"The Patel report"

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1:06Hi there, everyone. It's 4 o'clock in New York. Richard Nixon was right about one thing that, quote, people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. No argument on that. Today, though, the Department of Justice under Donald Trump, having so often thought to obscure or at times even aid in a bed, Trump's crookish conduct, appears hyper fixated on what Nixon so infamously said next, that he, Nixon, was, quote, not a crook, from the Wall Street Journal's reporting on this, quote, the Department is reviewing whether the special prosecutors office that investigated the famed Watergate break-in committed misconduct. That is, according to people familiar with the matter, more than half a century after that scandal led to Nixon's resignation. Jeff Shepherd, a former Nixon aide, turned Watergate historian and revisionist, recently gave a two-hour presentation at Justice Department headquarters that laid out his theory that the deep state took Nixon down, the title of his 78-page slide deck, quote,

2:08Watergate is law fair. Now, this might seem like a silly story to start with today, to some extent it is. 50 years later, relitigating an open and shut investigation of clear, presidential misconduct that was at the time so breason, that we still affix the word gate to the other end of all political scandals. Granted, these days, what he did seems and feels pretty quaint. But at its core, it is not a story about history, or even about Richard Nixon. In this moment, something far more alarming is happening, a pervasive rot fending out right now, deep inside our country's premier federal law enforcement agency. Case in point this afternoon, new detail provided by our MSNOW colleague, Kendall Anion, on the assembly of what is being called the Patel report, after Donald Trump's FBI director, the beer guzzling cash Patel. An internal memo circulating inside the FBI suggests the classified report will reexamine some of the FBI's past investigations and operations.

3:10And while it doesn't describe what chapters of the FBI's history, this report will address, current and former officials tell Kendall Anion that they believe the Russia investigation, in addition to Trump's more recent criminal investigations will be included. And so it is that the Trump administration appears to be going about a rewrite of history from one crook to another, making crooks great again as where we begin today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Our Justice and Intelligence reporter, Kendall Anion, is here, also joining us, former Assistant Special Agent and Charge at the FBI, National Security and Intelligence Analyst Michael Feinberg's here, and with me at the table, Constitutional Law Scholar, author of Who Decides Who Decides on Substack, James Sample is back. Kendall Anion, take us through your reporting. On the Patelle report, well, Nicole, what we've learned is that an internal memo was circulated to the workforce announcing essentially that the FBI Director Cash Petal had commissioned this

4:11classified review of what he called some of the chapters of the FBI's past history in the name of accountability, and also in the name of looking forward so that the FBI would never make what he called these mistakes again. Now, they didn't describe exactly what they were looking at, but we can only imagine, and my sources firmly believe that as you said, the Russian investigation would figure prominently, and of course the prosecution's a Donald Trump. And who knows, maybe they're going back to Watergate. I mean, we honestly just don't know. I did talk to one person who talked to friends inside who said they started reading the first few pages of this and just had to stop because they were just disgusted with the perspective. Let's not forget that Cash Petal is not a disinterested observer here. He was a player in particularly the three things that I just mentioned. He made his bones as a House staffer questioning the Russia investigation and doing doing battle with House Democrats over holding the Trump administration accountable for its dalliances with Russia. And then he was a witness in the classified documents investigation. He was

5:16summoned to a grand jury and granted immunity because he had been making claims that Donald Trump declassified by Fiat some of the information. And we still don't know to this day what he actually said to that grand jury because when he's been asked under oath before Congress, he has declined to say. So here's this man who is a participant on one side of these controversies. He's now the FBI director and has commissioned this classified review. And it's clearly an attempt to sort of create this authoritative document hidden behind the veil of classification to rewrite the history of these important chapters. You have, you know, in terms of the Russian investigation, you've got this bipartisan Senate report, co-authored by Marco Rubio, now the Secretary of State and the Trump administration, which said that the Trump campaign, you know, had a number of troubling contacts with Russian government officials to the point where that became, in the words of that report, you know, a counterintelligence nightmare. And this was bipartisan and all of these contacts were laid out in the report. Yes, Robert Mueller didn't find criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign in Russia,

