'He is nothing': E. Jean Carroll on the biggest surprise of confronting Trump in court 44:34

It was called Damn Love. D-A-M-N. Damn Love.

It was a game that you played on your cell phone. Now, I'll tell you, the premise was a little bit dark, but straightforward. You see there's like a grumpy-looking person in the foreground on the left, and then the happy couple on the right? So the grumpy person in the foreground is supposed to be you in this game. And your goal as a grumpy little troll is that you're supposed to break up the happy-looking couple behind you.

Now, you play against an opponent, and over the course of seven rounds, you basically have to choose between two scenarios that might cause a rift between this otherwise happy couple. And at the end of the game, the player that causes the most heartbreak is declared to be the winner. Now, this game does not exist, but these are real screenshots from it. Congratulations! You just plunged to the next rank, you awful person!

It was a little twisted, and it was very, very irreverent. But it was also kind of addicting. The creator of that game said the app was profitable pretty much right from jump, pretty much right from the start. She actually compared it to the mother of all video games. She compared it to Pong. She said, quote, "I'll tell you, it's as simple as Pong. This is the dating equivalent. It's not complicated. It's simple. But it's fun."

Now, Damn Love, despite its profitability, was more of like a side hustle for the scrappy early video game developer who made it. She did that video game thing. She did some other tech stuff, but her full-time gig was as a writer, a journalist. In the late 1970s, at the age of 36, that woman who developed that game, her name was Elizabeth,

She submitted a story to the men's magazine Esquire, and she says the fact that it even got published was a fluke. An editor grabbed it out of the slush pile by chance,

and bought it and decided to run it. And that first article in Esquire opened the door for other writing gigs for her. More articles for Esquire, but also big powerhouse publications in the golden age of big men's magazines and big mass market magazines like Rolling Stone and New York Magazine and even Glamour and The Atlantic and Vanity Fair. She was getting published in all of those places and she sort of carved out a niche for herself

Writing these often truly hilarious, I think more or less eccentric...

gonzo stories where she would embed herself with famous or interesting people and with them do infamous or interesting things and then she would write about her experiences. And these stories ended up sort of being as much about her subjects as they were about herself. That was the kind of gonzo style. So, for example, you know who Fran Leibovitz is?

She interviewed the infamous curmudgeon Fran Lebowitz. And Fran Lebowitz notoriously hates to leave her apartment, let alone leave New York City.

But this author took Fran Lebowitz camping, of all things. Like, the one thing that Fran Lebowitz constitutionally could never do, she took her camping. And then she wrote a hysterical piece about the whole thing for the cover of Outside magazine. Quote, "'Nothing much doing after we get the tent up, so we're sitting around and Fran is looking at the pine trees across the meadow. I say how nice it is to sit around and do nothing. Fran says, you can do nothing in New York, too. Only there you get to do it on a sofa.'"

You get the gist. She also followed a pack of basketball groupies around. That was a truly scandalous article. She did an interview with the storied anchorman Dan Rather that was unlike any other interview with Dan Rather. It starts, "'Would you consider cosmetic surgery?' "'No,' says Rather. "'What if somebody says, "'Well, really, Dan, you have bags down to here?' "'It happens,' says Rather, grinning. "'What is your age?'

Rather says, "I'm 113 years old." He grins all the way down to his clavicles. She also did a profile of the musician Lyle Lovett that is still to this day, I think, the definitive profile of Lyle Lovett. Now, it was sort of unheard of for women to write for not just big mass-market magazines like that, but all the brassy men's magazines, too.

But our magazine writer, Elizabeth, did it prolifically. She was the first woman ever to be named a contributing editor at Playboy. And the New York Times wrote about that this weekend. They wrote about that as the time when people really did read Playboy for the articles.

It was a women's magazine, though, that really catapulted her career. In 1993, she got a call from Elle magazine, the world's largest fashion magazine. The editor-in-chief had been reading her work. She wanted her to write a regular advice column for Elle, and so she did. And she did it under her now famous byline, because Elizabeth used just her first initial with her name in her byline. In print, she was always E. Jean Carroll.

