it's rashlgable and really a beautiful piece of work and people should check it out. thanks so much for bringing me here. that's all in for this evening. rachel maddow starts now. >> could listen to you guys talk all day. this is a plan if either of you made a new gig, i would pay good money to listen to you guys talk about lots of different stuff. >> for other people feel an appetite, there is an episode in the podcast. >> do it again. thanks, you guys. >> it has been a busy news day and also has been a very tense day in the news. all day long and into tonight ever since we saw the predawn headlines that iran's revolutionary guard core was taking credit for shooting down an unmanned u.s. military drone near the strait of hor muss. the governments both confirmed that iran downed a u.s. drone.

there are differences. iran said the drone violated iranian airspace. the u.s. government said no, the aircraft was operating in international airspace. iran should not have shot it down and it's there for a terrible provocation. there is no disagreement that the thing was shot down. it is also worth being doubly and triply clear that this is a machine. a remotely piloted machine that no personnel were physically involved or at risk in the shoot down. the pentagon said the drone was an r q4 a global hawk. i'm not sure that's what you should use to describe it. this is a large aircraft designed for surveillance. we think of drones as being if you think of commercially available drones, it's the size of old fashioned model airplanes. this is more like the size of an

airplane airplane. the defense department released video that they say shows the american drone being taken out by a surface to air missile that you can see what looks like a trail of smoke after the drone is. as it falls towards the earth. this incident happened in terms of east coast time, just before dawn in iran. 8.5 hour time difference. this afternoon the white house held a bipartisan briefing for top leaders and summoned the top republicans and top democrats from the house and the senate along with the leaders from the house and senate intelligence committees and house and senate armed services committees, which is a serious briefing. despite the obvious tension at home and abroad, i should say we got the initial reports about what happened very early on this morning. the story actually hasn't developed very much over the course of the day in terms of assertion of either side and what we heard from our own

government and we definitely got these clear assertions that that drone was definitely shot down by iran and iran's clear assertion that they did the same thing. the president said it was definitely a big mistake by iran. we have seen that kind of development, but beyond that, we don't know what iran might do next. we don't know what the united states might do next. we don't know whether the president intends to respond in some way or who he would task with carrying out any sort of military response, if that's what he wants to do. his last acting defense secretary is supposedly leaving office tomorrow, which presumably manies the new acting defense secretary is just starting tomorrow. maybe. in either case, no confirmed official is in charge at the pentagon, nor $ there been one since general jim mattis left more than six months ago. coming up on the show, i'm very happy to say we will be speaking

in person in studio with ben rhoades who has extensive, extensive experience with iran as a national security and diplomatic matter. he served as deputy national security adviser under president obama and he will be joining us in a moment to give us his perspective on all of this and how the story may develop and what we should watch for from our own government and how serious this all is. ben rhoades coming up. we have also just tonight received the transcript of testimony before the judiciary committee in the house from hope hicks, the first trump white house official to have to testify to congress about the mueller report since it was partially published. we now know from the transcript of her testimony which we have just received that hope hicks was well armed in terms of legal firepower when she sad down before the committee yesterday. she brought with her into that room not one, not two, not three, not four, but five

different lawyers. one of her five lawyers, two of her own and two from the white house and one from the office of legal counsel at the justice department. she has never been a justice department employee it's not clear what they were doing there objecting to her answering questions, but the justice department was represented, too. at the start of her testimony is became clear what all of those lawyers, what the pir med of lawyers was there to do. right at the start, the chairman of the committee, jerry nadler asked her to please read from a portion of the mueller report. it's a portion that describes cory lewandowski who had been a major figure in the trump campaign summoned to the white house. you might remember this incident from the mueller report as we talked abo talked about it a number of times. he takes dictation from president trump about a message

