"The hypocrisy of Trump 2.0"

Look, this is the complete weaponization of justice and politicization to advance a narrative

rather than protect the American citizenry.

And as I told you in your office, I have no interest, no desire, and will not, if confirmed

go backwards, there will be no politicization at the FBI, there will be no retributive actions

taken by any FBI should I be confirmed as the FBI director.

And this is the focus of this FBI.

We aren't about politics and we're certainly not about weaponization, we're not chasing

down our political enemies.

We are holding those accountable to the American public that did weaponize it.

That's not us weaponizing government.

They are the hypocrites.

Hi again, everybody.

It's now 5 o'clock in New York, hypocrite is a fascinating word for Kashpatel to select

considering its source, an FBI director who not only promised under oath and in interviews

that his agency and he would refrain from retaliating against targets of Donald Trump.

It's been proven alive, but also as you just heard insisted that the FBI would refrain

from putting politics ahead of the health and safety and security of the American people,

quote, the complete weaponization of justice and politicization to advance a narrative rather

than protect the American citizen.

So again, we'll let you decide, Kashpatel is used to the word hypocrite and evaluating

the latest reporting from our MSNOW colleague Carol Ennick, who writes this quote.

When FBI director Kashpatel fired a dozen FBI agents in staff last week for their role

in the classified documents investigation of Donald Trump, he targeted an elite counter-espionage

unit that investigates threats from foreign adversaries and specializes in Iran, as

according to more than a half dozen sources with knowledge of the firings.

The firings came as Kashpatel claimed without evidence that the team of FBI agents who

investigated Donald Trump's hoarding of top secret records at his Mar-a-Lago club had

engaged in improper investigative steps, but his gutting of the global espionage unit, known

as C.I.12, also came days before Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury, a series

of bombing strikes on Iran that killed the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Kamani.

It's difficult to say which of the two possibilities is more disconcerting, really?

Kashpatel, the FBI director, didn't know that his government was about to carry out an

attack that wouldn't necessitate, and advanced focus a real shoring up on protecting America

and the homeland from retaliation inside his agency, or that Patel did know that the attack

against Iran, the war was going to be started, and decided to fire those agents with that

expertise anyway.

What we do know is that as recently as yesterday, people inside the FBI were bracing

for the possibility that Kashpatel would fire more FBI agents and staff on that elite

counter espionage unit that specializes in Iran.

In response, an FBI spokesperson tells MSNOW that the FBI does not comment on personnel

matters, but maintains, quote, robust counterintelligence operation with personnel all over the country.

Again, this issue has nothing to do with the hardworking men and women of the FBI.

It has everything to do with an FBI director who swore up and down that he would prioritize

the safety of the American people over politics and weaponization before firing agents who dared

to follow orders from above and investigate Donald Trump when our country needs them the most.

If there's a word for that, hypocrite is the nice one.

It's where we start the hour. Senior investigative reporter Carol Enning is here.

We just read from her chilling reporting, also joining us, former top DOJ official,

and former general counsel for the FBI, our legal analyst Andrew Weissman's here,

and former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI, national security and intelligence

analyst Michael Feinberg is here. Carol Enning, this is incredible. Take us to what you're reporting.

Well, Nicole, thanks for focusing a light on this. You know, there have been so many purges

of FBI agents and staff that sometimes we can all get a little numb to that news. We report it

dutifully. But in this case, in addition to roiling the FBI community by claiming that FBI agents

who worked on the classified documents case involving Donald Trump had engaged in some sort of

impropriety in obtaining phone records, this particular decision by FBI director Cash Betel also

gutted a unit based in Washington, DC, that does a lot of different things, including

classified records cases, including this handling of sensitive national defense information,

but also has an expertise in finding and intercepting threats from our foreign adversaries

in the Middle East, particularly in Iran. And this really, you know, was kind of like the worst

if you will for people inside the FBI sources of ours who reached out to us and said, you know,

this is terrible that these people have lost their jobs. It also has to happens to be terrible

for our efforts to really use the expertise that we had veterans who really are seasoned investigators

and know what these threats look like on American soil.

