"Republican lawmakers preparing to take drastic measures”

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Majority John Thune, however, lacks the votes right now for such a radical move. So perhaps in an effort to placate Trump, Axios reports this. Quote, John Thune is exploring an open-ended debate on the Save America Act that could run a week or longer, forcing Democrats to publicly defend their opposition to the bill, according to senators and aides. A short time ago, John Thune confirmed that reporting on the Senate floor. Donald Trump, meanwhile, is going about a projection tour, insisting mail-in ballots. Guarantee a crooked election as he fights for greater control over the ballot box. Why? Maybe this has something to do with it. Polling from Maris shows a nine-point advantage for Democrats right now in a generic ballot. Figure. That's where we start the hour. New York Times reporter, Nick Corsiniti is here. Also joining us, political analysts and pollster Cornell voucher. Cornell, whatever people say about Donald Trump, the man can read a poll. Just tell me where the Republicans' political standing sits right now. Well, you know, I was listening to that clip about... everywhere he goes, people just talk about the city of America. It's all that we're talking about. And it's, it's so absurd, Nicole, because I, it's like there's no, there's no way he even hears about that. Like, like, I think his fear of him, Stephanie Ruhle had this great line on State of Union. They said, you know, all presidents live in a bubble. He's in a gilded bubble. And even in the gilded bubble, I don't think anyone comes to him in the gilded bubble. and says, hey, man, how about how's the Save America Act going? No way. No way anyone at the Omelet line at Mar-a-Lago is talking about the Save America Act. No way anybody he ever sees is talking about the Save America Act. Right. No, I've been in folks groups for the last couple of weeks, and no, Americans aren't going. Stop talking about gas prices and grocery prices. We've got to do the Save America Act, right? It's such a... You know, I've been a policy for a long time, but this level of just... detachment. And it's sort of a callous detachment and disregard for the concerns of everyday working Americans. Because to that point, Nicole, no one's talking about the Save America Act. And when you look at the president's numbers and you look at the generic that Democrats are opening up in at Marist poll is at nine points. And at this time, going into 2018, you know, most polling. headed somewhere between seven and eight points as well. Although, Nicole, who knows what's going to happen with the generic measures anymore because all these districts are being redrawn and gerrymanders. I don't even know what a generic means anymore. But to that point, you do see an election after election for the last year, Democrats way overperforming and winning in places that they necessarily haven't won before. And I think they can see that the riding on the wall here.

And so the top priority is, in fact, to rig the system to try to hold on the power. But I got to tell you, them going all in for the Save Act when Americans are looking at higher gas prices and grocery prices, I think they're going to pay a really high price for this level of sort of disregard, this let them eat cake level of disregard and detachment from the real struggles of working Americans. Yeah, I mean, Nick, we should not underestimate the power of the lie, right? So the lie about election fraud in 2020 sends men and women to the Capitol to carry out a violent insurrection and carry out acts of physical violence against law enforcement, right? It is a lie that some of his supporters believed fervently. But he is now... the president at a time when 70% of Americans say the economy sucks, 64% of Americans disapprove of the job he's doing, and that is a number from before the war in Iran began. His most prominent media allies, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Joe Rogan are a big thumbs down on the war in Iran. His political coalition is... blowing up sort of in full view in a way that they'll let them eat cake. I would extend that to John Thune and John Cornyn. John Cornyn is at least running in the beauty contest against the, what's his name, Ken Paxton. The two of them want the Trump endorsement because Trump has said he's going to make the other guy drop out. So there's no runoff on that side. But John Thune driving sort of the car into the river, politically speaking. over the SAVE Act at a time when 70% of Americans are economically distressed is a political act of malpractice that's unprecedented in modern political life. I think one thing too about the SAVE Act is if we look at its core, this documentary proof of citizenship, there have been studies that show that this would actually harm Republicans more than Democrats, especially in the short term. The SAVE Democracy Foundation did a study in June 2025 that found that there were much more Republican states or states that Trump did very well in that had low percentages of passports. And passports under the Save America Act were to pass, which is, again, an extreme long shot at the moment. There's no indication that, you know, this is on the horizon. But were it to pass, you would see a lot of these states that have, that are big Trump-supporting states struggle to find their documentary proof of citizenship if they don't have passports. You then need a burst certificate and you need something else, some kind of photo ID. And it's also true that... A lot of older rural white voters tend to not have passports or other documentary proof of citizenship. And some more recently naturalized citizens or immigrants have. It's been more recent that they've gotten their citizenship and their papers are more in line. So if this entire act is indeed a political one and designed to help kind of, you know, bulwark to president against the tides of low poll numbers and just the historical swing of a midterm elections.

