that's a weighty decision. >> i think that's pretty well said. adam connor, and evelyn dueck, thank you so much for talking about this tonight! thank you. >> that is "all in" on this tuesday night. the rachel maddow show starts right now. good evening. >> good evening, thank you for joining us this hour. this ought to be interesting. department of justice is under very very new management, as you probably noticed. today the new attorney general under president biden former federal judge merrick garland appeared at his first congressional oversight hearing since being sworn in as the nation's attorney general. and he made pretty big headlines with his testimony letting congress know that the justice department under attorney general merrick garland will be seeking considerably more funding to up its capacity specifically on civil rights enforcement and on fighting domestic violent extremism, for

the department's key role in enforcing the violence against women act, he's asking for a landmark $1 billion for the office of violence against women. republicans appeared to be horrified by his testimony, by the idea that the justice department will try to fully fund its work on civil rights and violence against women and domestic terrorism and extremism, which of course the fbi says is predominantly a white supremacist threat. the republicans hearing merrick garland's testimony today were really not into it as you might imagine. but, you know, like i said, under new management. elections have consequences. and under attorney general merrick garland, the justice department has started up federal investigations into multiple local police departments around the country on their use of force. the justice department has indicted a local georgia sheriff for brutalizing prisoners in his care. the department has opened a

federal civil rights investigation in a north carolina police shooting case. it will do so in the george floyd killing case as well. today the daily beast was first to report that the justice department under merrick garland is going to bring lawsuits against this rash of new laws in republican controlled states that single out transgender americans for new, overt discrimination, if in fact, the federal justice department joins that fight on behalf of transgender americans and their civil rights, that's going to put that discriminatory crusade by republicans around the country on a whole new level in terms of the kind of fight they're going to get. new president, new attorney general, a justice department very much and very obviously under new management. but now, as of today, now here's a brand new decision this under new justice department is going to have to make. i honestly have no idea what

they're going to do about it. one of the burn marks left by the mueller investigation, one of the reasons that trump attorney general william barr may not have been able to find himself gainful employment of any kind since leaving the trump administration, is because as attorney general in the trump era justice department, william barr was found by a federal court to have lied to the country about the mueller investigation. in a federal court decision that will follow bill barr around for the rest of his life like toilet paper stuck to his shoe, a federal judge in washington, d.c. found last year that when robert mueller turned in his report on the russia investigation to the justice department, attorney general william barr lied to the public about what was in it. the judge's ruling said quote attorney general barr failed to provide a thorough representation of the findings set forth in the report causing this court to question whether attorney general's barr's intent was to create a one sided

narrative about the mueller report, a narrative that is clearly substantially at odds with the actual report. that was last year. a federal court finding that trump's attorney general william barr told the public a porky pie, told the public an untrue story about what was in the mueller report. well, now, today a second federal judge has just ruled that bill barr and the trump era justice department were also disingenuous with the court. they in effect lied to the court when they told her and they told the public a made up story, a lie, about why former president donald trump was not put on trial, was not charged with obstruction of justice on the basis of the evidence that was collected against president trump in mueller's investigation. you might remember mueller's report started with volume one, that was about what russia did to interfere in the election,

and then volume two, you probably remember, it laid out more than ten instances in great detail of potentially criminal obstruction of justice committed by then president trump. now, when mueller finished this report, you might remember that trump's attorney general bill barr told the public that he, william barr, had consulted with justice department attorneys, and decided on their advice that despite these ten plus detailed instances of alleged criminal obstruction of justice by president trump laid out mueller report, bill barr consulting with justice department attorneys had determined that despite all of that nothing trump did was really a crime. and so trump shouldn't be prosecuted. remember barr said that they didn't rely on this prohibition on a president being prosecuted while he's sitting in office. he said, actually, we decided at the justice department, i

decided in consultation with justice department attorneys none of those things described constitute a crime, that's why trump won't be charged. that's the story they told the public. that apparently is not what happened. federal judge amy berman jackson ruling today that this supposed advice that william barr got from the justice department that supposedly led him to conclude that these weren't crimes and therefore trump shouldn't be criminally charged, she ruled today that that advice to william barr has to be released to the public. the justice department under william barr withheld that. people filed requests for that, an oversight group called crew filed a foia lawsuit, the justice demurred, said, no we're not going to release that document, that's real legal advice, and we don't release those things to the public. the judge ruled that that document wasn't real legal advice. it wasn't anything.