Carol Enning, it's my understanding that Lisa Monaco, the deputy to Merrick Garland,

that the threats were so dire after the strike that killed Solmani, and there was protection

for former CIA director Mike Pompeo, former national security adviser John Bolton, former chairman

of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, that it actually rose to her level and she spent a lot of time

on this, that the threat environment that existed when Donald Trump got there was as high as it could

be. Just talk about how on top of that high level, how much more risk there is when you

launch a war against Iran. Well, I'm so glad you mentioned former deputy attorney general Lisa

Monaco because I remember getting a copy of a memo that she had written in which she authorized

an unusual, highly unusual tactic to interview a person who was believed to be an Iranian

hitman essentially and to interview him without his lawyer based on emerging constant and

possibly imminent threats to national security in America. This was in the early morning hours

after Donald Trump was nearly assassinated as a candidate for office on the campaign trail.

And so she has really, really had been focused on this issue in a dramatic way and believed it was

essential to figure out whether this Iranian operative that was being, how do you say, monitored

by undercover FBI agents to figure out if that person had any knowledge of the attempt on Donald

Trump's life when he was a candidate before winning reelection. As well, I would say that one of

the key things we need to know about that individual, a chief merchant, is he was just one of many

Iranian operations spawned in the wake of that bombing you mentioned that killed general

Salamani. And now if we're going to bomb and kill the Ayatollah and several other senior leaders

in Iran, I'm no expert, but you can only imagine if passed his prologue how many more operations

are going to be launched to harm Trump and to harm who else knows in America.

Michael Feinberg, take us through what you're understanding as of the time that you left the FBI.

What the threat was before the war began to Americans here in abroad from Iran.

It's fairly high, I'd say, particularly with respect to their willingness to take action against

current and former government officials in the United States. And they're also a very active

cyber threat, as has been publicly documented numerous times. You know, Iran is a particularly tricky

country. We don't have diplomatic relations with them. So we do not engage in this sort of

depressurizing talks from time to time that we would engage with even with other adversaries

like Russia or China. And it's worth noting that the threat is so dire that one of Iran's main

security services, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, is the only foreign states intelligence

service that is also cross-listed as a designated foreign terrorist organization. So the threat from

Iran is acute during the best of times, and it has been since 1979, but we are engaged in

armed conflict now. And we know that when we have taken action against their officials,

they will attempt to respond in kind.

Andrew Weissman, since the first day of Trump's presidency, I actually believe on the day of

his inauguration, we've been covering politically motivated purges of probably centuries of

expertise at the Department of Justice and the FBI. I think everyone, folks like, like all three of

you, frankly, have worried that this day would come, that the threat would somehow be elevated,

and that not just maintaining some sort of security for the four years of Trump's presidency

in the best of times would be possible, right? The luckiest, the best outcome for America,

but that the threat wouldn't increase. There is no one who thinks that the threat hasn't

dramatically increased, and there is no one who thinks that our capabilities haven't been

dramatically gutted at the Department of Justice and the FBI. Just talk about your best assessment.

What remains?

Sure. So when I was at the Department, what I felt like my job was, was to attract

the best, the smartest people I could find, and then for the people like that, how do I retain them,

so that we could do the absolute best work? And the area where I learned from director Mueller

at the FBI that you cared about the most was national security of all of the things that was

the number one priority was to make sure they would not be another 9-11,

whether it's here internally to the United States or externally. And I've told this story before,

but when I first was General Counsel to the FBI, and I saw the presidential daily grief,

which lists all of the threat streams, the kinds of things that Michael and Carol have been

talking about, and it's jaw dropping, the number and the volume, and what seems like each and

everyone that has to be tracked down, each and everyone seems so important. And yet, I watched senior

people like director Mueller be able to focus on which ones he thought were particularly acute,

what had to, the huge array, what did we have to do triage and really focus on? And I was just in

awe of the expertise that was needed and necessary to keep the country safe. You get rid of those

people we are less safe. I can assure you, you want the grownups in the room with that expertise

who have been there and have a real sense of what to focus on, and you could not think of a more

sensitive time than we're in right now to have those people there. And it is the job of senior

leadership, like Cash Patel, not to be firing expertise. It should be trying to keep those people

on board and not be playing politics at a time when your job is to keep the country safe.

