so, the news continues. want to hand it over to michael smerconish who's in the anchor chair tonight for cuomo prime time. thank you. welcome to "prime time." chris will be back on monday. two of the most controversial figures in the gop kicked off their joint tour in florida pledging allegiance, again, to the most controversial president in modern day history. one of the lawmakers is under criminal investigation for sex trafficking, prostitution crimes and possible sex with a minor. the other lost her appointment committee assignment for wild statements and conspiracy theories. >> there will be many more of america's greatest president and the undisputed leader of the republican party, donald j. trump. we might join him. >> the democrats impeached president trump over a perfect phone call, by the way.

the democrats that say they won the presidential race, you are not going put us down for loving president trump and what he did for the past four years. they thought that you people were done. we're not done. >> representatives matt gaetz and marjorie taylor greene chose to launch their america first tour. conservative stronghold called the villages. you might think this joint appearance of two lightning rods at one of the most republicans bastions in an important swing state is a troubling sign. for the republican party. gaetz and green in the villages. it sounds like a comedy act, one that might cause some to laugh at, not laugh along with. you may ask yourselves how could this possibly end well for a party that desperately wants to retake the house and senate in 2022 and the white house in 2024? >> i'm a marked man in congress.

i'm a cancelled man in some corners of the internet. i might be a lauded man by the deep state. but i am a florida man, and it is good to be home! >> and so that's why i'm a member of congress. and they don't like me very much. the democrats in charge were so sweet to me, and then there were -- there were, i think -- what -- 11 republicans, something like that, 10 or 11, i have the list. i'm hanging on to it -- that were so nice to give me free time. and they decided to kick me off committees over a few things they didn't like on facebook some years back. >> why instead wouldn't the gop want to show case their 2012 standard bearer mitt romney or fellowed measured conservative adam kinzinger or liz cheney? rock hard conservative. if that's your question, i suggest you are not the intended audience. the base is. the trump base is their key to winning.

and that's all it's about. just ask lindsey graham. >> can we move forward without president trump? the answer is no. i've always liked liz cheney, but she's made a determination that the republican party can't -- can't grow with president trump. i've determined we can't grow without him. >> this is likely liz cheney's last friday as chair of the house republican conference because she dared to argue that donald trump is stunting the party's growth and destroying democracy. there is now wide expectation that the wyoming congresswoman will be booted from the leadership position in a wednesday secret vote and replaced by representative elise stefanik, who happily peddled the big lie for trump. another sign for how this coming vote is going to go. an ally of cheney's who voted along with her to impeach. moderate republican representative john katko told a local newspaper in his state that he will back stefanik. this is a secret ballot vote so,

why would katko do that? why take a position in a controversial matter when no one is going to be looking over your shoulder when you vote? the answer is self-preservation. donald trump is good for business if the business is the republican party. some might argue the opposite because the gop lost the house, the senate and the white house under his watch, but it's easy to forget that the party did do well in 2020. they gained seats in this house, held the senate to a draw, won more state legislators and picked up another gubernatorial mansion. i don't think it's a priority for these republicans to send trump back to the white house. they just don't want him to send them packing. let's go to the front lines now of this gaetz-green side show. cnn correspondent donie o'sullivan joins us live from the villages. donie, neither represents this particular area. they seem have been received well. >> yeah, michael. as you said, it's good for

business. these are two controversial members of congress who otherwise might in a different time could be considered as fringe. what they are preaching could be fringe. but they're anything but. take a look at this cnn poll from last week. 70% -- 7-0 percent -- of republicans don't believe that biden actually won the election. and both gaetz and green know they can cash in on this. we've seen how successful green has been fundraising over the past few months on this message. and where better to start this than this affluent retirement community that is very, very politically active. >> donie, how did the residents of the villages reconcile the hot water that each of these two has been in and continue to be in in the case of gaetz? >> well, from the folks we speak to, you know, they don't reconcile this at all.

frankly, i asked folks were they concerned that, you know, greene had pushed things like qanon? were they concerned about the allegations and investigation into matt gaetz. they weren't -- all the folks who attended this event tonight -- and there were hundreds -- wanted to hear one to continue to perpetuating the big lie. if you believe that's true, isn't that horrible? >> yeah, it's horrible. is it horrible that we would even be in a situation to even think that? >> but it's false. >> no, it is not. why would they have all those ballots hidden under tables? why did that man drive that truck all the way across state lines -- >> the taebl thing with giuliani has been proven to be false. >> it is not. i watched it on tv.

