Updated
Summary
Conservative Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) faces an uphill battle for reelection. Interview with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). A judge is going to consider unsealing affidavit from the FBI Mar-a-Lago search on Thursday.
Transcript
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: This is a big moment. This is a big moment, America.
That does it for “ALL IN” on this Tuesday night. Now for the first time ever, here in primetime, the premiere of ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT starts right now.
Good evening, Alex.
ALEX WAGNER, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris Hayes.
HAYES: Wait, I`m — the camera shooting me here. I`m supposed to be over there. Look how close we are, America!
WAGNER: Here we are, it all happens on one soundstage.
HAYES: This is incredibly exciting. We`re going to be next together now? This is just the way we roll.
WAGNER: This is how we do it in this family.
HAYES: Exactly. The people know that we`ve known each other. Did the people at home know —
WAGNER: I don`t think they do.
HAYES: That we`ve known each other for 20 —
WAGNER: Twenty-five years
HAYES: We were children together.
WAGNER: We were children together and now we are gray-haired
HAYES: All grown up.
WAGNER: (INAUDIBLE) anchors. Look, ma, we did it no hands.
HAYES: I have to say it, and I`m just telling you this because you are a dear and long-time friend of mine. But I can`t think of anyone better to do this than you. I can`t think of anyone better prepared to do it. I was seeing you — the first day that I had to show, I was a nervous wreck and I was barely breathing in my BPM was probably 145 a minute.
But you are a cool customer and you`re an incredible —
WAGNER: You say that and I mean a pass out in like one minute.
HAYES: I know, I know. No pressure, no screw-ups —
WAGNER: But thank you for saying that, but for the audience at home that may not know.
HAYES: This was incredibly a brilliant choice by the bosses here, but also I`m just so excited to watch you every night.
WAGNER: Chris, I am excited and thrilled and it feels so right that I get to take the reins from you my friend. For so many years I`m so honored to share the stage with you and thank you for everything.
HAYES: All right. I`m going to go watch you now.
WAGNER: Thank you, Chris.
I am thrilled to be here and honored to have this hour every night, Tuesday through Fridays to spend with you.
Like most of you watching right now, I`ve been a longtime viewer of “THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW” and I hope to live up to the incredibly high standard she has set in covering the stories of the day and bringing context to this moment that we`re living through together.
So, with that, let`s get started.
Tonight, the FBI warrant to search Mar-a-Lago is unsealed. The three potential crimes laid out in that document. We will dive into what it means and what can happen with one of “The Wall Street Journal” reporters who was first to report on the contents of that warrant.
Then we`ll — talk — we are actually going to go right to the top story tonight in Wyoming where polls have just closed, as Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney faces the steepness of climbs and longest of odds to hold onto her seat. As we wait to see if she will survive a Trump endorsed challenger, it is worth remembering exactly how we got here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): I really believe this president is the most route radical man who`s ever been in the Oval Office, a president who`s operating the bounds of the Constitution. He thinks he`s outside the rule of law, and of conservatives and Republicans don`t stand up and fight it we`re going to lose fundamental values and freedoms.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: The most radical man to ever inhabit the Oval Office. That sounds a lot like the Liz Cheney we`ve gotten to know from the January 6 investigations, inveighing against a lawless president and calling on Republicans and conservatives to stand up and protect our fundamental values. But that clip was from 2013, and the radical president she was concerned about was a man named Barack Obama, who had committed the unprecedented crime of giving more Americans health care.
That is who Liz Cheney was, a conservative`s conservative, the daughter of a notorious Republican vice president who liberals loved to hate, who had his very own Darth Vader meme.
While running for Congress in 2016, Liz Cheney dutifully defended Donald Trump and his myriad campaign scandals. After the infamous Access Hollywood tape came, she said that Hillary`s actions, they have been far worse.
Upon entering Congress in 2017, Cheney voted with Donald Trump 93 percent of the time, more than Trump die-hards, more than Trump die-hards, including Elise Stefanik and Paul Gosar. Despite only being a freshman lawmaker, Cheney was elevated to the third ranking position in 2018 leadership. She voted for the Trump tax cuts, she voted against Obamacare, she received an A rating from the NRA.
When Democrats took the House, she voted against reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act. She voted against impeaching Donald Trump after he pressured the president of Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.
And then January 6th happened. The president of the United States incited an angry mob to violently storm the scene of our seat of our government to try to overturn a legitimate election.
[21:05:03]
And Liz Cheney who was up until this point was as deep red as a Republican as they come, Liz Cheney decided that was worth pushing back against. She decided it was time for her members of her party to hold the president accountable because democracy itself was on the line.
And that should not be an extraordinary. That probably should`ve been the decision of every member of congress. But it wasn`t. Because Donald Trump as so thoroughly taken control of the Republican Party, because of that but not even an attack on our democracy could pull more than a handful of Republicans away from Donald Trump.
