Summary
The ODNI is going to assess "potential risk to national security" from Mar-a-Lago documents. Residents near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine have started receiving iodine pills in case of future radiation leak.
Transcript
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated.
And thanks to at home for joining us this hour. Really happy to have you here.
So the basic plot is that even though he`s a good guy, even though he is our hero, he has to steal the Declaration of Independence. He has to break into the National Archives and steal it.
But it`s for a good reason. It`s because he has followed the string of ancient, creepy, totally non-plausible clues and those clues have revealed to him a big secret. The big secret is that there is a big treasure and to find the big treasure. You have to follow the treasure map and the treasure map inconveniently is printed in invisible ink on the back side of the Declaration of Independence.
And so, he has to deal the Declaration of Independence. Not just because he wants the treasure map that`s written in invisible ink on its other side. Not just because of that, but because the bad guys have followed the same set of clues that he followed. They have figured out the same secret as him and the bad guys are going to steal the Declaration of Independence for bad reasons so the good guy has to steal it before they can get to it.
That`s the plot. At least I think that`s the basic plot. There is something about freemasons and pyramids, too. I don`t know. Probably other parts I missed.
But honestly, in a movie like this, it doesn`t really matter what you miss. Trust me, you`ll be fine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don`t you get it, Ben? The treasure is a myth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I refuse to believe that.
ANNOUNCER: What he thought was the final clue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A hundred eight years of searching and I`m three feet of away.
ANNOUNCER: -- is only the beginning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The declaration of independence.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You think there is a treasure map on the back of a Declaration of Independence?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The map is invisible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why would we make this up?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where is your proof?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don`t have it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did Bigfoot take it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Word about the map is bound to get out.
He is going to try to steal it. The only way to protect the declaration is to steal it.
I don`t want to steal the declaration of independence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ben?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is surrounded by guards and video monitors and little kids on their eighth grade field trip.
You will go to prison. You know that, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, probably.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay, go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of there. Get out of there now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s got the bloody map.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: He`s got the bloody map. He`s go the bloody.
I love the part where Nicolas Cage would otherwise be shot but he uses the bulletproof-ish casing for the department of independence as his body armor. And so, he is fine. But how is the document? It took the bullets maybe?
This is the 2004 smash hit movie "National Treasure" starring Nicholas Cage. The weekend before "National Treasure" -- the weekend that "National Treasure" came out in 2004, I have to tell you, this movie beat the "SpongeBob SquarePants" movie, which came out the same weekend. It beat even that blockbuster for the number one spot in the U.S. box office.
Despite the fact that "National Treasure" was viewed pretty universally as absolutely ridiculous, it ended up grossing like $350 million worldwide. Even though it cost an astonishing $100 million to make, it still made a quarter billion dollars in profit on top of that, which, again, is especially amazing when you consider the plot is really like something, something freemasons, something, something invisible ink, something, something America, bang, bang, happy ending. Like there is not a lot to string you along here. It`s pretty ridiculous.
"The Washington Post" referenced this movie, "National Treasure," in some of its reporting on the current criminal investigation involving former President Trump specifically the recent revelations that he apparently absconded from the White House with reams of documents he is not supposed to possess, including highly classified materials and tons of stuff that`s not supposed to be stuffed into a bedroom closet at his Florida house where he also rents out rooms to paying guests. It`s supposed to be at the National Archives.
And its reporting, "The Washington Post" pointed out in the minds of many, if not most, Americans, when you think of the National Archives, if you have an image of that in your mind, maybe you think of beauty shots like this. Maybe you had a family field trip to Washington, D.C., and you have seen that building some day.
[21:05:01]
But just as likely you think about that Nicholas Cage movie, where he stole the Declaration of Independence and used it as a bullet shield while running from the bad guys who were going to steal the treasure. There is a big National Archives facility in Washington. It`s recognizable from the outside, also from the inside. It`s got the famous rotunda and the public vaults and big National Archives museum.
