Maddow reacts to report of Russian oligarch paying for Trump Jr.'s lavish wedding weekend

You can connect directly with your favorite hosts and other MSNL fans to constrain live TV and much more visit MSNL/membership to join. >> Thanks to you and hope for joining us this hour, right off the top we do have more

“on this very, very, very important news that is breaking tonight.”

The United States Supreme Court has just this evening blocked one of the most concerted efforts by President Donald Trump to so chaos in the midterm elections. To essentially launch a federal takeover of America's midterm elections. Lower courts had blocked Trump's executive order from this spring that would have effectively instructed the U.S. Postal Service to block states from distributing and collecting mail

in ballots in the normal fashion. Lower courts had blocked that. Trump had appealed to the Supreme Court that the Supreme Court should overall those lower courts and actually let his orders to the Postal Service go ahead. But tonight the United States Supreme Court told him no.

And the legality and the politics of these things seem like they exist in two different universes.

“I mean, in this country, by very clear dictum in our constitution, our elections are run”

by the states. This is not a contestant thing an American constitutional governance. Our elections are run by the states, not by the federal government, and certainly not by the president. That is why voting looks a little different state to state, depending on where you live. That said, in most states, one of the ways you can vote is you can request that a ballot

should be mail to you. And then you fill it out at home, you mail it back, and that is the way you officially cast your ballot. This is a very normal way to vote in the United States of America. This is a way Donald Trump, most frequently votes in the United States of America.

Voting by mail has become a very common way to vote in this country, about a third of

the voting public votes by mail. Some states vote almost entirely by mail. But in late March, the president said he would -- was going to pass this new order, issue this new executive ruling, executive order, that would essentially purely and only have the effect of making that typically very easy process exponentially harder.

President Trump signed this executive order in late March in which he ordered the creation of a new state citizenship list. He said the U.S. post office by his order would refuse to deliver ballots to anyone whose information hadn't been properly submitted to this new list. Now, even putting the legality of Trump's executive order aside for a moment, state election

officials in red states and blue states, all over the country, said it would essentially be impossible to implement this new rule, this big new complication for mail in ballots before the election in November. I mean, just for starters, a handful of states have already sent out their mail ballots to voters.

“So what would they do if this rule went into effect?”

They'd have to ask voters to hand their ballot back and then get a new one some way under the new rules. By the end of this week, a dozen states would have sent out their ballots. Also the online federal portal where states were supposed to upload all this voter information to Trump's federal government to confirm voters would be allowed by the post office to

be sent their ballots. That online portal is still to this day, not operational for 50 days out from the election. It is not hyperbole to say that enacting this rule change just weeks before the midterms would wreak total havoc on the elections, which perhaps was the point. And so it was 24 states plus D.C. that sued the Trump administration to stop this new

rule.

Basically, so people could vote by mail like normal this November.

Along with other efforts to stop the rule, this case brought by the states and been working its way through the courts all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. And we have been checking the Supreme Court website, like it's like it's the weather service after a tornado warning. We have been anxiously waiting the Supreme Court ruling given that the election is only

50 days away. Well, finally tonight, we got the ruling. The Supreme Court has issued a ruling tonight that blocks the executive order. It blocks Trump from implementing this executive order that would utterly screw up our election this fall.

The ruling is unsigned, but reading between the lines, it appears to be basically a

seven to two ruling, where the justices who are in dissent, the two named dissenters here

This is big, big consequential news tonight, and what is, Billy, a very big blow to the

president's efforts to so chaos and confusion in the midterm elections. It is a, therefore, a big win for the American electorate who will be casting their ballots in most cases as normal in this hugely important election in just a few weeks. Joining us now is California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who led the lawsuit over this policy, Mr. Attorney General, congratulations on this ruling tonight.

Thank you for being here. Thank you. For our audience tonight, did I miss anything, mess anything up in the way that I explained it?

“What else should people understand about your suit and about the ruling this evening?”