6:20but what he found was shocking enough and what the Senate bipartisan report established was an absolute scandal. And now you have, Kashpital, trying to rewrite that history and the history of many other chapters in the goal. I mean, and it seems that using the word classified feels like his branding twist. But these are the other people who did a classified investigation into the Russia report, John Durham, with Bill Barr writing Shotgun on jets and planes to Italy. Horowitz, the DOJIG, had accessed all the classified intelligence that would have predicated the investigation. As you said, Rubio led the Senate report, which was the most devastating take down of Trump's ties to Russia. I think Rubio goes much farther than Mueller ever did in questions about whether there was compromise on Trump himself. That's in the Rubio led Senate investigation. Racklip has been at top the intelligence agencies twice. Once in Trump, one,

7:20once in Trump too, had access to all the intelligence has put out some bogus stuff, and nothing that has ever held up. Tulsi Gabbard took a stab at this, access to all the classified intelligence, this country possesses, haven't helped us. Joe DeGenerna went and replaced a career person who was deemed trustworthy enough. I don't know if she dealt with a lot of classified information, but she dealt with the prosecution of someone who tried to kill Donald Trump. They trusted her with that. She looked at the Grand Conspiracy case, found nothing was pushed out. So, Joe DeGenerna swoops in. He leaves another person left in the last week. What is, what is, what is Kashpatel going to do other than fabricate something that none of those Trump allies could find? There's another mandate here, which is, Kashpatel has fired and pushed out a number of veteran FBI agents with sterling records, decorated FBI agents who worked on some of these cases. He or others have accused them of some kind of misconduct. This may be a way of laying the groundwork.

8:24A lot of those people are suing to get their jobs back, or at least to establish a finding that their firing was improper. This may be a way of laying the groundwork to suggest that there were things that they did that somehow were wrong or improper or violated FBI policy and procedure. Because that's what it's at issue here. There are a lot of factors that went into the Mueller investigation and the Jack Smith prosecutions. But Patel's, the Patel report, as I understand, it looks at the conduct of the FBI and how certain investigations were open. What was the predicate? Did they have enough evidence? But as you said, those are exactly the things that special counsel John Durham looked so very closely at. And he criticized the FBI in his final report. But he didn't lay a glove on them in terms of violating a policy or procedure. In fact, he said that the FBI was justified in opening a preliminary investigation in the Russia matter. He quibbled with some of the evidence. But no one, no, Horowitz, nobody has questioned sufficiently and successfully the conduct of the FBI in these matters. But here you go. Here's

9:30Cash Patel trying to do exactly that. Hidden again behind a veil of classification. I mean, Michael Feimer, this is so nonsensical. The FBI has been led by none other than Chris Christie's former Republican defense attorney Chris Ray, who Trump picked to replace Jim Comey. In the interim, Annie McCabe was there. Comey and McCabe, or two people, Trump has celebrated to investigate an indict for the better part of 10 years. Like if anyone did anything wrong, we really think that Cash Patel is going to find something that John Durham, Inspector General Horowitz, Marco Rubio, John Ratcliffe, Tulsi Gabbard, Joe DeGeneva, and everyone inside the FBI couldn't find. I don't even know that his parents think he's that special. And this before, he wrote a sort of infamous memo when he was working for Devon Nunez that attempted to attack the predicate and early techniques used in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

10:32And he just got so many facts wrong that the document doesn't even worth the paper it's printed upon. But there's another part of this story that is angering my former colleagues from what they've been telling me even more than what Ken's reported so far. And that is that Patel can't do this alone. And my understanding is the email that went out announcing this report was actually signed by the current deputy director, who is a career agent. And the associate deputy director is also a career agent. And they are now taking down and slandering the very former executives and employees who are their coworkers, who taught them, who mentored them, who promoted them, and who are responsible for them being in the very positions they are now. And there is, there's a very serious belief that the leadership of the FBI at the highest ranks,