after a presidential, the documentary proof of citizenship provision might end up completely backfiring on Republicans. It's such a good point to look at what's in it. You said bulwark, and I'm going to bring in our friend political analysts and host of the Bullwark podcast, Tim Miller's here. I'm not even sure Trump knows what's in it. Are you, Tim? I'm pretty sure he doesn't know what's in it. And I appreciate the cue to Nick. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know what's in it. It was interesting. Here's just one anecdote about that kind of backs up next point. Is Lisa Murkowski asked about this walking through the hallway yesterday. And she said she wasn't going to support it. They asked her why. And her reason was not the reason I would have given, but it was one that's relevant to her, which is that she thinks it's going to disenfranchise a lot of people in Alaska. And the groups that she mentioned are, you know, kind of rural. white folks mostly, I think as well as indigenous in Alaska. And, you know, it's Alaska. It's a red state. I think that that's obviously disproportionately going to be, you know, Donald Trump voters. And so, you know, I think that her position is principled. It's not because she's trying to like. protect Donald Trump from himself here. But I think that that speaks to this point. I'm not even sure that if this succeeded, it would help them in the midterms that much politically. And it also seems very desperate to me, you know, doing some uncharacteristic positive spin on this. But look, they tried to. Not Rigg. In Rigg is maybe a little bit overstated. Like they tried to rebalance the election in their favor with the redistricting, right? I mean, that's what that was the whole point of it. Like they were trying to help themselves by changing the rules in the middle of the game for redistricting. It backfired. And the redistricting is probably going to cost them more seats and it helps them now. And it seems like they're kind of splashing around for other things to do. And Steve Bannon's like, we're going to send ICE officials out to the. the voting booths, the administration had to backtrack from that. I think that might very well backfire because it motivate people to vote early and to mail in. And so now they have this plan that I might not actually, I think it's very challenging to pass. Then even if it did pass, I think a lot of blue states would challenge it. So I don't think it'd help them that much in the House elections. You know, maybe it helps them in a couple of Senate races. But I think they're kind of getting pretty desperate looking for different tools for. undermining the midterms.

Yeah, I also think, Cornell, it presumes that voters won't be able to notice that they're not trying to win over voters, right? It, like, it presupposes that voters aren't going to notice that they're just letting everything suck, right? Like, I can't help. I mean, here's what Donald Trump said about housing. This is from Jake Sherman. Quote, we had a big scoop yesterday in which Mike Johnson told his deputies, his leadership team, and his committee chairs that the president told him no one gives a bleep about housing. Okay, maybe not in the gilded bubble, but literally everybody else does. A message that really was intended to convey that he, Donald Trump, cares more about the Save Act, the Save America Act, whatever. That they are two different bills, some of the, but the point is Trump is trying to make is that this dust up. Between the House and the Senate on housing isn't as important. You find me, you can close your eyes and find me any 100 people in this country of any age, living anywhere, of any gender. And I promise you they care more about the price of housing for themselves or their parents or their kids than they do about a non-existent issue. I mean, Donald Trump went looking for voter fraud after Donald Trump was re-elected, and Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security couldn't find any voting fraud. Bill Barr said it was bullshit. I mean, there is no voting fraud in this country that would have changed the outcome of any of Donald Trump's campaigns, the two he won or the one he lost. And I wonder, Cornell, how Democrats can really communicate to the country that Donald Trump doesn't care about your economic anxieties. Donald Trump doesn't care about housing prices. Donald Trump doesn't care about the price of gas. Donald Trump doesn't care about affordability. He thinks it's a, quote, hoax. Yeah, well, I... Two things. One is, you know, go back to that other point about it could backfire and hurt Republicans. I think that's true, but I also think there's a theory out there that this also just shows more chaos into our election system in a way that that's harmful. And it gives them an avenue to try to, you know, for the federal government to try to do something because it would be absolute chaos if this, if this pass. And I'm always of the mind that Donald Trump. is trying to sow chaos because that's what he's done for the last couple of months. Look, I think Donald Trump's, Donald Trump's language there is going to be very helpful to Democrats running for House and Senate seats all over the country. because the Republicans have had to wrap themselves around Donald Trump, and now they're going to have to wrap themselves around the man who says, you know, housing affordability is not an issue. These affordability things are not an issue. I'm about the Save Act. And I guarantee you, Nicole, in every battleground congressional district going into the cycle, you know, there will be some advertisements.