Her new advice column in Elle was called Ask E. Jean, and it ran for more than a quarter of a century. It's one of the longest-running advice columns in the history of American publishing. That column was so popular, it gave way to a daily television show by the same name, which aired on the predecessor to this very TV network. She was asked to appear as a contributor to the big mega talk shows like The Today Show and Good Morning America and Oprah.

At one point, she was even hired as a writer for SNL for Saturday Night Live. That pit stop at SNL earned her an Emmy nomination. That cell phone game that I mentioned at the top, the breakup cell phone game, was not her only business venture outside journalism. In the early 2000s, she started a successful matchmaking service. She also started a dating website. The latter was sold for the mid-six figures. She's also written five books over the course of her career. It is a body of work that spans decades.

decades. She has had the kind of career in publishing that a lot of young women in journalism dream of having. Prolifically published with an absolutely singular, instantly identifiable writing style. Practically universally beloved by her peers in the business. Here's a brief sampling of how she has been described by fellow journalists and editors. She's been described as, quote, quirky, cheeky, daring, gutsy,

Funny trailblazer. People have called her the female Hunter S. Thompson. Despite that illustrious, lengthy, enviable, multifaceted, creative, deeply impressive career, these days, E. Jean Carroll is almost universally remembered for one of the last things that she wrote. It was her most recent book.

which in which eugene carroll um first accused former president donald trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in new york city in 1996 after she made that accusation in that book published in 2019 while donald trump was still president he said she was lying about it he said he had never met her let alone assaulted her and so she sued him the sitting president

And it took a while, but in the end, it has now resulted in a jury ordering Donald Trump to pay E. Jean Carroll more than $83 million for defaming her with false claims after a jury determined that he was indeed liable for having sexually assaulted her that day in 1996. And of course, what this was was a civil case, right? This is a lawsuit brought by one person, by this one extraordinary, interesting, totally unique person.

brought by her against another private person. It's not a criminal case. Nobody's going to jail. Nobody's being criminally charged here. This is just about what the defendant owes the plaintiff, what he should be forced to pay to her to compensate her and to punish him for what he did. It is a civil case between two very identifiable, very unique individuals.

And as such, there are two ways this has resonated so much with all of us. There's two reasons why we care so much about what she has just been able to do. The first reason, the first reason it resonates, the first reason we care, honestly, is because of us as a country and who we are and the way he, as a political figure, is trying to change us as a country.

You are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody. Except for day one. Except for? He's going crazy. Except for day one. Meaning? I said I want to be a dictator for one day. Sean, I only want to be a dictator for one day. Would you rather have four years of Donald Trump as a dictator or four years of Joe Biden as a president? Trump. As a dictator? Maybe. Sometimes in life we all need...

A good paddling from the principal to set our life on the right track. And this country does need a little bit of that. We need a little paddling. It's nice to have a strong man running your country. Would you rather have four years of Donald Trump as a dictator or four years of Joe Biden as a president? Donald Trump all the way. Even as a dictator? Yes, yes. Trump.

As a dictator. I think I'm choosing Donald Trump as a dictator. I'm going dictator Trump for sure. I'd rather have Donald Trump as a dictator. The other day, Donald Trump said on his first day he's going to be a dictator for a day. I like that. Yeah, I like that. Would you rather have Donald Trump as a dictator for four years or reelect Joe Biden for four years? I would rather have Donald Trump. I'd like to see the repeal of the Roosevelt Law so that he can be a president for a lot more than four years.

But we, this country needs a dictator. I hate to say that, but it's the truth. This is part of why we care, right? Because putting him in court tests this whole idea. What is appealing about a dictator? What is a dictatorship, right? What is appealing about a strongman leader replacing democracy? Having somebody who just stays in power indefinitely and has unchecked total authority to do whatever he wants. What is appealing about that?