Michael, if I'm just explaining why the agents who would have been involved in investigating

Donald Trump's taking and keeping and lying about and trying to flood his server room,

national defense information, why any agent involved in investigating that would be the same kind

of agent who was a counterintelligence expert. For the simple reason that people who are

counterintelligence, particularly counter-espionages, this lot in question, are the ones that deal the

absolute most with the theft and misuse of classified information. After all, that's what spies

are after. So when there is a case that involves the mishandling of classified information

without a foreign state involved, or if you don't know if there's a foreign state involved,

or in a situation where carelessness could induce a foreign state to become involved,

it naturally falls to those squads to get in there, triage what's going on, and clean it up.

And, you know, I feel I need to note, I'm not unbiased here. I have worked with and know almost all

the agents on this squad that were affected by last week's terminations. And it is not an exaggeration

to say that they were the cream of the crop. There is not an Iranian counter-espionage case

within my lifetime, quite frankly. That was not handled by that squad as an institutional

organizational unit. And every agent on it was top-notch adept at their job, smart and possessive

good judgment. I mean, I cannot overstate enough. Frankly, what a bone-headed move it was to get rid

of all of them at this point in history. It gives me a physical reaction of Dred to hear you say that.

Carolinic, speaking of physical reactions, the last time the country saw Kashpatel publicly,

he was guzzling beer. On the last time the country saw Tulsi Gabbard publicly, she was at a

rate of a Georgia election office. The last time the country saw Pam Bondi publicly, she was

refusing to turn her body around and face the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Galein Maxwell's

child sex trafficking and sexual abuse and rape. What in your view is sort of the standing of these

people in this moment of sort of grave threat to US national security?

I'm pausing for a moment to think about all three of them and base this solely on reporting.

I think I should stick with Bondi and Patel and say that Kashpatel is not viewed inside the FBI

as an individual that is managing and running this office in the way that Chris Ray Robert Muller

had done before him. This is a person who's spent a lot of time in a government Gulf Stream.

Five days heading to the Olympics for I think it was an hour and a half of meetings that people

questioned whether those were necessary in any way, but many hours watching hockey games,

one of his favorite sports, and guzzling beer afterwards in the locker room, and this video that

emerged of Kashpatel guzzling beer and spraying it around on the hockey player teammates that he calls

the boys. This video actually really ticked off the president of the United States who shared

we have learned since, shared that he was disappointed to see this behavior on camera,

and yet it kind of comports with how he's viewed by FBI officials who feel it falls on them to run

this bureau. Pictures live forever and that will forever be the image of the country's only director

of the FBI hours ahead of the United States, declaring war on Iran. It's interesting. Trump

doesn't drink, and so I wondered the theatrical drinking and I don't know, parent acting like he

had had more than one. It's interesting that Trump didn't like that. I guess even Trump has a

bottom when it comes to drinking. Caroline, it's an incredible piece of reporting. It's worrying,

but it's really important. Thank you for bringing it to us. Michael Feinberg, thank you for

eliminating all of it for us and starting us off. Andrew Sticks ran a little bit longer with us

when we come back. Apparently afraid of looking like they were taking a loss. The Trump administration

is reversing its reversal, reversing its decision to walk away from its fight against big law.

The on-again, off-again, now on-again war against law firms who refused to bend the knee and

capitulate to Donald Trump's own next story also ahead. Homeland Security secretary Kristinaum

has finally been shamed publicly for killing her dog. She was also grilled by Democrats.

As we said, even a couple Republicans joined in, one of whom brought up that kill shot against her

puppy cricket. He used it to make an example of her horrific judgment decision making, especially

around the deeply unpopular and deadly deportation campaign that has terrorized and traumatized

the citizens of Minneapolis. We'll show you that moment later in the broadcast. Deadly White House

continues after quick break. Don't go anywhere. Until a round of stinging press coverage, declaring

Donald Trump's law firm executive order such a colossal legal failure, even Trump's justice

department would essentially drop it. Trump's retribution campaign against big law was temporarily on

ice. Someone near Donald Trump must have smelled that defeat and said, stop the presses,

the illegal war on law firms must continue. Tragically, this is not a story from the onion,

it's what happened today in the span of a few hours. New York Times reports it like this, quote,

the Trump administration indicated on Tuesday that it planned to renew its defense of executive orders

that had leveled against law firms. In a motion filed with the appeals court in the district of

Columbia, where the cases are playing out, the justice department formally asked to withdraw its

request on money to abandon the cases against four law firms. It was not immediately clear how the

court would respond. The move on Monday was a notable concession from the White House and it's not

yet clear what exactly prompted today's about face, but as the Times reports, quote, one question

that the administration's decision a day earlier to abandon its cases raised was whether the

deals it made with nine law firms would survive and whether those contracts, which were not made

public, were considered unconstitutional, given that the district court ruling would be final.

