The 11th Hour With Stephanie Ruhle 7/22/26 | 🅼🆂🅽️🅲 Breaking News Today July 22, 2026

[00:00:00]for you. Um I I got a I got a couple of weeks off in large part thanks to the fact that you sat in on a brand new show that I don't know that you've done before. I had hardly done it before myself. So, thank you so much for doing that.

[00:00:14]>> Well, thanks for letting me keep the seat warm for you. You have a great never get good at that. Never never get good at subbing in for someone. It never goes away. It's like getting sprayed by a skunk. Um but thank you my friend. Uh and thank you for a great show. It's informed a lot of what I'm about to talk about. So, have yourself a great night and we'll see you soon.

[00:00:32]>> Thanks. Have a great show.

[00:00:34]>> The 11th hour starts now.

[00:00:38]>> Tonight, we're [music] following breaking news as MS Now has obtained documentation of Trump World's latest attempt to target one of the president's perceived political enemies. Plus, new polling reveals just how vulnerable [music] the president is, even among his most loyal base of supporters on one crucial issue. And tonight's Nightlight is the story of a [music] medical breakthrough that has almost certainly touched someone you know. A discovery that would not have happened if one woman had accepted what the scientific establishment told her.

[00:01:15]It is Wednesday, July the 22nd, 104 days until the midterm elections. And tonight, House Republicans are turning up the heat on one of Donald Trump's top perceived political enemies. MS Now has obtained a letter sent by Jim Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, referring the former special counsel, Jack Smith, to the Justice Department for criminal charges. Smith has long been a target of Trump. He served as a special prosecutor, you'll remember, who indicted Trump twice back in 2023, including for trying to steal the 2020 election. Jordan's letter to the Department of Justice alleges that the House has quote strong evidence end quote that Smith quote seemingly made willfully and intentionally false statements of material fact that contradict new documents obtained by the committee from the Department of Justice." End quote. Okay, this is where it gets interesting even for us non- lawyers. The allegation focuses on one particular line of questioning from a closed-d dooror deposition that Jack Smith took part in back in December. It involves whether or not Smith sought search warrants for congressional members text messages. Now, during the deposition, Smith said that he did not.

[00:02:35]He only requested something called toll records. Now, toll records, we all have them. They're basically logs of when calls were made. They do not show the content of any messages or communications. They're basically a list of of phone numbers, who you called, and I think how long you talked to them. So, here's how the exchange in question went. Question: Did you seek a search warrant for the content of any text messages from members? Smith, from members. Question. Yes. Smith. No, I don't recall that. Question. Okay. It was just toll records. Smith. Correct.

[00:03:18]Okay. It goes on. Question. Did the toll records that you requested from the senators, did they include the content of the phone calls? Smith? No. Question.

[00:03:29]Did the records that you requested, the toll records from members of Congress, include the content of text messages?

[00:03:36]Smith, no.

[00:03:38]Okay. The discrepancy here, according to Jordan's criminal referral, is that the Justice Department produced documents this month that showed that Smith's team did obtain text messages from dozens of lawmakers. But we know where those text messages came from. And it wasn't because Smith sought search warrants.

[00:04:00]Those text messages were exchanged between lawmakers and the White House.

[00:04:06]They were preserved as part of Donald Trump's presidential records at the National Archives, which is where Smith's team got them from. The Democratic Congressman Jamie Rascin, the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, said that the referral will be quote laughed out of court end quote.

[00:04:25]Meanwhile, a representative for Jack Smith's team tells MS Now, quote, "The House Judiciary Committee's referral to the Department of Justice of our client, Jack Smith, is based on a spurious claim that Mr. Smith provided false testimony during his 8-hour deposition before the House Judiciary Committee." The referral is made not because Mr. Smith made a false statement, which the letter concedes, but because he did not proactively disclose information that was not responsive to a question asked.