And so, today, Congresswoman Liz Cheney is likely going to lose her Republican primary to a Trump backed election deniers. The vitriol from Trump and his allies have has led to so many death threats against Cheney that she has had to travel with unarmed security detail as she campaigns across the state.
On the flip side, Democrats in Wyoming are so eager to keep anyone who is not in the thrall of Donald Trump that they are changing the party registrations and waiting in line to vote for Dick Cheney`s daughter. Right now, Congresswoman Cheney has a 60 percent approval rating among Democrats. But despite that cross over support, Liz Cheney is unlikely to prevail against her primary opponent in the deep red state of Wyoming.
The latest poll training shows Cheney trailing her opponent by nearly 30 points. Now nothing is set in stone and we are of course going to keep a close eye on that race to see what happens. We have the great Steven Kornacki standing by at the big board for any developments that might happen we will of course bring those to you live.
Thank you Steve.
But even if Congresswoman Cheney does lose tonight, it doesn`t mean she`s given up the fight. Mark Leibovich interviewed Congresswoman Cheney for his latest piece in “The Atlantic”. He writes: Cheney is playing a longer game, she says. She spent many hours working on her dress for Tuesday night. It will almost certainly be a concession speech, but Cheney seems to view her primary more as a speed bump and her address as a prime time launching pad into political future far more consequential than anything she could`ve achieved in Congress.
Even in defeat, Cheney could emerge from Wyoming tough and unencumbered enough to serve as a one woman wrecking ball against Trump and his reckoning for a party that`s been terrified to speak honestly about him for years now.
Joining me now a staff writer for “The Atlantic” and author of “Thank You For Your Servitude: Donald Trump`s Washington and the Price of Submission”, Mark Leibovich.
Mark, thank you for joining me on this.
MARK LEIBOVICH, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: This is momentous. I`m the first guest in the first show. Thank you for having me.
WAGNER: Well, it`s my honor to have you here. It`s a big deal. I think it`s a primary night but in a lot of ways it`s a reckoning for the Republican Party, and I think we should probably read a lot into what`s happening and Wyoming.
LEIBOVICH: Yeah, I don`t remember and all my years covering politics a Wyoming Republican primary being an event that felt big, but this does feel big, because I think we all know the result is that probably Liz Cheney will lose. But also as she has said and, the sounds like a rationalization but it`s not, it`s the beginning of something.
I think she is not going to go anywhere. I think she will get a lot of attention going forward with the January 6th commission, and look, she`s made it a pretty firm objective of hers to bring down Donald Trump. That is her goal. I`d be shocked if she even mentioned Harriet Hageman tonight, maybe more than once in a cursory sort of I just received a phone call or I just called whatever.
But no, it`s a big night and I think, you know, it`s sort of signifies a step forward. It`ll also be sad in some ways.
WAGNER: Well, yeah. I mean, can she take on Donald Trump from outside the Republican Party? We`ll talk about that in a second. Harriet Hageman is, of course, her challenger who is likely to win this primary.
But I mean, it bears some — it is worth marinating in what is happening here that we went through Liz Cheney`s record and who she actually is, right? Just set aside January 6 for a moment, and look at someone who voted for Donald Trump, with Donald Trump 93 percent of the time, the daughter of Dick Cheney, a deep red conservative.
You were on the ground in Wyoming. None of that matters anymore.
LEIBOVICH: It doesn`t and it was starting to hear that this is the one issue that does matter, that is democracy, which transcends everything. I will say this. You will go issue by issue and look at Liz Cheney`s record for the past five or six years since he`s been in Congress and Donald Trump in the White House, she`s actually been very principled. She`s a true conservative.
She is a lot more impressive and a lot more tougher and a lot of our Republican colleagues. That was true then, it`s true now. That`s not to excuse some of the things he might question her aunt now.
But ultimately, she is taken this fight very directly in a very gutsy way, in the way that people very privately are very envious of her and her caucus.
[21:10:05]
And frankly, the bottom line it has been very effective. I think the January 6 committee has been very effective and our colleagues have been fairly scared of her in some way.
WAGNER: I mean, I guess they also meant that statement, you know, nothing matters anymore as a testament to how far the Republican Party has strayed. None of the very real things she did while ell as a Congress person count. There are lawn signs all over Wyoming that say “fire Liz”.
LEIBOVICH: Right. No, and she is using terms like cult of personality. That`s more usually more of a commentator thing to say, be can say somebody say it`s become a cult of personality. Liz Cheney is talking about this. The people that she is talking about on the stump that she admires these days are Democratic women congressmen, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.
WAGNER: Mikie Sherrill.