I want to bring in New York Times investigative reporter Mike Schmidt and you're still with us.

We should note, Andrew, you have a tie to one of the current firms that is fighting back. Do you

want to talk about the firms that decided to fight and what this means for them?

Sure. So there were four law firms. They all challenged the executive orders. So there were four

separate cases. One of the executive orders, the law firm of Jenner and Block was targeted and I

was named in that. So there's sort of full disclosure. So I'm not completely dispassionate here.

And each of those executive orders was struck down. The district courts in all four cases,

there were four separate district judges and they all said that they were unconstitutional

violated. The first amendment due process, sixth amendment and struck them down.

And so real loss in every single way for the department with respect to those executive orders.

However, other law firms, most notably Paul Weiss, essentially capitulated and agreed to pay

hundreds of thousands of dollars in pro bono services to the administration.

Well, what happened was, as you noted, is the administration appeal. They have a right to appeal.

And their papers were due and are due this Friday. And so yesterday,

we heard that the administration decided that they were not going to appeal anymore.

And I think I was surprised when that happened, but I also thought they were going to lose.

I mean, they lost, you know, four zero. No judge has actually said that what they were doing

past muster. Like, they lost all cases. Not a single judge had said these were fine.

And so they must have smelled that they were going to have another defeat in the court of appeals.

And they, I think, don't want to lose also in the Supreme Court, having just lost the tariff case.

But within 12 hours, they did in about face. So we don't know why they decided to throw in the

towel Monday. And we don't know why they sort of resurrected this on Tuesday. But there's a lot of

sort of educated speculation about what's going on. The one thing we do know is it's about as

ham handed and haphazard as the indications were getting from the administration about

why we're at war with Iran. In other words, we can't get a straight story there.

And here it's hard to know exactly what's going on. Other than we know, there's no planned

thought out process here because you wouldn't try to withdraw the case on Monday and then try and

reinstated Tuesday. So Mike, just take us through why the capitulated law firms stay capitulated

if judge, after judge, after judge has said that these these deals are unconstitutional.

Because it's more important to them to be seen as not adverse to the administration or on the

side of the administration. Even if it breaks the law on the constitution. These firms knew that

the executive order was illegal when it came out. The executive order is an

angel will correct me if I'm wrong. There's not like on the executive orders, there's like, you know,

one side, you know, the aisle sees it one way, you know, one side of legal beagle to see it as another.

There's a widespread like understanding that there is nothing constitutional about this executive

order. And, you know, to the point that Andrew was saying, four judges have ruled on it all for,

you know, founded unconstitutional. So the law firms. There's white people hate lawyers. So lawyers

did something illegal to what? Because they're afraid of Donald Trump. And now they work for Boris

at the Congress Department. So what we know is that some of the law firms are doing free legal work

for the administration, including for the Congress. Legally or illegally.

Well, I think in the Trump era we might be beyond legal and illegal. I'm not sure.

Is it a bribe to work for free under a contract that's illegal?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But at the end of the day, the administration is taking

that work. Congress has asked, Democrats have asked the law firms about this work. And they sent

back very tert short one page letters. And the law firms is a good example of where, if the

Democrats were in control of Congress, that's something where they would probably be able to get

more answers than they already have. And even someone was saying to me the other day that if the

Democrats were to win back control, you could see hearings on, you know, okay, Paul Weiss, like,

why did you really do that? About those illegal contracts. You know, why did you do that? But

at the end of the day, the nine firms that did deals, including the firm Neil Cartel works for,

including Paul Weiss, they did those deals. And it was widely known in the legal community that

the executive orders were not legal. And what happened was yesterday, and even this morning before

the development and the stories that you had nine deals in place around something that the

administration was no longer defending in court. Now, they're back at it, defending it in court.