Well, thank you Rachel, it's an honor to be with you, and you got it all right as you

always do, and you know, what we're really want to emphasize here is that the Trump administration

lost at the federal trial court level, they left the lost at the, the public court level, and they lost at the US Supreme Court, and this is a critical stay that preserves the right to vote by mail, which is used in all 50 states, some more than others, including California, and the right to vote is the, that fundamental right from which all other rights flow.

And so this is a very important day for the rule of law for democracy, and sometimes we've got to take this one all the way to the top to the US Supreme Court to win, but we did win. We stayed in this fight very proud of our group of attorneys general from across the state, working hard, fighting hard to protect rights and freedoms, including your right to vote.

So at your final point is also want to emphasize that now it's, it is business as usual.

“There are many ways, many days, to vote.”

You can vote by mail. You can cash your ballot in the mail and receive it through the mail. You can cash it, drop your ballot, your ballot in a drop box. You can go in person and drop your ballot there or vote in person with a in person ballot. All the ways and days are now available to you and Trump's attempt to interfere with and

fringe upon your fundamental right to vote for whatever reasons, whether it's his tanking polls or his conspiracy theories that he's advancing, those have been put to an end in this election by this very important ruling. So we're grateful for it. It's what we saw.

It's what it is the right outcome and the right ruling and we're grateful that we have this certainty as we approach the election just 50 days away. Let me underscore that point about certainty because one of the things that I've seen people saying even reaction tonight's ruling is, well, even just having tried this executive order, having just had to have this fight over it, maybe Trump is counting on people

still being confused or still feeling uncertain or unconfident about the process of mail in voting and about whether or not their vote is going to count, maybe that itself will be suppressive in terms of people turning out.

“I just want, I just want to be clear, and I think I know the answer to this.”

This is a United States Supreme Court ruling and this is the United States Supreme Court saying no, you cannot mess with mail in ballots the way you wanted to. This is, this is the end of the line for Trump. There's no other way he can try to implement this executive order, correct? Correct.

This is the highest court in the land announcing the law of the land for all of us in every single state, so this effort is done for this election. We will continue our efforts to block this type of what we believe is unlawful and unconstitutional interference with our elections for future elections after this November election, but for this November, the interference that Trump tried to visit upon our elections are what

by mail election system through this unlawful executive order or stick to a target. It's over, it cannot be resurrected, the final word has been dictated and declared by the highest court in the land, so there will be no interference in the U.S. Postal Service by Trump through this executive order. California Attorney General Robbonta, Victorious Tonight, led the lawsuit over this policy.

I don't think anybody had any confidence in this Supreme Court to do what was legally, very obviously the right thing here, but politically, obviously difficult for the conservatives that Trump has appointed to that court. This is a really big, really consequential and historic win. California Attorney General Robbonta, thank you so much for being here and again, congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you. I want to bring into the conversation. Now, Democracy Docket Founder, Mark Elias, legendary Democratic Party voting rights, lawyer and avenging angel mark.

I think myself, my staff, a lot of MS now viewers tonight seeing this reporting, seeing

breathes the sigh of relief, and then second, wanted to hear what you thought of it.

So what is your reaction to this ruling tonight? Why should we understand about what just happened?

“Yeah, so first of all, this was great ruling, right?”

I mean, the Supreme Court slammed the door on these claims. It's important to note that this was seven to two, even if you take Justice Kavanaugh's sort of more tepid concurrence aside, it's still six to three. So I think this is the end of the road for this effort. And for tonight, we should celebrate that.

And I mean that. You know, these are long hard fights, and you know, the attorney general of California deserves a lot of credit. My law firm and I had a big victory for the Democratic Party in Washington D.C. on the same issue that actually extends this not just to the blue states, but to Republican

control states. And I want to voluntarily. So it really is now a closed issue. But tomorrow morning, we are going to wake up and the fight is going to continue.

And here's why, because Donald Trump never admits defeat.