the trump era justice department said that that document was. she says they have been disingenuous about this part of the process, too. she says, in fact, william barr decided from the outset that president trump wouldn't be charged with any crimes, and what he had the justice cook up for him was an after the fact rationalization of that decision that he had already made. and if you do that, that's not some protected, privileged legal advice thing that can be shielded from the public. particularly if you lie to the court about it. because, you know, if you're the u.s. justice department, if you're the attorney general of the united states and you lie to a federal judge and the judge finds out about it, particularly if this is the not the first time you've done it, the federal judge is going to be mad. and they're going to rule against you. and frankly, kind of cinematic terms. this is from the very top, the very start of judge jackson's ruling today.

quote. on friday, march it 22nd, 2019, special counsel robert mueller delivered his report of the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to then attorney general of the united states william p. barr. but the attorney general did not share it with anyone else. instead, before the weekend was over, he sent a letter to congressional leaders purporting to summarize the principle conclusions set out in the report, compressing into less than four pages the approximately 200 highly detailed and painstakingly footnoted pages of volume one which discusses russian interference in the election and the equally detailed pages of volume two which concerns acts taken by president trump in connection with the investigation. the attorney general's four page letter says the attorney general did not draw a conclude whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction of justice. it went on to announce attorney

general barr's own opinion that it's not sufficient to establish that president trump committed an obstruction of justice offense. judge berman-jackson continues quote, the president then declares himself to be fully exonerated. the attorney general's characterization of what he had time to skim, much less study closely prompted an immediate reaction as politicians and pundits took to their microphones and critics to hide the ball, an especially taciturn special counsel was moved to a rebuke, chbs in part, the summary letter sent to congress and released to the public late in the afternoon on march 24th did not capture the context of the special counsel office's work. there's now public confusion about critical results about our investigation. this threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the department appointed the special counsel, to assure full public

confidence in the outcome of the investigations. the judge continues. mueller called for the immediate release of his report but are remained under wraps for another three weeks. on april 18th, 2019, attorney general barr appeared before congress to deliver the report. he asserted that he reached the conclusion he denounced about not prosecuting president trump for obstruction of justice quote in consultation with the office of legal counsel and other justice department lawyers. the oversight crew, citizens responsibility for ethics in washington fired off a freedom of information request for any record related to the consultations. the justice department demurred meaning rejected the request for release of documents. what remains at issue today is a memo to the attorney general dated march 24th, 2019, that specifically addresses the sujts matter of the letter transmitted to congress, the question of whether president trump would be criminally prosecuted for

obstruction of justice. what remains at issue today is that memo. the judge concludes quote, it is time for the public to see that too. it was time for the public to see the mueller report rather than attorney general barr's misrepresentations about what was in it. it is now time for the public to see that advice to him on whether the president would be prosecuted. that supposed advice to him on whether president trump would be prosecuted. this is judge amy berman jackson recording the release of a justice department document we've never seen, which was the supposed justification for not bringing criminal obstruction of justice charges against president trump. in her ruling today, she orders the release of that never before seen document. she also just ransacks the trump era justice department, and bill barr's job running it, calling him personally disingenuous, saying the justice department took steps to ob true purpose

what they have been doing, to see the document they had been trying to keep secret and when she did see it, she understood why they had been trying to keep it under wraps. the review of the document reveals that attorney general barr was not then engaged in making a decision about whether president trump should be charged with obstruction of justice, the fact that he would not be prosecuted was a given. she says quote there was no decision actually being made as to whether the then president would be prosecuted. so surprise. what we thought happened happened. robert mueller and his team of prosecutors laid out over several hundred pages detailed evidence of all the multiple times they believed president trump committed crimes by obstructing justice while he was in office. when that report was completed

and submitted to the justice department, william barr said instantly that the justice department had carefully reviewed every little bit of that evidence and concluded that nothing the president did seemed like a crime, and that's why president trump was never prosecuted for his actions. well, now, this federal judge has seen what happened behind the scenes, and it turns out, their public representations about what was going on inside the justice department with considering this evidence were lies. it turns out they never substantively considered trump's alleged crimes. they just decided in her words, as a given, from the outset, that trump wouldn't be charged with anything no matter what, and then they created a pseudo legal paper trail to cover their tracks on that after the fact. and then, according to the judge, they lied to a federal judge about what they had done, and now she has caught them. she has their inter-office e-mails, describing the