the president wants him to bring to the attorney general. not a government employee and hasn't been involved since the campaign, but the president summons him to the white house is and said take this down. the chairman of the committee asked hope hicks to read that out loud and she does so. then this. chairman nadler. are you familiar with the events described in the special counsel's report that you just read. lawyer, objection. chairman nadler, and you are objecting on what basis? >> the same calling for her time in the white house. in other words, you are a serth absolute immunity that she cannot testify of any knowledge of anything after the president was inaugurated? >> during her time as adviser to the president, she cannot. >> she cannot refer to anything? is that as a result of absolute

immunity. she cannot state anything about knowledge of any during the period of time in which she was employed in the white house? lawyer, for the purpose of this hearing, yes. chairman, okay. question to ms. hicks. when mr. lewandowski visited on june 19th, 2017, he was not an employee of the white house and the administration, correct? that's a matter of public knowledge. she would know that in any event. the lawyer, under the terms of absolute immunity, she may not speak about anything that occurred during the time of her employment as a close adviser to the president. the chairman, anything during that time? during her service as close adviser to the president. chairman nadler, so did a war break out between israel and egypt during that time period?

lawyer, same objection. chairman nadler, well, same objection. i will ask these so you can object for the record. question to ms. hicks, do you recall if you knew why mr mr. lewandowski was at the whois that day. were you present for any portion of that meeting? objection. have you discussed that meeting with anyone? do you know if anyone was present for any portion of the meeting? objection. have you discussed that with anyone outside the white house. objection. i know this sounds like slam poet poetry, but legally this whole thing probably has a point because congress not only notes to ask hope hicks these questions and other wlohite hou staff these types of questions, but they think they will be legally compelled to answer the questions by a court because a court, i believe, will effectually rule that the basis on which these lawyers, the

white house and the justice object are objecting is a made up basis. it's not a real legal basis to prevent a witness from testifying to congress. so in pages and pages and pages and pages for hours and hours and hours of hope hicks' testimony, they asked hours of questions that she does not answer. the reason they have gone through this exercise is for a forward looking reason which is that they are getting the supposed legal basis for the objections on the record so they that hope, a judge in the future will later rule that these objections to her answering all of these questions, those objections are not legally sound. after a court has a chance to rule on that, she will have to answer. again, i am not a member of the judiciary committee and i was not there and have no inside knowledge, but that's what it seems like they were doing. that said, the whole thing is

not just objection, objection, objection. they do get her on the record on a bunch of stuff. here is hope hicks testifying yesterday behind closed doors in the judiciary about the prospect of getting foreign assistance to help a campaign and should that occasion a call to the fbi. question from committee staff. to your knowledge, did the campaign ever report any information about contacts of any kind with russia to any law enforcement official? answer, report to law enforcement when? during the campaign? not my knowledge. did you receive a briefing while in the campaign? answer, i did not, no. were you aware of whether the scam pain received such a briefing? i am not aware. do you understand what i mean? i do, yes, sir. what do it mean to you, ms. hicks? it means to have law enforcement to make you aware of risks if the risks exist already or might

present themselves at some point in the future. question, on july 27th, 2016, mr. trump publicly stated russia, if you're listening, i hope you are able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. you will probably be rewarded by the media. do you recall that? >> yes, i do. >> did you have discussions with him about the statement after it was made? i did, yes. were you with him at the time? yes, di. when did you discuss it, when we were on the plane. what was the discussion? me informing him that we had taken the expression literally and concerned he was encouraging foreign governments to locate the exe-mails and the media thought was inappropriate and demanded a response as to what he meant by that.

the media felt it was inappropriate. question, and did you have a view on the appropriateness of this statement. good follow-up. answer, you know, it was my understanding from both the way he made the remark and the discussions afterwards that this was tongue in cheek. it was not a comment intended as an instructive or a directive to a foreign government. it was a joke. that was the intent based on my conversation with him and that was it. question, and what did he say in the conversation about the statement? answer, just what i said. it was intended on as a lighthearted comment. question, the president said last week he would take information from a foreign adversary in the next election. he said there is nothing wrong with listening. they have information. i think i'd take it phi thought there was something wrong i would go maybe to the fbi if i thought there was something wrong. do you think that was a joke? answer, i don't know i haven't