Not just why would you offer to be that? You can see the appeal to a person who wants to be that kind of person. But why would you want that in your country? The most appealing thing about a strongman leader, right, is that he'd be able to get stuff done. He'd be unconstrained. Couldn't be stopped. You know, I alone can fix it.

through enforcing, you know, loyalty to him or death, by locking up his enemies, by breaking all the rules, you know, government, shmovement, Congress, smongress. The courts? Yeah, yeah, right. Them and what army? That's what he is promising. That's the appeal. And so what this writer, this journalist, this extraordinary, unique woman did was give us pretty much the first test of that prospect that has come all the way to fruition. This has run to the end now.

This is the test. Is he the strong man that he claims to be and that his followers believe him to be and that they so want instead of this messy democracy where sometimes other people get their way? Is he that or is he a citizen, an American who lives in a democracy which has courts and laws?

I mean, to be clear, the only reason to bring criminal charges against a person is because they've committed a crime. The only reason to bring a civil case against someone is if they have done something legally actionable for which they should pay. But once you believe a person has done those things, once they are in court, you are testing not only the allegations in that particular case, you are testing the system. You are testing whether the law that applies to everyone else can be brought to bear even on that guy.

who says he is absolutely immune. You bring him to court, and that is the test of us as a country. And that is why the court system looms so large in this era, right? That's why we've all become armchair lawyers in the last eight years. That's why all these former prosecutors and ex-litigators have jobs on TV now, explaining stuff.

That's why judges and the court system are so important and central in the age of Donald Trump and his takeover of the Republican Party and his promises of a strongman-style dictatorship. A would-be strongman says he is immune from the legal system. He is unconstrained by any institution and by anything in our government. E. Jean Carroll is the one who called that question. E. Jean Carroll's civil case says, "I'm not a strongman, and neither are you."

None of us are. No one can be in America because this is a democracy and the law, in a case like this, she says, the law protects me, even from you. And so I will call the question. I will call on the law, the court system, to show that, to prove that the strongman model does not work here, however much people might want it. This is not Europe between the wars. This is America. And that's the second reason that we care, right?

That's the second reason this case, this huge $83 million judgment resonates so much with us. Because she did this in a civil case, human to human, eyeball to eyeball, she did this in her own name and in her own personal defense. She called upon the law to protect her, a named person who was willing to put her name to the allegations and to show up in court and say it.

So much of the calculus in our country right now, so much of the calculus, frankly, in the world right now, so much of the calculus about how to contend with Trump is, oh, how mad is he going to be? How crazy will his supporters go? In historian Tim Snyder's seminal book on tyranny, this anticipation of the backlash, this worry about how upset Trump and his supporters might get

This is a phenomenon that Snyder describes as obeying in advance. As in, do not obey in advance. Do not give the tyrant or the would-be tyrant what they want because you fear what they might do otherwise. Put more bluntly, the message is, to Snyder's lights, the lesson from the 20th century is, stand up, say no, have guts, be the one. How many of us would have the guts of E. Jean Carroll at age 80 to do what she did?

to call his question, to test it, to make us decide it as a country, to render this would-be strongman just a man. Joining us now is E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued Donald Trump for defamation. She's flanked tonight by her lawyers in the case, Robbie Kaplan, who you see on your left, and Sean Crowley, who you see on the right. Thank you all so much for being here. It's such a pleasure to see the three of you here and to have you here. I'm really grateful you made the time. It's a pleasure.

Um, Jean, let me just ask you, you, you guys have lived this case in one way or another, um, since 2019 when Trump was still in the white house and you published your book. How different is it now to be part of this case? Now that you are out the other side, you have won this massive $83 million judgment. Do you, um, does it, does it feel different to you now than it did while you were in the middle of it?

And Rachel, thank you for that incredible introduction. The three of us were shaking with laughter and tears in our eyes, laughing and crying all at the same time. You happened to put in a nutshell what we were fighting for. You did it. Thank you so much, Rachel. Yes, I feel...

that this bodes well for the future. I think we've planted our flag. I think we've made a statement that things are going to be different, that there's going to be a new way of doing things.

things in this country because of this indestructible team of lawyers, Rachel. I am sometimes 50 years older than some of the associates on our team. I'm 40 years older than Sean. I'm 30 years older than Robbie. And together,

This team of brilliant young people have, as you said, stood up to the man who, by the way, Rachel, is not even there. He's nothing. He is without he is like a walrus snorting and like a rhino flopping his hand. It was he is not there. That was the surprising thing to me.