production of this document that purported to justify the explanation. she has the chronology of when the decision was made and when they produced the document that purportedly was the advice that led barr to make that decision, which was back asswards in terms of its chronology, and she's now ordering the justice department to release the paper trail that they concocted in order to support this lie, that they suspected would never be shown to the public. but here's the thing, under new management, right, merrick garland is now the new attorney general. president biden's appointed attorney general. and he now has the choice as to whether or not to appeal the judge's ruling. he can appeal it if he wants to. if you look at judge amy berman jackson's ruling today, i was having a little bit of deja vu, a little bit like being back to the battle days, with whole big

sections of the judge's ruling redacted. that's because those redacted parts of her ruling actually show what's in this document that she just ordered the justice department to release. she redacted those portions of her rule, and she didn't just go ahead and release the document today because she's allowing a couple of weeks to allow for the possibility that the justice department under new management may appeal her ruling and still try to keep this thing under wraps. this is a heck of a thing, right? i mean, this is an administration that is in every way looking forward and not back. merrick garland is the attorney general now, all new leadership at the justice department, all new priorities, moving forward with a million things at once, and here's a judge saying, you know, your immediate predecessor in this judge lied to me, lied to the court and lied to the american public about something as freaking serious as why the former president was not charged with crimes. you cool with the evidence of

all of that being released to the public because it's coming out in two weeks unless you want to appeal my ruling. what are you going to do? no word yet from the new attorney general or the justice department as to whether they will accede to the judge's ruling and not appeal it and let this thing come out, but wow, watch this space indeed. so we're watching that tonight. beyond that, there's lots of other news we're watching as well, last night we reported on what would seem to be good and clarifying big political news for the democrats. republican leader in the senate mitch mcconnell has announced flat out in advance that there will be zero republican votes for president biden's two big next legislative pushes, the infrastructure bill and the american families plan. he is just saying it flat out, there will be zero republican votes, and i know that doesn't sound like good news for democrats or the administration and wanting to pass this bill, and on the face of it, of course it's not, but honestly,

realistically, that clarity from the republicans is very helpful. having the republicans in advance guarantee there will be zero votes from their side no matter what's in the bill, that frees democrats up to stop worrying about what the republicans think. they have taken themselves out of the game. democrats can stop wasting time trying to persuade republicans from supporting it. republicans have said they are not persuadable. we'll stop dealing with you then. democrats can move on now. given they have the guarantee from republicans, knowing they only need to negotiate among themselves. which is no small things. they need to negotiate among themselves. the democrats are a diverse group. they know they have to negotiate a bill between themselves, that can get the votes in the senate, and pass it under the senate rules that allow you to approve a bill with just 50 democratic votes. it has to fix the senate rules about what kind of legislation you can pass by those means. very clarifying.

there's no ambiguity here as to what's going to happen or what time should be wasted any further. that was last night, and i do believe that's a big deal and it deserves more attention than the beltway press. democrats are basically cleared by mitch mcconnell to stop wasting time, go ahead, move now, stop infrastructure, the american families plan with just democratic votes, go. now, today, "the new york times" was first to report that the democratic senate leader chuck schumer is planning to add a bunch of immigration reform stuff to the infrastructure bill to try to pass a limited number of immigration reform proposals as part of that next big piece of legislation that democrats are going to move. and again, this is about realistic politics. at a certain point, i think we do ourselves a favor by no longer going through the motions and talking about the republican party like they're a part of the

game. they're not. they have overtly taken themselves out of the process. it's not worth considering what they have to say about legislation that they're guaranteeing they won't participate in passing no matter what's in it. and that's true on covid relief. they promise there would be no votes. there are no votes. it was worth democrats ignoring them. they said it would be the same thing on infrastructure, the american families plan. zero republicans are going to vote for democratic proposals on immigration as well. democrats are only going to be able to pass substantial legislation with their own votes. they're not going to get any republican votes on anything. not as long as mitch mcconnell walks this earth. but that's kind of great for democrats in terms of knowing how to proceed. there's no use in ditherring over this stuff anymore, moving into the next pass, will pass, next order of business infrastructure bill means finally that we might get some

reform to our broken immigration system for the first time in more than a generation. if you can stop the dumb point less process of talking to republicans about what they want given that they won't vote for anything, you can actually nak make plans to move forward on something that can pass through the senate, through the budget reconciliation process. huge news if the democrats can make it happen. the strategic shift on immigration announced today, or reported today in the "new york times" suggests democrats have figured out how to do so, and now it's just a matter of figuring out how to make it happen. meanwhile on the republican side, just because they're not participating in legislation doesn't mean that they're not doing anything. on the republican side, republicans in congress remain mostly just obsessed with weird culture war fights and with demonstrating unflinching loyalty to the twice impeached one-term former president whose allegedly criminal behavior while president may get a whole