But that`s not the only place the National Archives is. There are major facilities in Seattle and St. Louis and Fort Worth, Texas, and Kansas City and New York City, and Riverside, California, and Atlanta, and Broomfield, Colorado. A whole bunch of other places as well.
The Archives maintains federal national federal records centers in cinematic Nicholas Cage action movie-worthy locations like Lenexa, Kansas, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and Moraine, Ohio, and Lee`s Summit, Missouri.
The National Archives isn`t just one headquarters thing in Washington. It is a big agency that has extra small, small, medium, large and extra large facilities literally all over the country from coast to coast. National Archives as an agency is also responsible for more than a dozen presidential libraries. Everybody from Herbert Hoover through to Donald J. Trump, although Trump`s presidential library is just a website.
Thanks to Trump, though, they have now had to increase police patrols around the National Archives facility in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, because that`s where the National Archives is keeping records from the Obama administration. National Archives keeps records in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Those records will ultimately be made accessible through the Obama presidential library. And they have now had to increase the police presence at that facility.
After the FBI executed a search warrant earlier this month to go seize classified documents and other materials that Trump was supposed to give back to the National Archives, Trump not once, not twice, but three times made statements online that President Obama was somehow the real villain, that he, Trump, had done nothing wrong, but Obama had taken millions of documents, tons of classified stuff he shouldn`t have taken to his home. President Obama`s home should be raided.
All of that from Trump is just -- I know you will be shocked it hear this - - 100 percent bullpucky. The National Archives actually has all of Obama`s presidential records. He doesn`t have any of them himself, let alone highly classified stuff stashed in his gold painted bedroom, like some former president we can mentioned.
But nevertheless when Trump made those false claims online about former President Obama and his materials from the National Archives, police noticed a spike in what was apparently hostile, threatening online chatter about the Obama presidential library National Archives facility in suburban Hoffman Estates, Illinois. And so, according to "The Washington Post," police had to increase their patrols there at that National Archives building.
And that is in keeping with what we now know is an overall increased threat environment towards National Archives facilities and National Archives staff. Ever since it emerged Trump is under criminal investigation from, among other things, potentially violating the Espionage Act and investigation that was started after the National Archives told Trump that he had a bunch of their material and that he refused to hand it over. That apparently has been enough to make the National Archives the enemy of Trump supporters.
NBC News has obtained a letter from the head of the National Archives to all Archive staff all across the country. It says, in part, quote, the National Archives has been the focus of intense scrutiny for months, this week especially with many people ascribing political motivation to our actions. We received messages from the public accusing of us of corruption and con firing against the former president or alternately congratulating us for bringing him down. Neither is accurate or welcome.
For the past 30-plus years as a civil national Archives carrier civil servant, I have been proud to work for a uniquely and fiercely non- political government agency known for its integrity and its position as an honest broker. This notion is in our establishing laws and in our very culture. I hold dear and I know you do too.
Our fundamental interest is always in ensuring that government records are properly managed preserved and protected to ensure access to them for the life of the republic. That is our mission and what motivates us as we seek to uphold the public trust. I thank all of you for your dedication to that mission and your professionalism and integrity in carrying it out in a non- political and diligent manner.
[21:10:03]
We will continue to do our work without fear or favor in the service of our democracy.
That letter again going out from the head of the National Archives to all nationwide staff of that very large agency. That letter going out as "The Washington Post" reports, quote, since the FBI searched former president Donald Trump`s home to recover classified documents the National Archives has become the target of a rash of threats and vitriol. Trump`s recent actions have whipped his followers into a fervor against the National Archives.
How can you be in a fervor against the National Archives? I mean, even in that ridiculous movie "National Treasure" where the most insane things are made to seem super suspicious and sinister. Oh, the clues are on the dollar bill. I mean, even there, the National Archives itself isn`t bad.