LEIBOVICH: Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, you know, who — go down the list. And, yes, I mean, she`s going to be dismissed as she was just a Nancy Pelosi Trojan horse or something. But no, it`s not true. She is someone who I think stands must more firmly on principle than most of her colleagues do.
WAGNER: What about Harriet Hageman? I think it`s — Harriet Hageman was a never Trumper in 2016. This is not someone who supported the president and has come around full circle. For the people of Wyoming, that appears to be enough. I don`t want to say it`s a fait accompli, but it appears that she will be the nominee.
LEIBOVICH: Look, for Donald Trump, it`s enough. Donald Trump once fealty, the whole party needs to be bowing to him. Look, she will hardly be alone among Republicans in our caucus who had no use for Donald Trump in 2016 and even as late as 2018. They all privately speak quite disparagingly of him, and I didn`t talk to her, but look this is something we`ve seen a lot of.
WAGNER: You talk about the Republicans who speak disparaging of Trump, and you basically wrote a book about the fecklessness of some of the elected members of Congress. I want to quote from your book.
The wonder of this was that many Republicans agree with Cheney, quite a few of them members of our caucus. They`d say as much, tell or what a great job she is doing, how heroic she`s been. But they only ever tell of this privately, always privately — just between you, me please don`t repeat this off the record, okay?
One wonders if their days in Congress are numbered as well. Because what you are seeing in these primary races across the country is a new brand of Republican who is a true believer and believes that the election was stolen, believes that Donald Trump must and should be the next president, or still the president depending on where you land. And the people who quietly acknowledge, but this is all clownish. This is all a fallacy are the ones on the way out.
LEIBOVICH: No. I mean, yes, eventually, we`ve seen how loyalty works for Donald Trump. But the working title for this book was, they all know better, and they do.
Now actually what we have now or new members of Congress who don`t know member better.
WAGNER: Right.
LEIBOVICH: Marjorie Taylor Greene might actually be a true believer. Lauren Boebert might be a true believer. So you have actual true Trump believers. I mean, who knows what it`s going to look like in a few years. We`ll be long for the statesmanship of Marjorie Taylor Greene, right?
WAGNER: From your mouth, I mean, wow! The statesmanship of Marjorie Taylor Greene is not something that we think about, but the unbelievable cascade of events that have happened over the last six years —
LEIBOVICH: And he`s still here.
WAGNER: He`s still here.
LEIBOVICH: And, look, Liz Cheney said repeatedly, this is a sick party. This is not something when you want the nomination of said sick party. She is running against the entire party and what it is become. I think she`s going to lose for it, I have a great deal of respect for that.
WAGNER: You also posited in “The Atlantic” that you think she`s going to run for president. And I`ll read the excerpt.
It would almost certainly be another losing primary for her. Yet it would nonetheless be a fascinating matchup, much more compelling than any challenge Trump derivative character such as Ron DeSantis or Mike Pence could`ve oppose. It`s hard to imagine DeSantis or Pence seriously mocking for losing the Brandon in 2020, or challenging his election lies, or slamming it was complicity desertion on January 6, or mentioning the FBI search of his residents or his need to plead the Fifth, may I add, 450 times.
Do you really think Liz Cheney`s is going to run?
LEIBOVICH: Absolutely. I don`t think she`s going to win but I think having her up on a night debate stage would be a nightmare for Donald Trump. If the nightmare form of Republican allies, and be a nightmare for the RNC.
WAGNER: But why is it a nightmare? It seems she`ll —
(CROSSTALK)
LEIBOVICH: Because she will talk circles around her colleagues. I mean, I think we`ve seen how effective she can be in a very lawyerly, very fact based, you know, frankly disdain for what has gone on.
She does have facts on her side. She has the truth on her side. She has history on our side.
[21:15:00]
And she`s much smarter than the people she is fighting against. It`s one man`s opinion but I actually stand by it. So, look, you don`t see a lot of self doubt with her. One of the things it`s been striking to me in talking about the Kevin McCarthy`s of the world, and writing this book, and that a lot of these people don`t seem all that happy.
When they talk about Donald Trump they seem ambivalent. Yes, they are delivering their lines, but I don`t think it`s very fun to be sort of fighting for something that they fundamentally are scared of him don`t believe in. And Liz Cheney doesn`t have that problem.
WAGNER: Yeah, well, I will also say, the door is open to have fun and tell the truth. They just don`t seem to want to walk through it.
LEIBOVICH: Yeah, absolutely. But no, it would be interesting. I will be fascinated to see her speech tonight because I think it will actually have the ring of a forward-looking, this is what the future is going to look like for Liz Cheney`s speech.
WAGNER: Wow, we will bring all of that to you as it happens. Mark Leibovich, staff writer at “The Atlantic”, thank you, my friend, for helping kick off the festivities tonight.
LEIBOVICH: Thank you, Alex.