discussed it with the president. i saw the clip you are referencing. i don't know if there was additional context. i don't think that was a joke based on what i saw. question, all right. in your experience now you knowing all you do, you have reflected on it. i'm asking you this based on your experience and the expertise you developed. would you take foreign oppo information if that were offered when working on a political campaign? answer, you know, knowing how much chaos has been sewed result as far as the steele dossier, no, i would not. question, i'm asking you about your expert opinion. would you advise another person to do that? answer, no, i would not. question, would you call the fbi? answer, if i thought it was legitimate enough. question, you would call the

fbi? answer, yes. according to mr. mueller's report there were over 120 contacts between people in the campaign and russian individuals during the campaign. so we will see how the judiciary follows up on this and what they may be able to get hope hicks to answer if and when they take the administration to court over what they are saying witnesses can and can't answer in congressional testimony. but there is one more episode from all the objections, no she won't talk about that, she won't talk about this, there is one more thing. there is one more thing in the campaign that she talked about that is of interest. this is not the way we previously publicly understood what was going on at a very key moment in the campaign. a very key moment in terms of how the overall campaign worked out, but a very key moment in terms of russian interventions

in the campaign to benefit trump. we learned something from hope hicks' testimony about what was going on at that time which was something we did not know before. again, listen closely. a couple of things we knew about and didn't know they went together. you will see what i mean. question from committee staff. when did you first become aware of the "access hollywood" tape? about an hour before it was meat public. question, what was your reaction to it? my rekz was it was a friday afternoon and i was hoping to see my family and that was not happening. question, did you have any other reactions? answer, i knew it was going to be a challenge from a communications standpoint. did you discuss it with mr. trump? i did, yes. me about the discussions. i made him aware of the e-mails that described the tape and i don't know if the initial e-mail did this, but one of the subsequent e-mails provided a transcript of the tape so i

described the components to mr. trump and tried to evaluate the situation. and how did he troekt threact t. he wanted to be certain it was legitimate and we wanted to request to listen to the audio before responding. was he upset? yes, i think everybody was in like a little bit of shock. did he ask you how did he seek your advice on how to respond? yes. there were quite a few of us and there was a group discussion that this unfolded at a debate session. question, do you remember who you discussed the tape with? answer, who else was present there? >> yes, at that time. yes, reince priebus, chris christie, jason miller, steve bannon, kellyanne conway and jared kushner. i think that's it. question, do you recall reaching out to michael cohen about the tape? answer, my recollection of reaching out to michael took place the following day and

tweanit wasn't about the tape, meaning it wasn't about the "access hollywood" tape. it was about -- this is going to get confusing, but the day after the "access hollywood" tape, there were rumors going around and i'm not sure where. i heard it from the spokesperson who had a lot of contacts and grass roots. she called to tell me that or sent me a message about rumors of a tape involving mr. trump in moscow with, you know, can i say this? the transcript notes discussion off record and she comes back on record. trump in moscow with, you know, russian hookers. participating in lewd activities. and so obviously i didn't -- i felt this was exactly how it had been described to me which was a rumor, none the less i wanted to make sure i stayed on fop of it before it developed further to

try to contain it from spiraling out of control and the person that made me aware of the rumor said tmz might be the person who has access to this tape. i knew michael cohen had a good relationship with harvey levin at tmz so i reached out to see if he heard of this and if harvey contacted him and if he could be in touch with me. committee staff? do you recall anything with wikileaks at this time? yes. and what happened in that connection, ms. hicks? i believe the same day the "access hollywood" tape was released, they released e-mails from john podesta's account. do you have any information about how they were released at that time? no. okay, any other reason you reached mr. cone cohen? no, i know what michael said about reaching out with him to spin reporters. number one, i wouldn't reach out to michael for spinning reporters and number two, you know, there was no spinning that