[00:04:57]During his testimony, Mr. Smith provided truthful, responsive answers and candidly discussed his work as special counsel. This referral reflects a chilling eagerness to weaponize the justice system by attacking a career nonpartisan public servant who faithfully and fearlessly performed his duties by following the facts and the law. End quote. And that is where my legal expertise ends and uh Barbara Mcuade's begins. So joining us is Barbara Mcuade, the former United States attorney for Michigan. and she's a law professor at the University of Michigan Law School and an MS Now legal analyst and a mockler joins us as well. He's a digital digital journalist and a political commentator who's built up a following of 2 million subscribers online. And of course, the reason he's here is that this is only half a legal story. The rest of it is entirely politics. Thanks to both of you for being with us. Barbara, let's start with you. U I've read you what I know. Uh can you tell us what that means?

[00:06:00]>> Yes. I think there is a real disconnect between what Jack Smith said and what the committee is referring to as a criminal investigation. To prove a claim of false statements before Congress, you have to show that a person then and there made a false statement that they knew was false. The question is literally true. What what he said, "Did you use a search warrant to obtain these records?" And he says, "No, that's accurate." What Jim Jordan says in his letter is that well this was deliberately misleading. He answered a question a literal question and he answered it literally. The the documents as you point out that that Jack Smith ultimately received came from a request to the National Archives for White House text messages and they came in that form. And so it does not appear that Jack Smith and his team ever use their own court process to obtain the content of messages from members of Congress. It matters that it's literally a true statement.

[00:07:03]>> Adam Mockler, here's the thing. Donald Trump, you know, we used to people sometimes loosely call people Donald Trump's enemies. Dexith's not Donald Trump's enemy. Leticia James not Donald Trump's enemy. He claims that anybody who goes after him on a legal basis is an enemy. He's got perceived enemies. It is in his world, everybody's an enemy.

[00:07:23]This is not um Jack Jack Smith had a two very thorough indictments that were not pursued as a result of a Supreme Court decision uh protecting Donald Trump. Uh but but they are determined to go after Jack Smith and Leticia James and James Comey and and folks like that largely to put a chill on anyone who would criticize Donald Trump or investigate him.

[00:07:47]>> Yeah, it seems like the Trump admin is desperately trying to pull some slight of hand to divert people's attention away from the fact that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. He lost it and he cannot cope with that fact. So, six years later, he's spreading lies about it. And he escaped any accountability because Jack Smith's case ended up fizzling out after Trump became the president. But Jack Smith had a rockolid case. And Donald Trump is scared of that. It's funny, Jim Jordan, who sent this request to uh to um the DOJ, ended up saying that this was a separation of powers issue. I didn't hear any complaining about the separation of powers when Trump was directly requesting that the DOJ uh that Pam Bondi investigate Adam Schiff or Leticia James. I didn't hear any complaining about separation of powers when Trump blew past that 60-day war mark and pushed the war powers resolution aside.

[00:08:38]There was no separation of powers complaining when Donald Trump placed tariffs on every single country. He has stepped and squashed all over the separation of powers. That wouldn't make it okay for anyone else to do it. But as Barbara pointed out, nobody else did that. Jack Smith was just running an investigation into an election that Donald Trump tried to steal from the American people. Uh Barbara, it is important where evidence comes from, right? Like this is a a a real thing.

[00:09:03]Donald Trump uh Jack Smith had a way of getting this information. And by the way, this is important for all of us to know that one may never get a subpoena against you, against Adam Mockler for his text. But if somebody subpoenas somebody who Adam Mockler was texting with, uh, they may get their hands on that text. The specificity here matters.

[00:09:23]Uh, Jim Jordan is alleging that Jack Smith broke the law. Um, that's very different from Jack Smith using other methods to get the information that he was using as part of his his his attempt to prosecute Donald Trump.

[00:09:38]>> Absolutely right. Because what they're accusing Jack Smith of here is lying to Congress. and he did no such thing. He conceded that he did obtain the toll records of members of Congress. And this is, by the way, a routine step that is done in criminal investigations.

[00:09:54]Figuring out who is talking to whom is very important when you're trying to put together a conspiracy case. So the fact that he sought those records is in no way improper. In fact, even if he had used search warrants to obtain those records, I'm not sure that would have been improper. Nonetheless, because of this respect for separation of powers, people use a very delicate hand when looking at these things, very similar to the way they look at press records only as a last resort. But in this case, they did not seek the content of the records of any member of Congress. Instead, what they were looking at is White House records. And these members of Congress put themselves out there by reaching out or communicating with the White House.

