we'll also be looking ahead tonight to tomorrow midday when president biden is due to announce the next big thing he is planning on doing with congress after the covid relief bill. a big infrastructure effort bigger than anything has been able to do in generations. if you just look around, you know that it is really overdue. we're very overdue for infrastructure investment in this country. we are expecting president biden's plan to be really ambitious. we are looking ahead to that big rollout by the president tomorrow. also tonight we are keeping an eye on the covid news. the biden administration today announced that as of today, we have crossed an important threshold. as of today, a majority of u.s. seniors have been vaccinated. we have hit 50% of all americans aged 65 and up have been vaccinated. just a remarkable threshold. cdc director rochelle walensky

today meeting with governors from around the country asking them to please slow down or stop reopening plans in the states for the next few weeks because the vaccination rollout really only needs a few more weeks at this pace to get us finally a mathematical advantage against the virus for the first time if we can avoid another huge surge of transmission in the next few weeks. dr. walensky making that case directly to the nations' governors today. we are watching and wait for whether osha in the biden administration, the occupational safety and health administration, may issue a rule that requires mask in workplaces nationwide regardless of what states have what rules. an osha rule like that for mask use in workplaces, an enforceable rule. that would certainly help with what the cdc director is asked for from the states. but i got to tell you, this is turning into a bit of a mystery. osha was told the first week of

the biden administration that they needed to study this matter and report back on what they were going to do about it by march 15th. we are two weeks past the deadline by which president biden told osha they needed to have the mask rule ready to go if they were going to do it. we haven't seen hide nor hair of it. it would be a very big deal especially as the cdc and the president are pushing hard, hard to try to stop these opening up -- stop these various efforts to open up in various states just for the next few weeks until the now going gangbusters vaccination effort can get ahead mathematically of where the epidemic is. so those are all things that we are watching tonight. we are also going to have new updates on the new legal challenges to the draconian anti-voting bill that was just passed last week in the state of georgia as well as a lurid update on the far-right big money effort to stop democrats

in washington from passing voting rights protections, which would block the worst of what georgia is trying to do, as well as what republicans are trying to do in other red states around the country. a lot going on. lots to keep an eye on. a lot to get to in the show tonight. but if you asked me two hours ago if we'd be having to talk about this next story tonight at all, i would have looked at you like you were cuckoo. i mean, sometimes we think the news is going to go one way and then the news gods throw you a weird late curveball and you must adapt. that's what happened tonight. that's what just happened tonight, thanks to a front page bizarre breaking news story in "the new york times". let's start where i think the story starts. i will stand corrected if it starts somewhere deeper and weirder than this. for now, as far as we understand it, the story starts in seminole county, florida. central florida, orlando metro

area, northwest from there, out towards the space coast. for reasons unknown to men, in seminole county in the 2016 election, seminole county voters in their infinite wisdom decided to replace their county tax collector with this young man, 31 years old at the time he was elected, no prior record of public service. and we now know from audits and investigations that he really hit the ground running as soon as he won that office in 2016 and was sworn in in 2017. one little glimpse of how this is going. the guy, young man, first time in public service, 31 years old when he was elected. he had just been married a couple of months before he was elected. he was married mid-2016. after he won the election in november 2016 and got sworn in in early 2017, he apparently hired and started to pay with public funds six different people who had been part of his wedding party the previous year. i am not sure that's how you are

supposed to staff up the tax collector's office. an "orlando sentinel" investigation found that he issued $1.9 million in contracts from his office to people who were his own close friends and business partners. again, this is the tax collector's office. a county audit found that for some reason, within months of taking office, he started spending public money for that office on guns and ammunition and body armor and drones. the tax collector's office in seminole county, florida, needs drones? okay. also, by june 2017, so he's still only in office a few months, he proclaimed that he and his employees in the county tax collector's office would henceforth all be carrying guns. he wanted them to wear their guns at work. to go along with their tax collector's office badges.