that paint the picture of Donald Trump and Republicans not giving a darn about affordability, not caring at all about the housing crisis or the health care crisis, and it's going to be doing it in their own words. Nick, what is your sense of their next move on the chaos disruption, you know, Tulsi Gabbard in Georgia, rating offices in Arizona? What is your sense? What does your reporting suggest their next target for their disruptive efforts might be? Well, we reported over the weekend that a bunch of election activists in Michigan have obtained copies of ballots from Detroit in 2020. So that's now a third city that we know that images of ballots, not necessarily the physical ballots like there were in Fulton County, but images of ballots are now on the hands of these right-wing election activists who make up all the conspiracy theories, continue to push. you know, falsehoods about the 2020 election and especially in Michigan where there were, say, a few administrative errors that were quickly corrected and had no impact on the results. That's the kind of stuff that keeps the lie alive. And so the fact that they have these ballots and that, you know, they're talking in meetings that they're posting to rumble about their eagerness to draw parallels with Fulton County. And the fact that the FBI, you know, recently subpoenaed Arizona for similar digital data. I can probably expect that in Michigan. But then also more broadly, as we're looking and talking about, you know, the SAVE Act and what impact it have, and to Cornell's point about, you know, causing possible chaos, there's a key provision in the SAVE Act that would require every state to upload their voter lists to the SAVE database of DHS. And that gets at another, like, major, major goal that the Trump administration has right now to get voter data, whether it's through the DOJ lawsuits, whether it's through uploading through SAVE. And so I think that effort is going to kick into even higher gear than it already has. And with the SAVE database and with the push for the SAVE Act, that could be another way to kind of really intrude in what's, you know, clearly as the Constitution states, a state-based electoral process. Yeah, I mean, Tim, this is rolling along as though it's all legal. It's not all legal. And I think with the number of judges who have cracked down on that which is lawless, the number of Trump prosecutors who are now found by judges to have been acting illegally, the number of Trump sycophants in DOJ to be under investigation. This is an area where people should expect and anticipate that where they cross the line into doing that, which is lawless, they will pay a price eventually. I think so. And they're forcing prosecutors and investigators to act lawlessly because they're looking for imaginary crimes. Right. That's the craziest part about all this. So if you take them at their word, the election was stolen in 2020. It was the greatest theft in history. Now they control everything. They control the FBI. They, you know, have access to any data, any information that they want. And they haven't indicted a single person. They've been rejected by some by grand juries, but they haven't found anything because there's nothing there. You know, and so.