I mean the National Archives is where we keep our country`s documents. It`s the filing cabinet. It`s the library. How can you be mad at the library?
Oh, wait, oh yeah, that`s what we`re doing now. Hysterical criticism and culture war posturing culture we`re posturing from the political right really is shutting down American libraries now, and children`s story times at libraries are being targeted for violence and intimidation from the right, and school board meetings are turning into scenes of violence and intimidation and harassment as well, and elections workers are being threatened and attacked and doxxed and harassed and public health officials and local public health officers and doctors and nurses and teachers -- I mean, depending on whatever the hot topic of this week is on the right, some new group of Americans working in some aspect of public service is about to start getting threatened and doxxed and harassed.
I mean, it`s everything that we cover now. We just had that interview last week with Dr. Anthony Fauci on the occasion of him announcing his retirement after serving seven different presidencies, nearly years in public health public service. Dr. Fauci never before now had to have a security detail. But he has to now because of all the threats to him and his family.
Below a sort of national figure like that, public health officials, local, city, county, state public health officials all over the country hounded out of their jobs, threatened, harassed, causing the largest public health professional exodus in modern American history, in the middle of our largest public health threat in a century. The whole elections office in one Texas county, Gillespie County, the whole office -- every worker in the elections office, all resigning this month on mess because they can`t handle the threats and the harassment of them, for their terrible crime of working like normal public servants to administer totally normal elections.
Former President Trump`s social media company posting a link to the unredacted search warrant for Mar-a-Lago unredacted in the sense that the one that they posted didn`t black out the names of the individual FBI agents who signed off on some of that documentation. After that, a Trump White House staffer posted personal identifying information for those FBI agents and their families so Trump supporters could hound them and threaten them and intimidate them and target them.
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security having to send out a nationwide alert about a spike in threats to federal law enforcement officials of all kinds. The judge who signed off on the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago needing security after his address was posted online and Trump supporters started threatening him and threatening his synagogue. That`s nice.
Now, apparently, it`s the National Archive staff the National Archives. I mean, talk about the case that proves the point, right? I mean, if the federal government were a zoo, the National Archives would be like the lop- beard bunnies exhibit, you know, the baby otters, the cute little vegetarian monkeys that are so small they can sit in a teaspoon. I mean, it`s just not possible to object violently to the National Archives on any rational basis.
I mean, even if you want to make the National Archives a pulse-pounding source of great excitement, it will cost you $100 million to make that movie and it`s going to require Nicholas Cage and it`s going to be too ridiculous to take seriously even for a second.
But in this political environment on the right, they can generate a murderous rage about the National Archives apparently or the FBI or school boards or librarians or teachers or doctors or county public health boards or the little old ladies who work at the polls on Election Day. No one is beyond being threatened, doxed, harassed, driven out of public service if they can make you.
It is hard to stay a democracy -- just at a practical level, it is hard to stay a democracy when all forms of public service large and small, all jobs in the public life of our democracy come with threats of violence. You can`t long hold free and fair elections when it takes bravery to be a poll worker. It should not take bravery to be a poll worker or a file clerk at the Archives or an immunologist.
The threat of political violence takes normal people out of public life, which puts you on a very fast track to the end of democracy at a very practical level. The news today has been dominated by one of the former presidents allies in the U.S. Senate promising that if Trump is indicted for these crimes he`s being investigated for, there will be in his words riots in the street.
Senator Lindsey Graham is promising that. He`s not speaking out against it, saying I hope this doesn`t happen and I need to tell my fellow Americans that this is wrong -- I can sense this might be coming and it`s wrong. Not, nothing like that, he`s just basically promising that`s going to happen and wielding that is a threat against the Justice Department. Hey, if a guy on our side gets arrested for crimes, we`re going to burn the country down. This is the party that wants to be known as the law and order party.