this is like the office that collects license fees and stuff. this is not like some s.w.a.t. team agency with frontline wyatt earps out there defending the streets. but the new guy elected to that office after hiring all of his groomsmen to come in and run the place, buys all these guns and body armor and ammo and drones, tells everybody in the office they need to wear guns at work to go along with their badges? why did he want that? i don't know for sure. but within a few short months, he personally had pulled over a woman driving who he decided might have been speeding. now, did he have like a speed gun? i wouldn't put it past him. i don't know. he decided she was speeding. he pulled her over. he flashed his badge, which, if you look closely in the fine print, was a badge that identified him as a guy that worked in the county tax collector's office. but, still, if it's dark enough and you throw the right kind of weight around and squint, it

looks like a sheriff's badge. i wonder what the drone might have told him about whether she really had been speeding? but it gets better but it gets better! there is also the part where while working full time as the elected tax collector for that county, he set up a for-profit business inside the tax collector's office to do blockchain something, something. what was the company actually going to do? it does not matter. he set up his own private for-profit company, running it from inside the county tax collector's office, and in setting up that private for-profit company, he decided he needed $65,000 in brand-new computer servers to run his new private company, and then he billed the county for those computer servers. and just to put only icing on this on this particular part of the cake, the audit in the county found that when he installed those servers that he billed to the taxpayers, when he installed those servers for the private company he was going to

run out of the tax collector's office, he installed them wrong and, it will be, set the office on fire! ta-da! so seminole county, florida, congratulations on your excellent choice for a new public official in the 2016 elections! along the way, "the orlando sentinel" reported on his frequent anti-muslim social media posts and his posts posing with far-right white nationalist types, he ended up posting things online about his friendship with president trump's long-time political advisor and convicted felon roger stone who you see on the left side of the screen there, as well as the trumpiest of all trumpy florida congressman, matt gaetz. where things get rough for the seminole county tax collector is june of last year. federal agents come to his house to arrest him for, among other

things, allegedly stalking a local man who was going to run against him for county tax collector. yeah, how dare anyone run against him for tax collector when our hero was doing such a great job in that office. have you seen the way they wear their guns now? to try to derail his opponent's campaign, the tax collector guy according to prosecutors arranged for a false rape acquisition to be made against the man which was then sent to the school at which the guy worked. the same allegation was then hyped and circulated by a network of fake identity social media bots and accounts apparently controlled by a local guy from the proud boys and associated with roger stone. he also created a fake twitter account in the name of the guy running against him and falsely posted things on that twitter account in which he was claiming to be the guy running against him and also claiming to be a proud segregationist and a white supremacist. but it was all fake.

it was the tax collector guy who set up this twitter account. it was a hit job. all set up by our hero, the armed to the teeth fire-setting wedding party-hiring tax collector of seminole county. federal agents show up at his house last summer to arrest him on the stalking charges and things get worse from there because what do they find when they come to arrest him at his house? i will read it from "the orlando sentinel." the day he was indicted for talking a little rival, joel greenberg had several stolen i.d.s in his work vehicle, a pair of fake i.d.s in his wallet, and materials for making more in his office. evidence he was regularly abusing his position to steal unwitting constituents' identities, according to federal authorities. inside the tax collector's work vehicle, agents found his backpack which held three licenses from canada, virginia, and florida belonging to

seminole county residents who had recently obtained new florida licenses. employees of the tax collector's office told agents that they had seen greenberg taking surrendered licenses from the agency's shred basket prior to their destruction. that is from an "orlando sentinel" story titled "ex-seminole tax collector joel greenberg was stealing customer i.d.s, feds say. the ex-seminole tax collector because he resigned the day after police showed up to arrest him. the fake i.d. stuff is nuts, right? i mean, in seminole county, florida, you have to go to the tax collector's office if you move there and you want a new local i.d. when they get you your new local i.d. you have to hand over your old i.d. federal prosecutors say the elected tax collector was stealing all of the old licenses out of the to be shredded bin,

and then using them to make tons of fake i.d.s. apparently, mostly for himself. so he would change the i.d.s so that -- doctor them, according to prosecutors, so they would have his own picture on them so he could flash this i.d. and it would look like him, but the name and information on the rest of the i.d. was the people from whom he had stolen their old licenses at the his office. and it wasn't just like he did it once. according to prosecutors, he had a bunch of these i.d.s in his car, in his backpack, tucked into his wallet while they were arresting him. what do you need them all for? why do you need a whole bunch of fake identities? and why was he also, according to prosecutors, trying to figure out how to falsify concealed firearms permits as well? do you have any idea how many things could go wrong all at once if you just elected the wrong guy tax collector of all things? who knew what mischief could be made out of a single job like that.