WAGNER: In just a minute, we`re going to be joined live by one of the very few people on earth who can relate to what Liz Cheney is going through tonight. Congressman Adam Kinzinger is the only other Republican on the House January 6th committee. He knows what it is like to face an angry Trump fueled Republican base. And we have a lot to ask him tonight.
And coming up, the judge who authorized the search of Mar-a-Lago sets a court today to decide whether we will get to see why the government wanted that search warrant in the very first place.
One note before we go to break, we sure did have a case of the technical gremlins at the top of the show. But this is the first one. So, we will work it out. And now, I think we`ve gotten it all under control. We hope the rest of the night will be smooth sailing, America, but this is live TV. And it has its charms.
We`ll be back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:21:30]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: Donald Trump made a purposeful choice to violate his oath of office, to ignore the ongoing violence against law enforcement, to threaten our constitutional order. There is no way to excuse that behavior, it was indefensible.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): President Trump urged others to bring his big lie to life. He was willing to sacrifice our republic to prolong his presidency. I can imagine no more dishonorable act by a president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: Both Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger launched their careers in Congress as Republican Party darlings — bright, shining stars with equally bright futures. Now they both said on the January 6 committee investigating Donald Trump flipping his former staffers, interrogating his staffers and shining a light on his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. They both also voted to impeach the former president in January, 2021 for his role in the January 6th attack. Only eight other has Republicans joined them all the rest of the party coalesced around Trump.
For all of those reasons, the Republican National Committee, formally censored both Cheney and Kinzinger earlier this year.
And tonight, it looks like both of them will be out of Congress by the end of this year.
We learned in October, 2021 that Congressman Kinzinger would not seek reelection for seat in Illinois. Here`s a video announcing. That it was time for him to move on from Congress. Congresswoman Cheney on the other hand is running to keep her seat in Wyoming tonight, where polls just closed at the top of the hour. We are still waiting for results to come in but in recent polling, her opponent has Cheney beat by almost 30 points.
The odds are not in Liz Cheney`s favor heading into tonight`s vote tally, and if there is one person in American politics who knows and understands what it is like to be in Liz Cheney`s position, then it is my next guest.
Joining now is Illinois congressman and member of the January 6 Committee, Adam Kinzinger.
Congressman Kinzinger, thank you so much for being here tonight.
And I sot of begin to say that I wish we were meeting under better circumstances given where the polls have been trending in terms of Cheney`s fate. I`ll ask you as one of the few people who`s been going through this with her as members of the same party, what has it been like being on the committee with Liz Cheney? Has there been camaraderie, or gallows humor? What is that relationship been like between you and her?
KINZINGER: Yeah. Look, it`s been pretty amazing. I mean, this committee just outside of Liz and I, this is like probably never happened in history and likely will never happen again. You have a committee that is focused on getting the truth, getting to the answers, getting done what needs to be done. We thank Kevin McCarthy for pulling his members, it`s made it a lot easier for us to get to the truth.
But with Liz, look, and I feel the same way. If I went back 20 months and made the decision about, am I going to impeach Donald Trump, I would`ve done it in a heartbeat and Liz feels the same way. What is it for a man to gain the world but lose his soul?
And I think as we have gotten into this committee, Liz and I get along really well. My respect for her was huge by the way prior to even all this, and it`s grown immensely. She`s very determined, very dogged, and she will chase Donald Trump to the gates of hell, for sure.
WAGNER: Did you — have you talked to her about her candidacy? Did you talk to her in advance of election night tonight?
[21:25:01]
KINZINGER: Yeah, I`ve kind of let her be for the last 10, 12 hours or so, or 24 hours. I think she obviously recognizes it`s an uphill challenge. I think she made the decision that she`s going to go down firing.
A miracle could obviously happen tonight, but even if it`s a little closer than where people expected. But the bottom line is, I think this is sending a very strong message that this isn`t your dad`s Republican Party anymore. This is not a party that`s committed to truth. It`s a party that`s committed to conspiracy.
Mark, your prior guest, had said the people in Congress don`t really believe it. I don`t think they really believe the big lie and the conspiracies. What I worry about is the next generation of people who have been elected, they`re going to be here next year. They do believe these conspiracies. That`s very frightening.
WAGNER: You`ve been pretty explicit about the moral wrestling that you had to deal with, the personal anguish you have been in terms of some of these votes in coming up against Trump. I want to quote from an interview you did with “The Washington Post”.
You said — you talked about the fact that in 2016, you didn`t vote for Trump, and in 2020 he did, which is not the normal pattern for people in your position. We talk about that vote pretty honestly. You said, I decided to vote for him in 2020, that way I can say for with a straight face I voted for him, I know he`s not going to win, but I can say I did it and so I have credit with the base.
But you told “The Post” you felt, quote, dirty casting that ballot in 2020. It`s not something I can square away in my soul fully.