>> there are conspiracy theories that have been debunked for many, many months. greene asked the audience, did biden win the election. and the response in unison was no. so, this is a community, the villages in florida, that is very, very receptive to the bs that both of these members of congress are spreading. >> look, it's like opening up a play in cleveland except cleveland is a very friendly audience. in this case if it didn't go over well, i can't imagine where they would go. donie, thank you so much for the report. let me bring in now senior cnn political correspondent and host of "inside politics sunday" abby phillip and former republican congressman charlie

dent. abby, let me begin with you. big picture this for me. four months ago, kevin mccarthy said that donald trump was responsible for the event of january 6th. in the interim, somehow the former president seems to have totally cemented his position as the head of the gop. >> yeah, i mean, this has been a major shift, i would say, in where the center of gravity of the republican party is. as you just pointed out, congressman katko, who is an ally of liz cheney's went out of his way to say he would be totally fine with her being replaced with elise stefanik. that is a sign that what we thought was the middle of the republican party has now shifted even further to the right, even further to the trump column. and it's because of what donie was just showing you in his reporting, which is that republican voters believe the lie. they are motivated by the lie. and republican rank and file

members need that energy and that motivation in order to hold on to their seats, to potentially pick up new seats and to get their voters out to the polls in 2022. this is all about self-preservation. and that's why you're seeing folks not even batting an eye about what is about to happen next week, a major leadership shift, because they know that this is the only way to keep those people in the r camp. >> abby, i'm curious to know whether former president trump has embraced matt gaetz since gaetz landed in hot water. what can you tell us? >> well, he really hasn't. he's weighed in really only to say that he didn't consider giving matt gaetz a pardon while he was in office. but notably, matt gaetz has been going out of his way to bear hug donald trump. i think for a lot of republicans in gaetz's position, the belief is the closer you tie yourself

to trump, the less likely he is to lash out at you. so, trump hasn't embraced gaetz, but he also hasn't pushed him away either. and that's why you're seeing gaetz try to be as trumpy as possible in the days he is most under fire. >> charlie, there was another charlie. his name was charlie rich, and he used to sing a song called "behind closed doors." is there any possibility that behind closed doors in the anonymous vote, right -- there's not a roll call, no light of day -- that republicans will be more supportive of liz cheney than they are telegraphing now. >> i hope you are right about that, but i fear that the dye is cast and it looks like she's just hanging on by a thread. i don't see how she gets out from under it right now. and it's really unfortunate. they're really talking about cancellation of liz cheney in capitulation to donald trump,

who has really brought the feet to the republican party since he was elected in 2016 other than last years where republicans did quite well down ballot. but trump himself lost. but i don't see a path forward for liz right now. i support her. it's sad that good thoughtful leaders like liz cheney are being marginalized while these extreme elements are being embraced and being put on the stage. i mean, there was a time i witnessed speakers pelosi, bainer and ryan how they would force out members who brought this credit upon the house. they would have ways to marginalize them. and now that just doesn't seem to happen. because of donald trump, the standards of conduct have been so lowered that's why we're getting what we're getting in florida right now with that -- well, i don't want to say what that show is, but it's a horrible show of two really disgraced members.