but that "orlando sentinel" headline about him stealing people's i.d.s allegedly through his last day in office, that ran in the "orlando sentinel" in july. by the following month, by august, federal officials had gone through the computers and electronic devices that they had seized from him during that arrest and what they found, according to prosecutors on those electronic devices and computers, would yield darker headlines by the following month, plus a superseding federal indictment for him. by august of last year, this was the happily in the "orlando sentinel". former seminole tax collector facing sex trafficking charges. quote, joel greenberg is facing sex trafficking charges related to a girl between the ages of 14 and 17 and is also accused of illegally using a state database to look up information about the girl and other people with whom he was engaged in, quote, sugar daddy relationships, according

to an indictment filed friday by the u.s. attorney's office. quote. the former seminole county tax collector used his access as an elected official to a state database to look up information about the minor victim. the database is the florida driver and vehicle information database. he allegedly looked up information about the girl in that database, including her photo and her driver i.d. number. he also, according to the indictment, used the database to look up other people with whom he was, quote, engaged in sugar daddy relationships. that's the phrase that's used in the indictment. the "orlando sentinel" points out, quote. a sugar daddy refers to a wealthy man who dates a younger woman and gives her gifts in exchange for companionship or sex. again, the alleged victim here is a teenage girl. per the "orlando sentinel," quote. greenberg used the state date base for prohibited purposes, including to produce a false identification document and to

facilitate his efforts to engage in commercial sex acts. so, there is the sort of reign of terror at this obscure office in florida by this guy who is linked to the kind of highest levels of donald trump circles in florida, and it ends in this very, very dark place. i mean, it starts off weird and get weird and dark in some ways, but then it ends up in this terrible place, right? charges of sex trafficking of a child. now, the tax collector guy did quit his job after he was arrested. he has pled not guilty to all of the 14 federal charges he is facing, including the sex trafficking of a child charges. he was out on bail after he was charged last summer but, last month, the judge overseeing his case jailed him for violating the terms of his bail. so he is now in jail and he is scheduled to go on trial in florida in june. so, i know. happy tuesday. yuck, this exists, i'm sorry.

but now tonight on the front page of "the new york times," we get the national kick in the teeth that comes with this story. this the headline on the front page. quote. florida congressman matt gaetz is said to be investigated over possible sexual relationship with girl age 17. quote, representative matt gaetz, republican of florida and a closs ally of former president trump is being investigated by the u.s. justice department over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him according to three people briefed in the matter. whether he violated feller federal sex trafficking laws, a variety of federal statutes make it illegal to induce someone under the age of 18 to travel over state lines to engage in sex in exchange for money or something of value. the u.s. justice department regularly prosecutes such cases and offenders often receive severe sentences. it was not clear how congressman gaetz met the girl, believed to

to be 17 at the time of the encounter two years ago that the federal is investigating. the investigation was opened in the final months of the trump administration under attorney general william barr. given the congressman's profile, senior justice department officials in d.c., including some appointed by president trump, were notified of the investigation. three people familiar with the probe said the examination is part of a broader investigation into a political ally of his, a local official in florida named joel greenberg, the seminole county tax collector, who was indicted last summer on an array of charges, including sex trafficking of a child and financially supporting people in exchange for sex. at least one of whom was an underaged girl. mr. greenberg, who has since resigned his post, visited the white house with congressman matt gaetz in 2019. according to a photograph that mr. greenberg posted on twitter.

so, like, you have to learn this gross florida man story in order to get to what allegedly happened here, right? the tax collector from this county in florida and congressman matt gaetz both get elected to public office in 2016. we have multiple pictures and accounts of them together since. in the seminole county tax collector's office, things go not just bad, but horror movie pad with the tax collector guy culminating in child sex trafficking charges. now per "the new york times" congressman gaetz, the loudest and proudest and most flamboyant trolling pro-trump member of congress in the republican party is, himself, reportedly facing investigation for the same very dark, very serious alleged crime. not for nothing, but the year that he and the seminole county tax collector guy were both