Do you think other members of Congress are facing the same internal anguish when they make these calls?
KINZINGER: How can you not? I mean, look, I think it`s important to be open and honest about that. It was a cowardice vote for me. There`s a lot of cowardice votes that are being taken daily in the House, and I got to tell you just pick sides a few of my colleagues, there are so many that I now have stuffed down that kind of little bird on your shoulder, the little angel that`s whispering, you`re really destroying this country with the votes and you are supporting.
They have stuffed it down, they`ve tried to justify it by saying, well, if I don`t run against someone crazier is going to come. But what`s happen is people like Kevin McCarthy, Kevin McCarthy bears 90 percent of the way for Donald Trump`s return. He is a failed leader who has absolutely nothing more than his own power in his mind and he resurrected Donald Trump.
I`ve got to tell you, if he`s ever around, it`s can`t be easy to look at him, less is that cold and calculated.
WAGNER: I mean, you weren`t an ally — Kevin McCarthy was an ally of yours when he came into office. You were one of his protegees, if you will. Did you not see that back then that he was just nakedly after power? Maybe something changed?
KINZINGER: Well, I guess in hindsight you can see that, you know? I know he was a very good politician and he is. He just — he goes with the wind and he goes with what`s going to take him to higher power. He knows everybody`s name, he knows something about you.
I knew there was a lot of politician-ing to that, but at the time at least, we didn`t have Donald Trump yet. When I — when he came, and you all of a sudden start seeing people, it`s not just about differences of opinion. We need differences of opinion in this country, but it`s about swallowing authoritarian moves, destroying the Constitution and changing how we respect the government.
I saw him start working on behalf of Trump for that and not lead. I mean, Liz Cheney and I can speak out against Donald Trump and we will continue doing this. Kevin McCarthy is the one that people would listen to and he`s the leader and he`s too cowardice to do it, and people need to recognize that.
WAGNER: There`s the power aspect of it but then there`s people who legitimately believe that you leaving the party to hold Trump accountable is a moral abomination. Some of those people are in your own family. You share I believe a letter right after you called for Trump to be removed from office under the 25th Amendment, 11 members of your family sent you this letter.
I`ll just quote some choice lines. Adam, oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God. We were once so proud of your accomplishments! Instead, you go against your Christian principles and joint the devils army, the Democrats in the fake news media.
Adam, you`re not going to like your appearance this evening on MSNBC. But what — you know what happened with Kevin McCarthy, right? That`s a fairly ABC, you know, I can be the next speaker of the House. I`m Kevin McCartney, I`m going to stay in power.
But what about members of your own family? And I ask that not just to get you — you know, be critical of members of your own family but because I think they are representative of a lot of Republicans in the party who don`t hold elected office and are enthrall with Donald Trump at our voting against Liz Cheney who otherwise is everything you could want from a conservative Republican?
[21:30:02]
KINZINGER: Yeah, I think it`s an important thing to talk about. First off, I`ve come to believe over the last year that people, more than even fearing death, we`re such a tribalistic people that they fear being kicked out of their trip. And so, you accept anything, because now, Republicanism, conservatism, Trumpism, becomes your identity. And so, you`re going to stay.
Now, my family, look, they are my dad`s cousin`s. I`m going to say this, as a Christian myself. The pastors, many pastors in this country are failing their congregation. Not even just by, you know, pushing kind of Trumpism from the pulpit, but even refusing to talk about how bad it is, how corrosive it is, and you have people today that literally, I think in their heart, they may not say it, but they equate Donald Trump with a person of Jesus Christ.
And to them, if you even come out against this amazing man, Donald Trump, which, I mean, obviously, it`s quite flawed, you are coming out against Jesus, against their Christian values. And when you go after their religion, that violates the depth of who they are. And I`ve been kicked out of my tribe, and that`s okay.
WAGNER: And you seem okay with it. You are doing it with your head held high.
I guess I just want to close this out by asking you about, you know, tonight, we see the departure of Liz Cheney for all intensive purposes from Congress. Sarah Palin is in a primary in Alaska. She may very well make it to Congress, as the lone congressperson from Alaska, may being the operative word there. Donald Trump is suggesting he may run again in 2024.
What do you think the road ahead is? You want to be in congress, but you know what`s going on with the GOP. What happens now?
KINZINGER: Well, I, like a lot of people, feel politically homeless. This is, obviously, nothing near the party I joined. I have a movement that is Country First, country1st.com. And we`ve actually played against Madison Cawthorn. We`ve played on behalf of Brad Raffensperger. We`ve played in Michigan and some other places.
Which we`re trying to do is to say the Democrats at live in a district that you know it`s going to go Republican, one of those is not competitive. Hey, in certain areas, consider taking out a Republican ballot, and voting against these crazies.