Well, on that point, talking about, you know, being face-to-face with him, being in the same physical space with him for the first time since...

When you say he assaulted you in 1996, what you're describing there in terms of him being nothing, him feeling like an animal, him feeling not intimidating, was that a shock to you? Because, I mean, your guts here, your bravery here includes the physical bravery about being around him again. It sounds like it didn't go the way you expected it to once you were in the same room. No, Rachel, I was terrified.

I was just a bag of sweating corpuscles as we prepared for trial. And three days, four days before trial, I had an actual breakdown. I lost my ability to speak. I lost my words. I couldn't talk and I couldn't go on. It was that's how frightened I was. But oddly, we went into court.

Robbie took the lectern. I sat in the witness chair like this. And she said, Miss Carol, good morning. Would you please spell your name for the court? And amazingly, I looked out and he was nothing. He was nothing. He was a phantom. It was the people around him who were giving him power. He himself was.

was nothing. It was an astonishing discovery for me. He's nothing. We don't need to be afraid of him. He can be knocked down.

Twice, by this woman right here. Well, by the team here. I mean, let me just, actually, Ms. Kaplan, Robbie, let me put this to you. As soon as the verdict happened, Robbie, you said, there is a way to stand up to someone like Donald Trump.

And it felt like you were not necessarily advising your fellow lawyers or potential defendants, but you were kind of advising the country. Do you did you mean that as advice? Do you mean that as advice for, you know, Republicans who don't want to go along with them, but have been so far afraid to to say no or to stand up to him? I think in the moment, Rachel, I meant it in the context of of the court system litigation. But in my guts, in my heart, I meant what you said.

how you just described it or how Eugene just described it. It is time and we proved, I think in this case, that it is time to stand up to the world's current or the United States' current biggest bully. And the way to do that is by using the facts and the law and our legal system to say that we're not afraid.

And we saw a jury of nine New Yorkers stand up to him just as much as we did and say, not only did you do this, but you need to pay her $83 million. Hmm.

Ms. Crowley, Sean, in opening and closing the trial, you asked jurors to consider, in awarding punitive damages, how much it would cost to make Trump stop lying about Ms. Carroll, how high the number would have to be in order to deter him from continuing to do what he's been doing to E. Jean. Do you think that the award in this case is sufficient to make him stop?

It's really hard to say with someone like that. So far, it has been, which I think is pretty remarkable, given who he is and what he's done to Eugene pretty much relentlessly over the last four years. You know, I do have to say that I think that he himself during the trial helped us make that argument.

by, you know, leaving court each day and posting on Truth Social and giving press conferences where he continued to defame her after having literally been sitting in court on trial for defaming her.

And then just his behavior in the courtroom, like he just refused to follow the rules. He was shaking his head. He was shouting. He walked out during Robbie's closing argument, which is something I've never seen before in a court of law. And so, you know, I think that it sort of helps the jury to not just have to believe what we were telling them, but get to actually see it with their own eyes, the way that this guy just believes that he is not bound by any rules or laws. Yeah.

And it kind of tells you, if you think about it, who he really is, because after all, our thesis at this trial was one, that he's a bully and two, that he's incapable of following the rules. And then during the trial, he acted like a bully and he wasn't capable of following the rules. Like we almost didn't need to say anything. We just watched it.

E. Jean, Robbie and Sean, if you don't mind staying with us for one more block, E. Jean, I know that you've been thinking hard about what you're going to do with all of Donald Trump's money. I'd like to talk with you about that. I'd like to talk with you about some of the developments that have happened, potentially related to this case since the verdict on Friday, if you'll stick with us. Great. Absolutely. All right. We'll be right back with the woman of the hour and the lawyers who won her case against Donald Trump. Stay with us.