sworn in to public office for the first time in 2017, which is when this alleged child sex trafficking is to have occurred, both per gaetz in "the new york times" and per prosecutors in the apparently related case in florida in 2017 when, again, this -- these alleged crimes are said to have occurred, congressman matt gaetz, then in his first year as congressman, did briefly earn himself some national headlines that you might remember. it was weird at the time. why is there one member of congress from either party, from either chamber, one alone who voted no, who voted against increasing law enforcement funding to combat child sex trafficking? this thing passed unanimously -- except for matt gaetz. he voted no. now, according to "the new york times," he is under federal investigation for child sex trafficking. of course, that vote might just be a coincidence. might be a totally normal part

of the story because, sure, every other part of this is totally normal. since "the times" published the story, tonight, congressman gaetz put out a public statement denying all the allegations. he hass now, just in the last hour or so, done an interview on the fox news channel in which he claims he is not only innocent, but this is part of an elaborate extortion plot targeting his father and trying to get money from his very wealthy family. also something about a plot to get him a pardon from president biden. he is making a series of allegations about what this really is. he says it's nothing like what "the new york times" says. he is very upset about the charges, specifically denies having any relationship with any underaged person. "the new york times" is standing by its reporting. joining us now is katy benner, a "new york times" reporter who covers the justice department. she is one of the reporters who broke the story tonight. thank you for making time to be here tonight.

i hope i haven't butchered the story too much in my retelling. >> no. you did great. >> okay. so, let me ask you first about congressman gaetz's pushback. i know that the story published initially you and michael schmidt published the story and quickly an update to account for congressman gaetz really angrily denying all of this and making counter allegations that this is all the product of some sort of improper extortion plot. can you help us understand what his pushback is here? >> sure. i think that to understand the congressman's statements, the most important thing to do is look at the timeline in this investigation. what we found is that this investigation began at the end of last summer and it's been going on for more than six months. this is a serious investigation that was serious enough that even the highest levels of the justice department, including the office of the attorney general bill barr, said that, you know, the issue continued. that's the context. and this investigation had been going on several months. what congressman gaetz is saying

is that somebody found out about it and used that information to try to get money out of his family. so i am not saying that the extortion claims he is making are untrue. i am just saying that it came on the heels of months and months of an investigation in a part of the country where the offices are very small and there should be some expectation that information does sometimes leaks out of these offices. so the idea that the extortion exists or that happened, i think that it should be seen in the context of that timeline of an investigation that's serious, brewing for a long time, bubbling out into the local community. >> now, mr. gaetz, congressman gaetz, has made this extortion allegation. he has named somebody who he says is the guilty party who is trying to extort he and his family for money to try to make this go away. again, i have no idea about that, the veracity of those allegations. as you say, with the timeline, it's important to understand

these may be two separate stories. the person he named is not a person involved with the justice department investigation. gaetz is claiming these are false chargs charges trumped up against him and somebody involved in trumping up the charges against him tried to extort money from him.him and sy involved in trumping up the charges against him tried to extort money from him. is the person he named somebody involved in this investigation? >> no, that person is not involved in the investigation. that person is in private practice and doesn't work at the justice department. again, keep in mind, this is an investigation that when you look at the time line was very serious and it was something that was taken seriously by trump administration officials in the justice department. so i think one of the reasons why he has talked publicly about the extortion plot, publicly said the fbi asked his own father to wear a wire is to get people to not pay attention to the fact that it was in fact the trump administration that felt it was worthy to investigate him. in publicly talking about this investigation, sorry, in publicly talking about the extortion plot that he has described and publicly saying his father wore a wire, he is

basically destroying and blowing up an fbi investigation, which is in itself something you would think would be against his own interest. you would think he would want to work with the fbi and keep this quiet. so you have to put this all into context and say that in doing this and basically blowing up an fbi investigation into people trying to extort his family, you know, he has both complicated that investigation and also cast aspersions on something that was serious enough that attorney general bill barr approved it. >> and attorney general bill barr personally approved it? >> yes. he put out a memo to all federal prosecutors saying that if anybody involved in the 2020 election was going to be investigated, if any members of congress were going to be investigated, those investigations needed to be briefed to supervisors, including the u.s. attorney in that district and whoever the aag would be. the head of the criminal division or the national security division. they would need to sign off on it and brief it up to the deputy attorney general and to the