So, I personally am going to be focused on that. And I love calling out of the garbage that is being done to abuse people. The abusive emails that say seven times match, just give me $10, or Donald Trump knows you haven`t given this quarter, it`s all lies. And it`s abusing people, many of which are seniors and on fixed income.
So I`m excited to be able to go out and fight that battle, because somebody`s got to. People are being just abused and, obviously, the Republicans have become a cult. So I`m going to try to pull people from that cult, if I can.
WAGNER: All right, Congressman Adam Kinzinger, you seem ready for the fight. Member of the January 6th committee — best of luck with all your efforts, and thank you for your time tonight.
WAGNER: Thank you. Congratulations.
WAGNER: Thanks.
We are just getting our first results in tonight from Wyoming. We will hear from the great Steve Kornacki in just a moment, and new details tonight in the search at Mar-a-Lago. A judge will soon decide whether we can see the reasoning behind the DOJ`s search of Trump`s country club home. We will be joined live here in studio by a former prosecutor, you know her well, Joyce Vance. That`s next.
And then, why President Obama is tweeting, tonight, that something is a quote, BFD.
Much more ahead here, this evening, tonight. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:38:14]
WAGNER: We are getting in our first votes from the Wyoming primary, where Liz Cheney is in the fight of her political life.
Let us go now to Steve Kornacki at the big board. Steve, the risk of asking a leading question, how about does it look for Liz Cheney in the state of Wyoming?
STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBC NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It looks bad for Liz Cheney. It looks as bad as people were saying. It was in the run up to this, ten minutes ago, we started to get members out.
What you see here is a 16-point lead right now for Cheney`s Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman. And the numbers may be worse than that for Cheney. I`ll show you why.
What we`re looking at right now, this is Natrona County, the second largest county in the state this, is where Casper, Wyoming is. What you see here is the absentee votes. It`s a little less than half of all the vote from this county. One of the biggest counties in the state it`s the absentee vote.
And one of the things we`ve expected coming into tonight, and one of the things we have seen in primary after primary this year is that the Trump- backed candidates do much better in the Election Day vote. The folks who go out to the polls and vote on Election Day, that tends to be a very pro Trump demographic.
And these numbers are not taking that into account. These are not the Election Day votes. These are the mailed in ballots. This is the early voting. This tends to be the vote that is the most skeptical of Trump, and it`s the most favorable to the candidates who are opposed by Trump.
So, this is the friendliest batch of votes, likely, that Liz Cheney is going to get out of the second largest county in Wyoming. And already, it puts her in that county, nine points behind Hageman. So, if you see, of the pattern that we`ve seen elsewhere holds, in primaries all across the country, then one of the same day vote comes in, in Natrona County, Hageman`s lead here is going to grow.
And again, this is one of the big counties. Here`s where I think it`s going to see some of the smaller ones around the state. This isn`t too small. But here, you`re looking at, again, you`ve got the absentee vote from Sweetwater County, and Hageman is already running well over 70 percent of the vote here.
[21:40:09]
They`re going to end up with 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 votes or so totally out of this county, and Hageman is already ruling up the score against Liz Cheney. There`s a lot of sweet water counties, just making sure they are political leanings. So, you put those two together right away, and you don`t have the makings of the kind of surprised that Liz Cheney was hoping for.
Where could she look on this map? I mean, this is geographically big, we are Jackson Hole`s. This is an anomaly in Wyoming. This is a blue county. Biden won it by 32 points. While geographically big, it only makes up about 5 percent of the primary vote. Cheney will do well there.
Albany County down here, again, this is where the University of Wyoming, this is the only other counting the state that Joe Biden carried by three points. But again, you`re talking about a small fraction of the votes that are going to come out of these two counties. There`s going to be the two obvious places on this map, where I see Liz Cheney, really, potentially having a big night. And it could be possibly big enough in places like this, to offset what we are already seeing in Sweetwater County, and that we`re already seeing in Natrona County? It gets tough to see.
So, more will be coming in here. Wyoming is a slow counting state. But again, if you are Liz Cheney, I think one benchmark you want to see is you wanted that early vote in the Natrona County, you wanted to be winning it.
WAGNER: Steve, what about the phenomenon we`re hearing, Democrats changing the registrations in Wyoming, so they can vote in the Republican primary for Liz Cheney? Do we have any metrics? Do we have any data that suggests that`s happening in any kind of significant fashion?
WAGNER: I think it has happened. You know, I think significance is the key word there. Let me put it this way.
Let`s compare where our party registration in Wyoming stance, or stood, coming into today, with where it was at the start of the year. So that`s the question that folks left the Democratic Party, joining the Republican Party this year.
The answer I think, to some degree, yes. On January 1st, there were over 45,000 registered Democrats in Wyoming. That number is down to 36, 000, coming into today. There could be in a number of reasons for folks to leave the Democratic Party.