>> so, tonight at the villages, matt gaetz had the following to say about liz cheney. let's watch. >> part of being populist is showing that you are popular. maybe our leadership should give that a try. if liz cheney could find wyoming on a map and went there, she would find some very angry cowboys. and it appears liz cheney may no longer be the chair of the republican conference. this may be the first war she's ever sought to end. >> abby, such a disconnect in the country. a large portion of the cnn audience is watching this with their hair on fire thinking how can that be representative of a significant swath of the country. and you hear how it's playing in that room. quite well. >> yeah, i mean, look, this is trump's party. trump's been at war with liz

cheney for years at this point. that's what matt gaetz is playing to. look, republican voters at this very moment are not particularly interested in things that are relatively boring. they don't necessarily want to talk about taxes. they don't necessarily want to talk about the role and size of government, about infrastructure, about all of that other stuff. they want the stuff that's exciting. they want people who, as elise stefanik put it this week, who are fighters. and they don't think that liz cheney is doing enough to fight for trump. and that's why she's been thrown under the bus. it plays well in that room. i think it would play well in a lot of republican rooms, even in places that are purple like now virginia. that is the reality of today's republican party. >> charlie, elise stefanik says she wants to be a unifier. and she's shoving liz cheney off the stage. can she be a unifier?

>> i know elise quite well. she was my co-chair of the tuesday group. she came in as a more moderate pragmatic young millennial woman, spoke to constituencies republicans had probably with. -- trouble with. that was her thing. but since the first impeachment hearing and trial, she kind of went full trump. i don't think she's going to be able to unify. like i said earlier, unification through cancellation of liz cheney and through capitulation to donald trump. this is really a false sense of reality. michael you and i both come from a part of the world, you from philadelphia, me from the lehigh valley, in order to win elections there we just simply can't expect our bases to carry us to incompetent victory in the fall. when you hear people like gaetz and taylor-greene and even stefanick, they all represent very republican districts. all they have to do is keep

their base together. so, donald trump can win 47% of the vote and has 70% of the base totally loyal to him. but for guys like us in lehigh valley and philadelphia, you've got to get crossover votes. and many of these members have no clue how to do that. they don't understand the math. i mean, the suburbs have been a killing zone for republicans. i don't see how this demonstration down at the villages in any way is helping republicans. and i think elise stefanik is very smart. and she understands that. or she should. >> well, that's why i said it's a good strategy for self-preservation but not for retaking control of the white house. abby, have a good show on sunday. thank you for being here. charlie, nice to see you again. >> thanks, michael. >> see you, michael. now to our top story ahead, the surprisingly disappointing economic news. the president responding to the low job numbers that were added in april, drastically lower than economists had expected. if millions are unemployed, why can't companies find workers? the wizard of odds has answers for us next.

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if you need proof that we live in strange times, today's job report just smacked us all over the head with reality. remember the vaccine and states reopening were supposed to be jet fuel. instead, a year after the pandemic locked the work force and after three stimulus bills, the big headline is people aren't going back to work anywhere near as fast as we thought. in fact, the unemployment rate

just ticked in the wrong direction. but if you want to make sense of it all, you've got to dig deeper than the top line numbers. for that we turn to the wizard of odds, harry enten. how much of an impact is workplace safety having on people looking for work? >> it's having, in my opinion, a huge impact. we know where the jobs haven't come back are in lower wage positions. what we know from the polling is people who make less than $75,000 a year, that is the place where we see the highest uptick in terms of workers not believing that there is safety. just 55% are satisfied with the conditions at work if they make less than 75,000. versus 73%, a huge drop off what we saw in 2020 from 2019 in terms of worker satisfaction of safety in that less than 75k group. so, there's no doubt in my mind there are a lot of workers out there saying those workplace conditions aren't necessarily

where i want them to be so why don't i stay home instead? >> in other words, the less money that you're earning, the more likely that you have an increased level of concern about getting covid if you go back to the job? >> that's right. and those blue collar jobs. that's exactly right. you're in the factory dealing with a lot of people. people in the higher wage positions, perhaps on computers, don't necessarily have to interact with people. they're the people who feel safest. but in the lower-income jobs, what we're finding is that a lot of people aren't necessarily secure with the workplace safety and that's a big problem. >> how about the general intangible of what i'll describe as uncertainty? >> look, there's a lot of uncertainty going on. there's a lot of uncertainty going on in terms of workers disconnected from their social networks. take a look at this number. back from january. they said are you optimistic or pessimistic about getting a job in the near future.