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. I have an obligation to find a way of telling this story that is fresh, that has angles that haven't been used in the course of the day, to bring my experience working in the Senate, working in journalism, to try to make sense of what has happened and help you make sense of what it means to you. The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, weeknights at 10 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC.

No, no. I'm glad you asked me that question. I'm not having any second thoughts about representing President Trump. It is the proudest thing I could ever do. Yeah, but how did it go?

That was former President Trump's lawyer, Alina Haba, on Friday, just after the jury ordered her client to pay $83 million to E. Jean Carroll. We're back now with Ms. Carroll, who did successfully sue Donald Trump for defamation twice. She's here along with her attorneys, Robbie Kaplan and Sean Crowley. Thank you all for sticking with me. Let me actually just stick. I wasn't going to ask this, but and it may be rude. So you don't have to answer if you don't want. I'll put this either to Ms. Crowley or Ms. Kaplan if either of you wants to field it.

You are both very experienced trial attorneys. You've been up against some of the best and brightest opposing counsel in all sorts of different trials. How is President Trump's lawyering? Is he well represented in court? I'm going to let Crowley answer that. But I will say that what you heard today,

Just now in that tape of Alina Hava leaving the court and kind of yelling at the reporters, that's what we heard every single day, multiple times during this trial, but yelling at the judge. And it was unbelievably nerve wracking each time it happened. And it happened multiple times every day. Yeah. Thanks for handing that one over to me. Yeah.

I think that I think that she had a hard job and you could definitely see a difference between her sort of style when he was in the courtroom and when he was not there. She was much more disciplined and frankly, acted more like a lawyer when he wasn't there.

When he was I mean, you could hear him telling her when to object and muttering things and, you know, loudly being frustrated with her. And I think she felt like she had to say things to the judge and to us and sort of put on a performance like you just saw in front of the TV cameras.

Hmm. E.G., in terms of the what you've just been through, I mean, to hear a lawyer as experienced as Ravi Kaplan say it was nerve wracking to be in that room sometimes because of the way this was conducted. I have to ask you, you know, President Trump has kept your name out of his mouth.

since being told he has to pay $83 million to you for what he's done in the past. But over the weekend, he did start posting links online to articles that attacked you and denied your claims. Again, he seems to be pushing it already in terms of whether or not he is going to go back to calling you a liar and denying that he did what he did. If it came to it, if your lawyers told you that there was another case and that you should go back and

and get more money out of him and sue him again. Would you do it? Absolutely. Absolutely. It wasn't too much wear and tear on you? I mean, the guts factor here is real in terms of how much you put yourself out there. A lot of big, strong people have been putting themselves, wouldn't put themselves through what you've gone through. Rachel, many people, as you know, have been through much worse than I went through at that trial. People suffered much,

more difficult things than I've ever been through in my life. And I am more than willing to do it again because we achieved so much in a seven-day trial. We did what people thought was impossible. We beat Donald Trump. Let me ask you about a way that you have talked about this, E. Jean. You have talked about the fact that this was...

not just you being passively victimized, but you fought.

that it was a fight and that's the term that you used. And everybody gets to choose their own terms to describe something like this happening to them. But you chose that term and it seems like it's important to your sense of self and to your own sense of agency and knowing who you are and making decisions about what to do next. What you just did 25 years after the assault was a different kind of fight, going at him at the height of his power and the height of his celebrity

And I wondered if you could just talk about that self-conception and why it's important to you to know for yourself that you fought, but also so that the world knows that you both did fight and that you will fight. Well, we're fighting not really, Rachel, for me. It's now about fighting for all women. We're also fighting and we salute the women and men who've been assaulted and who did not survive.

We are doing this for women around the country who have been knocked down repeatedly. And so it's really not about me anymore. We have moved beyond me. And as you say, the fight now is really to take back our future. This is a man who stacked the Supreme Court, took away women's rights over their own bodies.

We would like to be a part of turning our eyes to the future and taking back our rights. You've talked about using some of Trump's money that you're about to get to help shore up women's rights. Do you know what that might be, what that might look like? Yes, Rachel. Yes. Tell me. I had such, such great ideas for all.

