Maddow: Patel picks a bad time to get petty with counterterrorism

Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. I'm really happy to have you here. We are watching developments tonight in a strange story out of Great Britain involving an airfield there, a military air base that the US military has been using for its B-1 bombers in support of Trump's war in Iran. This weekend, Saturday night after midnight, a local resident who lives nearby that base, a farmer, from one of the small towns near this military base in rural Gloucestershire, England. She called police in the middle of the night after she said she basically stumbled across a bunch of young men and a bunch of white vans that were all right near that military base for no apparent reason in the middle of the night. Police responded and whatever they thought was going on there, they ended up evacuating dozens of nearby homes. They brought in a bomb disposal robot to get into the vans and go through them. This was described by the British government as a major incident. The British government activated its Cobra protocols for major national security incidents. And as the news started to break here and worldwide about this situation in Great Britain, there was a lot of discussion about Iran's threats from earlier this year. There are threats to any country providing help to the United States in Trump's war in Iran. This summer in late July, for example, Iran told the UK explicitly that if any British base was used by the US military for this war against Iran, that would make that base in the UK a legitimate military target for Iran. Iran issued that threat in July because of that threat, because of that context when we learned in today's news that five young men had been arrested. And those vans were seized outside the gates of this world air base. Well, there was, for obvious reasons, lots and lots of speculation about who these five young men might be and what this might have all been about. Lots of speculation, lots of worry. And then lots of head scratching when it was announced this afternoon that all five of the people who had been arrested were let go. They were all released on bail. And we really do not know what this was about. All five men who were arrested in the let go are said to be British nationals. They're all from London. We don't know anything about what they were allegedly doing at this base or what their motivations might have been. We have been watching this story closely all day today and tonight trying to learn more about what exactly happened here. For example, even after they let those guys go, it wasn't until late this afternoon our time that local residents were finally allowed to go back to their homes. It's a really interesting story, really intriguing. We've been watching it closely. We'll let you know as we learn more. But for us here in the United States, it raises an important question about the cost of Trump's war in Iran. It raises the question as to whether the cost of Trump's war in Iran is something that we've really adequately grappled with. Is it a cost that's not just going to be measured in lives lost? And people injured and buildings destroyed and facilities and aircraft and equipment destroyed and the shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz and all the other oil transit routes and infrastructure that have driven your gas and diesel prices and fertilizer prices to all-time record highs. The multi-billion dollar cost to just of anti-aircraft munitions alone let alone all the other missiles and material we have expended in this war on top of all those costs which we have barely grappled with. This still developing strange story that this rural airbase and the Cotswolds in England it also raises this very uncomfortable question for us Americans as to whether there's an additional cost of this war which might be an additional risk for us here at home of potential retaliatory violence against us by Iran or its proxies or its sympathizers. And to get specific in terms of our ability to handle those potential kinds of threats here at home of course it would be the FBI that would be the agency on point there. Well now we've learned that the Trump administration just removed from his job the top person in charge of that. The counterterrorism chief at the FBI's Washington field office which is responsible for defending the US from terrorist threats emanating from the Middle East specifically the counterterrorism special Asian in charge at the Washington field office was apparently just removed from his post along with his top deputy at that field office. Both of those senior counterterrorism officials these senior counterterrorism people in the FBI for defending us here at home from terrorist threats emanating in the Middle East. These two people have decades of experience they're both highly decorated for their FBI counterterrorism work. The deputy who was just removed was the person reportedly who supervised the FBI response to the Boston Marathon bombing. But both of those senior counterterrorism agents are now gone. They have been suddenly removed from their jobs right in the middle of this Iran war and right in the middle of all the Iran war still unfolding consequences. And the reason they have been taken off the job, the reason they're gone is reportedly because they were not sufficiently responsive to Stephen Miller's wife. What? Stephen Miller, you know, his wife used to also work for the White House. She's now a right wing podcaster. Stephen Miller's wife reportedly received phone calls that were upsetting to her. And I'm very sorry to hear that, that's terrible. But the FBI was asked to investigate those calls specifically the counterterrorism part of the FBI was asked to investigate those phone calls. Really? Reporting now from MSNOW's Ken Delanian, quote, "The two veteran agents who