11:33including those who have carried badges for decades, has totally crumbled in terms of integrity and are willing to put Patel and Trump's interests ahead of their duty to their oath. And Patel's report, you know, that could be confronted, it can be disproven in the future. But the loss of faith in leadership is something that's going to be generational and is going to destroy the reputations of the people who are allowing it to happen, for basically as long as their names can be searched on Google. I mean, I had the privilege of interviewing Brian Driscoll, who said, you know, you want to scalp take mine. I mean, what does it say about the lack of character in terms of the people who remain? He's obviously no Brian Driscoll. No, not remotely. I mean, there's rumors that there were a few executives who, and Dan Bangeena was appointed, actually changed their workout schedules so they could magically run into him and the gym and

12:37get banter time and prove their manliness by wearing ultimate fighting t-shirts, I guess. Makes me like throw up in my mouth a little bit, but keep going. No, but it should. I mean, public servants, particularly at the FBI, where they have the power to take away people's liberty and lives, should hold themselves to a higher standard than base flattery and a willingness to live for personal advancement. This is a betrayal of everything the FBI is supposed to stand for. I frankly don't know how these people look their co-workers in the eye, or much less how they even let themselves in the mirror. It's a complete capitulation of everything that being a special agent is supposed to stand for. And here is where the two stories intersect, right? Because you can sit here and say, how can this happen? Well, the same men who would like to relitigate Watergate would believe that Kash Patel,

13:40beer guzzling Kash Patel, could find something that John Durham, Marco Rubio, John Racklip, Tulsi Gavard, and everyone that's ever worked at the CIA, the FBI, every special counsel's office, every DOJ couldn't. Yeah, I mean, the Russian investigation is the most investigated investigation. Ever. Ever. In American history without a doubt. And there are two points and you can kind of combine Ken's point about the good people who are no longer in the department. Yeah. And the allocation of resources point that Michael is making, that when you combine those two things, there's an adverse selection problem, right? Economists talk about adverse selection when you lose your good people and you are simultaneously hiring people who are basically being hired strictly for partisan purposes. I mean, slide into the DMs and you can be- I'm lowering the standards to not rule out people who have engaged in bestiality. Right. DM me if you want to be in AUSA, you know, that's literally happening in America today. And then you're allocating resources to things like an investigation into Watergate 52 years ago.

14:44I mean, and the office that's doing that OPR by the way only really has jurisdiction to discipline lawyers who would have been involved in the investigation. And basically those lawyers are all deceased now with a couple of exceptions. So basically we're doing this for- look, is there possibly an interesting history symposium to occur at some university as to the investigation of Watergate itself? Sure. Is that where the department of justice should be allocating its limited resources, resources that are not only limited, but that are now also being undermined by the adverse selection problem? But it's not that benevolent when we have the body, the vast body of journalism, that bolsters the fact that Trump is obsessed with being the only president who was indicted for 34 felonies. Oh, without- I mean, listen, I rarely agree with JD Vance on anything Nicole, but when JD Vance said in June, if Watergate happened today, it would be a 12 hour news story,

15:44he's actually got a point, but that's got to be the own goal. You know, though it's a plagiarized point, heraldo made a point to Hannity. He called into his radio show, I think about 15-20 years ago. And he said, if you'd been around, this is when I used to have my ear to the ground, but Sean Hannity said, if you'd been around, you know, Nixon wouldn't have been impeached. It's this idea about the power of the right-wing propaganda to numb and know their own supporters so they won't view criminality as a foul. Well, it's, and it's, and that's exactly what, it's the own goal, right? I mean, literally put it on a bumper sticker, make Nixon look pure again. Right. I mean, if, hey, not as corrupt as Nixon, not as corrupt as us, that's what you thought. I mean, that's where we are. It's exactly where we are. All right. No one's going anywhere. When we come back, there's more new reporting today about what's going on inside the FBI with what we're talking about. Cash Patel's aggressive push for agents to investigate all of Trump's bogus and disproven theories. Plus, with 32 days to go until those midterms and Republicans in Georgia have asked Todd Blanche