[00:10:31]They then go on to talk about there was no filter team used here. They waved any privilege they might have had by communicating by text message with the White House outside of the scope of their congressional teams.

[00:10:45]>> Adam Mockler, what's the goal here?

[00:10:47]Donald Trump's unpopular. Every day a new poll comes out and he reaches lower levels of of popularity. He's got this war with Iran. Uh he's now talking I I mean it's unbelievable to me. He's talking about tariffs again. Um all the things that Americans don't want. Even a lot of his supporters don't want. But boy, if you ever cross Donald Pat Trump, particularly if you were a lawyer or a prosecutor of some sort, you are in the crosshairs now. Whether it's about mortgages or parking tickets or or in this case, uh Jim Jordan's making it sound like a serious matter about perjury, about lying to Congress, but in fact, it kind of doesn't matter. If you were if you were involved in investigating Donald Trump from being the lowest level FBI agent to being Jack Smith himself, they're coming for you.

[00:11:32]>> Well, you pointed out perfectly earlier.

[00:11:34]He's trying to create a chilling effect.

[00:11:36]We have seen this administration surgically target any institution that can act as a check on the president.

[00:11:42]Even beyond the separation of powers of Congress and the DOJ and the and the the presidency, there is the fact that Donald Trump has targeted colleges, law firms, as you pointed out. He's uh attacked media corporations. He's even gone after independent creators. He has this whole website on the white house.gov listing off independent creators on YouTube and online who have gone after him. But these are just people reporting the news. Donald Trump tries to create an atmosphere of fear around anybody who actually wants to act as a Democratic check or balance. And I just want to return to this fact. Trump lost the 2020 election. He's trying to relitigate it 6 years later while simultaneously try to rig the midterms via gerrymandering and striking down the Voting Rights Act and pushing to radically radically gerrymander. and they're just trying to play slight of hand. It's it's like a clever way to try to project onto the other side and say, "Look, the other side is incredibly corrupt. Meanwhile, they are the ones trying to pull the wool over our eyes while they rig this next election." I I will say though, Barbara, you know, Jack Smith is a a he was a judge and a and a a lawyer. Um James Comey is well equipped to handle these things and John Brennan is well equipped to handle these things and Tish James is well well equipped to handle these things sort of right I mean these are lawyers they know other lawyers if they have to go to federal court they can find someone the average person can't do that but the chilling effect is the same right the idea is if you go after these big powerful names the point is we can go after any of you >> absolutely right and although you know if Jack Smith were to be charged with a crime for this conduct, I have no doubt he would prevail at trial if not getting this case dismissed with a motion. But just being charged with a crime is a very burdensome thing for anybody. It puts them through the ringer. There is the expense of hiring lawyers. There is the reputational harm of people who casually read this and don't pay attention to the details and believe he did something wrong. There's the emotional toll on oneself and one's family and the distraction from everyday life or one's career. So just being charged alone would be burdensome to anyone including Jack Smith. But I think you're right. If you know it's like when you get into prison, you you beat up the biggest guy because then everybody's afraid to mess with you. And so if you go after people like Jim Comey or Leticia James or Jack Smith, what are the rest of us supposed to do? I think the idea is we want to you you should keep your head down. You should not speak up. You should not complain. You should not criticize the president because if you do, you could end up just like these other people.

[00:14:17]>> I thank you both. Uh I had you both actually booked on the show for other reasons, but this is the news that came out tonight and I think it's really important. So, I'm so glad that you're both with me this evening. Barbara McUade and Adam Mockler, thank you for kicking us off tonight on the 11th hour.

[00:14:32]Coming up, new polling spells trouble for Donald Trump. will look at the one Trump policy that has dropped 13 points in popularity since May, specifically among MAGA Republicans, self-identified MAGA Republicans. Spoiler alert, it's not affordability. The president's not acting that test either. We'll analyze the handful of sentence fragments [music] that he offered up on that subject today.