were demoted were members of the Washington Field Office's counterterrorism section, which had been asked to conduct a threat assessment on a person believed to have been making harassing phone calls to Stephen Miller's wife, conservative podcaster Katie Miller." The unusual request was greeted with disdain inside the FBI, the sources said. "Horassing phone calls aren't even in the ballpark of terrorism, unless an actual terrorist is doing the dialing," said one former FBI official who had been briefed on the matter. So however that went, it apparently didn't go well enough. And so now the top two counterterrorism officials in the Washington FBI field office, the top two officials at the office responsible for defending us against terrorist threats to the United States, emanating from the Middle East, those two have been demoted from those jobs and removed from those positions. Now the White House says Stephen Miller isn't the one who did that, this was nothing to do with the millers, they didn't insist on it. It just happened, the FBI decided it was best, okay? But in addition to those senior counterterrorism officials being pushed out after the set to with Stephen Miller's wife, we also learned that the number two official at the FBI overall has also just stepped down. Now under Donald Trump, the leadership structure of the FBI has been a little hard to follow. In his infinite wisdom Trump chose to chose for the FBI director job, another podcaster named Cash Patel, that's who Trump installed as director of the FBI. For Deputy Director, Trump initially installed yet another podcaster, a guy named Dan Bonjino. Mr. Bonjino washed out as Deputy Director, apparently he really, really wanted to get back to podcasting. There's since been a little bit of musical chairs at the upper echelons of the FBI under Donald Trump, but where we were at until this weekend was that there was podcaster Cash Patel as director and then two people underneath him as Deputy Directors, one of them a career FBI agent and the other, a politician, a mega election denier guy from Missouri named Andrew Bailey. Well now Andrew Bailey has resigned from the FBI without saying much about why he went, spending more time with the family, et cetera. But who knows how these things cascade or are compound? I will say losing the top counterterrorism agents a few days ago, losing the number two guy at the bureau thereafter. This all comes right on the heels of the FBI's own personnel records coming under what appears to be a catastrophic hacking attack. We first learned about this hacking of the FBI's own files last week. Now the New York Times has obtained information from the group that's claiming credit for the hack, which indicates that this might be the worst and most damaging hack of US government files ever. For tens of thousands of people who work at the FBI or who previously worked there and also for people who have ever applied for a job at the FBI, this hacking group apparently obtained names, home addresses, phone numbers, work emails, social security numbers, birth dates and higher dates of current and former FBI personnel. They also got names and phone numbers for spouses of FBI personnel and other emergency contacts, including in some cases, people's parents, people's siblings and people's children. This hacking group also obtained names of the FBI personnel. units in which FBI personnel are employed and their job titles, as well as the names of their supervisors. That information includes some extraordinarily sensitive assignments, like counterintelligence, hunting other country spies, also narcotics, hunting cartels, also various desks focused on Russian, Chinese, and Iranian national security threats. This hacking group also says it has obtained medical information on FBI personnel, including individual psychiatric records, and documents related to blood tests and urine tests, all in the hands of a hacking group. That was able to successfully hack all of that out of the FBI's own systems. It's weird. It's almost like the Trump administration firing the head of US Cyber Command and kneecapping all the cyber security strongholds within the US government. Maybe that wasn't a good move. But as we try to get our heads around potential foreign threats, potential terrorist threats, these kinds of hacking attacks on the US by hostile actors of all kinds, as we try to get our heads around this sort of threat environment, we are also contending with the fact that we have an election bearing down on us in five weeks. It'll be the first national election since the Trump administration dismantled basically all of the defenses we had in any federal agency against foreign governments and foreign intelligence services messing with our elections. We're going to be joined tonight by a friend of the show, a friend of mine, a legendary investigative reporter who has been reporting this year on how Russia is messing with our elections again, yes, this year in 2026, to try to boost Donald Trump and the Republicans in the midterms. We're going to talk with him about why it matters that our government isn't even trying anymore to put up any defenses against that at all. And what we can do to defend ourselves against it, even if our government won't. You're going to want to see that interview that is coming up shortly tonight. Meanwhile, the Washington Post has one of the more hair-raising pieces of reporting that I've read in a long time, about a different kind of threat. Because apparently not only are we just not trying at all to keep Russia from messing with our elections again, this year in 2026, according to new reporting from the Washington Post, the Trump administration is also now working with Russia to make sure that there are no rules restricting what AI can do with military-grade weapons, with the actual military's weapons. You know how there's been