Donald Trump never says, you know what, I was wrong. And the courts have slammed the door on me, and I'll go home instead, he escalates. He escalates the rhetoric, escalates the legal attacks, escalates the abuse of power, and ultimately Rachel. What we have seen both in the aftermath of the 2020 election when I represented President

Biden and the D.C. in beating Donald Trump and his allies more in 60 times in court, as we saw with the tragedy around the detention of migrants and the killing of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, is we always see an escalation. And eventually we may even see violence. And so we all need tomorrow to realize that this was one tactic that Donald Trump had

to make it harder to vote in these year to cheat, but it won't be his last. You know, I was thinking Mark when I was just speaking with California Attorney General Rob Bonta about this. And he was talking about the definitive nature of this ruling. And as you say, it's this thing, this one thing that Trump has been trying to do, this

is dead, stake through its heart. It was occurring to me, the only giggling worry that I had hearing him say that and hearing you reiterate it, is that even though the Supreme Court has put an end to this tactic that Trump was going to try to use the postal service to mess with mail invoting all over the country, the fact that the Supreme Court has rejected him on this is that he can't

do what he wanted to do in that executive order. Will presumably lay the rhetorical groundwork for him to say, well, see, when the election results come in, this is why we should reject them.

“Because I wasn't allowed to do this thing I wanted to do, which was the only way to have”

the kind of election that we all have in this country. And since we can't have that rule, the election results, we should not respect them. We shouldn't believe that they're real. I'm assuming that rhetorically that is where he will take this. Oh, he'll definitely take it rhetorically there, but he'll go beyond that.

I mean, look, yes, today he lost a big one in the Supreme Court on mail invoting. Last week, they lost a big one on registering in Missouri. But do you think that they have stopped trying to rig maps? Do you think that Donald Trump is going to give up in trying to steal the 2026 midterm elections?

No.

We also saw today a whistleblower come forward through Congress that said that they are basically

trying to lie to state databases, to try to gain access and try to kick people off the roll. So my law firm, we're litigating 30 cases against the Department of Justice in which they're trying to gain access to sense of voter data, and right now the Department of Justice is over 23, we're undefeated.

But yet here they are, here they are, though, in a whistleblower report today, combing through state databases in the terminals, like this is not the end. I wish, look, no one would be happier than I could spend the next 50 days not having to stay up late at night and wake up early morning fighting Donald Trump in court. But that's just not what's going to happen.

We're going to see more legal actions. We're going to see more irresponsible efforts to undermine the elections. And yes, we will see the rhetoric set up a permission structure for him to ultimately claim that the elections are rigged and try to overturn the certification. The way that we will defeat that as a country is A in the courts and B when every American

in the country pays attention to their natural, small D democratic antibodies and rejects that out of hand in the moment and says no, every way that we can.

“I really believe that this is going to come down to both the courts and the people in terms”

of standing up for our democratic processes. Mark Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket, an excellent explainer on fast-moving nights like this. Thank you so much for being here. Mark really appreciate it.

Thanks Rachel. All right. We've got a lot more news to get to tonight here. It's a big night. Stay with us.

It's Rachel Maddo.

“And I'm here to tell you about the new MSNL membership.”

This is a brand new MSNL community experience.

It's a place to find your people. You can connect with other MSNL fans. You can connect with me and all your favorite MSNL hosts. You can stream live TV and join real-time daily discussions. It gives you direct access and more clarity because when we're together, we are stronger.

We are more resilient. Visit MSNL/membership to join us. The next no-kings day is going to be next month. About a month from now, October 17th, Saturday, October 17th.

This one is called No Kings Vote Early.

“Since Donald Trump has been back in the White House, the earlier no-kings protests against”

him have been some of the largest protests ever in the history of the United States. The no-kings protests have been decentralized. They have included some individual, very large demonstrations like the ones you see here. But also thousands of simultaneous protests of all different sizes all over the country. It's become a sort of Trump era, national holiday, happy no-kings day.