[00:14:59]>> [music] >> Donald Trump today attended his third dignified transfer of the war with Iran.

[00:15:04]That is when the bodies of dead military members are brought back to the United States and transferred to their final resting place. Today, the caskets of four US service members who died in the Middle East were brought back to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. 18 US service members have lost their lives as a result of the war in Iran. 482 have been injured. Today, a reporter had the gall to ask Trump about the popularity of this war.

[00:15:34]Sir, what do you say to families of these fallen soldiers when Americans are wrongly against this war? How do you ask them?

[00:15:45]>> Well, Americans aren't against the war.

[00:15:47]The a poll just came out. Americans don't want high gasoline prices, but they're not against the war. that just came out loud and clear in a poll.

[00:15:58]>> What is perhaps less loud but more clear is reality. He hasn't clarified, by the way, what poll he was talking about. And I remind you in my other job here at MS Now, I I live in polls and data. I can't find such a poll. My team, which looks at polls all day, couldn't find what he was talking about. In fact, Trump is losing even self-identifying MAGAR Republicans on the war. In a new political poll that we were actually able to find, respondents were asked if the US should continue the war even if it increased costs in America. Back in May, 50% of self-identifying MAGA respondents uh said yes. Now only 37% agree. From the start of this war, Democrats and independents have broadly disapproved of it. But Trump is now losing support for the war effort among his own base. It couldn't help that Pete Hegith revealed that the war effort has already cost 37.5 billion dollar. And the White House is asking for 70 billion more dollars for the war. Add that up. We're now well over a hundred billion dollars for a war no one asked for, no one's been particularly able to explain, and no one knows how it's going to end. Meanwhile, prices for oil and gas rose today as the maritime traffic out of the straight of Hormu Mahormuz moved at a glacial pace.

[00:17:23]Nine total ships traversed the sta straight yesterday. Just to give you a sense of it, before the war, between 75 and 150 ships crossed the straight of Hormuz in a day. Yesterday was nine. The president has backed himself into a super expensive, unpopular corner. He can't improve the economy without more ships traveling in and out of the Straight of Hormuz. And those ships won't feel safe to cross the straight until the war is truly and genuinely over. And they're not going to get hit by a missile. But Trump still won't stop swinging. Today he said on social media that quote, "Anytime the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, the United States will bomb and destroy one bridge or power plant, including those located next to or in the capital city of Tehran." End quote. Joining me now is the retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vinman. He's the former director of European affairs for the US National Security Council. He played a central role as a witness in President Trump's first impeachment. He's now running for a United States Senate seat in Florida.

[00:18:31]Uh Lieutenant Colonel Vinman, good to see you again. Thank you for being with us. There's a lot to cover here. First of all, the dignified transfers. The fourth uh victim, by the way, there have been about 500 people injured, service members injured. But the fourth victim who died uh whose body was transferred yesterday was from from here from uh from Queens. Um you your brother and I spoke. He was he attended one of the dignified transfers because one of his constituents was was killed in them.

[00:18:59]There are people willing to give their lives every single day for the safety of this country. But it becomes very confusing when when your children and your brothers and your sisters and your spouses are dying for a war that does not have a clear explanation or goal or end in sight.

[00:19:15]>> Absolutely. I think the the fact is that service members understand what their mission is. They understand the stakes.

[00:19:22]Uh they understand they signed up for national defense. Yes. To advance US national security interest. They did not sign up for a thoughtless, careless, irresponsible war that this administration's been prosecuting. They did not sign up for Republicans sitting on the sidelines and failing to hold the administration to account. Ask the tough questions of why we're in this war in the first place, but how we're going to get out. How we get how do we avoid the catastrophic costs that we're facing at the gas pumps, the li more importantly the real treasure are troops killed and wounded.

[00:19:55]>> These are people's children. I mean this is not these are not random people. The problem with wars and and and service members dying in wars is that you lose track, right? You don't you don't think of them as real people. And when when your brother and I were speaking, you have to remember somebody's child died in a war that no one can seemingly explain why we're in or how we're getting out of.