a bit of a national freak out in the past few weeks about whether AI might be advancing uncontrollably in the direction of killing us all? You know, the minor issue of potentially wiping out the human race, well, a little bit of a freak out about that. But I will say, some people believe this threat is real, some people think this is not at all real, but this is not a real threat. I think a lot of people are in a sort of third position, which is that it's just kind of hard to figure out what this is about. It's kind of hard to imagine how that would really work in practical terms, how exactly would computer programs kill us physical beings? Well, if you're in that third group, I have news for you. This new news from the Washington Post is the cure to your confusion, because one scenario that takes really no imagination at all is a scenario in which we give AI models operational control over military weapons, and then we allow those same AI models to use military weapons to kill humans on their own say-so without any human having to OK it along the way. That doesn't take any imagination at all to get from AI to AI killing us all. I mean, yeah, if you hand AI a loaded weapon and say, do whatever you want, I mean, yeah, I don't have much imagination for the AI stuff, but that's a pretty direct way to understand how AI could start killing humans in large numbers, right? We could give AI control of the US military's weapons, give them control of nuclear weapons and say, you know, do what you want. And by the way, we've set things up so that we can't stop you even if we want to. Donald Trump, who, among other things, floats on a sea of cash and flattery from AI billionaires, Donald Trump has apparently just decided that this is how we should set things up with AI and military weapons. And he has decided that our best ally for achieving this vision will be his friend, Vladimir Putin. From the Washington Post, quote, "earlier this month, hundreds of diplomats huddled in a cavernous U.N. conference room in Switzerland, working toward a muscular treaty to regulate the use of lethal autonomous weapons." Over the next 15 hours, US and Russian diplomats hammered away at the document, removing a range of provisions designed to safeguard the use of AI in weapons. They stripped language requiring the systems to operate in a predictable and reliable manner, 'cause that's not important when it comes to military weapons. They also removed a clause mandating that ethical considerations be taken into account when using AI weaponry. Oh, good. And finally, here's the kicker, quote, the US and Russian teams also removed a provision requiring that humans review military targets developed by AI before a strike. So this is what Trump is insisting on. AI has control of military weapons. So like AI can fire off armed drones, missiles, artillery, freaking nuclear weapons, whatever. AI can pull the trigger on its own with no human involvement. And Trump is now intervening specifically to make sure that humans won't be able to give a thumbs up or thumbs down to the targets that AI picks itself to shoot at. So AI will just pick on its own say so what it wants to shoot at and then it will shoot on its own say so and humans can't interrupt the process. That is how the United States government is insisting this technology must develop. Why are we doing this? And why are we doing this with Russia? Why are we linking arms with Russia to ensure this is the new rules of the road? Our government has also invited Russia as invited Putin specifically to a G20 event, even though Russia's been excluded from almost all G20 events since they invaded Ukraine. Our government just threw a lavish state dinner and rolled out the red carpet treatment for the dictatorial leader of communist China. Trump has also been withholding our longstanding military support from Taiwan, which is what China wants as it continues to menace Taiwan and threaten to take it over. And for about a news cycle in a half in the last couple of days, Trump's ambassador to China appeared to admit on TV that Trump inexplicably offered China American weapons to use in their own military, which would be quite on-brand for this president, but the administration ultimately walked it back and said that must have been a misstatement from the ambassador. Trump didn't mean any such thing and yes, of course, that would be illegal. But the reason I say that's on-brand is because this president, if there's one constant, right? This president likes the dictators of the world and he likes to do things that please the dictators of the world. He wants to see himself as worthy of their attention and their company. So working with Russia to make sure AI really can kill us all and stiffing our ally that Russia invaded and helping Putin dismantle NATO, okay? Putin likes it, so that's what he gets. Because Trump likes to give Putin what he wants. For China, who's supposed to be our big rival, both on military power and on the AI arms race, well, he likes the Chinese dictator. So he gives advanced AI computer chips to China, despite the fact that they're supposedly our big rival. Today, he gave them special tariff relief. And whether or not he actually did talk to them about giving their military American weapons, he's certainly stiffing our ally that China probably wants to invade too. I mean, he likes the dictators. He likes to do things that make them happy. So that's what the government of the United States of America does now. That's what we do now with our government. We try to please the world's dictators. The friction against that. The friction against what Trump wants along those lines is not just his political opposition inside the electoral system, it's not just the opposition party. He continues to face friction in the courts, and in the free press, and also in the streets. In the past few days, we