All the good I'm going to do with this money. First thing, Rachel, you and I are going to go shopping. We're going to get completely new wardrobes, new shoes, motorcycle for Crowley, new fishing rod for Robbie. Rachel, what do you want? Penthouse? It's yours, Rachel. Penthouse and France? You want France? You want to go fishing in France? No? All right. All right. Okay. That's a joke. Okay.

Although if me fishing in France could do something for women's rights, I would take the hint. You know, I would obviously take one for the team. All right, let me, let me...

As if you need persuasion in that regard. Let me finish with a final question. And again, this is both for you, Sean, and for you, Robbie, and you guys can divide up responsibility here. But there are multiple cases here involving Trump that are coming up. Obviously, most eyes are on the federal January 6th case having happened.

been up against Trump in the courtroom. I'm wondering if you two have any advice in terms of what it's like to go up against him and his legal team in terms of the way that he approaches his defense. That's part of it. But I also want to know if this big, what everybody's expecting potentially to be a very large judgment against him and his company changed anything about the way that you approached this

the ask to the jury, the way that you presented evidence, the way that you're planning on making sure this money is in fact extracted from Trump's wallet. I mean, how much do all of these different cases interact with each other, if at all? And can various lawyers involved in various in these various cases learn from each other's experience?

So the short answer to do the cases all interact with each other is absolutely all the time. To give you just one good example, in our case, we played at the end of our case, not only the deposition that I took of Donald Trump in this case, but we played the deposition that the New York attorney general took in their case.

Because in that deposition, Trump is bragging about how his brand alone is worth more than $10 billion. He has $400 million cash on hand. And the reason that was so relevant is in assessing how much money to award for punitive damages, the jury is not only allowed to, but supposed to think of the wealth of the defendant. So when we said, when Sean said, give him enough, give enough to E. Jean to make him stop,

They had to think what enough would be for Donald Trump. So the cases in kinds of predictable ways and unpredictable ways are kind of talking to each other all the time.

On the first question, you know, I think that one thing that I maybe wasn't prepared for coming into this trial is that when when Donald Trump is stripped of, you know, all of the press and not at a rally and there's no TV cameras and he sort of has a small group of supporters around him.

He's not that scary. And he also can be controlled. You know, I mean, his antics in the courtroom, we've talked about them. But at the end of the day, he did kind of follow the rules. Robbie Cross examined him. He was in he was in the witness chair and he only got to answer questions.

three questions, I think. And he pretty much stayed within the bounds. I think when you have a strong judge like Judge Kaplan, who enforces the rules of his courtroom, and you have real lawyers, you really can get him to behave, sort of. And when he is stripped of all of the rallies and the truth socials, he's just a guy. I think E.G. called him the emperor with no clothes.

That's not my quote, but he definitely is. He's not the guy that you see on TV. He's just a guy sometimes acting like a petulant toddler, but just a guy. An American bound by the law, just as every American is bound by the law.

Writer E. Jean Carroll, attorney Robbie Kaplan, attorney Sean Crowley, you guys have made history a couple of times now. And you also have meant a lot and continue to mean a lot. You have been lighting the way, I think, for a lot of people in terms of both moral clarity and strategic acumen. And I really, really want to thank each of you for making the time to come talk to us. And I wish you all safety and rest. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel.

Thank you. All right. We'll be right back. Stay with us.

And now, all MSNBC original podcasts are available ad-free and with bonus content, including How to Win 2024, Prosecuting Donald Trump, Why Is This Happening, and more. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.

Today's news requires more facts, more context, and more analysis. The world's never been harder to understand. That's why it's never been more important to try. MSNBC. Understand more.

So we're following what could potentially be very big news in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Andrea Mitchell and her team at NBC News are reporting tonight that officials from four countries, from the U.S., Israel, Qatar, and Egypt, have agreed to a broad framework for a major ceasefire and hostage deal.