16:50to inject a whole lot of chaos into their state elections, something he has absolutely no jurisdiction authority over. We'll tell you what they're asking him to do anyway. And later in the broadcast, Donald Trump and his Maga Loyalists are telling us that everything is great. The country's hot, super, very cool, but watching what's happening in some very, very reliably red districts and states tells a completely different story. We'll get to all those stories of much more when Devin Whitehouse continues after Quick Break. Don't go anywhere. premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Can't fill anytime. That's a mouthful.

18:00Using smart AI cameras, live US-based agents help deter intruders in under 30 seconds. Don't just record a break in. Stop it from ever happening. Play in starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 60 percent off your new system with professional monitoring at simplysafe.com-slash-exam. 30 seconds response time requires monitoring plan without door protection starting at 4,999 a month. Visit simplysafe.com-slash-licenses for alarm-license information. Imagine learning is different software, like a virtualized business, because of the nature-connected growth. Some say, I do like the magic Keyes.com. Game with you, while being pretty affordable. And some say, some branches' programs remain manufactured and accounting and programs are leverally lost. And they're creating a custom software system, but I say, oh, down, all of them. For more information, visit our website at www.sacrificed.com. We're back with Ken, Michael, and James. So Ken, our friend, Sarah Fitzpatrick, reports in the

19:01Atlantic this. In recent months, Cash Betel has been briefed on the FBI's election integrity investigations in Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, and beyond. Officials told me their understanding is that many of the election-related investigation requests came directly from the White House. Many times that the instruction that, quote, this is a big deal for the president, or this is a push from 47. But all that attention hasn't yielded results. In meetings, Cash Betel has expressed frustration that there have been no new findings, an instructed staff to look harder or look again, according to three people familiar with the conversations. Cash Betel is the only guy who never says no, a Republican operative close to the White House told me. And the president likes that. Again, Bill Barr described all of these election integrity investigations in Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, and way beyond. I think he included Georgia as, quote, bullshit. I mean, these have been investigated by smarter and better and more experienced men than Cash Betel. And nothing was found, even when all the incentives were to find what Donald Trump

20:04wanted to find. So how, how is it even possible that anything he finds is accepted as credible by anyone? Yeah, there's so much great reporting in this Atlantic story, where our friends there, Fitzpatrick, Nicole, everyone should read it. And it's consistent with what I've been hearing and observing, covering the Justice Department and the FBI. There is an obsession within these agencies, and it's driven by the White House, to find evidence of voter fraud, whether passed or present. So they're investigating, of course, the 2020 election. We saw the seizure of ballots in Fulton County. And by the way, where has that gone? We've seen no charges filed in that case. It doesn't appear to have gone anywhere. And Sarah has some reporting suggesting that all the reviews and scrutiny of every single ballot in Georgia in 2020 has produced bupkiss. But I've also attended two separate news conferences, one featuring the Attorney General, the other featuring the Deputy Attorney General in recent weeks, where they announced minor, minor cases of domestic voter fraud. In one case, a postal worker who ditched his mail, because he wanted to work less that

21:10day. And in that mail bag included some mail and ballots that had been yet to be sent to voters. And they charged him with felony voter tampering. And they and they trumpeted that as an example of how the election integrity is in crisis in this country and vote fraud exists despite what the liberal media is telling you. And and the later news conference I attended with Todd Blancy, Attorney General. He announced that the Trump DOJ has charged 90 people with voter fraud-related offenses since they took office in 2025. I mean, there were 60 million ballots cast in the midterm primaries alone. That is such an infinitesimal percentage. It's statistically insignificant. And yet they stood there with a straight face to try to suggest that voter fraud is a big problem in this country. And we all know what that's about. This is driven by Donald Trump's obsession with casting doubt on the election that he lost and kept perhaps casting doubt on future elections. And he's got the entire machinery of the Justice Department, ginned up to try to to try to find, you know, fraud where none