attorney general. so he would have known about this, yes. >> let me ask you, in terms of congressman gaetz and whether he is, as you say, by his public remarks about this supposed extortion claim, whether he is blowing up a potential fbi investigation to whether there was an extortion claim subsequent to this investigation, in terms of thinking about his motivation there, can you tell us from your reporting whether the investigation into congressman gaetz is something that was resolving and not likely to head towards charges? or is this something that either was heading towards charges or could potentially still be heading towards charges and, therefore, very serious criminal liability potentially for the congressman? >> i cannot be in congressman gaetz's head. i am not sure why he would choose to publicly disclose information that would impair an investigation that he has publicly said should be helping he and his family. but i will say that the investigation, the allegations

are that he not only had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, but that he took her across state lines, which would be a federal crime, and he gave her something of value in return. that could be money. it also could just be travel expense or something else. that is extremely serious. again, we don't know whether or not this will be charged. there is one reason why the justice department wants to keep these things quiet because you don't know what's going to happen. we do know investigators have been working hard on the case and they do believe it is worth looking into. >> katy, new york justice department reporter, in the middle of a maelstrom on this. it's just fascinating. gobsmacking reporting. thank you for helping us understand it tonight. >> thank you. all right. we have much more ahead on this, frankly, bizarre news night. anything could happen. stay with us.

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second day in the trial of former minneapolis police officer derek chauvin who stands accused of murdering george floyd. six witnesses gave testimony on the stand today and of those six, four of them were kids or young adults who witnessed the death of george floyd may 25th last year and who will all now live with that memory for the rest of their lives. because they wereminors at the time of the thing they were testifying about, the court didn't show their faces while they were giving testimony today. the people inside the room, including the jury seeing them. the rest of us could not. the court did, however, allows us to hear them. that was really something. one was why a young woman named darnella frazier was 17 on the day george floyd died. she was there. she is the person who filmed the best known video of officer derek chauvin kneeling on george floyd's neck for more than nine minutes until he died. today, the prosecutor in the case asked her about her decision to start recording what

she was witnessing. >> what did you do when you first got there and we see where you are standing. what did you do? >> i pulled out my phone. >> and what were you doing in pulling out your phone? >> recording, capturing what i was seeing. >> and that we have already admitted into evidence in this case the video which you had done, which is our exhibit 15 that is in evidence. so tell the jury what you observed, what you heard when you stopped to look at what was happening there at the scene. >> i heard george floyd saying, i can't breathe, please get off of me, i can't breathe. he cried for his mom. he was in pain. it seemed like he knew. it seemed like he knew it was over for him. he was terrified.

he was suffering. this was a cry for help, definitely. >> later in the trial, darnella frazier had one of the most powerful and gut-wrenching moments of the day when she described how she has lived with the memory of that day since after seeing what she saw. >> would you tell the ladies and gentlemen how your viewing, experiencing what happened to george floyd has affected your life? >> when i look at george floyd, i look at my -- i look at my dad. i look at my brothers. i look at my cousins, my uncles because they are all black. i have black -- i have a black father. i have a black brother. i have black friends. and i look at that and i look at how that could have been one of them. it's the nights.

i stayed up apologizing and apologizing to george floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life. it's, like, it's not what i should have done. it's what he should have done. >> "what he should have done," indicating the defendant. darnella frazier was at the scene of george floyd's death that day because she was taking her 9-year-old cousin to the store to get a snack. today, that 9-year-old girl also took the stand to describe what she saw. this was just remarkable. >> good morning, judea. >> good morning. >> first of all, would you tell us how old you are? >> 9. >> how old will you be by the end of next week?

>> 10. >> and then you have a 10th birthday coming up? >> yes. >> what grade are you? >> third. >> now, when you came out to where your cousin was and you saw george floyd, was there a policeman there? >> yes. >> do you remember what the policeman or policemen were doing? >> putting a knee on the neck of george floyd. >> if i showed you a picture of a policeman -- why don't i just do that? let me ask you if you recognize the policeman in what is marked as exhibit 17. do you recognize this man? >> yes. >> who is he? >> i can't remember his name. >> do you remember what he was doing? how do you know him? >> he was putting a knee on the neck of george floyd. >> do you see him in the courtroom today? >> no.