have seen protests against Trump and specifically his attack on immigrants, all over Kansas, including Dodge City, Kansas, and places like Great Bend in Barton County, Kansas, where people have been standing up for their immigrant neighbors. We saw similar protests in the past few days at the federal building in Bismarck, North Dakota. Yes, North Dakota, ice out. Also in Buffalo, New York, and Western New York at the Ice Field Office there. In the great state of Texas, we have seen ongoing protests in the past few days in places like Austin, after Trump's federal agents shot a door dash driver in the back last week. Those protests this weekend included people marching to the immigrant prison where they are holding that guy. And piercelt Texas, miles outside San Antonio. This weekend, we saw protests at the immigrant jail and broadview, broadview, Illinois. outside of Chicago in Winton, North Carolina where locals do not want a local prison reopened as a Trump immigrant prison. We saw protests this weekend in North Carolina in St. Louis, Missouri this weekend. The Catholic Archdiocese let a march in a prayer vigil to tell Trump to stop hunting immigrant families and to stop the deportations. When Trump went to the Western suburbs of Chicago for some golf event thing this weekend, locals there turned out to welcome him with complex messages of welcome like this one. Trump's a pig. Very to the point also stop fascist Trump says Captain America also a man in bald eagle underpants. There you go. In an authoritarian form of government, the only thing that matters in the government is what the authoritarian wants. That's why you don't see like a strong parliament or a strong congress or even strong courts in real consolidated authoritarian countries. A real authoritarian consolidates all power, centralizes all power in himself and makes sure that there's no other source of authority that competes with him. That's why authoritarian's try to take control of elections. That's why even if a dictator might still have a political party his political party essentially just becomes a cult of personality that's all about celebrating him. That is why authoritarian's everywhere wage war not only on people protesting against him but against a free press because there can be no authoritative voice. There can be no reliable source of information. Certainly no source of true reliable information about the authoritarian that operates independent of him or God forbid in opposition to him. And so yes, now we are in the stage of this thing where we're seeing Trump steal taxpayer funds from the American people to run cult of personality style, worship the dictator style propaganda ads about himself funded by the US government. But yes, also this this war on the press that he's waging is one that it really seems he's playing for keeps. Do you know the streaming service Peacock? The number one movie streaming right now on Peacock is called Kill Berry Print. It is a new movie that I helped produce. It's about a little corner of Southeast Oklahoma, a beautiful part of that state, beautiful part of the country. But it is a place in Oklahoma that's had a real crime problem, a real drug problem. Oddly, it had a really big missing persons problem. People kept going missing and never being found in this county. But this county and it's out these to Oklahoma, McCartan County also has a dogged local newspaper run by a local family that has been there for generations. And what Kill Berry Print is about is that dogged local newspaper discovering that at the root of the crime problem, the drug problem and even the missing persons problem in their county, they discovered through their own reporting that was at the what was at the root of all of it seemed to be a corruption problem among local officials and specifically in local law enforcement. And so this little local paper started reporting the bejesus out of it. Just bluntly, no holds bar reporting on the local powers that be relentlessly without fear or favor. Here on this show, three years ago, we ended up covering that fight by the little local newspaper because they became national news. They obtained an audio recording of the local sheriff talking with other local officials about murdering the family that ran that local newspaper. They got him on tape talking about it. This newspaper was so small they didn't even have a website. So when they got this audio recording, they printed a QR code on the front page of the newspaper so people could use that to go online to like a drop box site and listen to these recordings. And we covered it here on this show in 2023. This crazy story. But then for the past three years, we reported it out in Oklahoma. What happened to this brave family and what happened to this brave little newspaper who took on the local officials who seemed to have plotted to kill them. This very small town newspaper is going really hard against the sheriff which you don't see at rural newspapers in Oklahoma at least. Nobody goes against the powers that me and the area because I can make life very difficult for you. The administration under Kevin Clarity, maybe the most corrupt law enforcement agency I've witnessed in Oklahoma maybe period. It's the kind of place where if you make enemies with someone in the sheriff's office, you know, you probably shouldn't drive home at night. So that is from Killbury Print which is my new documentary. It's up on Peacock right now. It's the number one movie streaming at Peacock right now. I hope you'll check it out. But the reason I wanted to help produce that film. The reason I care about stories like that so much is because I really believe that that kind of bravery, that kind of work, is the cure. I believe that is the antibiotic that treats the infection that is authoritarianism and tyranny and corruption. I mean there's a reason that these guys