Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg made it clear this past week that Republicans in the House, and particularly Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, are attempting to interfere with his investigation of Trump by demanding that he hand over his evidence to them. This is an egregious abuse of power, yet it is unlikely that these Republicans will be held accountable for their actions. Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Republicans in the House have represented, particularly Jim Jordan, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, have abused their power this week in a way that honestly, even I could not have predicted. And it's not just me saying that they're essentially abusing their power. That is basically what Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs said in his response letters, you know, basically made out to Jim Jordan, even though two other Republicans, uh, Brian Steele and James Comer also requested everything. But here's what happened to Case, not familiar with it, or just a recap. Jim Jordan signs onto a letter with James Comer, Brian Steele, and they say, we want you Alvin Bragg to come to the House of Representatives. Oh, and by the way, not just you, you're not just gonna testify about what you're investigating Trump for. You're gonna bring us all your evidence, even though this is an ongoing grand jury investigation, you're gonna bring it all down here, and we're gonna show the public what a big old witch hunt this is.

Now, in his letter, uh, Alvin Bragg basically said, yeah, that's not gonna happen. You know, you're, you're violating state's rights. You're violating the New York State Constitution. You're violating Manhattan laws. I am not a federal employee. My office is not funded by the federal government. You got no jurisdiction over me. This is ridiculous, and it is ridiculous. And those were not the exact words, by the way that Alvin Bragg used, but those were the words that he should have used. I know we like to see all these politicians acting diplomatically and using the big words, but sometimes you have to come out there and just say, you know what? Mm-hmm, you're an idiot. You're overstepping your bounds, you're abusing your power. I'm not gonna play along with your little game. Go, you know, fornicate yourself. That's what I wanna see a politician do. I wanna see these people hit back hard, because that is what needs to happen to Jim Jordan, because this is, without a doubt, an abuse of power. And this is Jim Jordan trying to interfere with an ongoing investigation that he has no jurisdiction over in order to protect Donald Trump. We are witnessing in real time the demise of our democratic systems, all because of Donald J. Trump.

I've said that before, but I really want that to soak into your brain. Folks, this whole country is hanging on by a thread because of Donald Trump. My God, how insane is that? To honestly sit there and think of this, our House of Representatives, their entire job abusing their power, making a mockery of this, you know, centuries old institution that they are a part of. Just

So Donald Trump doesn't get indicted like he has the chance to fully defend himself. Should that go to trial. If he gets indicted, he has every opportunity to prove that he did nothing wrong. And if he can't do that, if he did do something wrong, then he should be convicted. I don't understand how that is controversial, but it is in Republican world because he is their cult leader. And this is where we are as a country Republicans willing to burn it all to the ground just to make Donald Trump happy. Did you ever think that as a country we would hit this point? Because we have, and that's a sad statement.

Day 395: March 25

Last time I told you that Russians faced huge difficulties establishing a foothold near Vuhledar because Ukrainians have successfully adopted special artillery shells that scatter anti-armor mines. I also told you that Russian forces started summoning recently wounded soldiers for unspecified offensive actions during the last week of March.

The freshest reports suggest that Russians are not ready to launch another offensive operation. The Russian side recently released a video showing how they tried to suppress Ukrainian firing points and observation posts in the high-rise buildings by targeting them with Anti-Tank Guided Missiles. Unfortunately for Russians, facing such a high number of windows in front of them, where each can be used by Ukrainians at any time, suppressing fire and moving closer to the town proved to be extremely difficult.

Russians are also using artillery to shell the town. Russian sources reported that Russian forces primarily resort to devastating 240mm Tyulpans, which is the largest mortar system in use today. The footage from the Ukrainian side shows that even houses that were not hit directly have no windows and doors due to the shockwaves.

Russians also found that they could not destroy Ukrainian vehicles inside the town because they are usually parked close to the northern side of the building. Given that shells do not fall vertically, the houses proved to be a great shelter, even though they may be in plain view from Russian drones.

That is why Russians started to actively use different tactics. Recent footage reveals that Russians are using incendiary munitions to burn everything on the ground. Unlike shells, they fall vertically, which allows for targeting cars and armored vehicles that are not in the shelter.

Ukrainians are also attacking Russian positions. As most Russian attacks are currently being launched from Mykilske, it became an area with significant forces concentrations and plenty of targets. Ukrainian 72nd Mechanized Brigade recently released a video showing how they identified and destroyed fuel storage in the southeastern part of the village, near the farm facilities, and also targeted a big building with Russian manpower. Ukrainian 79th AirAssault Brigade showed a video of how they destroyed a Russian tank in the vicinity of Vuhledar. Finally, Ukrainian drone operators from the 72nd Mechanized Brigade showed how they hunted down armored vehicles on the Russian base in Mykilske: they managed to throw a grenade right in the open hatch of an armored vehicle and also chase down several moving armored vehicles that were driving in and near Mykilske.