22:13exists or amplify minor cases of fraud to get people to lose confidence elections. And it's a really, really alarming situation Nicole. I mean, meanwhile, Michael Feinberg, the FBI can't protect its own employee, its own workforce personal data and psychological examinations and home records and children's information and spouses addresses and work locations. Yeah. And the average FBI agent, average FBI analyst is incredibly upset with how ham-fisted the whole matter has been handled. We're hearing that it is much worse than has been publicly admitted. And that there's not a lot of information getting out in a timely fashion to the workforce about what they should be doing or how the Bureau is going to try and protect them. And the problem is there's a lot of people who are still there who are also around for the Chinese OPM hack and saw how the government and

23:17the FBI reacted with a laquerity to that one and can understand why they're not getting the same response. And, you know, one can reasonably assume if you fire or force the resignations of the overwhelming majority of your senior employees who know how to handle crises like this, that your response is going to be slow. So there's a feeling that the Bureau is not helping its employees and the reason the Bureau is not helping its employees is because it's senior leadership forced out everybody who would know how to handle this. Right. And for the ones who are still there, this is also from the Atlantic. Agents across the country have been seeking counsel in recent weeks about how to respond to FBI directives related to the election. That's occurring to six current and former FBI and DOJ supervisors and outside defense attorneys who told me they received calls. Quote, agents are nervous talking amongst themselves that a former DOJ official who's received multiple requests for advice unlike anything this person has seen before. Another former senior

24:22FBI official told me he had received calls from dozens of his former colleagues, looking for counsel and describing, quote, a real effort to bend people to the narrative of the president's election conspiracy theories. One agent told me he contemplates election day and thinks, quote, I'm either going to be sick that day or they're going to have to fire me. There's no question that people in the FBI are rattled. What is uncertain is the degree to which they should be. It's incredible reporting, as Ken said, and to the situation that these agents are in, I mean, it's borderline cough gas. We often talk about how these claims are unfounded, but I want to use this very specific example, the state of Nevada, because remember when Donald Trump gave that prime time address, an address that was basically designed to get Congress to pass the save act, which wasn't going to happen, but even if that didn't happen, he gets to push the narrative. So take Nevada. Secretary Mullen initially claimed there were 15,903 non-citizens on Nevada's voter role. That number then, DHS officials said after Nevada officials reviewed it, was reduced

25:26to 185. That 185, when examined one by one, was reduced to zero. Nicole, from 15,903 to zero, that speaks to the scope of the non-problem we are devoting this level of resources to. I mean, Michael, let me ask you a blunt question, because Bill Barr, even before election day in 2020, directed the FBI and DOJ to go look for fraud. Election hadn't even happened, and he said he was going to open those kinds of investigations. It was unprecedented at the time. He sticks around after the election. He testifies that there was nothing to any of these fraud claims. Trump's been looking for it for six years. To James' point, are we now to assume that cash betel will have some success in finding someone who's still in there that will make up something that isn't true or isn't real to further these narratives? It's a real worry. The quotes you read from the Atlantic

26:34cited six current and former employees, and another one cited a dozen. There's something like over 10,000 special agents at the Bureau right now. I really, really hope that more than 18 of them are worried about this and are seeking counsel, because the fact is anybody who took in oath of office and sort of feel teed in the Constitution and the laws of the United States should know that they cannot take part in whatever chaotic campaign the cash betel is about to launch on behalf of Donald Trump. Kafka S is exactly the right word, and I appreciate James using it. I just worry that I'm quite sure cash betel and Donald Trump have never read Kafka. If we're hoping to make an impact on the organization, we should stick to children's books as that's really a betel. I mean, if I can just get you Ken Delaney and to give us the last word