always come after the press, right? They cannot bear to have anyone speak authoritatively about what is true and real and especially what is true and real about them. It is true with small town tyrants in rural America. It is true with would-be dictators all over the world. The independent unbought and unbossed truth is so dangerous to anyone trying to consolidate power and rip you off. That we know that they'll come after the press for pursuing that truth. And we know the other side of that coin. We know that any country standing up against an authoritarian, any country trying to save itself from becoming a dictatorship, must defend its free press with all its guy. And that's the fight we're in right now. Tonight here on the show we're going to have Ted Butros here live. Full disclosure, he is my lawyer because obviously. But more importantly, he is also the lead lawyer on the blockbuster lawsuit that this network and CNN and Politico have filed jointly against the Trump administration to defend our right to cover this White House and this president without fear or favor and without permission. Ted Butros joins us here next. Stay with us. So the instruction was to pick your favorite Donald Trump policy and riff on it. If you wanted a federal government job, even a nonpartisan apolitical job, you'd have to write an essay explaining your favorite thing that Trump has done. This was from an application, federal job application, which was put in place by the Trump administration last year. Quote, "Identify one or two relevant Trump executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you and explain how you would help implement them if hired." That was what you had to do to get a job in the federal government. Well, that pick your favorite Trump policy question is now gone from the application. After a federal judge said it earlier this month that that question likely violated the right to free speech under the First Amendment. You shouldn't have to be forced to write an essay praising Trump in order to qualify for a job. Those same grounds were cited last week when a judge said the Trump administration sending out federal agents to give an in-person warning to a man who had criticized ICE. Quote likely violated his First Amendment right to free speech. I mean, it seems, you know, nutty that they tried this stuff in the first place, but this is part and parcel of the way they're trying to run the U.S. government. I mean, right now they're running Trump campaign ads paid for by the U.S. government. They have established a new state-run media channel called Trump TV because they want you to watch that instead of real TV. So it's important to understand that the hostility of the Trump White House to the First Amendment and the free press is deep and broad and touches almost everything they do. It's also important to notice that they keep losing these fights over these things in court because the First Amendment still does hold in this country. The fight you heard so much about last week over Trump's effort to ban us, MSNOW, and CNN Politico from covering him at the White House, that fight has been initially successful in court. A judge at least temporarily has ordered the White House to let our reporters back in. But even after that court order, the White House, again, barred us and CNN from covering a welcome event for the Chinese President last week, then over the weekend, the White House blocked CNN from taking its turn in the TV press pool on Air Force 1. We did see solidarity among media organizations and initially refusing to cover the President on camera, but now as this drags on and it becomes more of a sort of checkerboard response rather than a clear wall from the White House, it's not exactly clear what's going to happen in terms of pool reporting or pressure on the White House going forward. That said, the fight in court over Trump's ban continues, and I should tell you, new developments are expected tonight. Joining us now is First Amendment lawyer Ted Boutro, who represents MSNOW and CNN and Politico. He is fighting for a preliminary injunction on their behalf, including tonight. In court full disclosure, I should mention Mr. Boutro's is also my lawyer. Ted, it's really nice to see you. Thanks for taking time to explain to us what's going on tonight. I appreciate you being here. Thanks so much Rachel. It's great to be with you on these important issues. So tell us what's happening tonight. So tonight we're filing what's known as a emotion for preliminary injunction and a brief supporting it. That's to the intended to expand the order that the judge issued last week that that enjoined the ban and and require that the White House reinstate all 78 reporters whose hard passes their credentials had been taken away and let the news organizations Emma's now and CNN and political back into the White House. That can only last for 14 days. So now we're asking that the court enter a broader order that would keep the ban frozen while the litigation plays out. So it's really an important motion and we should be filing it any minute. Well, in terms of the timeline here, I understand that you're asking for a permanent action essentially by the by the court because the court is so far only acted for a two week period. But how quickly do we expect the court to move and respond? How long will this part of the process take? So here we expect the court will move by October 8th. The the first order expires October 8th. So on a very compressed briefing schedule. So the court I think will rule by that date and we think that our arguments are extremely strong as to why the preliminary judgment should be issued. The arguments have only gotten stronger over the weekend. For some of the reasons you mentioned and President Trump has continued to articulate the unconstitutional basis for this ban, which is I don't like their