49%, becausically right down the middle, said they were pessimistic. i think a lot of these folks when the job market wasn't nearly as good they got disconnected from the people they were talking to and they said i'm pessimistic, i'm not going to even try right now. if we were in normal times where they were part of their normal social networks, i think they might have found out earlier on that in fact there were jobs for them. but at this particular point i think everything is just so messed up people don't necessarily know where to look because the normal places they want to look they can't look because they're so socially disconnected. >> i know the big conversation is whether we've made it too easy for people not to go back to the work force. i've discussed this extensively on radio. what i hear from some folks is, hey, my kids are here home with me. if they were in school, i'd be able to go back to work, but they're not. >> big problem in my opinion, right? especially in the lower income sectors. you can't pay for a babysitter or nanny.

only about 54% of k-8 schools at this particular point have the option to go back full-time. so, these folks are having to have these kids stay at home with them and they're having to stay home with them because they can't afford not to. so, in my opinion if we're going to really try to get employment going what we're going to need is make sure all parents have the option to send their parents back to school full-time. >> i'm going to get into this next subject with secretary risch in just a moment. i want you to take a shot at it. what of this issue because of the enhanced unemployment benefits, because of the stimulus checks that have come out, you've got people who are doing better financially staying at home than they are returning to the job. and that's the big issue. >> so i would say if you want to agree with that position, there is some proof of it in the numbers, right? what we do see is those lower wage sectors, right, especially in leisure and hospitality, we saw that raises -- incomes

really rose this past month, april over march 2.7% versus all nonfarm jobs. that would indicate there are people, you need to pay them more. that being said, there are a lot of studies out there which indicate that in fact when you raise the unemployment benefits, in fact that makes people look for work even harder. so, i'm not necessarily sure i agree with the premise that you just made. >> okay. give me -- finally give me the take away, the beer conversation. i want to act smart. i want to act like i'm you. what is it that i say in conversation about the new data that came out today? >> look, this is an economy that's still recovering, right? it's an economy that went all the way in the gutter. we're working our way back. there are going to be some problems along the way. but the good news is that we did in fact gain plenty of jobs. we gained nearly 300,000. but we're still in a recovery right now. so, look, folks, things are going to take time. things are very, very bad. but with all the vaccines,

hopefully we'll be able to climb out of it sooner rather than later. >> i appreciate the deep dive into the numbers. thanks for that. >> thank you, sir. president biden reminded americans today economic recovery is a marathon not a sprint. is his rescue plan putting the country on the right path to recovery? we'll ask former labor secretary robert risch next. ♪ ♪i've got the brains you've got the looks♪ ♪let's make lots of money♪ ♪you've got the brawn♪ ♪i've got the brains♪ ♪let's make lots of♪ ♪uh uh uh♪ ♪oohhh there's a lot of opportunities♪ with allstate, drivers who switched saved over $700. saving is easy when you're in good hands. allstate click or call to switch today.

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the jobs numbers pose a bit of a test depending on your politics. this shows it's time to scale back on the additional unemployment benefits. meanwhile, biden's treasury secretary says that's not what is slowing things down. >> if extra benefits that we're holding back hiring, you would expect to see either in states or for workers or in sectors where the replacement rate due to ui is very high, you would expect to see lower job finding rates. and in fact what you see is the exact opposite. >> let's bring in the former labor secretary during the clinton administration. secretary robert risch, also the author of "the system who rigged it and how we fix it." mr. secretary, i want to talk about soft shell crabs. apparently the season has just begun.

i know this because i had a radio caller today in a segment on exactly this subject. here's what he told me. last night his restaurant was sold out. they can't be at full capacity but to the extent he could be full, he was full. he said to me, i could have sold a lot more soft shell crabs on a takeout basis, but i just can't find the staff to be able to put out that kind of product. and if i've heard it from him, i've heard it from a hundred other callers. what do you say to those folks? >> i'm hearing the same thing, michael. and i think the answer is that you have, number one, a lot of workers, particularly female workers, who can't get the child care and still can't get the child care they need. kids are still out of work, still out of school, and the only way that women get into the work force -- we're 2 million women out of the work force now because of child care needs. a second problem is that at

least in april we have davis suggesting there are a lot of workers still anxious about the covid, about the pandemic, about possibly be infected by going back to work. and third, i would say to those employers who can't find workers, maybe you ought to consider raising your wages. >> if those businesses don't hold on, here's another consideration that occurs to me, if they don't hold on and it's labor day when the benefit vanishes, now you have folks who could reenter the work force, they could be chasing fewer and fewer jobs because of businesses that couldn't sustain themselves? >> i don't think that's likely. what we're seeing right now is the process by which the labor market begins to adjust itself. remember we are down at least 8 million jobs from what we were in february of 2020.