27:45about how embarrassing it is that it's bad enough that some Watergate truth or made his way inside DOJ at a moment of object crisis. They literally can't indict the hemp sandwiches anymore. What does it say that they're pursuing something so wacky? Well, it says that Donald Trump is obsessed with finding voter fraud, and he is ruling these agencies with an iron fist. I mean, Sarah reports in her story that they're and I've confirmed this. Their regular White House calls Stephen Miller and others are on the phone with people from DOJ and FBI every week, and that's never happened before. That's not how these agencies are supposed to run. And by the way, Nicole, while they are obsessing about non-existent domestic voter fraud, there's still massive foreign efforts underway to intervene in our elections, and they've completely disarmed on that front, did away with the foreign influence task force. And there's a letter out over the last couple of days from Mark Warner and Jim Himes, the ranking Democrats

28:46on the House and Senate Intelligence committees, urging the DNI and other intelligence agencies to meet their statutory requirements and to put out the information they're supposed to be putting out about foreign efforts to interfere in the elections, because those are significant. They're still out there. They're on social media trying to influence Americans, and the US government doesn't really have visibility over everything that's happening in that sphere, Nicole. So unbelievable. Kendalini, and thank you for your reporting, James Evel. Thank you for being at the table with us. Michael sticks around a little bit longer after the break. Republicans are asking for Justice Department intervention in a state with a very critical midterm race next month. Waska reporter was going on there. Don't go anywhere. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. It's Destroying, ATHLEE, Creator, and YouTube Maxcer. YouTube Premium enhances how I use YouTube with awesome features like offline downloads so I can download my favorite training videos before I hit the gym. So no Wi-Fi doesn't turn leg day into loading day. Plus, I get ad-free videos, background play,

29:47and so much more. YouTube Premium is like YouTube got some extra gains. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Try eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. Some say Odo business management software is like fertilizer because of the way it promotes growth. Some say Odo is like a magic beanstalk, scaling with you while being magically affordable. And some say Odo's programs for manufacturing, accounting, and more are like building blocks. For creating a custom software suite, but I say Odo is all of it. Fertilizer Magic Beanstalk Building Blocks for business. Yeah, Odo, exactly what every business needs. Sign up at Odo.com. That's Odo.com. Traditional home security only alerts you after a break-in, and that's too late. Simply safe is changing that. Stop, this is Simply Safe. Police are on the way. We don't just alert. We help stop crime before it starts. Plan starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplysafe.com slash SXM. Simply safe ahead of crime in real time.

30:53Outdoor to turn plans starting $49.99 a month. Visit SimplySafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information. The Department of Justice on a apologetically under command to control by Donald Trump just lost its 26th straight case in the federal government's attempt to obtain state's voter rolls. On a federal judge in Georgia ruled that DOJ has no right to Georgia's unredacted statewide voter registration list. But on the heels of that loss, the 26th straight loss, Trump allies in the state are launching another desperate effort to aid his attempt to take over elections there. Georgia's Republican controlled election board, a group of unelected officials, invited DOJ to directly intervene in November's midterms. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that the board's executive director, quote, asks the Trump administration to examine Georgia's voting machines that are deployed statewide and prohibit QR code vote counting, according to letters they obtained. It is an effort to quote,

31:53force changes to Georgia's voting system less than two weeks before early in-person voting starts escalating disputes over vote tallying and security upgrades that election officials and voting experts say cannot be done this close to the midterms. A spokesperson for DOJ did not indicate whether it would act on the request and a spokesperson for Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Rathansberger slammed the request in the statement to MSNOW saying this quote, people who are serious about election security don't inject chaos in the 11th hour. In roughly 30 days, DOJ's 159 election directors will conduct a free fair and fast election for all eligible Georgia voters. Joining our coverage at Atlanta Journal Constitution Chief Political Reporter, our contributor Greg Bluestein here Michael Feinberger still with us. Greg, as with all Georgia stories, this one pits Georgia's Trump supporting Republicans against Trump. Tell me what's going on. Yeah, remember this Secretary of State Brad Rathansberger who is on the other side of that

