Nancy Leanne mentioned impeachment.

I think it's an open question whether the Democrats, should they take control of Congress, will impeach uh try to impeach President Trump again?

I think it's fairly clear that Pete Hegath might be impeached.

What are you hearing?

Well, Representative Massiey's put forth a resolution that would uh start the impeachment process.

It has a number of charges in it.

among them that he had censored Senator Mark Kelly for um putting on a video telling uh service members to follow uh only legal orders or all legal orders.

I think the challenge is if he were to be impeached, does that weaken him or does that further embolden him with the president?

Because arguably he could come back and say, "Mr.

President, you and I are both part of the same club in which we've been targeted by the Hill and impeached.

president's been impeached several times and and and he might be able to leverage that.

So I imagine that on the Hill one of the calculations is how do you leverage impeachment such that it actually achieves what what I think many legislators want which is new leadership at the Pentagon rather than further entrenching him into that job.

Right.

Leon, what are you hearing in terms of the in inside the Democratic caucus about the uh urge to impeach President Trump himself?

Um before I get to Trump, I do want to talk about Hexath for just one more beat and that is that there's widespread belief on Capitol Hill that he will be impeached in in November when rep when the Congress comes back during the lame duck.

The bigger question is what happens in the Senate.

The Senate is not going to convict him.

Um but there is a Why do you say that?

Well, because I think even with the president's plummeting approval ratings, um there is still going to be a huge pressure not to go against the president in that way.

But with that said, there is a lot of hope and wish casting even among Republicans on the hill that the president get um fires or or asks Hegsth to step down so that they don't have to deal with this because a lot of people do a lot of Republicans even don't like Hegathth at the top of this depart defense department on on the president.

Um the party is divided.

Democrats are divided on this.

We're going to have to see where it goes.

is there's going to be a lot of pressure on Hakee Jeff to open an impeachment investigation.

Um they are going to resist speaker in a house majority.

Yes.

Yes.

Uh Zolan, is there something to this idea?

Nancy floated that impeachment might help Hegath's job security with Donald Trump.

Sure.

I mean, I think so.

I mean, particularly when you we've seen so much that this is a president that uh uh has tried to push forward this narrative that there's a witch hunt, you know, against him and his allies.

Uh he has designed this administration basically by assessing folks based off of their loyalty.

And the opportunity where you have a defense secretary who uh is then put through a process that the president would deem to be similar to the one that he's described as rigged against him.

you can see how how that would bring them closer.

I mean, at the same time, uh uh uh you know, at the same time, I don't think that the administration more broadly when you talk about all the aids in the administration, what have you, and some of the senior officials are like looking forward to any sort of impeachment process.

Uh but that result of sort of seeing a camaraderie of somebody and another opportunity to say, see, the Democrats are not focused on policym, they're focused on uh uh you know, being out to get us.

you can see him putting forth that narative.

Um, something that the president is very interested in is election the issue of election security and and he he he beats the drum quite often on this.

We're a short distance away from these uh from these midterms.

I want to read something that Zolan you uh you wrote just last week.

Um Mr.

Trump has been relentless in his efforts to seow doubts about the integrity of American elections, singing out a variety of issues that he claims are suspicious, whether suspicious whether voting by mail or California's slow vote counting.

Um, is Zolan, before you give us the the overarching picture of where their efforts are right now to to create this doubt, um, Nancy, can you talk about um what the administration just announced it's going to try to do in the Alaska Senate race?

So, the Department of Justice sued Alaska and has asked a federal judge to block Alaska from certifying this election before it's happened, right?

But that's only in the case if Dan Sullivan, the incumbent Republican, wins.

Their argument is that because there's another candidate on the ballot with the same name, Dan Sullivan, Dan Dan S. Sullivan is the incumbent.

Dan J. Sullivan is the other candidate on there, that voters will be confused and therefore that the intent of the voters won't be achieved.

What's unclear is how the federal government can know the intent of voters.

But the idea that the Department of Justice is filing a lawsuit less than two weeks before an election, I think has raised questions.

Are the Republicans and is the administration trying to in some way um set up a scenario in which they can change the outcome of the election if it doesn't go the way they want?

The other thing that stands out to me is it's in Alaska is a one of a hand number of um battleground states in which the president is fighting for um his party even though he won by double digits there in a presidential election uh in the in the last presidential election.

So so this Steve this this um this Alaska uh ploy is it a gimmick?

Is there a legal stand?

I mean it's an odd situation.

You got Dan Sullivan running against another guy named Dan Sullivan.

Um but or or is this an effort to create a kind of cloud pre-cloud this election?

Yeah, I mean I think it could be both, right?

I I do think in that case it's likely they're they're likely trying to set a precedent so that if they want to challenge it really push to not certify they can do it.

The president can at least make that argument rhetorically.

We've seen him doing this.

I mean I think that was this raid in California this past week where they invited the New York Post reporter from the New York Post along suggesting that there was a vote fraud ring.

It wasn't really a vote fraud ring, but they wanted to shine a light on the possibility of non-citizen voting and they got that sort of media splash from having done that.

There are, I think, other indications that there will be problems that the administration will take active steps.

My colleague John McCormack reported uh on some odd behavior from Department of Justice employees in Wyoming, the reddest of of red states where they went and they sort of went to the polls and were, you know, pushing themselves in trying to interrogate poll workers and doing prompted a response from the governor from the governor was very Republican governors spoke out against this.