and that means that there is a big hole there that needs to be filled. a lot of workers want to return to work. i know that. i hear from them every day. you just have going on in the country, people want to return to work. it's not unemployment insurance that's keeping them out. the extra unemployment insurance is, what, $300 a week. try to live on $300 a week. people want to return to work. they just simply can't right now because of some of the factors i said before. and also one of the goals here, obviously, over the long term is to start lifting wages. so, you want a very hot labor market in terms of that goal. >> i couldn't live on the $300 you're making reference to on top of unemployment benefit. i recognize it had been $600 plus there's been stimulus money. but the chamber of commerce released today that one out of four folks are doing better financially in what they're receiving from income than if they were in the job they once held.

>> look, i can dispute chamber of commerce data. i've been doing it for the last 40 years. but i think the really important issue -- i think the really important issue here is you look at the labor participation rate -- you look at the labor participation rate among women, you look at how many people actually get regular unemployment insurance, only about 32% of workers who have lost their jobs are eligible for state unemployment benefits. so, that $300 extra is not on top of state benefits. that really is for most workers who are unemployed, that is it. it has very important implications. it has helped people avoid hunger, but it is not really enough to keep them from going into the job market. they will come into the job market. i have absolutely every belief that they will. but what employers can do and should do to speed that process is to offer a little bit more money. that would be very helpful. the problem is not lack of willing workers.

the problem is lack of willing employers in term of paying them a living wage. >> when the dust settles and when individuals with your expertise and experience take a look at the government response to this pandemic, i take it in your view the conclusion will not be that the stimulus money and the supplemental insurance benefits, the unemployment benefits, i should say, were -- they were not excessive. you think that they were where they should have been? >> well, they are -- if anything they're not yet where they need to be. i look at this unemployment number and it is disappointing, michael, absolutely. but what i say to myself and what other people tell me who are watching labor markets is that we've got to do a better job stimulating the economy, that president biden's jobs plan is more important than ever. his family plan is more important than ever. we've got to stimulate the economy further. we've got to provide child care to a lot of workers who

desperately need it. we've got to make sure that there are enough jobs out there and that the economy as a whole is still moving forward. remember, again, i want to emphasize, we are 8 million jobs short of where we were last february. i mean, if we have had a consistent trend from where we were last january, we would be more than 10 million jobs short of that trend line. i mean, this is -- there is still a major jobs problem, and it's -- it's ridiculous to say it's because 300 -- there's $300 extra that people have. they desperately need that. >> mr. secretary, thank you for being here. >> thank you, michael. coming up, we'll turn to those who do have a job but aren't yet back in the office. should businesses require them to be vaccinated before returning? and could that have unintended consequences for your privacy? we'll look at the debate with a former health commissioner next.

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should employers mandate that their workers be vaccinated? more companies are grappling with this question as they prepare to bring their workers back to offices. "the new york times," they frame the debate as this, health advocate or big brother. because on one hand while requiring vaccinations would ensure a safer work environment and be a public service, others

argue that mandating it would be an invasion of privacy. a big brother like move drol the to control the lives of employees. let's put it in perspective with doctor leana wen. vaccination is mandatory. there are 150 employees. you'll be interested to know that 141 are vaccinated. there's a health and a religious exception in keeping with the law. but if you come back to work unvaccinated, you will work on a floor with others who are unvaccinated. what do you think? >> i think a lot of employees would feel much safer coming back to work in that environment, especially if they're going to be coming into the same environment of crowded conference rooms that are not particularly well-ventilated. i would certainly feel comfortable if everybody around me is fully vaccinated. i think there's the other benefit too in that if you have a lot of fully vaccinated people