Oh, happy no-kings day to you, I do all who celebrate. This year, October 17th, organizers say it's going to be a little bit different than the previous no-kings days because this next no-kings, October 17th, the midterm elections

effectively will have started.

When you've got people standing up for democracy, they've got a fight for democracy by democratic means. That means using your constitutional right to assemble, using your constitutional right to speak. Your constitutional right to seek redress of your grievances from the government. But at the sort of apex of all of it, when it's election time, if you are fighting for

your democracy using democratic means, it means you've got to use your right to vote. And so next month for this no-kings in October, yeah, we're expecting to see more big marches and rallies and protests all over the country. But midterm voting will be well underway in many places in the country by then. And so we are also expecting that this no-kings day, October 17th, it's also going

to include people organizing walks to the polls and block parties and pretty relentless focus all over the country on creating mass voter turnout for the elections, making sure every eligible voter is registered, every eligible voter knows their options for how they can vote, making sure every eligible voter has a plan for how they are going to vote preferably, how to vote early, and then making sure that every eligible voter actually

gets their ballot cast. So again, this is next month, Saturday, October 17th, if past no-kings protest or anything to go by and if anti-Trump voter enthusiasm has measured in, you know, polls and special

“elections and voter turnout so far this year, if those things or anything to go by, I think”

we should expect that the October 17th no-kings day is likely to be big. When President Trump went to Ireland this weekend, I'm sure he was delighted at some level to get away from all of us, right, to get away from his constituents being so wildly repulsed by him that not only does he have record, low approval ratings, it just remains a historical fact that not just one but several of the largest protests in the history

of this country have been protests against him, right, it must be nice to get away from that feeling for President Donald Trump to fly as he did this weekend into Ireland, but you know what happened, as President Donald Trump flew in Ireland this weekend, this was the welcome to be honest, a massive earthwork message to him for him to see as he flew in in the sand on Dublin Bay, no-kings, even at Ireland, no-kings, Trump and you can tell

it's the Irish version because look at the dot on the eye, hmm, hmm, need I say more? After that, no-kings welcomed him from the air and estimated 10,000 Irish men and women turned out to protest against Trump as he arrived in Dublin. That Dublin part of his visit was when he had his meeting with the Irish Prime Minister and he sort of trumps sort of burped out a whole new American foreign policy about Northern

Ireland and Irish unification, a policy that apparently just occurred to him on the spot at that very moment, he literally said, "I mean, how can it be bad?" Are you asking rhetorically or literally? With 10,000 protesters in the streets against him in Dublin while he was ooopsing his way into that, the President then flew off to the other side of Ireland to County Claire

put him in a helicopter and flew him off to a village called Dunbegg to go watch the Irish

“open golf tournament, but when he arrived in Dunbegg he found that people were there and”

that little town protesting against him as well. The Irish independent reported on all the cars passing through the little village of Dunbegg honking in support of the protesters. After Dunbegg after his visit to the golf thing he then went back to the airport in Shannon and the protesters therefore also went back to the Shannon airport to bid him good

riddance. They bid him 100,000 unwelcomes. I'll tell you one little challenge is behind the scenes for those of us in the news business covering anti-Trump protest in Ireland is a little bit like doing man on the street interviews after a particularly nasty and contested Philadelphia Eagles loss, it's like

fascinating content and there's a lot there, but you can't put 98% of all the tape on TV

because of all the amazing slaring like we can only show you like 2% of what we've got

because yeah, we're not allowed. But now the Irish government is left to clean up not only the physical mess from his visit but also the aftermath, the political aftermath of whatever that was that Trump just blurted out about Northern Ireland.

“I mean honestly was that a new American policy that even nobody was weighing in on or was”

he just saying something he thought sounded good because he thought that was the right answer. Sure, I support the Irish, would you call it unification as I said, how can it be bad? Over at home people all over the country are contending not just with the persistently high gas and diesel prices we've been dealing with for more than 6 months now since Trump started is inexplicable war with Iran.