This is a deal that would call for a halt in fighting for 60 days. It would provide for the release of the civilian hostages in Gaza. There's more than 100 of them still held by Hamas. Each of the civilian hostages would be released in exchange for three Palestinian prisoners currently being held by Israel.

Then after a month, again, it's a 60-day ceasefire, after a month, the agreement would allow for the release of IDF soldiers who were also being held as hostages. First female soldiers, then male soldiers. They would be released in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel.

So, again, a stop in the fighting for 60 days, and ultimately all the hostages released. That's the framework. Now, obviously, the prospect of such a deal is heartening, but it would need to be signed off on both by the Israeli government and by Hamas. So far, that has not happened. Tonight, Hamas is reiterating that they're not going to release any hostages unless Israel withdraws its forces from the Gaza Strip.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tonight also said that no final agreement has been reached. But they do have this framework, this sort of painstakingly arrived at framework to potentially get there if they want it.

Now, that news comes amid the first U.S. military fatalities from hostile fire since the start of the conflict in October. This weekend, a drone strike on a small U.S. military outpost in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border killed three members of an Army Reserve unit from Georgia.

More than 40 other American troops were injured in this attack. This is a base that has about 350 American service members, both soldiers and airmen. The Pentagon says this drone attack was launched by Iranian-backed militias. And that's important because since the start of the war on October 7th, Iranian-backed militias are blamed for more than 160 attacks on bases where U.S. military personnel are present. That's more than one a day.

But this weekend, for the first time, one of those attacks was fatal. And, you know, the fact that it's being claimed by Iran-backed militias is a very provocative thing in terms of what that means for a potential U.S.-American, potential American response. At the same time, though, the U.S. is also releasing information about Iran

how this might have happened. Pentagon officials are saying that the enemy drone flew in essentially at the same time that a U.S. drone was also in the air over the base. That possibly could have confused the air defense systems that would otherwise protect the base from attack.

That complexity is leading to this interesting situation. It's obviously, you know, urgent questions for President Biden and the administration as to what any U.S. retaliation might be. Three U.S. service members are dead, 40 are injured. But the U.S. is also explaining that what happened here might not necessarily have been a qualitatively different kind of attack than all of these 160 plus previous attacks that

which frankly didn't result in calls for potentially devastatingly escalatory retaliation. It's very much a moving target at this point, very much a developing story. Joining us now to help us understand is Courtney Kuby. She covers national security in the Pentagon for NBC. Courtney, thanks very much for being with us. Let me just ask you first, if I got that all right, I know this is a developing story and some of these details are still sort of getting hammered out and explained over the course of the evening.

You did. So here's what we know a little bit more about the potential, one of the theories, for how this attack drone was able to get onto the base. You mentioned that...

It was coming in, according to Pentagon officials, at the same time that a U.S. drone was also moving towards the base, maybe coming into land, and that may have confused the air defense systems. That's one of the options or the theories that the U.S. is looking at for how it was able to get on the base in the first place. They're also looking at the possibility it was flying at such a low altitude that that may have played a part as well. But the real

reason that the number of casualties here is so high is because where this attack drone was able to strike and explode, it was a drone packed with explosives, Rachel. It was right near an area where U.S. troops were sleeping. And because of the fact that it got through the air defense systems, there were no alarms to wake them up, sending troops to the bunkers, as would normally be the case if there was some sort of incoming. Because of that

there were simply people who were there and they were caught unaware when this drone attacked, frankly, right outside of their sleeping area. So it's sort of a

technical failure, a very unusual circumstance, sort of a coincidental event in terms of the American drone and the enemy drone being coincident in the same airspace. Is that complexity, that potential factor in how this happened and why the soldiers weren't in the bunker, why they weren't defended the way they otherwise might have been, is that affecting the way the U.S. is thinking about potential retaliatory options?