tape. so, this is not long before the election. this is october. before the election. the "access hollywood" tape comes out and the campaign threatens to blow up. we know from subsequent accounts that senior people on the trump campaign were telling trump to dropout of the race and resign. they are threatening to quit themselves. now from hope hicks, the next day after the tape comes out, as the campaign is spiraling maybe to death because of the access hollywood tape and its impact, the next day, the trump campaign goes into a totally different damage control on a totally different matter entirely because they hear that there is a tape of russian hookers and lewd activities of trump in moscow. number one that, mean that is the campaign and presumably the candidate were not for the first time being told about the rumored existence of the trump hooker pee tape when james comey

sat down and told him about it. james comey has written about that interaction with the president during the transition and described it as if the president appeared to be shocked to hear about this tape. he was outraged to hear the rumors of the tape. remember, i'm a germophobe. that's ridiculous. now we know trump and his campaign heard about that tape and were trying to track it down themselves since the previous october and tasked michael cohen with handling that. it was surprise from president trump to james comb when he thought he was telling him about the tape for the first time in january in the transition. secondly, we now know that the campaign's reaction when they heart about this tape, the supposed tape, was that they should call michael cohen. he's the guy. when they got this news that there might be a russian hooker's tape from trump in

moscow, at that moment they are already having probably the biggest freak out of the campaign, understandably about the "access hollywood" tape where the brags about sexually assaulting women and getting away with it, whiles that unspooling within that period, they stop on a dime and call michael. call michael. we have a situation. we got to get a handle on this. how did hope hicks put it in i wanted to make sure i stayed on top of it before it developed to contain it from spiraling out of control. of course we now know from the mueller report that michael cohen followed up on the rumored tape or tapes of trump in moscow. since we know he received a text message from a russian businessman who said this. stop the flow of tapes from russia, but not sure if there is anything else, just so you know. in an interview with the fbi, that russian businessman who

told cohen he stomped the flow of tapes from russia, according to mueller's report, he told the fbi in an interview that when he said tapes, he was referring to compromising take place of trump rumored to be held by persons with the real estate group crocus that hosted the miss universe pageant in russia. that russian businessman who told michael cohen the same month that the tape came out when cohen had been tasked with handling that, that same businessman who said he stopped the flow of tapes s from russ. the president was trying to set up in the campaign and he was keeping secret. this guy was working on trump tower moscow secretly with the trump campaign while the president was denying any business deal negligence russia. from russia, he was helping michael cohen out with a hooker tape freak out which the

campaign tasked michael cohen with fixing. we learned today that the house intelligence committee wants that russian businessman's testimony as well. they are seeking testimony from him and they are going get testimony from felix sater, the partner on trump tower moscow. they got one trump administration witness, they had one so far since mueller's report was concluded. one witness who sat down with five lawyers and objected to basically everything she was asked and still got all of that out of her. this is going to get more interesting overtime. not less. stay with us. resting overtime not less stay with us ♪ limu emu & doug look limu. a civilian buying a new car. let's go. limu's right. liberty mutual can save you money by customizing your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. oh... yeah, i've been a customer for years. huh...

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it's just another way we're working to make your life simple, easy, awesome. go to xfinity.com/moving to get started. mar. >> ben rhoades was president obama's deputy national security adviser and served in the white house for barack obama's entire presidency and known to be close to the president and worked on some of the most consequential foreign policy decisions. he led back channel negotiations from cuba on the osama bin laden raid on the obama white house raid for them to curtail the

nuclear program. ben rhoades was one of the few people on the inside working the negotiations from the american side. president obama of course signed that agreement in july 2015, a historic achievement taking a nuclear iran off the table for the foreseeable future. since president trump took the united states out of that deal unilaterally since they decided to undo that work, ben rhoades has spoken out saying the president created a destabili destabilizing situation for the mideast and the world. with today's news about iran shooting down a drone, a u.s. drone near the strait of hormuz, openingly flirting with the idea of war. ben rhoades, national deep tee security adviser. who is your take after the