We're now into not just elevated prices at the gas station, we're now into what feels like a price spike at the pump and one that we're not sure is going to come down. Saudi Arabia used to get its oil out to market through the body of water to its east, Persian Gulf via the straight of Hormuz, but Trump's war with Iran obviously screwed that up. That said Saudi Arabia could also get its oil out to market through the body of water

to its west, the Red Sea, but now Trump's war with Iran has screwed that up too because Iran's allies on the Red Sea, the Houthi rebels have effectively pinched off the straight that's at the south end of the Red Sea to Saudi oil shipments too. So the south eastern end of the Persian Gulf pinched off because of the Iran war, southern end of the Red Sea also pinched off because of the Iran war. That said Saudi Arabia could previously get at least some of its oil to market via its big

east-west pipeline and overland route that allowed it to bypass some of those shipping pinchpoints that have been pinched off because of Trump's war with Iran, but now Trump's war with Iran has screwed that up too because Iran also has allies in Iraq, the Iran allied Shiite militias, and they appear to have pretty much blown that pipeline up. So can't use the Persian Gulf, can't use the Red Sea, can't use the other way to the Red Sea, and that's just Saudi Arabia,

right? But if Middle East oil kind of full stop, mostly can't get to market anymore. That's different and worse than even the price spikes that we have seen because of the Hormuz situation specifically, and that means that the horror show that we are seeing at the pump right now, yes it feels like a spike, but it may be one that doesn't go away. The headline tonight in the Wall Street Journal is this, oil executives say the great fuel crisis

is here. "American oil executives warned for months that the prolonged closure of the street of Hormuz was bound to cause a fuel crisis." Now they say, "It is here." Commercial fuel stocks around the world have been depleting for more than six months, and strategic crude reserves can't be tapped much further. A tax last week,

“shut down a crucial crude pipeline in Saudi Arabia that bypassed the street,”

stranding at least two and a half million barrels a day from an already tight global oil market.

Chevron Chief Executive Mike Worth said in an energy conference in Austin on Friday that it's hard to predict where oil prices will now go. But it is difficult to envision prices coming back down quickly. He said, "I wish I could tell you that I saw some reason why things would ease, but it's difficult right now to see that happen." So yeah, the prices at the gas station right now are horrific, but they may not come down.

that's a really big deal for the global economy and for the American economy, and for the American public and our day-to-day lives. And to that crisis, the response from President Trump thus far has been to number one, right social media messages in all capital letters, telling oil companies that prices at the pump should be lower, oil prices, prices down now. It's not a dog, it doesn't sit when you tell it to.

He's also started. He's another big idea, second big idea. In addition to yelling on

truth social, if that doesn't work, don't worry. He's also started. There's another idea which is berating Ukraine. Ukraine? Yes, okay. Why see? Well, Ukraine, you might recall, was invaded by Russia four and a half years ago. Ukraine's been in a war with Russia ever since, nominally, the United States of America, supposed to be on Ukraine's side in this war, but President Donald Trump is now yelling at Ukraine, telling them that they must stop shooting

back at Russia, and telling Americans that Ukraine's shooting back at Russia is why it's so expensive to fill up your tank these days. Nothing to do with Trump's war in Iran, what war in

Iran must be Ukraine's fault. This weekend there was a big security conference in Ukraine,

lots of European and American officials and former leader's attended, because of the war,

“the airspace over Ukraine, obviously, is all closed. So if you want to get in or out of Ukraine for”

something like one of these big meetings, you can't fly in and you really have one main choice. You should take the train. Ukraine runs diplomatic trains from Poland over the border into Ukraine and then overland to Kiev, and that's how foreign dignitaries get in and out of the capital city of Ukraine. Last week, for example, that's how Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff got in and out of Ukraine on their visit to Kiev. They took the train from Poland like everybody must.