The news today has also been dominated today and for the last couple of days um has been dominated by a lot of details and I think kind of fuzzifying reporting about exactly what`s happening to the documents that the FBI took back from Mar-a-Lago and what`s going to happen to those documents. You might have seen these headlines all weekend long about the request from Trump for a special master to review those documents, and a Florida judge considering the special master request and the filings today, including the filing from the Justice Department to that judge about the special master and what the Justice Department has looked at already and what they have.
And I mean, for the people who are directly involved in this, I`m sure all of the minutiae, all of the ins and outs of this are fascinating. But I also think it`s easy to lose the forest for the trees on a legal tangent like this particular one. I mean, bottom line, this whole fight over the special master thing what this is the Trump side trying to delay the Justice Department and its ability to use the documents that they took from Mar-a-Lago as part of their ongoing criminal investigation. They`re trying to delay it and make it more complicated.
On the other side, the Justice Department now has to wait to hear from this judge exactly what kinds of rules and procedures they`re going to have to follow in order to use these documents from Mar-a-Lago in their ongoing criminal investigation and we expect that tomorrow the Justice Department will make a big long page filing to the judge hearing this dispute about why they think it should be more simple and straightforward even though Trump thinks it should be slower and more complicated. It`s basically it - - how fast and under what circumstances does the Justice Department get to use the documents that they took in the search warrant and executing the search warrant towards building their criminal case.
And you can get into the weeds if you want to. This can be made to seem more complicated than that, but that is really what it boils down to. The Trump side wants to make it more slow and complicated for prosecutors to use those materials they seized. DOJ doesn`t want that, but in the end, they`ll do whatever the judge says and so the judge will say something, that`s it.
Despite all the ink that that dispute received today, despite all the ink that that is definitely going to receive tomorrow, despite all the ink that this received over the weekend, I do think it`s a fairly easy to understand dispute, and we`ll just have to wait to see what the judge says.
Beyond that sort of tempest in the teapot I actually think there are two other things that seem more interesting and more important to watch right now. One of them is definitely a wait and see thing that we sort of can`t push the string on it at all we`ll just find out when it happens, but the other one is something that we`re going to try to get answers on here tonight.
The wait and see one is this little giblet of reporting from "The Washington Post". "The Post" says, quote, the work of the National Archives may not yet be done. Some National Archives officials believe that there might still be more records missing.
Now this is in -- this "Post" article in which they say they spoke to current and former National Archives employees and Trump advisors and historians and other people familiar with what`s going on in this case, 14 sources for this story, one of those sources apparently told "The Post" that there are officials at the Archives who think now that even after that search warrant was executed by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago, Archives officials still believe Trump is holding more documents. He is still hiding more documents that he effectively stole from the government.
Now, NBC News has not matched that reporting from "The Post" and as far as we know no other news organization has either. But if that`s true, if after the -- you know, the pleading letters from the National Archives and the contact from the Justice Department and the subpoena from the Justice Department and then the search warrant being executed by the FBI, if after all that there`s still more that he is hiding, that`s bananas.
And "The Washington Post" reports that National Archives officials believe there`s more. That`s definitely worth watching that is sort of a wait-and- see but wow if true. And then there`s the other thing that I really think is worth watching and it concerns the intelligence community.
NBC News was first to obtain a letter from the director of national intelligence explaining how her office, Avril Haines`s office is getting involved in this now in two different ways. First of all, the director of national intelligence is apparently doing a classification review of these materials that Trump took and that he was hiding at Mar-a-Lago.
Now what is a classification review? Why is the director of national intelligence doing that? And what are the implications of that classification review for the broader case? I don`t know. We`re about to find out here on this program tonight.
Secondly, though, the national intelligence director is according to NBC News also doing something that`s basically a damage assessment. Quote, ODNI, meaning the Office of the Director of National Intelligence will lead an intelligence community assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents.