>> okay. how about him? >> yes. >> all right. so is that the person that you saw? >> yes. >> not all of the witnesses who testified today had to do so off camera, although all of that testimony from those young people and those kids was astonishing. genevieve henson was a 27-year-old firefighter who was at the scene when george floyd was died, a firefighter. imploring the officers to check george floyd's pulse. today, she showed up in uniform to testify. >> the officers didn't let me into the scene. i also offered -- in my memory, i offered to walk, kind of walk them through it or told them, if he doesn't have a pulse, you need to start compressions and that wasn't done either.

>> and so, well, is this -- are these things that you wanted to do? >> it's what i would have done for anybody. >> when you couldn't do that, how did that make you feel? >> totally distressed. >> were you frustrated? >> yes. >> this was day two of the trial in minneapolis for the former minneapolis police officer who is charged with the murder of george floyd. day three is tomorrow. it's expected to take several weeks, this trial. of course, the trial is taking place right now in the context of a civil rights and race crisis of a different kind for the country. today, we saw another group of civil rights organizations, including the naacp legal defense fund, file another lawsuit, this i the third one,

against the state of georgia for georgia's new restrictive law curbing voting rights. we are still keeping an eye, i should tell you, on that criminal felony case that has been brought in georgia against state representative park cannon, african-american female legislator who was arrested by state troopers and dragged through the capitol after she knocked on the door and asked to be allowed in the signing ceremony of that bill. she is charged with two felonies. she is facing years in prison. we are learning more about the nationwide effort on the right to help with the rollback of voting rights everywhere, including georgia, but trying to kneecap democrat's ability to try to restore it. more on that next. t. more on that next.

this was two weekends ago in west virginia. a small protest in west virginia's capital city targeting u.s. senator joe manchin, pressuring him to vote against the voting rights bill

that sitting in the senate right now the for the people act, hr1. this rally was organized by big money conservative groups not from west virginia. not at all. they are based in d.c. in order to do this rally two weekends ago, they had to bus people in, people who don't live in west virginia to have what they say is a west virginia rally. why do you need to gin that up? why do you need face covering protesters to pressure joe manchin? aren't there locals who agree with the republican party's position on this? turns out, that's kind of a problem for them on this. >> when presented with a very neutral description hr1, people were generally supportive. the most worrisome part, which grover mentioned at the beginning of his presentation, is that conservatives were actually as supportive as the general public was when they read the neutral description of hr1. >> that audio was obtained by

a reporting of "the new yorker." audio from strategy session among leaders of big money conservative groups to figure out how to stop the bill sitting in the senate right now that would protect voting rights nationwide. in addition, that bill would overhaul campaign finance law to essentially plug the flowing faucet of dark unaccountable money in american politics. dark money has been a life source in republican politics these past couple of decades. it has paid to help republicans enact billionaire-approved conservative policies all over the country with billionaire derived money that they never have to disclose. that was the point of the meeting you heard the audio from. big money conservative groups message tested ways to try to convince republican voters that the voting rights bill is bad, right? they are hoping negative public opinion against the voter rights bill will tank the bill. what they found when they

message tested it is that even conservative voters liked the bill. they liked the idea of getting secret dark money out of politics no matter how you try to spin it. >> hr1 stops billionaires from buying elections. unfortunately, we found that that is a winning message for both, you know, the general public and also conservatives. there is a large, very large chunk of conservatives who are supportive of these types of efforts. and so, you know, everything that people just went through here about the under the dome type strategies on this, you know, we think makes a lot of sense. simply because winning over public support for this is actually incredibly difficult. >> unfortunately, we found that this is a winning message for the public. and did you capture the guy said at the end about how we need to use under the dome strategies? by under the dome strategies, they mean things that just happen in congress, that don't depend on public opinion and

stuff happening in the streets organically or people showing their dissatisfaction with the bill. because real people aren't going to be dissatisfied with this bill. they better figure out ways to kill this in washington without having to engage actual voters on it. even conservative voters like how the voting rights bill in the senate right now would keep dark money out of politics. they like the idea of nonpartisan administration of elections. they don't mind the idea of people being allowed to access the ballot box. and it turns out, according to the conservatives own research, it's a waste of time to try and convince republican voters otherwise. so, instead, they need other plans. they need plans that don't involve the public. question is, will that work? jane mayer joins us next. stay with us.