They will continue to act lawlessly because they can't use, you know, the normal functions of the law that you would use, even if they were, you know, acting inappropriately to go after political foes when the political foes had done something. That's not the case here. Nobody's done anything, so they are going to act lawlessly. I just would add one of the things that I think to, as far as a look ahead, and Mark Elias and I've talked about this is, to me, I'm a little bit more worried about, like, the post-election than the... than the pre. You know, and I think that's another thing that they're planning. And that's why they want some of the voter data is that, you know, they want to try to make it seem like there was more fraud than there was and, you know, put out a lot of smoke and mirrors about how there were people on the, on the rolls that weren't that were dead or whatever. And, and then I think that they're going to try to. to make the case, like in the period of time between the election and when like California, for example, counts, which takes a long time, that, you know, the ballots are illegal and these people shouldn't be sat in Congress. Like, I think that is another thing that they're eyeing. Another period to be on full alert. Nick and Cornell, thank you so much for starting us off this hour and helping us keep this story in focus. Tim sticks around a little bit longer. When we come back, the danger around Pete Hegseth us clamp down on reporters covering the Pentagon. They are an essential part of understanding what's happening at any time for our country, but especially when our country is at war. We'll tell you how the thin-skinned Secretary of Defense is moving to restrict journalists even further. And we continue to follow the breaking news that started our first hour, including the shooting at Old Dominion University that our... colleague Ken Delanian is reporting on was carried out by a former Army service member who in 2016 pleaded guilty to helping ISIS. The FBI will be holding a briefing on that coming up this hour. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. Watch Disclosure Day at Home Now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you? Would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Kep starring Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required, also in theaters. You know that thing where you get an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone about it? Yeah, so do we. Here at Designer Shoe Warehouse, we'll give you something to brag about. Like the latest styles from brands you love, or the trends everyone's obsessing over. Or shoes that make you feel like, well, you. So go ahead, show off a little. Buying shoes that get you have prices that get your budget. Head to your DSW store or DSW.com today. DSW. Let us surprise you. An undisturbed sleep is a beautiful thing. That's why a beauty rest mattress is designed to give you unparalleled motion separation. Isolating movement with our pocketed coil technology to help you sleep soundly no matter what's moving on the other side of the bed. While providing individualized support for every sleeping position.

People at their best get their beauty rest for 100 years. We are learning more today about the Iranian drone attack in Kuwait that killed six U.S. service members last week, and the details suggest that the injuries to U.S. service members from that attack are more severe than previously revealed. According to CBS News reporting, dozens of troops suffered, quote, injuries including brain trauma, shrapnel wounds, and burns. At least one may require the amputation of a limb, and more than 30 military members remained in hospitals Tuesday night. That kind of reporting underscores how crucial the journalists covering the war and the Pentagon are, especially at a moment like this. At Pete Hegseth's department is intensifying its restrictions on journalists. After Pete Hegseth appeared at a press briefing last week, three days after the initial strikes on Iran, his first appearance at a briefing since June, photographers were banned by the Pentagon. Washington Post reports that, quote, several outlets including the Associated Press, Reuters, and Getty Images sent photographers to the briefing from Pete Hegseth and General Dan Cain, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But after they published photos, which have broad reach because they are licensed by publications globally, members of Pete Hegseth staff told colleagues that they did not like the way the secretary looked. Pete Hegseth decided to shut out photographers from the two subsequent briefings at the Pentagon on March 4th and March 10th, according to the two people familiar with the decision. The Pentagon says that the journalists were banned in order to use the space more effectively. I want to bring in Politico Pentagon reporter Paul McLeary. Tim Miller is still here as well. Paul, what do you hear the state of the Pentagon, or tell me from your experience, what is the state of being in the Pentagon press corps? Well, we're not allowed in the building anymore, really, except for briefings like this. And, you know, we're kind of escorted in and then escorted out right after the press conference. And HEC-Seth has generally been calling on his kind of new favorite outlets, you know, the new petting on press corps, I guess you could call it, of, you know, conservative and right-wing outlets that they've brought in and credentialed. And he's been calling on them for these press conferences. And, I mean, the thing with the photos, it's... It's, Hexat's tenure here has been, a lot of it has been performative, right? I mean, I think since the beginning, he's kind of camera ready, ready to do this stuff. But then if, you know, they're very concerned about image, you know, and if something doesn't look right, if it's not produced the way that they wanted to produce it, then they clearly don't want it out there and they don't want it to happen. That's why it's so tightly controlled. I mean, he doesn't bring reporters with him on trips, not that he travels really overseas anymore.