new level of expose given today's court ruling. enjoy, but the beltway press is hit up today about the prospect that liz cheney is about to be kicked out of her leadership role and the republican party in congress over her ongoing criticism of the former president that may yet happen and feels inevitable to me at this point. why anybody should be surprised that the republican party is siding with former president trump rather than siding with their supposed principles, implies that everybody has been asleep for the last five years. we're also going to talk tonight with kara swisher about this big decision expected early tomorrow about whether or not the former president is going to get his facebook account back after he used it to try to mount an armed insurrection against the former u.s. president. former president was banned for life on twitter, facebook banned him at that time as well, but tomorrow they're going to say whether the ban will continue or whether it was, you know,

temporary, whether it was just like a little violent insurrection time-out, but now everything's cool because that's kind of what facebook's made for. if he does get back on to social media tomorrow morning, mark my words, what we will quickly find is that former president trump is just as obsessed now as he was in january with this fantasy that he still is the rightful president, that he was actually somehow reelected but we can't see it. joe biden isn't really the rightful president, but at some point it will all be revealed and trump will be ushered back into the white house. that fantasy does appear to be still the main reoccupation of the former president. the same fantasy is driving the ongoing, totally bananas recount of the arizona presidential account, led by a qanon promoter, using theories from a guy who writes books about treasure hunting to find the mysterious folds and invisible water marks on the arizona

ballot, to prove their fantasy that trump didn't lose the election. and it's also animating the antivoting rights roll backs in republican controlled states around the country. we reported last night on how florida republicans are belatedly realizing that in their haste to pass voter rights restrictions in order to bolster trump's claims about mysterious voter fraud the in election, they might have accidentally curtailed the exact means of voting in florida that is most popular among florida republican voters. oops. republicans in virginia are meeting to nominate their candidates for virginia elections. they're meeting to make those nominations this weekend. virginia republicans are just now realizing that their voter i.d. rules which they passed and supported in order to bolster trump's banana claims about

voter fraud, they're just now realizing themselves that the voter i.d. rules that they have been insisting on are too much of a pain for they themselves to follow for their nominating convention this weekend. so nbc news was first to report that virginia republicans are exempting themselves from their own voter i.d. anti-voting rights rules that they have been promoting for the state but realized that even they can't live by those rules for their own election to nominate their oat candidates for the ballot this year. oops. and now in texas, texas republicans appear to have stepped on a rake with their new draconian voting rights rollback, which is rocketing through the texas legislature. today a huge group of major texas businesses stepped to the floor to say that they are against what republicans are trying to do to rescind and radically roll back voting rights in the lone star state. texas republicans may in theory, i guess, decide that they don't care about this, i guess.

but have you seen who's on this list of big texas companies that just came out to criticize them? i sort of think they're going to have to care. i think they might have screwed this up. that story in detail is next. stay with us. n detail is next stay with us no-no-no-no-no please please no. ♪ i never needed anyone. ♪ front desk. yes, hello... i'm so... please hold. ♪ those days are done. ♪ i got you. ♪ all by yourself. ♪ go with us and find millions of flexible options. all in our app. expedia. it matters who you travel with. to celebrate salonpas day

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it worked once before. in 2017, texas republicans tried to pass what was called a bathroom bill, targeting transgender americans. the republican sponsored law would have had the state step in to mandate which bathrooms transgender texans would be forced to use in public schools and government buildings. the effort drew criticism from the lgbtq community, democrats, activists, some republicans, but perhaps most importantly it drew criticism from the business community. big fortune 500 companies spoke out about how that bill would hurt not just transgender people in texas but it would also hurt

the state. big corporations like ibm based in austin, oil and gas companies like shell and chevron and eon in houston. southwest and american airlines, at&t in dallas, the dallas morning news reported that more than 720 businesses and their leaders spoke up both in letters and in person to make their position clear and that sustained pressure worked. the texas legislature didn't pass that bathroom bill, not that year, at least. now, businesses in texas are ramping up the pressure again. this time against two bills that are making their way through the state legislature that would dramatically roll back voting rightings. coalition of big businesses and business groups in texas under the name fair elections texas today released a letter making clear where they stand on the voting rights roll back that texas republicans are pursuing. look at the signatories, it's got american airlines, hewlett-packard, microsoft, sales force, unilever, we