What happened between the stories that they were not going to defend it and their reversal,

their reversal? So we don't know, but we do know in the Trump administration that, typically,

when things like this happen, it's that Donald Trump doesn't like being seen as weak or diminished

at all. And in this instance, they were waving the white flag about the executive orders.

I reported on the Harvard deal about the administration in Harvard getting closer to a deal.

That story included stuff in it a couple of weeks ago about how Trump wanted to deal with Harvard

because he was experiencing such low, you know, news and developments that have Minnesota and

poll numbers. And Trump threw a fit and tore up the, you know, the progress that had been made

on that deal. So that is something that has happened before. And in this instance, you had the

Justice Department going to court yesterday and saying, we are done with this. We are waving

the white flag. We are not going to proceed with this. And then today going back to the law firms

and going back to court and saying, sorry, we need to do that again. And as I was talking to

someone about this, this is not like the government was like, no, no, no, we said we didn't want to

talk to that witness. And now we really do. Or, you know, we want to do this. And this is, this

was the decision about whether to essentially give up on a central part of the Retribution

Campaign. I'm believeable. Make sure to thank you for your reporting on it. And to Wyson,

thank you for all of your contributions today across the hour. When we come back, the day has come.

When the country secretary of Homeland Security who wrote in her own book about shooting and killing

and murdering her own puppy, finally heard about it from both sides of the aisle. We'll show you

that moment, the Republican who used the killing of her own dog as an example of her poor judgment.

That's on the other side of a break. Don't go anywhere.

Today, Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristinaum testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And for now, it didn't go well. First, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota gave Kristinaum the

opportunity to apologize to the parents of Alex Freddie and Renee Nicole Good for the

vile lies that she and her department spread about them in the immediate aftermath of their

killings by federal immigration enforcement officers. When I spoke to Alex's parents,

they told me that you calling him a domestic terrorist. This was directly from them. The day after

he was killed, a nurse in our VA, Alex, one of the most hurtful things they could ever imagine

was said by you about their son. Do you have anything you want to say to Alex Freddie's parents?

We were relying in the hours after that incident that was so horrific. On information,

we were getting from the graduate agents, but I wanted to say to the parents or to the family

of Renee Good after you called them domestic terrorists. Can't even imagine what they have gone

through in the loss of their son and the loss of their family members. How about specifically

calling them domestic terrorists without any evidence of that?

That's right. Ma'am, I did not call him a domestic terrorist. I said it appeared to be an incident of.

I think the parents saw it for what it was.

Whole country did.

I think the Republicans joined in, which is fascinating. This is Republican Senator Tom Tillis.

He is retiring at the end of the year. Listen to how he

describes Nome's tenure and lack of judgment and character. Now that he's free from any political

laws of gravity or maybe because Donald Trump is at 34% in plunging, I don't know. Watch.

I read your book last week. And honestly, some of the parts have an impression,

but some of it distresses me. And I'll give you a good example of one that does.

The passage where you talk about killing a dog that was 14 months old. I trained dogs.

All right. And you are a farmer. You should know better. You should know that if you're going out

to a hunting lodge and you're putting peasants out and you're putting dogs out, you don't take a puppy

out there. A 14 month old dog is basically a teenager in dog years. You decided to kill that dog

because you had not invested the appropriate time in training. And then you have the audacity

to go into a book and say it's a leadership lesson about tough choices. It's in your book. We

could play it if we had time. At that same lunch hour, you killed a goat and you killed a goat

because you said it was behaving badly. You are a farmer. You don't cast right a goat. They

behave badly. You should have probably done that before, but my point is those are bad decisions

made in the heat of the moment. Not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis. I expect we're an

exceptional nation. And one of the reasons we're exceptional is we expect exceptional leadership.

And you've demonstrated anything but that in the time that I've seen you responding to the

emergency in North Carolina and across the southeast and acknowledging when mistakes are made.

And speaking too soon for the expedient of social media or whatever it is,

too late, but at least it's happening. I want to bring in former DHS Chief of Staff during

Donald Trump's first term as President Miles Taylor and Democratic Strategist in Columbia

University Professor MSNile Political Analyst Basel's Michael. There is a long history of

politicians doing one thing that crystallizes everything else they do in their personal and

public life. And for Mitt Romney, it was tying the family dog to the roof of his car for a trip.