Well, this weekend Vladimir Putin bombed one of those trains. An explosive drone. Hit a train at a station right on the border between Poland and Ukraine. It hit that train just moments after another train had left that station carrying Boris Johnson, the former British Prime Minister and a bunch of other European politicians and diplomats. Former U.S. CIA director, General David Petreyes, was sitting the next in the next train over from the train in that

station that was hit by the exploding drone. But Trump's response to Putin doing that this weekend was nothing. I mean, his only contribution to the chat right now is to tell Ukraine to stop shooting back at Russia in this war and to try to get Americans to blame Ukraine for what you're paying

“at the pump because what more in Iran and also poor Russia. Why is he like this toward Russia?”

I mean, you tell me. Pro-Publica broke the news this morning that for some reason a Russian oligarch who is close to Vladimir Putin and who appears to be on the payroll of the Kremlin, for some reason he ended up paying for the afterparty for Donald Trump Jr's wedding this spring. On a private island in the Bahamas. Donald Trump didn't even go to his son's wedding, but a random Russian oligarch who reportedly barely speaks English,

somehow did, quote, "the oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered big ticket items like the fireworks show." The Trump family is very wealthy. More and more wealthy every day that Trump is president as they pick up this country by the ankles and shake a shake down for our lunch money. But the Trump family nevertheless still decided that they wouldn't pay for the president's

eldest son's wedding. They instead would find a way to get a Kremlin guy who that very

week had been in China with Vladimir Putin. They would find a way for him to fly in, basically from

China, from his visit with Putin, to pay the bill for the wedding party of the adult son of the

“serving president of the United States. Why do you think Trump is the way he is toward Russia?”

Unbelievable story is going to join us here tonight. Let's stay with us. We got a lot to get to. Hi there, everyone. It's Nicole Wallace. I'm here to tell you about the MS now membership. You'll be able to connect directly with all your favorite hosts. You can stream live TV and find a community that cares as much as you do. Visit MS.nals/membership to join us.

description. Guests gathered on a small private island in the Bahamas on Saturday for an intimate

“wedding celebration for Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son. His wife, Bettina Anderson,”

a Palm Beach socialite and influencer. Whether or not you read exciting, breaking news like that at the time it comes out. I'm willing to bet you have not given Don Jr.'s wedding a single thought since that news broke in May. That said today, the news outlet propublica is out with a meticulous and revelatory report about it. With this remarkable headline, one for the ages, this will someday be featured in a textbook on the Golden Trump era of blatant corruption and

foreign influence in the United States of America in the 2020s. Look at this headline. Donald Trump

Jr.'s Bahamas wedding was secretly bankrolled by Russian oligarch close to Putin.

And the headline is just the beginning. This oligarch close to Putin, quote, "Footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses," according to

“Records Reviewed by Pro-Publica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The”

oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big ticket items like the fireworks show and his team helped plan the event. Oh, the Russian oligarch helped plan the president's son wedding weekend. Oh, it's not clear why Omar Kremlev helped pay for Trump Jr.'s wedding. The men appeared to have met only recently. In a statement, Kremlev's press office said, quote, "Mr. Kremlev and Mr. Kremlev,

have a friendly relationship." They first met, quote, a couple of years ago.

All right, so who is this guy? According to Pro-Publica's reporting, in the days leading up to the wedding, Mr. Kremlev was in China. As part of the delegation, accompanying Vladimir Putin, according to Chinese state media. The month before, Putin had bestowed him with a state honor, the order of friendship. The Ukrainian government has imposed sanctions on Mr. Kremlev personally, citing his closeness to Putin and Russian

security services. Putin also used the levers of the state to make Kremlev a dominant player in the Russian sports betting industry. He was one of his companies was chosen to operate the Russian National Lottery. After Putin nationalized Russia's largest car dealership company in 2023, Omar Kremlev became the owner of that, too. Boy, he sure does benefit from a lot of Kremlin-largest, huh? Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association,

a scandal-plagged sports group that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy company, Gazprom. The wedding payments came from an entity in Dubai that the Boxing Association uses for its financial transactions. In response to the Republican reporting, Don Jr. and his wife put out a statement suggesting that there was no scandal here because their dear friend, Omar, didn't pay for the wedding itself. They just had him pay for the weekend after the wedding.