32:58infamous phone call demanding that he find exactly enough votes to overturn the 2020 election. And there are three members of the majority of the five member, the election board who Donald Trump called his pit bulls for democracy at a rally two years ago. So this is the internal division in Georgia between Republicans that is still raging. You know, there's probably no state where the shadow of 2020 election looms larger than Georgia even six years after the vote. And this is yet the latest example of that 2020 shadow still living large. What's going to happen next? Well, right now, elections officials are in a state of kind of purgatory. They're worried about these these last minute orders. The Secretary of State spokesman, as you just said, said this could inject chaos at the 11th hour. Early voting in Georgia starts October 13th. The election, of course, is about a month away. And so the last thing these elections officials need. And again, these are the sort of the cogs of our democracy. These are the nonpartisan workers who are just

34:02trying to make sure polls and elections go smoothly. And in Georgia's 159 counties, the last thing they want is some sort of last minute intervention. I mean, Michael, this enters the legal arena as most of these battles do at some point. I mean, you've got none other than John Solomon, who stood on the lawn of the White House and said, you know, quote, no votes were flipped through the voting machines in 2020. Yeah, I mean, I think we all tend to adopt a tentative posture when we're speculating about whether the administration will try and interfere with the midterms or inject chaos or outright trying to overturn the results. And I'd suggest that we don't need to be that hesitant in reaching a conclusion simply because they already did that in 2020. We had an engineered coup to try and overturn the results of a presidential election. And everybody in charge of these efforts now in the federal government to do something similar either took part in the

35:07exact same efforts in 2020 or defended them in court as legal counsel. So I find it really hard to try and look on the bright side and talk about all the protections we have because this really is a case of the lunatics running the asylum. And I hope that states will stand up for themselves as Georgia did in 2020. But I'm really worried that this letter was sent is an early omen that states might not do that with the same vigor they once did or at least there's going to be some internal dissent when they try. I mean, let me press you then. What does that mean? I mean, the the the political analog here is that Republicans view the Georgia Senate contest. So fruitless, they're not spending any money there. So I mean, Michael Fimer just pulled a string to its logical conclusion. Also, if is expected to win. So say the Republicans. What is what is it that we should

36:09be on the lookout for on election day? I don't quite know. But I have zero doubt that there are going to be what I will politely call shenanigans on the part of the federal government to at least try and throw some of the state elections and some of the federal elections into doubt. Again, this isn't something that's, you know, we need to speculate about it's something they did in 2020. It is something they have done since then in state elections. Look at the last California primaries. People would not accept the results and insisted on saying despite zero evidence that the elections were irregular. This is just the standard playbook now. 240 some years of accepting the results of free and fair elections and the stability that brought our country from the days of George

37:10Washington up through the days of Barack Obama has been jettisoned by one of our political parties for entirely cynical power-seeking reasons. All right, any both of you to stick around. I want to share more of the reporting and press both of you further on what happens next. Don't go anywhere. So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have because we want the state. It's the kind of sound that age is so badly. In light of everything we know about desperately, he sought to steal the 2020 election. And I just want to sort of remind people of that very clear effort to do something he knew to be fraudulent. It sounds like at the time, he quote, just one at 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. This is what he said to

38:16Time Magazine this week. Quote, do you plan to dispatch ICE agents to polling places? Trump, nah, I'm thought about it. Would you rule out declaring a state of emergency and I'll lead up to the midterms unless there's widespread violence in the streets? Trump, I don't rule anything out or in. We'll see. You mean the Insurrection Act? The border, yeah. Trump, I've never used it. I could use it. A lot of people think I should use it sometimes. You know, no one thinks he should use it. No one has suggested that he's the Insurrection Act. And I I wonder to sort of imbue this conversation with Michael's point that we're here already. And certainly in Georgia, we are, we are, the Translapta station. What is Rapunzel Berger doing this time, having been on the receiving end of Trump's direct appeal to fraudulently steal the election? You know, that's a great question because Brad Rapunzel Berger, he's still paying the price for that refusal in many ways. He ran for Georgia governor this year, came in third place in