reporting viewpoint discrimination. You know, report things the way I like them. Then I'm going to try and snuff you out and bar you from the White House. Ted, I'm going to ask you a question that may not be fair for me to ask you. So feel free to not answer if you think it's not fair. I mean, I know you're a lawyer and you know you know me well enough to know that I always do that. But your responsibility is fighting this in court. You're not a political strategist. You are not taking a you don't need to take any sort of a political organizing approach to this. That said, it has been really striking to see news organizations over the past week or so stand together and link arms on this and say, you know what, if you treat some of us like this, then we are you're treating all of us like this and we are all going to take action collectively in response to it. We're not going to let you pick these news organizations off one or two or three at a time. We saw that kind of solidarity not just from regular mainstream news organizations, but also from our colleagues on the right, including Fox News and to a limited degree, even our colleagues even further to the right at newsmax, strategically and for this kind of a fight, is that helpful? Is it not just a vibes thing? Is it actually operative in terms of how these kinds of fights get resolved? I think it's extremely operative and extremely important and it shows that this is not a case just about MSNOW or Politico or CNN. It is about the fundamentals of freedom of the press. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed an Amicus brief in support of the temporary restraining order with I think 49 news organizations cutting across the, we'll call it the ideological spectrum, really powerful and it's really what you said, that if you let this happen to one news organization or three or 78 reporters, it can happen to you if you're a different news organization. What the complaint really is here from the administration, in fact, the Attorney General said it yesterday in an interview, they view reporting that scrutinizes their behavior that seeks to hold them accountable, that just seeks to independently document the facts as a national security problem. That's the best they can do. They're starting to talk about national security, but what it really boils down to, and President Trump has been the clear roast on this, is that they don't like reporting, they can't control, and it is objective and critical, and that's what the freedom of the press is all about, and it's for the public, it's for the American people, and all these news organizations standing up really does make a difference. Yeah, I continue to believe that when they say national security, what they mean is political security. They don't like the impact of having the truth told about what they're doing, and they don't want to deal with the political impact of that truth being known by the American people, and so they would prefer that that go away so that they don't have to deal with it in political terms. And I think, I've always thought that's what they mean when they say national security, they're talking about themselves. First amendment lawyer representing MSNC and then political on this matter. I know you've got a busy night still ahead of you tonight. Thanks for helping us understand Ted. Talk to you soon. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks so much. All right. We've got much more ahead tonight. In the last few weeks, some very specific, very weird videos have been popping up on social media in the United States. There are videos of various high-profile celebrities speaking right to the camera, but something is definitely off. Here's screenshots of some of them right here. The thing about these videos is that the audio in these videos has been doctored to make it seem like the celebrity on camera is spewing totally outrageous over-the-top vitriol against Democrats. So you get like a real image of the actor Sarah Jessica Parker, who is famously a liberal and a longtime supporter of Democrats, except in this video, it's Sarah Jessica Parker appearing to say something that is quite obviously something she would never say. For example, quote, "When I hear about Democrats, I immediately think of corrupt Nazi horrors. If you love America, never vote for Democrats." That's what the audio in the video says. Video is Sarah Jessica Parker. And to be clear, Sarah Jessica Parker never said any of that. But in addition to faking statements by these recognizable celebrities, I should also mention these videos feature recognizable news logos. They're branded like with CNN or MSNOW or other news networks. Those logos have been slapped on these videos to give them a further illusion of reality. Like I said, it is all pretty weird. But to certain reporters, it looks really familiar. MSNOW's Brandy Sadrasni was first to report that these videos bear all the hallmarks of a known Russian government disinformation operation backed by the Kremlin. It's called Matrioshka. I can't say things in Russian, forgive me. But that's the iconic Russian nesting dolls. That's what it's named after. This operation has apparently produced a steady stream of fake videos featuring totally made-up scandals about Democratic candidates in this fall's elections, which, yes, sounds familiar. Adding to that reporting, the New York Times reports that US intelligence assessments in recent months have determined that the Russian government, once again, is waging a concerted disinformation campaign targeting Americans to not only try to affect the outcome of the elections, but also to undermine Americans' confidence in the results. Again, sound familiar? Well, in his new book, which is called How Russia Won, investigative reporter David Corn documents Russia's repeated interventions into our elections. It did not stop after 