But they've shut all that down unless they can control it, you know, every moment. What were the pictures that he didn't like? It's unclear exactly what these photos are. I mean, you know, when you see Pete Hegseth out there, he looks, a lot of times when he speaks, he kind of furrows his brow. He kind of looks angry a lot of times. I think they probably don't like that. It's not a good look. But wherever he goes, there's several staffers following him around with video cameras and still cameras, and they're constantly filming these kind of campaign style ads for him, right? He does his very tightly scripted two or three minute videos from his office once or twice a week. announcing is you know the new initiatives that that he's pushing out so they don't like anything that they don't control which is not surprising i mean that's every administration does that to a certain degree uh but they are really clearly if they don't even allow photographers that they don't pay into the room um they want to control everything every image and every utterance What is your understanding of why it took so long to inform the public about the 140 men and women who've been injured? I mean, it's a huge number, right? And things like that, I will say, always take time. They need to get it right. They need to get the right number. So let's always take some time. But it was days, right? Before we had any sense of how bad some of these attacks were. We really didn't know. Then it's usually a little faster than this. And they finally came out with a number several days after the fact, right? And I think some of these soldiers, as we've seen, and we've reported, are pretty critically injured. And it's pretty gruesome stuff, you know. So I think, again, this was supposed to be a clean war from the U.S. perspective, right? Air strikes, no boots on the ground, things like that. So they were not counting on. casualties, I think, and I think they didn't really know how to handle it. I mean, in Venezuela, obviously the one pilot was shot in the leg, he got the Medal of Honor. But most of these U.S. military operations under Trump have been without casualty, casualty free. And so that's tough. Once you start taking casualties, people start raising questions, and it's tough to justify, and you have to make the case to the American people, which I think the administration still hasn't fully grappled with. Tim Miller, let me bring you in on this. I will just say from my experience that when a public figure becomes indiscernible in real life from their caricature on SNL, you're like Bruce Willis in the sixth sense. Politically speaking, in the public's mind, you're dead. You just don't know it. The depiction of Pete Hegseth says on SNL is now discernible. I have to stop in front of a TV and turn the sound up to see if I'm watching Colin Jost or Pete Hegseth says.

And that's Pete Hegseth's fault, right? I mean, Colin Jost is brilliant, but Pete Hegseth walks into a caricatured version. He seems to be playing who he thinks at Secretary of Defense should be. And shielding anything unflattering or human doesn't seem to be working for Pete Hegseth. Yeah. Well, Colin just doesn't have a recessed side profile like Pete Hegseth. And so he wouldn't have to stop people from taking pictures of him. He's always looking good in the pictures. But look, on the serious part of this, They're covering the stuff up. I mean, they've kicked Paul and others out of the Pentagon. We live in a free country. It's ridiculous that reporters are being escorted in and out of the Pentagon during wartime. Reporters should have access to other members of the military, not just, you know, the secretary's spokesperson who's a former TV host who wants to spin that. The American people deserve to know what's actually happening in this war. And they're also obviously covering stuff up. And the fact that there were more injuries than they had said was bubbling around any military blogs or any of the social media feeds you follow that you could follow that have insider coverage of. of military affairs. This was something that we were seeing for days before they actually reported it. The president has lied several times about our complicity in the Tomahawk attack on the girls' school. Lied to people's face. And so, like, that's what we're saying. We're seeing the people that care more about their image and they're lying to the American people. I'm asking guys to stick around. We're going to dip into this FBI briefing along with local law enforcement in Norfolk, Virginia, about the shooting today at Old Dominion. One person was killed, two were injured. Two of the victims were members of the university's ROTC program. The shooting suspect is deceased. Let's listen in. Additionally, we are conducting other investigative steps into Jallo and the specifics of the shooting. We have dedicated analytical and tactical support. We are aiding in this investigation throughout the entire time. We will continue to work alongside of our partners and those in the community to find answers. The FBI continues to ask for the public's help and providing any information that could lead us in resolving this investigation, and we remind the public that any detail, no matter how small, could be useful. A collection of those small details may help paint a complete picture. We ask that the public submit their tips to www.fbi.gov slash ODU shooting. Do you have any questions for me or for my partners here? Yes. With still a little details that we know about the shooting so far, how are we able to confirm that this or this wasn't an act of terrorism? How it was an act of terrorism? I can tell you that we have confirmed reports that prior to him conducting this act of terrorism, he shouted, or stated al-Aqvar. And he was formerly a subject of a...