There was a 60 Minutes story this past week about um the lieutenant governor in Utah who said she was unnerved by the things the administration was doing pushing for information that was not lieutenant governor of Utah told me in an interview for that story that for the first time their state's election preparedness sort of scenario planning includes not just preparing for the threat of natural disaster, foreign interference, but for the first time interference from the federal government, right?

The the government that they long relied on as well and not exactly Massachusetts we're talking about.

Yeah.

The u uh the Sullivan thing is so interesting because how would a court possibly ascertain whether a person meant to vote for Dan Sullivan or meant to vote for Dan Sullivan?

That's right.

Right.

How how would anyway that's a small Supreme Court has already weighed in.

Yeah.

I mean that's why suggesting it's very important to note that the court the Alaska Supreme Court has indicated there will be Senator Dan Sullivan on the ballot to signify which one is the incumbent versus the random Dan Sullivan.

Right.

Um let's let's go back to Ohio um to talk about this Vivec Ramaswami um ad.

It's quite bizarre.

It features the Democratic candidate for governor Amy Atkins mother uh denouncing her daughter as a liar.

But Amy Actton uh as a child was removed from the house of the mother because she was married to a person who was credibly investigated for child abuse.

Uh and the ad is extraordinary even by the debased standards of what we do in politics today.

And um President Trump has a very different view.

Let's listen to him quickly on on this.

Why wouldn't you listen to a mother that says that?

Why?

Why would you miss NBC?

Why wouldn't you listen?

Wait a minute.

Quiet.

You have a I don't know anything about a stepfather.

All you have his stepdaughter just keeps going.

1978, sir.

You just keep going.

I'm answering you, sir.

You have a I don't know anything about stepfathers from many, many years ago.

I know that recently a mother got on television and said that her daughter should not be governor of Ohio.

Steve, that was Monica Alba of NBC pressing the president.

What is going on here with this advertising?

It seems like a step change in e even roughousing that we see sort of lower than we've expected even in this as you say debased political environment.

Look, I think the president admitted it right there.

He said, "I don't know anything about the stepfather."

The entire controversy is about the behavior of the stepfather who was indicted for right physically and sexually abusing his daughter.

the the there were credible investigations as you point out her brother attests to the truth of this and what the Ramaswami campaign I mean it was interesting when the when the ad came out it wasn't initially clear that it was a Ramaswami campaign ad and I think most people who were calling around and asking questions assumed it was a you know some secret dark money pack that would give the Ramaswami campaign some distance from such an ugly ad and within several hours because they were behind it They admitted that they were behind it and they were bragging and they said this is going to effectively end Amy Actton's campaign.

It's bizarre that we're at a moment where the Ramaswami campaign and the political advisers there would think that recontesting these claims of 50 years ago where they are taking the side of the mother who fled with the stepfather after he was indicted.

They're weighing in on this controversy from 50 years ago when there's all of this evidence that what Amy Actton said happened in fact happened.

Leanne, on a political level, put aside the moral level and ethical level.

Um, this can't possibly work for Ramaswami, can it?

No.

Instead of sealing the fate for Amy Actton, well, the fate it's sealed most likely is that Amy Actton is going to win the governor's race.

Um, I mean it the whole thing is depressing and really sad and um and there Republicans I'm talking to are worried that the impact the down ballot impact on VC um is going to hurt John Husted, the Senate Republican candidate in that race and even um House candidates.

Right.

I in the few minutes we have left, I want to talk about Ukraine.

Uh and I want you to listen to Nancy, will you listen to Steve Whit uh speaking to Vladimir Putin this week?

I want to get your reaction to this.

You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian.

You are you are are a humanitarian also, sir.

And I salute that.

I commend you and I thank you again.

I mean, we're talking about domestic politics and the various weirdnesses and uh cruelties in domestic politics, but this is next level.

um Vladimir Putin as a humanitarian being praised by one of President Trump's closest aids.

It's become abundantly clear that Donald Trump likes Vladimir Putin and does not like the Ukrainian President Zalinski.

Nancy, can can Ukraine win without the US over the next two years or at least hold the line?

Well, we have to remember that the Ukraine has seen the United States pull back its support even before this.

Um we've seen the United States provide less weapons.

We've seen public outbursts and confrontations between the president and this week we saw the United States not delivering promised interceptors.

I think the challenge for Ukraine is when they're seeing sudden changes in their US support with things like Starlink and Star Shield because the war is being driven a lot by technology.

It is very much a drone warfare and even now those systems haven't been restored.

So I think the challenge for Ukraine twofold.

it is the inconsistency in the United States support and the inability for Europe to come back and provide that support uh that the United States won't and that Russia is as close as it's ever been to Washington and is getting that relationship without having to make any concessions on Ukraine.

And I think it's the the the the two of those things together that makes the war harder for the Ukrainians.

Zolan, inside the White House, do you get any sense that there are people high up, I'm thinking about Marco Rubio, for instance, who are like, "What is going on here?

How did we just suddenly switch very openly to if they do have those views, there's little evidence that they're making a strong case to actually push the president on it?"

And that says a lot about Trump 2.0, right?

I think you said it earlier, that could be the statement for Trump round two.

what the president wants to do, he's essentially going to try and do.

And he has made it clear he has to stand for for Zalinski.

He wants a closer relationship with Putin and he's willing to priorit or wants to prioritize deals, a transactional approach, even if it means sacrificing the longheld partnerships that the US has had over.

Very quickly, you think a lot about the president and his predispositions.

Is this more about liking Putin or not liking Zalinski?

That's a good question.

I think this is about basically him approaching the world stage and he's like, "What am I gaining?"

Right?

And to him right now, he is gaining proximity to Putin and deals.