that there's not a

special counsel in place, maybe not investigating Donald Trump criminally because that can't happen

while he's in office, but not looking at the underlying situation to prevent a reoccurrence,

right? That's a pretty standard DOJ sort of investigation. How do we keep the bad thing from

happening again? That's not happening here. This is Donald Trump's law firm. This is not the

justice department that I worked out. Joyce Van Sorter, to have you on set, thank you for being

here. Caroline, as always, thank you to you and to Jackie Elimani for that reporting. Thanks for

being with us when we come back. It is called, is being called a landmark social media addiction case

involving the owners of Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. We're going to tell you about it next.

A landmark trial in our digital age. Today, a California jury decided meta, the owner of Facebook

and Instagram and the video streamer YouTube or negligent in a case brought by a young woman

who accused the companies of using features designed to be addictive and causing her mental

health distress. This decision could open social media companies to more lawsuits from users.

The companies must now pay $6 million in damages, $3 million in compensatory damages,

and an additional $3 million in punitive damages, with meta on the hook for 70% of that amount.

It's a case that tested a novel legal theory that social media sites can cause personal injury.

Now, like Big Tobacco before them, companies could now be on the hook if they are found to have lied

to the public that the potential harm their products cause. There's just one of the thousands

of lawsuits filed by teenagers, school districts and state attorneys general against meta,

YouTube, TikTok and Snap. Meta has said they will appeal the decision, so we're going to stay on

that story. When we come back another win for Democrats who have managed to flip another

Republican-held seat in state legislatures across this country, the latest one right in Trump's

hometown. The next hour of Deadline White House continues after this.

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