So as federal prosecutors and the FBI are about to get from this Florida judge the rules of the road in terms of how they can use the material they seized from Trump in this criminal investigation, as the National Archives contends with threats from Trump supporters and contends with the prospect that even now Trump is still hiding more documents even after the search warrant was executed, as those things move forward, the head of the intelligence community is somehow reviewing the classified nature of the material that Trump took and assessing what the damage is to our national security from what he took.
That seems really important to me. I mean, it`s not like an invisible inc treasure map on the back of the search warrant or something, but it does seem important, and we`re going to get some help sorting out what exactly that means with somebody who really knows how these things work. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:27:21]
MADDOW: In late 2016, the top official at the U.S. Justice Department who was specifically in charge of national security matters was a woman named Mary McCord. Now, being the national security chief at DOJ is an important job even in normal times.
But in late 2016, that was a colossally important job doing totally unprecedented things. As the Justice Department began its unprecedented investigation into this national security crisis in which Russia decided to interfere in our election in order to support their favored candidate for president.
When the Justice Department had to send the acting attorney general and a top national security official to the White House in 2017 to warn them that their incoming national security advisor was having secret communications with the Russian government, which I was lying about, the people who went it the White House to communicate that very difficult message about Mike Flynn, that was Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and this national security official Mary McCord.
Over a long career in public service under presidents of both parties, Mary McCord served as a federal prosecutor and assistant U.S. attorney. She served as deputy chief of appeals and the head of the criminal division in that D.C. U.S. attorney`s office, all of that prior to becoming the top national security and top counterintelligence official at main justice during the Obama administration.
One of her duties in that role was to oversee the very same Justice Department unit that`s now investigating former President Trump`s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
With that experience, there`s perhaps no other -- there`s perhaps no other former official better equipped right now to talk about what a Justice Department investigation into Donald Trump for potential national security threats really looks like.
And that`s what makes me delighted, honored to tell you now that we`re now being joined by Mary McCord. She`s a former assistant attorney general for national security at DOJ. She currently serves as a fellow at the George Washington University program on extremism.
Ms. McCord, thank you so much for joining us tonight. It is a real honor to have you here.
MARY MCCORD, FORMER ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: Thank you. It`s nice to be here, Rachel.
MADDOW: So I feel like part of what is difficult as um in reporting on and just trying to be a well-informed citizen on national security matters potential particularly when they intersect with intelligence is that it`s really hard to check things that we hear about from the intelligence community. It`s really hard to get second sources on stuff. It`s really hard to get official verification of a lot of things because it`s by necessity a pretty opaque world.
Given that, what can you tell us about what ODNI is doing right now? They say they`re doing a classification review and also a damage assessment about these documents that were taken from the former president. Can you shed any light for us on on what those terms mean and what it means they`re really doing?
MCCORD: Sure, and I think it`s important to focus on this and I`m glad that you have because I think there has been so much discussion over the weekend and really the last three weeks about the criminal investigation. And just as important as that is this, the national security threat posed by the mishandling of these highly sensitive, highly classified documents.
So the first thing that the director of national intelligence said in that letter to Congress that the -- her office, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the whole intelligence community would do is a classification review. That means they`re going to look at the documents that have been seized the classified ones and really determine is that level of classification still the right level of classification, right?
Because sometimes classified information over the course of time and events in the world is not necessary to be classified anymore, or it could be potentially classified at a different level. And so, that classification review is to make sure or just check to see okay what are these documents, are they all still -- do they all still justify the classifications they have?
Because as your viewers will know if they looked at the redacted affidavit, some of the unredacted portions explain the different classification levels of review, right? So from just damage to national security, all the way up to exceptionally grave damage to national security.
Then, the second thing that the intelligence community is going to do, you`ve -- I think quite accurately referred to as a damage assessment which is they are going to be concerned -- very concerned with figuring out to the best of their ability, you know, what types of harm to national security could occur if these documents, this information or the information in these documents were to fall and people who are not authorized to receive them.
That could be foreign adversaries. That could be foreign spies. That could be opportunists. That could be criminals, et cetera.