FBI investigation in material supporting terrorism. Agent, were there any explosives in his car? We have no information about any explosives in his car or anywhere else at this time. Did he have one weapon? As far as I know, we only know of one weapon that he had on his person at this time. What kind of aid was he getting to ISIL 10 years ago? He wanted to conduct a terrorist attack similar to that in Fort Hood, Texas. Is there any mention of the war in Iran? None whatsoever. How was he diseased? There were students that were in that room that subdued him and rendered him no longer alive. I don't know all else to say it, but they basically were able to terminate the threat. So he was not shot? He was not shot. He shot three people? Correct. We have information that he shot three people. The one that went to Virginia Beach retreating. Was that person who's winged or grazed? So I don't have any information at this time about the specific life-threatening or not otherwise to the two that are still alive. But at this time, we're respecting the victims of the shooting. That includes not only the ones that were shot, but all of the people here at ODU, I consider our victims. This is a tragic event. And I do ask that you look at that. You're all part of our community, too. And so I just want to throw that out there to give the respect and the time needed to provide that additional information about the victims. Do you say he was released in 2024? Correct. What was the Bureau of Intelligence level on him since then? So I don't have any of that information right now. That's because this is an ongoing investigation. After we learned of his name, we confirmed that he was formerly a subject of material support to terrorism investigation, and obviously was sentenced for that. But I don't have any information indicating that he was known or an ongoing problem. We'll make one more question. Give him to more specifics on how he was subdued. Yeah, the brave ROTC members in that room subdued him. And if not for them, I'm not sure, you know, what else he may have done. But that's exactly they confronted him and they subdued him and he was no longer able to conduct any further attack. Thank you. Go ahead. Okay. Is there any reason to believe that they were targeted? Well.

I believe that at this time we have to take all the information that we will receive from the victims. So I don't want to make any preemptive judgments or anything to this at this time exactly. Keep in mind, we're going to look at forensic information, you know, anything that he may have had interest specifically for any targets. And because I don't have that yet, I can't confirm that at this time. I don't know the exact number of the people in the classroom. It's a fair question. It really completely depends. So we obviously are going to dig in, and this is why we need the public support, to where he may have been before this, who he may have been in contact with, if he had any other supporters, anybody providing him information. So we have to track every single lead down, and that is exactly what the FBI will do. Every single lead we're going to track down the veracity of the information. and make sure that we have a full investigation with as much information, again, to ensure that there isn't anyone else that he may have been receiving support from as well. Do you have any evidence that he will self-funded? No, I don't have anything at this time. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.

We've been listening to an official at the FBI provide an update on the shooting at Old Dominion University in Virginia this morning. They left one person dead and two people injured. The FBI there is saying that it is investigating today's shooting as an act of terrorism, adding that they commend the ROTC students at Old Dominion that they describe there as subduing and killing the shooter. As we reported before, the suspect had served time in prison for providing support to ISIS. former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI, and National Security Intelligence analyst Michael Feinberg is back with us. Michael Feinberg, let me ask you about what we learned here for the first time. That person saying that the shooter shouted Allah Akbar before carrying out the shooting was something we heard for the first time. But no answer seemed pretty definitive. She was definitive that there was no apparent tie to the war in Iran, but no information about whether the FBI was tracking this individual who had served time for providing support to ISIS. Between the time that Kandalanian reports, that the shooter was released from prison in 2024 and today's act at Old Dominion. Your thoughts? Okay. Look, if this was an individual who had been convicted of a material support charge to a known terrorist organization and was in the FBI office's area of responsibility, I would certainly hope that they were expending all necessary resources to do what they needed to do to make sure that that individual did not lapse into the same sort of behavior. What does that mean? Basically, if this individual was living in the field office's territory, And he had been prosecuted and convicted by the same U.S. attorney's office with whom that FBI office works, which is the Eastern District of Virginia. It would be not overreaching to say it would be negligent if they were not at least aware of the situation. And if they were aware, expending resources to make sure that this individual was not planning this sort of event or anything like it. In other words, it was somebody who had been convicted of a terrorism charge, served his time, moved to a new region. That is somebody who should have set off red flags. EDVA was the target of a purge after Eric Siebert. The U.S. attorney refused to bring the cases against James Comey and Letitia James to a grand jury. That's where Donald Trump now illegally, we know, because judges have rendered judgment, installed Lindsey Halligan. We know, though, as part of that purge that several national security prosecutors and others.