[00:20:15]>> This this really makes me angry. I served in combat. I'm a 21-year Army veteran. I was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq. I understand what service and sacrifice is. What we're doing is we're putting our troops in harm's way for no reason. We're putting our troops in harm's way on the false premise that this is going to be a quick easy war because we have incompetent leaders in the Pentagon, right? We have incompetent leaders in the White House. But when that happens, because it happens, we have a responsibility for a co-equal branch of government government, the Senate, the House to challenge the administration, ask the tough questions.

[00:20:52]That is not going on. To me, that's a huge disqualifier. My opponent Ashley Moody, she voted for this war nine times. That is unacceptable. As a result, she's complicit in lives being lost, people being wounded, squandering resources, and making life harder for the people of Florida.

[00:21:08]>> What does she say, though? What does she say? What do people who defend this war actually say? And I I I just want to be clear.

[00:21:15]>> If if someone said, looking back at World War II, your prices of gas are going to triple because we actually have to save the world.

[00:21:23]>> Yes.

[00:21:24]>> Then you know what? Your prices of gas should triple. They're they're they're less important. And I'm sorry it's hard on your life, but that's what has to happen. People's prices of gas, their prices of fertilizer, their prices of food, their prices of everything they do are going up. And nobody quite understands exactly why this is happening.

[00:21:38]>> Well, there is I mean this is I I'm I've got my doctor in international affairs.

[00:21:42]There is something called just war. Wars that are justified by the the real threat, imminent danger, uh national security, not a war that is foolish and frankly a vanity project and something that we should be should be asking the question of what is the objective here?

[00:22:00]How do we get out of it? Instead, we have something that's creating huge burdens for the people of Florida, huge burdens for the people people around the country. Gas is above $4 a gallon, but we're also losing soldiers. We're having soldiers wounded. And it's and this has a long-term effect on US security. This is supposed to be an easy target to for us to knock down Iran. Well, I think this was supposed to look like Venezuela, right?

[00:22:26]>> Exactly right. Exactly right. That was that was >> go in and catch a guy regime change, you're done.

[00:22:31]>> Yep. That is the vanity of of this administration and frankly the ineptitude of folks in in the Senate and the House, including my opponent, Ashley Moody, who has no experience in the sphere, failing to to hold the administration account when they're putting our troops in harm's way. That's that's a fundamental issue.

[00:22:48]>> You're raising a lot of money in your race. Uh polling is still showing you with a gap behind Ashley Moody. How do you plan to close that?

[00:22:54]>> It's it's a margin of error race. Uh any of the credible polls, you know, we've got some outlier polls, feel-good polls for the Republicans, the real credible polls show this is a margin of error race. Either I'm down three, even or up two. That is a fantastic place to be in a place like Florida. Florida is absolutely in play specifically because this is an environment where people are ripe for change, for a change candidate.

[00:23:17]They don't want an automatic yes vote.

[00:23:19]They don't want a rubber stamp. They want somebody that's going to be there representing their interest, fighting for them. They and they understand that based on my service record in combat, serving this nation that can do that.

[00:23:30]They also understand that my opponent has didn't earn her space there. She actually it was a a payto-play scheme where she signed off on $10 million taken out of a child welfare fund and the payoff was a sentency. Then she proceeds to trade $2 million in stocks.

[00:23:44]So that that environment, my strong biography, and the contrast make this a very credible race. And we see that in in polling. And we see that in fundraising, a powerful ground swell of grassroot support that's powering this campaign forward. And frankly, folks could look learn more about my policies and about who I am and about this race by going to alexverman.com and joining our movement to deliver real representation.

[00:24:07]>> Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vman, nice to see you as always. Thank you for being with us.

[00:24:10]>> Great to be here.

[00:24:11]>> All right. Uh we're going to take a quick break. When we continue, we will have more on a remarkable uh discovery that Americans uh have made and that you experience [music] every day because of someone whose names you don't know.

[00:24:23]Donald Trump's latest gambit as well against [music] the press is about to be put on put to the test in court. We're going to talk about what's at stake and what might ultimately be lost.