But if we just accept the premise for the sake of argument today, let us say every single one of these was a Democrat, who wanted to read register Republicans to vote in today`s primary. You can see that`s about 9,000, 10,000 votes, that Liz Cheney could get out of that.
That is, you know nothing, not nothing but you`re talking about a Republican electorate here of potentially over 200,000 voters. And we`ve seen polling in this race, and when you look at folks who are registered Republicans, that is where Harriet Hageman has just run up massive, massive numbers against Liz Cheney.
So if Cheney could bring in 10,000 new votes into this Republican pool, good for her, but and that is small. And that is sort of the paddle in the ocean, I guess, might be the analogy we`re going for their. The Republican registration is just so massive, and then, among Republicans, Hageman`s advantage has just been so massive.
So, I think it has happened. But I don`t even know if it`s possible in a state like Wyoming, to happen in this kind of scale, somebody like Liz Cheney would need it to happen. She needed to make, needs to make inroads with folks who are Republicans, before January 1st, 2022.
WAGNER: More a thorn in the side of a Republican elephant than — and I just leave that metaphor there.
Steve Kornacki, thank you.
KORNACKI: (INAUDIBLE)
WAGNER: Exactly, thank you, Steve. We will be checking with you, as we do throughout the night.
Up next, the judge will authorize the search warrant on Mar-a-Lago sets a date for a hearing on whether he will release the affidavit but convinced him to authorize the search. Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance joins us live, right here, coming up next.
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[21:48:45]
WAGNER: It has been eight days since the FBI searched former President Trump`s Palm Beach home. And just four days since a federal judge released the search warrant, revealing that the FBI had taken 11 sets of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, including several top secret sets of documents.
And in the days since, we`ve learned that Attorney General Merrick Garland deliberated for weeks about whether or not to approve the application for the search warrant of Trump`s home. That is how sensitive it was.
Amidst all of this, though, there is one important element that we have not gotten a lot of information on. We have not gotten access to the underlying sworn affidavit by an FBI agent, that outlines why there was probable cause to think evidence of federal crimes would be found at Mar-a-Lago. That affidavit was essentially the basis for the search warrant.
The Justice Department has said that releasing that affidavit to the public would, quote, cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation, because the investigation involves highly classified materials.
But despite that, today, a federal judge set a hearing to decide whether or not to unseal the affidavit. That is scheduled for this Thursday.
As we wait to hear what happens on that front, I do want to bring up one point that seems potentially under explored in the analysis of the search warrant materials.
[21:50:01]
One of the documents FBI agents uncovered and took with them from Mar-a- Lago was listed as a quote, executive grant of clemency regarding Roger Jason Stone Jr.
You may remember that Trump granted not one, but two executive grant of clemency for his old friend and adviser Roger Stone. So, there could be a totally innocent and truly boring explanation here. Maybe there was just an extra copy of that grant of clemency lying around, and that extra copy just happened to be on top of, or next to the classified documents at that the FBI picked up.
But maybe not, and maybe there is more to it. Last week, the day after the FBI executed the search warrant a Trump`s Florida home, Robert Costa of CBS News reported that quote, some general six committee members have been investigating quietly the trail of Trump`s documents for months about pardons, and are probing whether any private pardon papers exist. And if so, if there held by Trump/aides.
We have no idea what that roger stone clemency document could be, the one that the FBI took from Mar-a-Lago. But it could have been a private pardon, meaning a pardon Trump granted secretly without Justice Department, or virtually anyone else knowing? There is no way to tell right now. There is no way.
But if the reporting is correct, that the January 6 Committee is investigating whether or not private pardoned papers exist, well now then, you have my attention. And I have just the person to ask right here about this.
My next guest has quite the resume. She spent 18 years as a federal prosecutor in Birmingham, Alabama, before becoming a U.S. attorney. In 2009, she was one of the first five U.S. attorneys — there she is, to be nominated by President Barack Obama when he took office. In fact, she was the first female U.S. attorney named, and was then unanimously confirmed by the Senate, no small feat.
Joyce Vance spent nearly the entirety of Barack Obama`s two terms as president, almost eight, years as the U.S. attorney for the northern district of Alabama. That is why she is here. I mean, among other reasons. She`s joining us now.
Joyce Vance, it is so great to have you here. Thank you for joining me, Joyce.
JOYCE VANCE, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Good to see you, Alex.
WAGNER: So, I want to explore this private pardon papers scenario, right? The fact that this Roger Stone clemency document was taken when the FBI seized papers from Mar-a-Lago, normally, pardons go through the DOJ, I believe it is, office of the pardon, right?
VANCE: The pardon attorney, right, who routinely handles all pardons.