It's not so much thinking about retaliation, but it is thinking about security going forward. So one of the concerns here tonight at the Pentagon is that this may be a new tactic. Did some of these Iranian-backed militia groups figure out a way that they can get around these base air defense systems? You know, you mentioned there have been more than 160 such attacks against bases in Iraq and Syria since October 17th. Many of those have been one-way attack drones like this, but the majority of them have been intercepted or fragmented.

frankly, they haven't made their way all the way to the base, and they've just fallen outside. This is not the first time, though, that one has made its way. There was a case several months ago where a drone actually landed on one of the barracks areas at a base in Iraq, and

The only reason that we didn't have a catastrophic event there is because the drone didn't explode when it landed. So it's not the first time that they have gotten through. But again, the fact that it was able to land in an area where no one was aware that it was coming, there was no time to react, and there were so many people who were there and they were frankly sleeping, or at least in their birthing area at the time, that's one of the reasons that this was so effective as an attack, Rachel.

Courtney Kuby, NBC News correspondent covering national security and the Pentagon. Courtney, thank you for helping us understand that complex story, but just devastating, obviously, for all the obvious reasons. Courtney, thank you. Thanks. Again, the Pentagon has announced the identity of the three soldiers who were killed, a 46-year-old Sergeant William Jerome Rivers from Carrollton, Georgia, 24-year-old Specialist Kennedy LaDawn Sanders from Waycross, Georgia.

and a 23-year-old specialist, Brianna Alexandria Moffitt from Savannah, Georgia. All three killed in that hostile fire accident, that hostile fire incident this weekend in northeastern Jordan. We'll be right back. Stay with us. Just this month, over the course of less than three weeks in three different states, the head of the Republican Party either quit or got fired. In like 17 days, we lost the head of the Republican Party in Michigan and in Florida and in Arizona.

Start in Michigan. For weeks, they've had dueling Republican parties, complete with separate websites, each claiming to be the real Republican Party. A few weeks ago, you might remember, Michigan Republicans voted to oust their party chair while she insisted the vote wasn't authorized, and she still was the party chair. The

The people who say they voted her out then picked a new leader for the Michigan Republican Party, insisting that he is the real chairman now. Well, now the National Republican Party, the RNC, has weighed in, saying they do think she was properly removed, but they don't recognize the new guy.

So at the RNC winter meeting that starts tomorrow, neither of them will be recognized on the RNC's website right now. Michigan's state chair is listed as vacant because, sure, who needs a party chair in one of the top battleground states in a presidential election year?

That's Michigan. In Florida, that state's Republican chair was also ousted. No confusion about that one. He was ousted after news broke that he was being investigated for allegations of rape. Police last week cleared him of the rape charges, but they're now seeking video voyeurism charges for allegedly illegally video recording a sexual encounter without consent. Then came Arizona.

where the state Republican Party chairman has just resigned following the release of a super fishy audio recording of a conversation he apparently had with failed Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Carrie Lake. She, of course, insists that she won the governor's race in 2022, and she is, in fact, the rightful governor of Arizona right now, even though you can't tell from outward appearances.

She contends that the then-party chairman tried to bribe her to stay out of Arizona's Senate race this year. He says that he resigned because she's threatening to release ostensibly more damning recordings if he didn't resign. But that's how it's going. Michigan, Florida, Arizona, three battleground states, three Republican Party chairs gone in 17 days.

Now, though, in the not-at-all battleground state of Oklahoma, looks like there might be a fourth. This weekend, it looked like Republican U.S. Senator James Lankford was getting censured by the Oklahoma Republican Party for daring to work on border legislation, which Lankford has described as the most conservative potential immigration policy in 40 years. So how dare you work on that? The grave crime, of course, is that to work on it, he had to talk with Democrats.

Oklahoma Republicans felt that was unacceptable and censured him for it this weekend. Except it turns out that censure may not have been an official thing. The Republican Party chair in Oklahoma contends that the vice chair went rogue and held the censure vote at a meeting that was only being held in violation of the rules. So it wasn't a real meeting. So it wasn't a real censure.

Because what would a Republican Party be without a schismatic fracture that results in a serious question as to who is actually running the thing? Behold your Republican Party today. All right, that is going to do it for us tonight. Thanks very much for being with us. Forgive me for having the weird husky voice, which comes from being in second week of the stupid cold. I promise next week I'll be better.

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