2016. In David's book, he describes the effort in 2024 when Russia produced social media posts and videos, spewing a whole barrage of fake stories about Kamala Harris. And again, most of those were falsely branded as coming from major news outlets. Well, now, with Trump back in the White House, he started off his second term by actively dismantling the country's defenses against Russia doing stuff like this, shutting or slashing offices and programs that fight foreign influence campaigns in our elections. That makes it pretty much open season now for this type of operation. And, frankly, for anything else, for many other foreign adversary who wants to get involved. But now there's kind of a new crazy twist to this story. David Corn, the investigative reporter who just wrote that book, documenting all that Russian election interference, he's the Washington, DC bureau chief from other Jones magazine. Get this. This month, right after he published this new book, which, among other things, documents all of these many years of Russian disinformation operations, particularly targeting our elections, right after his new book came out, this operation, Matryoshka started putting out fake videos pretending to be David Corn, pretending to be mother Jones and David Corn reporting on Democrats and on the election, including a faked CNN interview with David Corn himself, in which his new book is magically no longer about Russian influence operations. It's instead about hundreds of crimes committed by Democrats. So it's one thing to be at the center of the world's most important reporting on Russian influence operations. It's another thing to be put in the middle of the latest Russian disinformation operation yourself. David Corn is in the middle of all of it. He's going to join us here live next. Step one, publish book about Russia's disinformation operations targeting our elections this year. Step two, find yourself featured in those exact Russian operations. And what appears to be a Kremlin influence op targeting our 2026 elections, fake Mother Jones magazine reports and faked images and statements by their Washington bureau chief David Corn are being pumped out to try to spread weird smears against Democratic candidates in November's elections. Joining us now is David Korn, Washington Bureau Chief from Mother Jones, the author of the new book How Russia Won. David, this is not where I expected this to go. How has it felt to be part of this, be made part of this operation that you've been reporting on from the Kremlin? Well, in some ways it proves the premise of my book, so that way it is so unsatisfying. I mean, my point of the book, Rachel, you know, is to show that for the last ten years Russia has continued to mount influence and disinformation operations against the United States, often to help Donald Trump by intervening in elections to benefit him while Trump and right-wing media and Meghan Republicans have been saying since 2016, this is not happening. Russia, Russia, Russia, they call it a witch hunt. They call it a hoax. Well, my book is an attempt to reclaim the Trump-Russian narrative and to show it's not a hoax. It's been happening again and again and again, and as you showed early in the show, Trump is even taking down, destroying our defenses against this. So I wrote about Matryoshka, this disinformation network in the book, and I noted that it was likely to be active with other Russian operations come the 2026 midterms. And indeed, that is what is happening, and as soon as I put this book out and expose a lot of this, and it's also being exposed, as you know, to buy MS now in New York Times, I and them put in the middle, and the funny thing about it is, if you are the, I guess somewhat funny, if you look at these fake videos they're putting out as if they're Mother Jones videos, they say I have a new book out, but it's not called how Russia won. It's called "Enemies of Democracy for Dummies," which is not such a bad title for a book, but they quotes me saying that this book shows there are 300 crimes that have been committed by democratic candidates, and then they different videos listing these crimes. And they're very scurllous and spurious and sleazy that one candidate sowed crack when he was in college and 17 people died. Another Democratic candidate organized sex parties for other Democrats with girl scouts. Other Democrats, they say, as a closeted gay man, embezzled funds to engage or to hire underage prostitutes, and another Democrat who served in Vietnam, they said committed a civilian massacre there of 37 Vietnamese people. Now, I'm not going to name these candidates, but they name them, and they all attribute these stories to my new book that blows the lid off the Democrats. So, they're trying to, I think, take their shot at me, but use me, and this is what's more important, in this new ongoing campaign, to metal in the 2026 selections, just as my book shows they did in 2024, 2020, and all the way back more famously to 2016. So by doing this, guys, you're just showing the world that my book is correct and that people should go out and buy it and read it, and that everything that Donald Trump says about Russia, Russia, Russia is itself the hoax. He calls it a hoax. He has been hoaxing and conning the American public for 10 years on this. This is, while these things are happening, it is always hard to tell how effective they are, but the fact that they are happening in considerable magnitude, and there's zero defenses up against them from the U.S. government, is a huge story. David Corn, Washington Bureau Chief from other Jones, the author of the new book, How Russia One, being proved right all the time by among others, the Russians. David, thank you for being here. I appreciate you being here, my friend. We'll be right back. Stay with us. Thank you. All right, that's going to do it for me for now.