WAGNER: Is it possible that Trump has a stash of private pardon papers, that might intersect with some of the things he did around January 6th?
VANCE: My temptation is to tell you, absolutely not, it`s impossible. But this is Trump the tweet talking about, right? He didn`t do things like anyone else.
The reason you have a pardon attorney is that there is an official record of a president granting pardons while he`s an office, the only time he has access to the pardon power, which is very broad and expansive.
Could Trump have done these privately? I suppose he could have. But there`s one limitation. Even Trump would have to create some form of a record that pardon was issued, while he was in office, right? He doesn`t today, at Mar- a-Lago, have the power to pardon anyone.
WAGNER: Despite what you might say, I mean, I think one of the reasons this is interesting is because of all of the other rhetoric that`s coming out of Trump plan, vis-a-vis these documents at Mar-a-Lago, right? We know that Trump is the person that saying he had sort of unilateral capabilities to declassify information, and that all of the things he took with him to Mar-a-Lago were things that he had declassified.
I mean, effectively, I will read the statement. President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents, including classified documents to the residents. He had a standing order, standing order. The documents removed from the oval office and taken to the residents or deemed to be declassified at the moment he removed them. Like, boom, I can declassify something by virtue of the fact that I`m Donald Trump.
Someone who thinks he has that power, just, boom, declassify things, could also maybe think he has the power to issue pardons, really without having throw to go through the appropriate channels.
VANCE: You know, it`s not beyond belief. I got stuck on the part that you write, at the point where he was saying to prepare for work the following morning, right? It just defied belief.
But I think that you are right that this is someone who is never constrained by normal smooth operations in the White House, which depended upon creating a record, because we`re a rule of law country, and we keep records, and records these items, whether it`s classification of important national security documents, or reflecting pardons granted by president.
WAGNER: When we talk about the documents in and around Mar-a-Lago, I will call it scandal, but investigation, seizure. There is a lot of interest in this affidavit from the FBI agent to explain why they were going down there. A judge is going to have a hearing on Thursday.
What is your expectation from that? And if the affidavit isn`t released, should we infer anything from that about the seriousness of this investigation?
[21:55:05]
VANCE: Well, the affidavit is always the juicy part of the search warrant. Everything else is filling out papers, but to some extent, the boiler plate. But in the affidavit, as you laid out, the agent collects all of the information that has led the government to believe that there is a crime that merits investigation.
So, you and I, and everybody else out there, who is listening, wants to read that. But DOJ`s interest is in keeping all of that secret, and they lay it out in this motion, that you began to read from.
And here`s the problem, from where I sat as a prosecutor. If someone could read my agents affidavit, they would have a roadmap for where I was going next in the investigation. And there are real problems, particularly when you have a situation where witnesses can be intimidated, future witnesses might not come forward, right? I mean, this is a real sort of risk here.
Some sorts of information that are contained in affidavits can`t be released. And I think that`s obtained using the grand jury, legally, has to remain private prior to charges bring being brought. And then, because of the nature of this case, there is the entire specter of classified information being included in the affidavit. I would be stunned if the judge ruled that this warrant, that this affidavit should be unsealed and released to the public.
WAGNER: I mean, let`s be clear, Merrick Garland, apparently, according to our reporting, wrestled with his decision to Mar-a-Lago for weeks. He has not known, as a jerk shoot from the hip attorney general kind of dude. The fact that you are admitting it`s an ongoing criminal investigation, these are all measurable, tangible signals that this is pretty serious.
VANCE: I think that`s right. I have to push back a little bit on the characterization of it as a raid, because this is a search warrant that a federal judge authorized based on probable cause, which I know you know.
WAGNER: And we will be careful with our language on this.
VANCE: But I think the second part of what you said is something that hasn`t been said enough, and it`s very important. The whole country has been waiting to see what Merrick Garland is doing. This week, Merrick Garland told us that he has a criminal investigation, and he had the authority from that judge to go in and sees the office at Mar-a-Lago, called 45.
WAGNER: Merrick Garland, nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney, thank you for being here tonight, Joyce. I sincerely appreciate it.
We`ll be right back.
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WAGNER: Quick programming note before we go. At midnight we`ll be back on the air with another live show because why not? We`ll be covering Nebraska`s primary and special election were among other things, former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is looking to make a comeback as a congresswoman. Again, that is right here at midnight.
Before we go, I just want to thank my esteemed colleagues for all the work they`ve done here over the past few weeks as we have built this show from the bottom up. Ali Velshi, Mehdi Hasan, Ayman Mohyeldin have done incredible work holding down this hour ahead of our launch and for that I am incredibly forever grateful. Thank you.
And on a final note, please don`t forget to set your DVR for “ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT”.
Now, it is the time for “THE LAST WORD” with, my friend, Lawrence O`Donnell.
Good evening, Lawrence.