But here's something notal about that wedding weekend, which Republican teases out. The happy couple have repeatedly talked about the small intimate close friends only nature of this celebration. Don Jr. said on his podcast quote, "It was really small, like just really close friends." Pro-Publica reports that, quote, "Some time friends of Trump Jr. told associates, they were disappointed not to be invited." So not even all of

his close friends got to be there. The guest list numbered about 50 and many of the guests were immediate family of the bride or groom. And that, Pro-Publica reports, made the large contingent of Russians all the more conspicuous. This oligarch in Washington was part of a large group whose presence puzzled other attendees. They sometimes stood off by themselves speaking Russian, one person recalled thinking, "What are they doing here?"

But hey, you might be saying, "So what? If the sitting American president's eldest son has a bunch of new Russian friends who want to pay for his wedding party with money that may or may not have come from the Russian government's gas company." Isn't it nice to have generous

“friends? Don't we all wish we had an Omar? What's so wrong with this kind of love?”

An Apple Bomb, a pre-eminent chronicle of autocracy and corruption and how they are inextricably intertwined, just told my colleague Chris Hayes this about it just last hour. I think if a person who was traveling with Putin to China a couple of weeks ago and who has

and who's changed his name a couple of times in order to escape past accusations of

“extortion and bribery gives you an unexpectedly generous wedding gift. You should ask,”

why is he doing it and what does he expect in exchange? Joining us now is Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Brett Murphy, who reported this story with his pro-public of colleagues Justin Elliott Joshua Kaplan and Alex Meyer-Jesky. Mr. Murphy, thank you so much for being here. Congratulations on this reporting. Thanks, Rachel. And as you guys say in the piece, it is based on records and on interviews with dozens

of current and former international boxing association officials and contractors and some wedding

attendees and other people and Trump juniors and this guy Kremlin of circles.

I obviously don't want you to talk at all about any of the sources that you don't describe otherwise in your piece, but can you just talk a little bit about how you came to the story

“about how the sort of trail started here that led you to this amazing revelation?”

Yeah, it was really weird and it still is weird that these two people who didn't seem to have much of a shared history were describing themselves as close friends. It was strange, as you said, it was an intimate, small wedding. We're talking 50 or so people in the exumas and the Bahamas on a pair of private islands. Close friends of the family didn't get the invite. So why was there a large group of Russians who weren't speaking much English? Why were they there and then

more pressing what was the purpose of these payments that they covered huge ticket items all weekend for them to throw these parties and what we wanted to know is how did they know each other? How long did this relationship go back? What was the origins here? The family and Kremlin have said that they had met through hunting. There were hunting buddies from a couple of years ago, but it still left a lot of unanswered questions about what the exact contours of this

relationship were. They had shared a stage previously during an international boxing association event last September and Istanbul, but other than that there was no public relationship that we could really identify here. So it was strange from the beginning and it took us a lot of time talking with people in kind of both worlds in the international boxing world and junior circles to try to figure this whole thing out and we could only kind of approximate their relationship, but what was

never endowed with these payments for the wedding? Who's quite odd? And given the oddness there,

when you spoke with intelligence experts and counterintelligence experts about the reason something like this might raise red flags, people worry about corruption and spying and all the

“sorts of things, foreign influence, what did they tell you about what this looks like?”

Yeah, I mean the context from them was, you know, this was the signature scandal of the last Trump administration, right? So they raised a lot of questions about what Kremlin was doing, what degree of coordination he might have had with the Kremlin, as you said earlier, he's very close with Putin through his ties to the security services and they pointed out these experts we consulted with pointed out that often the Kremlin is working in coordination with these

oligarchs, they know exactly who they're meeting with and when and they discuss, you know, what their plans might be. So the experts we talked about said exactly that they don't know the details obviously what happened in Moscow, what degree of coordination there was, but they were extremely concerned not only about the optics, but what Kremlin's actual motivations might be, think one of our experts told us that you don't just pay a lot of money for