reports about the drone shoot down? >> unfortunately it's incredibly serious. this was very predictable. when president trump pulled out of the agree, since then all he has done is stack provocation on provocation for months. more sanctions and designating a terrorist organization which hi administration department want him to do. they thought they would hit back. what ends up happening is the effect of the threats pushes the iranians to respond. what we are seeing with the fires on the tankers and with the shoot down of the drone, they said we have taken enough and will push back. they said they will reaccumulate stockpiled nuclear material. the danger we are in, the trump administration is escalating and the iranians are escalating and we are counting on those two

actors to find an off-ramp. that's a destabilizing moment. >> as a lay observer, somebody with no expertise from the outside, when john bolton became national security adviser and secretary of state, we were all able to assert these were among the hardest hard liners in u.s. government and security circles ever in terms of the issue of iran. i never thought about either and why they might be such hard liners or what that might mean they tomt do. it's hards to believe they want a land war with the united states innovating. it's hard to see the value they see in shooting missiles at iran. do you understand what they might see as the desired outwoman? you cannot get regime change through a missile strike. that is a significant military action and a war in my opinion.

if you look at what happened since bolton was appointed, after he was appointed that we pulled out of the deal. it was after jim mattis resigned as secretary of defense six months ago that we saw this ervegilation take off and we know from reports that mattis was a break at the situation room table in saying we shouldn't pull out. we should be cautious in how we approach this. sincery have been without a secretary of defense for six months which never happened before, this has taken off and john bolton has the controls of the plane and is i flying it. what we know is he is committed to regime change in iran. >> we're have no defense secretary and a new acting one who is maybe taking over tomorrow. that vacuum within u.s. leadership in terms of the absence of mattis and the type of role you are describing. given that chain of command and the way these decisions are

making, how do you think the government should proceed. what do you think this administration is going to do next? >> it's simple. you have a debate around the table. this is john bolton and mike pompeo wanting to take us into a military confrontation and donald trump as the guy we are counting on to be the break. he said he was not going to get us into more wars. a normal administration would say if they did shoot it down, i don't know that we can trust the administration on this. you would take this to the international community and get other nations to join with you in condemning this and seeking some type of sanction on the iranians. my concern is, if you think you can start a military confrontation and it won't escalate, you don't know about the mind set of the revolutionary guard or regime. they can retaliate in iraq and

afghanistan and israel and lebanon. across that region. terrorist attacks beyond. this is not a simple war. this is a bigger, more sophisticated country than iraq or afghanistan and look how that went. we have to be taking this moment seriously. i hope that i'm wrong and this doesn't lead to a war. i think the risk of it is such that people need to be making more noise. some democrats are doing and more need to say this would be illegal and potentially catastrophic and would like to see them saying you are not authorized to do this to prevent a war with iran. >> security adviser under president obama, intimately involved in their negotiation. thanks for helping us to understand this. i feel like we will be calling us a lot. we'll be right back. stay with us. us a lot we'll be right back. stay with us

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as for two headlines going by, the first from the ap. u.s. air quality slipping after years of improvement. the air quality has been getting better for years thanks to better regulations and enforcement. it was getting better for years until these past couple of years where upon the trump administration has been setting regulations on fire and dousing them in band chemical pesticides that killed condors and the air quality in the united states is getting worse. that was one headline from the ap. can we put that back up on the

screen? right after we got that headline, it gave birth to its own twin. new headline from the ap. epa gives coal plants a reprieve. yesterday the coal lobbyist who trump put in charge of the epa rolled back the obama era legislation that tightened up standards on polluting old fashioned coal burning power plants. he signed it as his own agency's data were released that showed how the administration has turned around american air quality so it's in decline. the epa said the further decline they are expecting from this rule change they signed yesterday should probably be expected to kill around 1400 americans every year that it's in effect. 1400 extra dead americans because of new air pollution that they are purposely causing.