It became a window into what people thought made him detached. And then it was followed by other

comments about about his wealth. The story that Tom Tillis is talking about there is one that I've

covered extensively because I mean when you're looking at the character of people who do

sadistic things, there is always an example of sadistic conduct towards small and innocent animals

always. Now everyone that does sadistic things to small animals doesn't turn into a serial killer.

But just about every serial killer has a history of being sadistic toward innocent

We apologize for our technical gremlins. The views from dogs everywhere must have crashed the

system. We were temporarily knocked off Miles. But this window into Christina's character brought

to a public hearing in Washington today, 13 months into Trump's term by Republican was a stunning

moment, especially to hear him tie it to her leadership of DHS, your thoughts.

Yeah, we've never seen a Republican senator dressed down the Secretary of Homeland Security

in quite the way that Tom Tillis did. This is how I would sum the whole thing up, Nicole. He was

basically saying, and I would agree that Christine Nome is treating American citizens like she treats

her dogs. That's basically what he was saying. That her department has been treating Americans the

way she treated that dog she put down on her farm. And when you heard that line of questioning

about Alex Freddie and Renee Nicole good, you saw that. You saw that born out because she did call

American citizens who were murdered by her officers, domestic terrorists. And she did it to protect

herself politically. Her first instinct was not caution or accountability, the kind of thing that

we always tell the Secretary of Homeland Security to do. Be careful in the immediate wake of an

attack. It was just a rush to label them terrorists. So the story became about them and not

about her. And I've seen administration spin bad news. Trust me. That's what the first Trump

administration was all about. But I've never seen a cabinet secretary smear the corpses of Americans.

She was responsible for protecting. And today she tried to pretend she never sent it. But the

tape exists, Nicole. The parents are watching and send their time bill is called it out.

Yeah. I mean, Basil, I've just never seen anyone tie the conduct of the current makeup of

this cabinet, which Donald Trump doesn't even describe as the best people, right? That was his

moniker for for for his for his team 1.0. He's not used though that word. He's not described

as the best people. But I've not seen any Republican go back and look at the origin story of the

character of any of these people and tie it to their poor performance on the job. And if that's a

window into how they're going to evaluate this cabinet, you know, next to Pete Hexeth.

Yeah. You know, I wish you could really see more of what Senator Chilis did today. And you're

right to acknowledge in your intro that he is retiring. He hasn't asked you to retire. And

however, I would add that there's another layer of concern here, which is that this president

doesn't give his own party anything to run on. You know, he would have used the state of the union

to do something like that. He would be really out front and trying to address the concerns that

clearly the polling is picking up, but he doesn't do that. He doubles down instead. And, you know,

to Thomas's point, it is true that Senator Chilis is sort of comparing her treatment of animals to

her treatment of human beings who, you know, doesn't, where she doesn't have this kind of regard.

And 32 people died last year in ICE custody. That's the most that's that ICE has seen pass away

in their custody in two decades. Seven alone this year, which brings it total to 39. So what we're

seeing is what I call the sort of gamification of America move fast, break things with no attention

to nuance, no acknowledgement of the consequences. And with specifically with ICE, it has been the sort

of repository of all of the outrage that Trump brings about, all of his reclamation and retribution.

And it's as though that one agency literally and figuratively is the place is the focal point

of all of the of all of that anger that is not only reproduced there, but it's also rewarded.

And there's nothing that fishy gnome has done to slow that down. In fact, it's been exacerbated

under her, her circle of leadership. So I'm glad that Senator Chilis has brought it out, but I

adjusting for more, more Republicans to do the same.

Well, the damage that Trump has done to his own political standing is massive. The tariffs have

plunged his approval rating on the economy to its lowest in his political life. His indifference to

affordability is an issue that causes real anxiety for people has also hurt him. But on immigration,

it is both his extremist, maximalist views, married with Stephen Miller's sort of free roaming.