nothing and this, this were huge expense, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars and they may want something in return and it was unclear to them and if they were advising Junior on this they would have told them to stay far away from anyone seeking to build or cultivate a relationship like this from Moscow. Well, maybe even if you weren't the president's son, you'd think that somebody would advise you not to do this, but as a president's son, it's just it's unthinkable, but that's our

life now, a public or reporter Brett Murphy really is very elegant meticulous reporting that you and your colleagues did here. Thank you so much for helping us understand it. Thanks. Thank you, Rachel. All right, we'll be right back. Stay with us. Hey, heads up, they're going to try to shut down the Kennedy Center tomorrow, Tuesday. As you know, Trump is obsessed with trying to name the Kennedy Center in Washington after himself.

He, in fact, put his name on it and then in May a judge order that his name be taken off of it,

way to do it despite the judge's order. Well, now they've come up with this new plan. They've written

“a new report saying the Kennedy Center is in financial ruin and the only way to save it”

is to put Trump's name back on the building because that will somehow save it. Reporting from the Washington Post, quote, Center officials argue that publicly recognizing Trump could secure his help raising enough money to keep the institutional float. The report, quote, makes clear that Trump support hinges on him getting public credit for his involvement. It says Trump is unlikely to provide fundamental oversight of that project or lead a financial

rescue without appropriate recognition of his role. Got it. So put the boss's name on the building or else tomorrow the the Kennedy Center board led by Trump with all of his appointees. They're

“going to take a vote on whether to close the Kennedy Center as part of this ongoing standoff.”

Because obviously, it must be closed if Trump can't be allowed to name it and therefore save it. They're going to try to do that tomorrow. But here's something else to keep an eye on tomorrow. Just before that vote is set to take place, there is a court hearing in the lawsuit that's been brought to defend the Kennedy Center by Congresswoman Joyce Bady. She's been trying to stop Trump's take over the Kennedy Center from the very beginning. At that hearing tomorrow,

Trump officials are going to have to defend these latest shenanigans to the same judge who ordered Trump's name taken off the building in May. The real decision about the fate of the Kennedy Center, Kennedy Center, may wind up happening in that courtroom before that vote is allowed or not to take place. The court hearing and the board meeting are set to happen within the span of a few hours tomorrow. You're going to want to watch that space very carefully in tomorrow's news.

Stay with us.

It is going to be a celebration of the first amendment. Because everybody needs a civic

lesson every now and then. Yeah. My parents who are 85, my dad, Marine veteran, and my mom who is 82 and legally blind are going to come hold a support the farmers sign that they need fuel and fertilizer. You are not allowed to make me cry on the on the streaming. You're not allowed to like I'm losing it. You're too much. It's so great. See, I don't just cry during the TV show. I cried during the day while prepping the TV show. That was me today talking with an

awesome MSNow viewer named Jennifer who lives in Western Kentucky. That was us speaking live today online as part of our new app as part of the new MSNow membership. She was telling me about this

no kings event. She's about to host in her little town in Western Kentucky. First no kings event

ever to be held in her town. I got a little shrill kiss. Very cool. But I wanted you also to know that I do this kind of thing every Monday now at noon Eastern. It's called Ask Maddo Anything. It's part of our new MSNow membership, along with all our stories and the ability to watch our shows live on your phone or on your tablet or on your computer. You can sign up at MS.now/membership or you can just download the MSNow app and it'll walk you through how to do it. After you do that,

you can then come ask me a question. Ask Maddo Anything Monday's at noon Eastern. It is super fun. Saturday, September 26th. Join MSNow live in Texas for our biggest event yet with Rachel Maddo,

Chen Saki, Michael Steele and more for a day of powerful conversations and timely insights

“in a crucial state for the midterms. The matrices heal and advance themselves by engaging”

everybody where they are. Plus exclusive community experiences MSNow live together in Texas. September 26, ketickets today at MS.now/together.