as i mentioned, the trump administration's ep achieve is a coal industry lobbyist. maybe you can spot the pattern here. hand picked epa director. secretary of health and human services and secretary of the interior and as of tomorrow, trump's defense department will be run by a defense industry lobbyi lobbyist. so much swamp draining. literally on the day trump had to replace the aerospace executive he had running the pentagon with the defense industry lobbyist who will run the pentagon instead, it would be hard on that very day for the president to launch his reelection campaign on the promise that he has been busy taking on the lobbyists. >> we stared down the unholy alliance of lobbyists and donors and special interests who made a living bleeding our country dry.

that's what we have done. >> we're stared them down. staring contest was easy. nobody actually seemed tense. didn't seem like it would escalate at all. we gave them jobs and went out for diet cokes afterwards. we stared them down. that's one way to capture a federal agency. put a lobbyist from the industry they are supposed to regulate and put a lobbyist in the pop job of the agency. but in the trump err a there is no another side to this story about one agency that is trying to if not take itself back, it is trying it insulate from the trump-driven wince. it is fascinating. you have not heard this story and that's coming up next. stay with us. wrap calling all sunscreen haters.

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agency where the trump administration has undertaken methods to undermine the work of that agency. i don't know how much you know about the u.s. department of agriculture and the one thing to know is it does independent data collection and analysis. they publish scientific papers all the time. unfortunately for the trump administration, department data collection and analysis and research produced findings the administration really didn't like. the republicans's new tax law that would lower farm output and raise taxes on lower income farms. also that the president's trade wars are hurting american farmers who they found unsurprisingly that climate change is a big problem for american agriculture and needs to be urgently addressed and these are the thing that is the trump administration did not want to hear. the way the trump agriculture secretary, sunny purdue responded to these politically

unpalatable findings out of his department is that he tried to make the scientists in his department go away. over the last several months, trump's secretary announced a series of new plans to bring the scientists in that department to heal. he started by saying he would take the agriculture department's research division that currently operates independently separate from the political side of the department. he decided to bring those independent researchers instead directly under the control of his office. he also directed all the scientists at the agriculture department to start labeling published research as preliminary to put that disclaimer on all the published work as if it was not actually finished or super solid. he then announced let's just send the scientists 1,000 miles away. only the scientists doing the work we don't like, like the ones working on climate change

and trade policy and food stamps. congratulations. you all get to uproot your families immediately and move to kansas city. we are moving your jobs to kansas city right now. you're all going. unless you would like to quit, that is. in which case we can replace you with people we like better or not replace you at all. the usda scientists from the obama and george w. bush administrations told congress that a relocation like that would set research back five to 10 years because of the special employees the agency would lose. that's one thing to know. the trump administration has been waging a sort of quiet war on government scientists, particularly at this one agency because they have been producing quality work that nevertheless makes the trump administration's policies look bad. the other thing you should know is we are seeing an unusual fight back by the scientist who is are being squeezed out by

this operation in this one agency. the scientists in the agriculture department have recently scrambled to unionize. they have formed a union in part so they can try to fight back against the decisions from the agriculture secretary and they rallied to drum up support for their cause and lined up support to help them block what the trump administration is trying to do. you might think this is a fruitless last stand. as of a week ago, they said they are moving ahead to ship the scientists across the country. hopefully to make them all quit. it's interesting that one of the other things to know about what's going on is that there is a handful of instances now in which we have seen the trump administration agency's secretary propose something that their own staffers were opposed to. because of pressure, because of backlash, because of criticism,

they had to back off from the worst stuff they tried to do. that plan to force scientists to label their research as preliminary, that plan was killed because of an angry backlash against it. that plan to move all the scientists into the secretary's office so they would have to answer to him instead of being independent of the political side of the agency, that plan too had to get called off because of an angry backlash and angry response. just today, a plan to cut off a job corps problem that trains under privileged youth got bipartisan support in congress and they backed off that, too. they are keeping that. so the scientists, the career nonpolitical staffers in this agency are trying these unique tactics to basically try to keep their agency intact and save the important work of their agency. this is not democrats virz republicans, but the people who

do the important work they need and trying to save themselves and their jobs and the function of what they do from what trump is trying to do to make it go away and they are trying desperate tactics, but they have been having some success. it's an undertold about what's happening in washington right now. one of the scientists involved in leading that fight joining us next. stay with us. stay with us in my line of work, i come face-to-face with a lot of behinds. so i know there's a big need for new gas-x maximum strength. it relieves pressure,