Some Russian sources reported that judging by the concentration of Ukrainian forces in the area, it is possible that Ukrainians will exploit the fact that Russian manpower is exhausted from constant attacks and will conduct a counterattack on Mykilske, pushing Russians to the other side of the river. Firstly, such actions would completely eliminate any possibility of a sudden resumption of offensive operations on Vuhledar, which will allow Ukrainians to reduce the number of troops in this direction and get more flexibility with their reserves. Secondly, such actions would set better conditions for a counteroffensive operation in the direction of Volnovakha and Mariupol. Ukrainians had previously conducted a small counteroffensive here in summer, which involved fording the river, and they managed to establish a good bridgehead very rapidly, so the topography of the region should allow them to repeat the same success, especially as the quality of the country roads has noticeably improved, judging by the latest videos from Vuhledar.

Overall, the continuous use of ATGMs, artillery, and incendiary munitions by Russians and HIMARS and drones by Ukrainians suggests that both sides are trying to take advantage of the increased concentration of forces in the area and destroy as much enemy manpower and equipment as possible. If Ukrainians continue combining these efforts with localized counterattacks, and push Russians from Mykilske, then they can set suitable conditions for a counteroffensive operation and increase the number of options on the table by late spring or summer.

The Arizona Supreme Court has responded to Kari Lake's election challenge - Luke breaks down the specifics.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left their homeland since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last year.

Many were fleeing economic hardship. Others wanted to avoid being called up to fight in Ukraine. Some who are unwilling to join the army are still in Russia but living in hiding.

Former FBI official Andrew McCabe discusses former President Donald Trump's attacks on prosecutor Alan Bragg.

During an online prayer meeting this week featuring his disgraced friends Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, Donald Trump's cell phone cut out while he was calling into the event. He called back a few moments later and continued, but not before claiming that "the radical left" had somehow hacked his phone. At first it seemed like a joke, but Trump's tone made it clear that he was actually blaming mythical hackers for dropping a call. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses the level of paranoid delusions that Trump seems to be laboring under.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

On Monday of this week, Donald Trump joined in via phone call a pastors for Trump National prayer call that was also broadcast live on YouTube. And while Trump was called in talking to people like Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, who were also a part of this prayer call, Trump was asked by the leader of the group, like, what specifically do you want us to pray for right now? And at that point, there was a little bit of kind of jumbled noises before Donald Trump's call was completely dropped, and Trump immediately believed that the quote Radical left, had somehow hacked the phones. He of course, rejoined the call a few moments later. You know, he just called back. It wasn't that difficult. And he said, quote, okay, I guess we have some phone miscommunication. And I think what happened was the radical left was working on the phone. There is no question about it.

And of course, he, he didn't provide any additional information. He just said, yeah, my call got dropped. Which is something that everybody who's ever been on a telephone knows, happens. Like that's not outta the realm of possibility. But no, in this particular instance, it wasn't because Donald Trump's fat thumb accidentally slid across the hangup button. It's not because he walked off into an area of his Mar-a-Lago or wherever the hell he is, that had worse reception. It's not because of an issue with satellites or 5G towers. No, no, no, no. It's because the radical left, somehow hacked into the phones.

It gets even dumber. The, uh, the leader of the prayer call had this to say, he said, everything froze on our end. I think the system got overloaded with the number of viewers. So he's blaming the trolls backstage as he went on to tell The Daily Beast. Oh yeah. I mean, it was on YouTube and then so many people logged in. It was the trolls logging in that kinda overloaded the system. That's that, that's, that's really not how that would work if people were just watching it on YouTube. Like overloading YouTube is not going to cause Donald Trump's phone to cut out. Um, I, I, I'm assuming that these idiots don't, don't know how YouTube works. YouTube has their own servers. They got a lot of them, like videos can handle lots of viewers, like hundreds of thousands, possibly millions at a time without overloading the servers. Now I'm saying all of this and pointing out the stupidity

Because I, I've worked in studios. I, I've worked back in the day, instead of doing these videos for YouTube, we actually hosted them ourselves. We had our own servers, and one time we did get a video that went kind of crazy and we had tens of thousands of people on it, and it overloaded our little bitty tiny servers. So the whole site went down for a bit. So yes, it's a thing that could happen, but it's not a thing that's gonna happen with YouTube because they're not an operation paying a guy to host a server in his house like we had to back in the day.