jane mayer has had a lot of scoops over the course of her unparalleled career in investigative journalism. she's one of the greats.

this is the headline on her current piece at "the new yorker." it lays bare with tapes, despite the fact that democrats are trying to pass the bill to protect voting rights and to force secret funding out of politics. those right-wing groups are apparently absolutely flummoxed by the fact they don't have any good public arguments to make against what the democrats are trying to do. they can't convince even conservative voters to side with them on this thing. so how else are they going to fight it? joining me is jane mayer, author of "dark money: the hidden history of the billionaires on the rise of the radical right." good to see you, jane. thank you for being with me. >> thank you for having me, rachel.

i want that -- i want to thank you for playing that type. listening to that tape, you don't really get to be in the back with people. the curtain isn't open like this very often, so it was great for you to play it for people to hear. >> i'm not going to press you on your sources, i'm not going to ask you how you got it. it is amazing that you got it. let me just ask you if this is sort of their m.o. if this is the type of call, the type of research that these groups generally do, the type of message testing that they do when they set out on a new political objective? >> absolutely. this is the complete playbook. you have to understand that these groups are funded by some of the wealthiest people in the country, billionaires, and they have endless resources, so they can do all kinds of market best possible selling line. for me, i nearly fell off my

chair when i listened to this, they tried testing an argument against themselves, basically. they tried testing against a bill where the other argument was, it will stop billionaires from buying elections, billionaires like themselves, and they could not find an argument that convinced the public that it was the better thing to have the billionaires buying the elections. and that included not just liberal democrats or even moderates, but amazingly, it also included conservatives who also, it turns out, don't really want billionaires buying american elections. so they were so frustrated by this, they lamented in the tape, and they talk about how basically you really shouldn't engage with this argument because you can't win it. it's better just to go inside the dome, as you said, and we'll just have to put the fix in in congress.

>> you sort of pity the poor researcher, right, who has been paid by these billionaires, to go figure out what works here, and the researcher has to go back to the billionaires and say, also one thing we can tell you, well, everybody we talked about is really against you and what you're doing. it's got to be sort of a difficult day at the office for those guys. when they were talking about an under-the-dome strategy, that you can't engage with the public on this, instead you need an under-the-dome strategy, what does that mean? does that mean an obstructionist fight in washington that you can hopefully keep away from the public eye? >> i mean, it probably means, among other things, that they will use the filibuster in order to, you know, make sure that -- that they can count on basically almost all the democrats, possibly not manchin, being

against them, so they'll need to filibuster the bill if they're going to stop it in congress. they may get manchin. he said a lot of things that were actually very good about campaign finance and about trying to get rid of dark money in politics, so the democrats may very well get his vote, and he is a democrat. so they may be talking about the filibuster. basically, i think what they're talking about is that the public be damned, the voters may be in one place but we can count on the people we fund to kill this for us. we can stop the bill by calling in our chance. >> jane mayer, staffer writer at the "new yorker" with an almost unbelievable scoop, this document for the ages in terms of uncovering this stuff. thanks, jane. >> great to be with you. we'll be right back. stay with us.

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one last piece of news has broken since we have been on the air. we have gotten word two capitol police officers have just filed this lawsuit against former president donald trump. these are police officers who were attacked and injured in the attack on the capitol january 6th. their lawsuit tonight sues former president trump for inciting that attack, essentially, and, it will be, causing injuries to these

officers and others. the two officers are requesting a trial by jury in this lawsuit. again, this just filed tonight. we have seen members of congress file suit against president trump for his alleged role in incidentally citing that attack and now capitol police officers as well. that will do it for us for now. "way too early" with kasie hunt is up next. ♪♪ who is this girl? what are they talking about in "the new york times"? >> the person doesn't exist. i have not had a relationship with a 17-year-old. that is totally false! >> republican congressman matt gaetz responding to a new report that federal investigators are looking into whether he had a sexual relationship with an underaged girl. the question is did the congressman violate sex trafficking laws? plus, president biden hits the road today to formally unveil his more than $2 trillion infrastructure plan. the question is -- how does he plan to pay for it? the crew is all set for the first-ever all