So that means not only looking at the documents themselves and assessing, you know, how sensitive they are they but trying to figure out who might have access who have had access to them. Certainly within Mar-a-Lago, we know this is a place that is open to visitors. There are often foreign guests there. We now know that these materials were stored at all different locations within the premises.
And we know that there have been foreign agents or foreign nationals who have gotten into Mar-a-Lago under false pretenses before. So some of the things that the department has asked for are the surveillance videos from within the premises to kind of see who`s it coming and going, who might have had access to the different spaces where these documents were found.
They`re going to be looking to see, do we have compromised confidential human sources who are in danger -- potentially in danger now? Do we have intelligence collection methods that are potentially at risk now? Do we have foreign intelligence, meaning intelligence shared with us by our foreign government allies that maybe has been compromised, right?
All of these things are going to be concerned. Do we have critical technologies that are important to our critical infrastructure, our mass transportation, our communication systems, our banking systems, all of these things that protect that potentially are at risk? So all of that is going to go in to this damage assessment and that will be ongoing. It won`t be something that can be finished in a week or two. That`s going to be a continuing process.
MADDOW: And in terms of the damage assessment and the classification review, I`m assuming that the most important -- in the intelligence world, the most important consequence of those kinds of reviews is that the intelligence community itself and our allies to the extent that`s relevant gets to use that information to take protective measures to the extent they need to.
But are the results of those reviews the kinds of things that would be briefed to the oversight committees, for example, brief to congressional leadership and to the intelligence committees to the extent that the classification review or the damage assessment turns up information that is relevant in terms of the damage to national security that was caused or potentially caused by the mishandling of these materials are the results of the ODNI`s reviews, the sorts of thing that might be shared with the Justice Department for the purpose of building their criminal case.
MCCORD: So, there`s a lot in that question. I would expect that these intelligence reviews will themselves be classified, right? So the results of this damage assessment is not going to be public information that we`re all going to read about in "The Washington Post" or "The New York Times" or listen to on your show. They will be classified, but they`re -- that they are likely to be briefed to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, right?
[21:35:02]
Those are the committees that oversee intelligence collection that are going to be very, very concerned with the potential damage to national security. They will be briefed to -- you know, throughout those who are entitled to receive that briefing in the intelligence community who will be responsible I think as you noted for sort of taking counter measures. And that would include people within the Justice Department.
Now, the classification review would also be pertinent to any criminal investigation because whether the documents are national defense information, and I know so I`m mixing up terms here, but the terms used in the statute, one of the three statutes that was the basis of the search warrant for which there were probable cause within that affidavit for the search warrant one of those is a mishandling of national defense information.
The words used in the statute are not classified information, is national defense information. But those things do tend to be almost one in the same. So highly classified information is almost necessarily NDI or national defense information. It`s possible you could have NDI that`s not classified because somehow it just hasn`t been classified yet.
But that classification review will help inform the Department of Justice as to what NDI was mishandled, which would be important for any criminal case charging a violation of that statute.
MADDOW: That is in fact super clarifying. I feel like you`ve taken a bunch of terms that have all been conflated and you have disambiguated them in a really clear and helpful way. Mary McCord, former Justice Department acting assistant attorney general for national security, again, someone with your experience and clarity of expression is really just invaluable to have you here. Thank you so much.
MCCORD: Thank you for having me.
MADDOW: Again, just to summarize there, you know, per reporting from the - - from NBC News that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is doing both that damage assessment in terms of what damage could potentially have been called caused here. That was something that was called for by the chairman and the vice chairman, the Democrat and Republicans, and Republican who are the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that damage assessment, but also the classification review, which is Mary McCord said there could very much impact what charges if any are ultimately brought against whoever is deemed to be responsible for the mishandling of this serious national security implicating highly classified material.