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a week ago today, trump's

agriculture secretary sunny purdue stood before employees to announce that he was moving ahead with a plan to uproot hundreds of agency scientists and ship them 1,000 miles away to kansas city. this was the response in the room. those folks turning their backs are not standing up because they are stretching their legs. they are turning their backs on the secretary of the agency. the research scientists in the nation's agriculture department have been raising the alarm every way they know how that the trump administration is trying to gut the agency's scientific research whose results the trump administration finds politically unpalatable. the scientists have now unionized. they have protest and tried to lineup support for the cause in congress. this is a fight that has been happening a little bit under the radar. it's worth knowing about. the scientists are engaged in the interesting and unusual effort to as they see it, try to save their agency's work from an

administration that is trying to disappear them. joining us is kevin hunt, a jeing on rafr who is told he needs to move to kansas city go f he wants to keep his job. he is part of the newly formed union fighting the relocation. i appreciate you being here. thanks for your time. >> thank you, rachel. i'm glad to be here under the hard circumstances for myself and my family and union family. it's a hard situation that we are dealing with this week. >> this relocation order, i realize that you have been told you need to move to kansas city if you want to keep your job. you and many dozens of colleagues, do you believe this is an effort to make and you your colleagues quit to replace you with people you find more likeable given the administration's politics or not replace you at all to reduce the amount of science?

>> i believe that that's what will happen if this goes through. most of us can't make this move. there is just too little time for us to decide. it's a really hard decision to make in 30 days that we have to make it in. kansas city is not close. we can't even really visit it. we have to do it on our own dime. it's definitely part of that presidential budget that was proposed where it would reduce our staff by 50%. essentially that could occur after we are assigned to the new locations. that could happen. >> in terms of what's likely to happen next here, i have been trying to describe the things you have been doing to fight this and let people know it's happening and the protests with the secretary, the farming of the union in which you are now

serving. i understand you have been getting support in congress and legislative support to block the effort by the agency. >> the house has put through the appropriations process a bill that would stop the move and so that's what we find so concerning about the timing here. if we are all supposed to be located at this new facility, the last day of the physical year, then what's the rush? it obviously has to do with the appropriations process. >> when you say they recommended that your agency in particular within usda as far as i understand the budget for your entity should be cut by half and the staffing should be cut by half. has the secretary explained the way they intend to meet the budget cuts is by attrition. are they being overt that the move is intended to push you

guys out? >> they act like who can't make it will be replaced in kansas city and advertised it as a great opportunity for the city. but the reality is, we are from the whole country. i'm from columbia, missouri. i grew up there. i went to the university there. i went to a land grant university. most of my colleagues are from all over the country because we came here to work on national policy. and research we are doing. >> kevin hunt, vice president of the scientist's new union. this is moving fast and it's an urgent matter for you and your colleagues. we are interested in the story and we want to keep our views up on it. for. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back, stay with us. you >> we'll be right back, stay with us. s huge. it has available led cargo area lighting. lights up the entire bed.

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we have been covering the story on the state of missouri where the state government is trying aggressively to shut down the last abortion provider in the state and make missouri the first state in america that does not have any legal abortion providers. first time that happened since roe vs. wade in 1973. tomorrow there will be a court hearing in state court in missouri about whether or not that last clinic can stay open. the doctors at the clinic are fighting tooth and nail to stay open as the state government shuts them down. the judge is due to weigh in and we will be watching it closely. that does it and we will see you again tomorrow. it's time for lawrence o'donnell. >> i was so, so happy for you at 5:27 p.m. today when the transcripts came into our