39:18the Republican primary. There's a significant number of Maga Republicans who still hold that out against him. There is an effort in the Georgia GOP to block him from qualifying. It's literally, even though it's a moot point now, it's still being waged in court because it could affect future elections in Georgia. So he is holding firm as we said earlier, he's in his office, saying this could cause chaos at 11th hour, that this could cost $15 million in months. He's been, you know, there's legitimate concerns about a privacy flaw in in Georgia's election machines, but it does not alter election results. Basically, security experts say that it allows someone to connect a voter with their ballot. I did if I had voted, but again, that vulnerability doesn't mean that could actually change any election results whatsoever. So he's not, he's acknowledging that that factor, but he's also asked lawmakers for the money to fix those issues and they have not come up with it. I mean, Michael Feinberg, the idea that the Maga Republicans are this bull work, that is a shrinking

40:25number by the news cycle. So there are, I think a little over 40 days left, that number has gone down every day over the last 40 days. So it is still a virulent part of the electorate, but is a shrinking one in size and volume. I wonder what that would make you sort of prepare for on a domestic security side. I mean, it's really, really tough to say. We talk about the United States as if it's the sort of monolithic entity, but in reality, there are different plays of politics and demographics and socioeconomic differences in every city and state in the union, and you can't predict what's going to happen writ large in the United States. We can only predict what's going to happen in any given area of that area is interfered with. And like I said, there's a ton of variables. But the fact that his numbers are going down does give me some hope because it simply means that,

41:30you know, if there had been 50% less people at the Capitol on January 6th, events might have gone a very different way. And I think a lot of Trump supporters are realizing what that clip in the phone call you played makes very clear. And that this is not a politician. This is not a businessman. This is somebody who fancies himself as a mob boss. The problem is the older, more sclerotic and slower he gets, the less effective he is as that mob boss. I mean, we're dealing with the equivalent of if Frado had taken over the Corleonis instead of Michael. Like there's just there's not a firm hand on the killer here anymore. You deserve over time for all of your fantastic references today. Michael Feinberg, thank you, Greg Bluestein. Thank you for your reporting to be continued. I am sure after the break, the New York governor and utter disbelief and how the Cornell University rate case was handled. So she says,

42:34we'll show you what she says she's going to do about it. There are developments to tell you about in the 2024 Cornell alleged rape case that has gripped the country in recent weeks. New York's governor, Kathy Hocal, has appointed Attorney General Tish James as a special prosecutor to investigate the allegations. The governor saying she's quote, lost faith in the local prosecutor who initially said there wasn't enough evidence. At a press conference earlier today, Governor Hocal voiced some sharp criticism of both local police and the district attorney. In what world would the police learn from a victim that she'd been literally gang raped while in talks created by five men in a fraternity house and not elevate those allegations to the district attorney. In what world is the district attorney not even interview her or anyone else involved or even request the full transcript. This woman, this young woman

43:35had already endured something that is utterly unspeakable and that at every turn she was failed by people and institutions with an obligation to protect her. Attorney General Tish James said in the same press conference that the case is now an active criminal investigation. We'll stand top of that. After the break, Trump's dropping approval ratings continue to send the GOP into full panic mode. I'll show you what that looks like when the next hour deadline White House starts after a quick break. Some say Odo business management software is like fertilizer because of the way it promotes growth. Some say Odo is like a magic bean stock scaling with you while being magically affordable and some say Odo's programs for manufacturing accounting and more are like building blocks for creating a custom software suite. But I say Odo is all of it fertilizer magic bean stock building blocks for business. Yeah, Odo exactly what every business needs. Sign up at odo.com that's odo.com