More ahead here tonight. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:42:10]
MADDOW: You ever looked at a canister of table salt. You might notice that it usually says on the label that it is iodized, meaning that they`ve added iodine to the salt, even though that isn`t someplace you would naturally find iodine. Iodine is a mineral that we need as humans, and you can get it from food. It`s found in some sea foods and in some dairy products, but it`s not something that our bodies make on their own.
We need iodine but to get it, we need to ingest it. We need to get it either from some kind of food or from some kind of supplement. And about a hundred years ago, we started adding iodine to this very commonly used thing.
We started adding it to table salt in this country, because broadly speaking, Americans weren`t getting enough iodine on our own. Way too many people had iodine deficiencies and the result of that was that lots of people were having thyroid problems. The thyroid gland is the part of the body that takes in iodine. If you have an iodine deficiency, that can cause all sorts of thyroid related problems which can be very serious health consequences.
Once they started adding little trace amounts of iodine to common table salt, it had a big public health effect. Iodine deficiency plummeted. Thyroid problems related to iodine deficiency plummeted. That`s why our table salt is iodized to this day it basically causes no harm and lots of good.
And so even if you don`t know much about how minerals and how they work in the body, because we`re we`ve all been eating iodized table salt for a while, we all kind of know this connection between this mineral iodine and the thyroid gland.
Well, turns out the other circumstance in which that is a handy thing to know is the circumstance of radioactive fallout. In the event of a nuclear disaster a nuclear blast a dirty bomb or can a conventional bomb is laced with radioactive material or particularly if there is a leak or an explosion at a nuclear power plant, there`s a few different kinds of radioactive particles that are likely to be released.
Cesium and strontium are two that you might hear about in the context of radioactive fallout. They`re two of the really bad ones. If you`re exposed to radioactive strontium, for example, your body essentially takes it in and treats it like it`s calcium, which means terrible things for your bones and your bone marrow and your blood and ultimately your risk of all kinds of cancer.
Strontium and other highly radioactive isotopes like cesium are just terrible. But the most common isotopes associated with the nuclear power plant catastrophe are actually two different kinds of radioactive iodine. And we know from our you know elementary school level table salt understanding of basic biology that it`s the thyroid that takes up iodine in the body and that`s where this matters.
[21:45:01]
And in the event of a radiation disaster where people are going to be exposed to radioactive fallout, one of the immediate and most common risks is that lots of people are going to get thyroid cancer because again one of the most common things released in radioactive fallout are a couple different kinds of radioactive iodine. We breathe that in, we otherwise absorb it, we take it into our thyroids. And if it is radioactive iodine, we`re going to get thyroid cancer because of it.
It`s a scary concept. I know everything having to do with radiation and radiation poisoning and nuclear accidents is absolutely terrifying. But even so, just a little bit of understanding is helpful because you know just like with table salt, just a little bit of understanding is enough to get you to an understanding of this one very practical consequence.
Again, we need iodine in our bodies. We absorb iodine in our thyroid gland, but we don`t do so infinitely. The thyroid takes an iodine but the thyroid can only take in so much. It can become saturated with iodine and once it`s saturated with iodine, it won`t take in anymore.
So you see where this is going, right? In the event of a radiation disaster where lots of people are going to be exposed to radioactive fallout, one of the things that you do in that circumstance is you make sure that people have iodine tablets, that they can take right away before they`re exposed to any fallout. If you take an iodine tablet, that will mean that your thyroid is saturated with healthy non-radioactive iodine. That means when the radioactive iodine comes your way, your thyroid will not absorb it, your thyroid is already full, you will avoid getting thyroid cancer.
The CDC explains it this way. Quote: Think of filling a jar with blue marbles. If you then pour green marbles over the jar there won`t be any room for them inside the jar they will just spill out.
Nobody should proactively dose themselves with iodine like this as a matter of course. This is a circumstance where there is a nuclear disaster on your doorstep. But if there is a nuclear disaster on your doorstep it is a good form of protection to have on hand.