they may not need to wear masks or do distancing. i think a lot of people would trade off getting vaccinated so they can take off their masks all day at work. >> i know you read "the new york times" which had a nice lay of the land to how the corporate world is taking advantage of the issues. it seemed like a lot of talk and very little action. >> i do think that more and more businesses are thinking about this. i would certainly manage that health care institutions would be first because it's something that we already do. hospitals and nursing homes already require that employees get the flu vaccine every year. and a whole host of other vaccines. so, perhaps the covid vaccine is one more that's added to what they already require to protect the people that we're serving, the patients that we're serving. i think we've got colleges and universities. we should follow suit because more than a hundred of them have announced they're going to require vaccinations. and there are lots of very happy students. for them this is the promise to return to pre-pandemic normal.

they can come back and have the college experience they've been missing all this time. i would imagine that a lot more employers are going to follow suit as well, especially once the vaccine has full fda approval. i think that legal question still hangs in the balance, so perhaps some employers are not willing to go all the way yet. >> so, one of our signs -- it's interesting you mentioned that -- will return to college con campus in the fall and has to be vaccinated. what about k-12. we've historically embraced the notion of vaccinations for public school kids. is that going to happen once we move beyond emergency use authorization? to something more permanent. which pfizer is seeking. >> i would be surprised if we don't go in that direction because, as you said, we already require for children to have a whole host of immunizations to go to school. i just got the forms to enroll my toddler into preschool, and we have to fill out all these

forms that document his vaccination status. so, i do imagine that this is something that's going to come our way. i think in the meantime even before we get the full fda approval, i do think that outlining what the opt out is going to look like is important because we don't want to prevent kids from going to school or people from going to work. and that opt out could look something like every day if you're not vaccinated you have to fill out a daily symptom questionnaire. and then maybe twice or three times a week you have to get a negative test. that way you don't have to be vaccinated. if for whatever reason you can't be or don't want to be, you can still go and do all these things everybody else would except it's a bit more onerous. it would help keep everyone around you safe. it's an opt out. and you can opt out of that process if you're vaccinated. >> doctor leana wen, thanks so much for being here. i appreciate your expertise. >> of course. thank you. what goes up must come down, so they say, just hopefully not on any of us. is rocket rain in the forecast

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>> tonight, a new u.s. military projection on where that out-of-control chinese rocket could crash into earth. according to space command's latest projections, it's likely to strike land landing down in turkmenistan. the timing could be tomorrow around 7:00 p.m. eastern time. that would be early-sunday morning, in central asia. the pentagon has been tracking

the rocket ever since china launched it last week, to ferry a key part of its new space station, usually space junk burns up in the atmosphere before it can reach earth's surface. but at almost-100-feet long and 22 metric tons, the weight of two school buses, there are fears that fragments could hit populated areas. how worried should we be? we have got the right person to ask. scott kelly, retired nasa astronaut is here to walk us through what we need to know. what changed, mr. kelly? >> i think, as it gets closer to reentering -- reentering the atmosphere, the -- the tracking on it gets better. and they can, you know, more accurately predict where it's going to hit. but it is a tumbling spacecraft. so the drag on it is always changing. so it makes those predictions pretty challenging. i'm kind of surprised they were able to -- to predict it, this far out. >> at the risk of asking a

foolish question, here i go. could it be shot out of the sky? >> well, probably. i mean, i'm not that familiar with our -- our anti-satellite capabilities. the concern i would have, though, is you might take a problem, where you get one piece, you know, hitting in the pacific ocean. and you -- now, you've made a couple of bigger pieces. and made the problem worse, perhaps. >> i know, when i was a kid, we would shoot off bottle rockets, having no idea where they were coming down. did the chinese always know where this was going to come down? or did they just shoot it up, without any consideration as to where it might land? >> you know, for me, that's the bigger issue. it's not the, you know, where it's going to hit earth. i think that's, you know, somewhat random. but it's why did we get here, in the first place? you know, normally, when you launch a rocket, you prepare for this stage, whatever -- this is the second stage to reenter safely. you don't just throw it up there, and allow it to circle