But the person most culpable for the lowest approval ratings Trump has ever had since he

descended the escalator is Christiano. And when you're also platforming this sixth story, I mean,

I think 100% of Americans probably grew in nothing other than shooting and murdering a puppy is sick

when that is being raised by members of your own party in televised hearings. How much of that

does Donald Trump tolerate? You know, I don't know. I mean, Donald Trump, if he cares about anything

beside his own self-interest, Nicole, he cares about telegenics and he cares about optics. And it's

evident that he didn't hire Christy gnome for her national security chops. He hired her for some

other reason. And she's not really delivering the photo ops he wants anymore. She's delivering really

bad photo ops in really bad news stories. So I've got to think that's why we've heard leaks out of

the White House for months about the fact that Christy gnome might be on the chopping block.

There's no coincidence there. And when the president says he's very happy with her service,

look, I've seen that story before where he pretends to be happy with the cabinet secretary and

where he secretly leaks against them. That's what he does to keep them on their toes. But I

actually think it wasn't even the puppy stuff, Nicole, that was the most damning part of this hearing.

I mean, the most damning part was the fact that it was clear that Christy gnome has no idea

what is happening in her own building. She repeatedly said in this hearing that she was unaware

of specific abuses and specific incidents. And I got to tell you, I helped run that place.

The Secretary of Homeland Security gets briefed on all of these things of consequence,

including things she kept denying that she knew about. And if she doesn't know that some of these

things are happening in her department, some of the abuses like Basil just mentioned, some of the

deaths in her custody, then one of two things is true, Nicole. Either her staff is hiding them from

her or she is hiding those things from us. And neither answer is acceptable. Both of those answers

would tell us something about her leadership of the department. And Cory Booker nailed it in

that hearing when he said she is either incompetent or corrupt. There is no third option.

Miles Taylor and Basil Smigel, I apologize again for the Grimlands. Thank you for joining me today.

When we come back, there's plenty of excitement on the ground in Texas where voters are going

to the polls. In the first big primaries of this year's midterm elections, they're here. We'll

check in at a polling place where lines are long after a quick break.

Today is the first big primary day of the year that kick off to finding out who will control

Congress. Already, we are seeing long lines to vote in an election where two Democratic

candidates for Senate are facing off against each other with tonight's winner hoping to turn

that deep red state blue. Jacob Soberoff is at a polling place at the University of Texas in

Austin. He joins us now. What are you seeing, friend?

Nicole, it's a very exciting energy here in Texas. Just take a quick look at the line.

This is UT Austin and this is the Texas Union. It's not even the beginning of the line because

people are all inside, but we don't want to go inside right now. I'm going to walk with you

on the line just so you can get an idea of how many people are out here with a couple hours to go

before the polls close. This is extremely consequential. This is the first time a Democrat could hold

statewide office here in the better part of three decades. And when you look at all of these people,

James Talleriko, that state legislator from here in the Austin area is on the ballot jasmine

crocket. The U.S. Congresswoman is well from this state on the ballot. The early voter turnout

Nicole was as high as any election that it has been since 1990, excuse me, since 2008, this

Barack Obama faced off against Hillary Clinton here in Texas. I'm not going to walk this entire

line because it literally stretches all the way around this block when we come back at the top

of our special at seven o'clock Eastern time when you and Rachel and everybody will be at the desk.

I'm going to show you a lot more talk to you about what people are expecting here on the ground

tonight. But this is turnout that the Talleriko campaign feels very good about. I have been talking

to them. We will be over at his event as well tonight. It's all coming up at seven o'clock

on the east coast right here. And I can't wait to see that. I'm just a little bit mad that you're

all wearing t-shirts. It's snowed here this morning. Jacob's so rough. Thank you. I'll see you

in an hour. As Jacob said, we'll all be back one hour from now. I'll get to be alongside Rachel

and all of our prime time friends for full coverage of tonight's elections. It starts at seven.

As a reminder, my guests this week on the Best People podcast talk about the stakes of these midterm

elections. They are familiar faces to many of you. I sit down with Eddie Glod, Mitch Landry,

and Tom Nichols. They join me for a wide-ranging, free-for-all kind of conversation about which

the constraints of cable TV. Well, you can guess. There was no swear jar. Scan the QR code on

your screen to watch on YouTube or download it to listen wherever you get your podcasts. Thank

you for letting us into your homes today. We are grateful. We apologize again for the glitch.