And as of this past Friday, iodine pills are now being distributed in Ukraine, in the area surrounding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. It`s Europe`s largest nuclear power plant and officials are now officially giving out those iodine pills to anybody who lives within a 20-mile radius of that nuclear power plant that means tens of thousands of people. People there, men, women and children are being told do not take the iodine pills preemptively, but in case of an accident or a disaster, in case of radiation exposure, you`re going to need to take these to protect yourself.
And, unfortunately, that is a very practical concern right now. Russian forces continue to control-ish that nuclear plant. It is, of course, in the middle of a war zone where there is now constant shelling. That is posing huge risks to the facility.
The plant was also disconnected from the country`s power grid late on Friday. It was later reconnected but that disconnection from a power source could have brought about disaster by other means.
Ukraine is having to do something very simple, very practical and very terrifying and equal measures. We`ll talk about both the practicalities about it and the real risks here next. Stay with us.
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MADDOW: James Acton is the co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He joins us now live.
Mr. Acton, I really appreciate you taking time to be here tonight. Thank you.
JAMES ACTON, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: Thanks for having me on.
MADDOW: So, Ukraine is reportedly starting a big counter-offensive against Russia. There`s new State Department data that shows that Russia really is running terrifying camps inside Russia to which they apparently are forcibly deporting lots of Ukrainian civilians. I mean, the headlines are all very worrying. There`s a lot to worry about in the Russia-Ukraine war.
As a nuclear expert though, I just -- I want to take your temperature basically as to how worried you are that we might have a nuclear accident or a radiation disaster at this huge nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia.
ACTON: Well, I`m genuinely worried about that. A nuclear power plant is simply not designed to be in the middle of a war zone. I think people have an image of a missile hitting the core of a reactor and dispersing radiation, that`s very unlikely. But the big problem is there`s all of the cooling equipment for the plant which is potentially exposed and vulnerable, and deliberately or accidentally that could be hit in a -- in a war, sparking an accident sequence that leads to a large release of radiation.
MADDOW: So the cooling equipment which again this is a plant that makes power. But the plant requires power in part to keep its cooling equipment going. Can you explain why that such a point of vulnerability?
ACTON: Yes. So the core of a reactor produces very large amount of radioactivity. That becomes very hot and that heat has to be taken somewhere. And so, you need to -- this kind of nuclear power plant, you need to be cooling it actively.
So, you have electricity connections to the outside world. In the event that those fail, you have emergency diesel generators on site. Zaporizhzhia is also connected to a thermal power plant. Something like coal or gas, that`s an extra source of electricity.
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Hot water from inside the plant is basically sprayed up in the air in so- called spray ponds. In fact, you can just see them there on screen right now in order to cool it before that water is recycled. All of this critical equipment related to cooling is outside of the core of the plant and one can imagine as I say an accident sequence perhaps involving shelling and fires and firefighters being unable to get to the site that could lead to the destruction of this equipment, heat buildup in the core, and eventually what we saw in Fukushima with the melting of nuclear fuel and then the dispersal of radiation.
MADDOW: Briefly, Mr. Acton, are you hopeful about the U.N. and U.N. investigators, IAEA investigators who are arriving at the plant this week?
ACTON: I`m very glad the U.N. is going in, the IEA is going in rather, but we shouldn`t be -- we should be realistic about what they can achieve. Their inspectors, it`s their job to report on what`s going on in the plant to assess the safety and security features on the plant and to report back. They don`t have a magical way of defending the plant or repairing broken equipment.
And so, you know, ultimately, it`s up to Russia to behave responsibly, to agree to demilitarize the area around the plant. Unfortunately, given the fact that Russia`s already invaded Ukraine and illegally occupied the plant, I`m not optimistic that Russia is going to start behaving responsibly at this juncture.
MADDOW: James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program of the Carnegie Endowment -- sir, thank you for your time tonight. Scary stuff, but it`s good to talk with you.
ACTON: Thank you.
MADDOW: Thank you.
We`ll be right back.