the earth, uncontrolled, for days on end. and, you know, hit the ground or the water, wherever. so, i don't know if it's a malfunction they had. or this is just, kind of, their -- their generic-game plan to, you know, just hope for the best. but that's, i think, the bigger issue, for me. >> foolish question number three. is space a junkyard? what's floating around up there? >> there is a lot of stuff up there. you know, this -- space walks. you go outside the space station. i did three of them. there are all kinds of, you know, debris, damage, holes, in the -- in the space station. i mean, there's a bullet hole on one of the handrails, it looks like, right outside the air lock. i had to put something over it to protect, you know, astronauts' gloves. now, fortunately, none of these -- none of this debris has ever penetrated the space station. but satellites get hit. satellites have been destroyed. there is a ton of space junk.

it's a big issue. you know, we need to be concerned with this. we need to have international agreements because, you know, you could potentially make that -- that area, that we all rely on now, with satellite communications and other things, uninhabitable. >> is there any precedent that comes to mind for this situation that we're now facing? >> well, i think, you know, skylab, right, was, you know, in the 1970s, late '70s, it landed in -- in australia. didn't hurt anyone, as far as i know. so, there have been big pieces that have come down before. but, you know, in this case, i think it's more, you know, hopefully, it's not, like, just negligence. and it's, you know, it was a failure that -- that occurred. i -- i guess, we don't really know. but, yeah, i think there is some precedent for it. we've had large objects, you know, reenter the atmosphere. and hit the earth in random places before. >> final question. where are you? and what is around you?

that looks like the coolest space i've ever seen, for doing a live interview. >> i live outside of denver. and, you know, when i first moved here, i got a room -- zero on room raider. so now, i always get a ten. >> look, they gave me a six, if it makes you feel bad. then again, i'm not a former voe naught. so -- so i have no excuse. we will find out tomorrow. thank you so much. that was so informative. i really appreciate it. >> thanks for having me, michael. >> thank you. appreciate it. i'll be right back. i was drowning in student loan debt. i was in the process of deferring them, paying them... one of my interest rates went up to 9%. which is atrocious. then i discovered sofi. completely changed my life. lower interest rate. my principal is going down. sofi is a place where you can start to tackle those money goals today. compared to where i was three years ago, i'm kinda killing it.

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thank you so much for watching. and, please, join me here tomorrow and every-saturday morning, 9:00 eastern, for "smerconish." "cnn tonight" with don lemon starts right now. don, good show, and i am looking forward to this special. i have seen it promoted. i'm totally into it. >> saturday morning is not saturday morning, unless you're michael smerconish. unless, you are watching michael smerconish. and sunday night won't be a

great, sunday night unless you tune into that documentary that you just talked about. you have a marvin gaye story for me, michael? >> only insofar as that, for a while on my radio show, i was using protest songs and political lyrics as bumpers. and i remember, sampling the audience and saying, okay, what are we going to do here? you know, what -- you know, four dead in ohio was going to certainly make the list. what else? and everybody said you have got to go with marvin gaye "what's going on?" and said as, i guess, a white guy from suburbia, i had never studied the lyrics, and really come to grips with the song. until this. and then, i thought, oh, man. this is a no brainer. >> yeah. the -- some of the folks i speak to say it's prophecy. including, stevie wonder. we interview a lot of folks and you learn a lot about that album. 50 years later. number one album by rolling stone, and it is still relevant. thank you, michael. i watched the entire show. you did a great job. have a great weekend and a great show tomorrow. >> you, too. thank you. >> this is "cnn tonight." i am don lemon. and if you think what is going

on in the gop tonight doesn't matter. if you are thinking that they lost the white house, right? they lost the senate, they lost the house. so, they don't matter? i want you to consider this. and i want you to think about it, really. you need to get your butt in gear, and your mind in gear because, if you -- if this is the country you want, okay, fine. then, don't do anything about it. but i want you to think about this. when republicans lost the white house -- when they lost the white house. when the former guy refused to concede. when he continued to push the big lie. still is. the big lie, that spawned the insurrection at the capitol. the reason it didn't work was republicans, at the state level and in congress who refused to buy in to the big lie, they stood up for the truth. that's why it didn't work, then. well -- well, what if it happens, again? what if happens after all -- after those republicans, who stood up