left that office, would those be the kind of individuals that might have had responsibility for monitoring or investigating an individual who served a 10-year sentence for providing material support to ISIS? There's certainly people who would have been aware of his existence and that the possibility for some sort of relapse could have occurred. The head of EDVA's national security practice, Michael Benari, was fired. A number of the criminal chiefs, which is another high-ranking position in the office that has oversight of national security matters, have been demoted. There has been... regular revolving doors of appointed officials to run that office, who as you noted, many of whom were not properly appointed. It's not unreasonable to say that that prosecutorial office has been in a state of chaos pretty much since the inauguration. Kendallanian has rejoined us. Kendalanyan, a lot of the things that Michael and I are talking about is reporting we learned from you. Your thoughts on what we're learning this afternoon. Well, Nicole, since I was last on with you, I've been checking in with sources about what is the procedure for a situation like this? Because after all, even convicts have civil rights. This man served his sentence. He was released from prison. But as Michael was just alluding to, the FBI has a lot of tools short of, you know, a full FISA warrant to sort of check in on people that they think might be troubled or might have, you know, have. need monitoring short of like full surveillance. They would need probable cause to sort of tap his phones, but they don't need probable cause to do a walk and talk, a knock and talk, for example, you know, just to go visit and see how he's doing. It's not clear whether any of that was done, but there's a lot of concern among people I'm talking to about, you know, how this could possibly happen, how someone could. And they were wondering why the FBI agent at that news conference kept saying he was the subject of an investigation and didn't say he was convicted and sentenced for the crimes of material support to terrorism and other terrorism charges served 10 years of an 11 year sentence was released and then what happened? Those questions just haven't been answered. And these are...

This is not the first time this has happened. There's precedent for these kinds of things. There are people who serve terrorism sentences and get released into the community. And so there are procedures for how to handle this and just not clear whether they were followed here. And then the other big question is this is an administration that talks about denaturalizing and deporting criminals who weren't born in the United States. That's not something that previous administrations really talked much about doing. But these guys have. So. Did they consider that in this case? Was this person even on their radar? We don't know. I mean, Kendallanian, it brings up, I guess, a line of reporting that we'll look forward to watching what it produces. But do we have any sense that the national security purges? I mean, we should explain this because it was explained to me 14 months ago. The reason the FBI has been gutted in terms of its national security capabilities is because... especially the documents case into Donald Trump. What Donald Trump took to Marlago was national defense information. So a lot of the people that touched that case had national security experience. Email Bobay, Todd Blanche, Donald Trump. They have demanded, and Kash Patel has responded gleefully. in purging the people that touch the case, looking at the national defense information that Donald Trump took tomorrow logout. So when we talk about a hollowed out FBI, just talk about how deep and vast those purges are. And not to be awkward, but that's the reason you're here, Michael Feinberg, right? I mean, those were your capabilities, and you now lend them to us instead of the FBI. Yeah. Michael is a living example of this purge. And I mean, the most recent example last week or the week before I lost track now is when a group of people who essentially made up a counterintelligence squad who happened to have all worked in some form or fashion on the classified documents case were walked out or forced out or fired. And that's the latest of a string of these examples. So you're right. The people, a lot of the people that worked on, particularly the classified documents case, were national security agents. Either they had counterterrorism in their background or they were counterintelligence, and they're gone now. And, you know, as we got some numbers the other day, more than 300 national security agents, FBI agents who work principally on national security, have left since the beginning of the Trump term, including 42, I believe it was, or 45 who were fired and 50 in leadership. And then... And then I saw different data after we published that story that more than a thousand agents in total have left either through the early departure, early retirement, all the ways in which they've been purging agents in the last year. And that's only at about 14,000 FBI agents. So there's been a huge sort of drain of talent. And our understanding is they have not hired to keep pace with that drain. And even if they did.

That's not an equivalent thing. A trainee out of Quantico doesn't bring the same capabilities to bear that a veteran agent like Michael does. And so when you combine that with tasking FBI agents who normally do that kind of work to do immigration raids or to walk the beat and do violent crime patrols, there is, as we understand it, a significant reduction in the level of effort directed at these counterterrorism, counterintelligence probes. Now, Kash Patel and his... people respond and they say, well, actually the number of counterintelligence arrests, for example, are up. And when I published that stat the other day, one of our stories, I got a lot of feedback from people that said, you know, those cases take years to make. So if that's a true stat, that certainly wasn't anything to do with the Trump administration, these were cases that were germinating for years and maybe have come to fruition now. But few people doubt that there are just simply fewer agents working these problems. And the FBI is not a big place anyway. It's not an enormous organization. It's focused. And so Michael said in the last segment that it's indisputable that Americans are less safe because of this. As a taxpayer and as a journalist, I can't see how you can argue with that. I mean, it seems to be the onus is on the Trump administration to explain how we're not less safe. when they have forced out or fired or allowed to leave hundreds and hundreds of national security experts and agents in the FBI and the intelligence community. Right. And that is just in the one year that he's been back. You know, the attack on the FBI was something Trump worked at and on in the first term as well. Let me do two things to you, our beloved viewers. Let me thank Paul McClary and Tim Miller on that conversation about Pete Hegseth to be continued. I am sure let me ask Ken and Michael to stick around a little bit longer. We are expecting to learn more about the other attack today, the shooting and truck ramming into a Michigan synagogue. There's a press conference schedule for the top of the hour. We'll remind you what we know at this hour after a short break. Don't go anywhere.

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But we can say knowing what we know about the shift in resources of the government, about the war in Iran over the past. you know, a few weeks with respect to the war in the past year and a half, roughly, with respect to the resources, we can say that events of this type were entirely foreseeable. And it is a sad commentary on how the intelligence and law enforcement communities management now views their responsibility to the populace that this attack was stopped by private security. not by law enforcement, not by the intelligence community, but by individuals with no affiliation to the government. That's not how it is supposed to be. You know, Michael Kendalian has pointed out twice that there's been this massive sort of relocating of expertise and resources into a non-expert area for a lot of FBI personnel, the mass deportation, sort of arbitrary mass deportation targets that are politically motivated, not predicated on any facts on the ground pertaining to anything, even immigration. What does that do? I mean, I think that people see the stories of the firings. They understand the purge because of the investigations into Donald Trump. But Ken has raised a couple times the reorientation of the FBI, which was the tip of the spear for all those years after 9-11, that we didn't have another 9-11-style attack on this country, wasn't luck. It wasn't good fortune. It wasn't because they didn't want to. It was because under Robert Mueller and then James Comey and Chris Wright picks this up after that, the FBI oriented itself to be the best, the most competent, the most capable, counterterror, counterintelligence agency in the world. What does it mean that it isn't that anymore by design? simply that we're less safe and our political leaders don't care about us. I hate to be that blunt, but... The FBI has not had an increase in personnel in quite some time, nor has it had an increase in funding. In fact, Kash Patel withdrew his request for an increase in funding when the White House told him it wasn't a good opportune time or when he was slapped down by Congress. He actually withdrew a request he had made. And when you have those limited resources,

And you add an entirely new violation that takes 25 to 30% of the entire investigative workforce on any given day. By definition, the things you were previously doing are going to fall through the cracks. And that's what happened today, not just in Michigan. but also in Virginia, and we can only hope that as the world becomes more dangerous and we become more enmeshed in a war with Iran, that it doesn't happen tomorrow or the next day too. Michael Feinberg and Kandelan, it is impossible to cover these stories without the two of you. Thank you for being here for us across the two hours. Again, that news conference on the Michigan Synagogue attack is coming up at the top of this hour. Quick break for us. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes today. We are really grateful. Join MS Now Live in Texas for our biggest event yet with Rachel Maddo, Jen Sagi, Michael Steele, and more. MS Now Live Together in Texas. September 26th. Get tickets today at MS. dot now slash together.