believe the right to vote is sacred. when more people participate in the democratic process, we all prosper. we stand together in a nonpartisan coalition to support reforms that make democracy more successful and oppose any changes that restrict eligible voters access to ballot. we urge business and civic leaders to join us as we look for our democratic principle, equality. letter was also signed by the first name you see on the list, ron kirk, who helped spearhead this effort to speak out against these restrictive voting bills. joining us now live is ron kirk, the former mayor of dallas, texas, and the former u.s. trade representative during the obama administration. mr. ambassador, thank you so much for making time to be here tonight. it's nice to see you. >> rachel, thank you so much for having me, and in your

introduction, you basically exposed this effort for what it is. you know, in a state like texas, when republicans like georgia won, they hold every office, you would think they would be pretty satisfied with the process as it is, but this is not about elections. it is not about the integrity of the ballot box. this is simply to further the line that president trump will not let go of that somehow the 2020 election was taken. and the business community, the leaders that have signed on to this effort through our fair elections texas are making a simple point and a recognition, one, giving people more access to our democracy, empowering more people to vote. it's not only the right thing to do, but it's also good for our economy. so we're hopeful as more leaders

recognize this and speak out, perhaps we can have the same effect and result as we did in protecting the rights of our transgender youth in the last session. >> one of the things that "the new york times" highlighted today in writing about this effort that you've been leading down in texas is that this seems to mark a sort of shift in terms of the business community's willingness to stand on this issue. before this, we had seen american airlines and dell computer that had spoken out about the restrictive voting in texas, and see them get excoriated by officials in texas and around the country that they shouldn't stand up, they shouldn't speak out on this issue. it effectively feels like companies like american and dell have back up by having all of these other firms stand up and say, yeah, we've got trouble

with these bills too. it does feel like closing ranks and letting republicans know they can't single out a company here or there to bully for their perspective on this issue. is that a fair analysis? >> i think that's a fair analysis but i also want to point out that this began with the broader coalition many f of us were involved in and the effort last month to oppose the legislation in georgia in which we engaged business leadership to speak out with us, but i will be honest, rachel and tell you many of us, many particularly african-american business leaders went to many of the companies on whose board we sit, and we engaged and said if you meant it when you spoke out after those horrific events on january the 6th in which we all witnessed something that we thought would be unfathomable, in which americans largely fueled by a lie told by the former president attacked our

own country and a threat to our democracy, and you heard a number of business leaders from the business round table to the u.s. chamber say that they would no longer support those individuals that refused to recognize the validity of that election, and engage in efforts to destroy our democracy. i don't think it's an overstatement to say this is just as much a threat, the effort we're seeing that you highlighted in texas, in georgia, in florida, in states around the country to further attack our democracy by building in constitutional disadvantages against primarily poor and voters of color, and that the business community should just -- should be just as unequivocal in speaking out against this as they did those effort that is we witnessed in our nation's capital on january the 6th.

>> recognizing the key and sort of unparalleled power of the business community to speak in a way that can be heard by the lawmakers who most need to hear it on this issue. ron kirk, former mayor of dallas, former u.s. trade representative, mr. ambassador, it is a real honor to have you with us here tonight. i know we had to scramble to get you here on short notice. i appreciate it. >> it's an honor to be here, and thanks for highlighting this particular issue. >> of course. we have a lot more to get to here tonight. stay with us. e a lot more to geo here tonight stay with us the jobs of tomorrow. they're the jobs of right now. good paying jobs to modernize our infrastructure. in manufacturing. construction. engineering. they're in our cities... in our suburbs... and our small towns... we take on climate change... and we build back better with clean energy jobs. biden: so let's waste any more time, let's get to work.

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just a month after the 2015 election, a bunch of executives at facebook got together to make a very important decision. this is how "the washington post" described what went down. again, this is a month after the 2016 election. quote facebook created project p for propaganda in the hectic weeks after the 2016 presidential election and quickly found dozens of pages

that has peddled false news reports ahead of trump's surprise victory. nearly all were based overseas, had financial motives and displays a clear rightward bent. in a world of perfect neutrality, that facebook espouses as its goal, the political tilt to the pages shouldn't have mattered but in a video conference between facebook's d.c. office and silicon valley headquarters in december 2016, the company's most senior republican voiced concerns that would become familiar to those within the company. he said quote we can't remove all of it because it will disproportionately affect conservatives. when a facebook staff member pushed for the entire list, the entire propaganda list to be taken down on the grounds that fueled the fake news that royaled the election, the same republican executive warned of the backlash from conservatives saying quote they don't believe it to be fake news. and so many of those pages producing false disinformation, they stayed. a year later, it happened again, the company was going to try to

change its news feed algorithm to limit the amount of misinformation flowing out of that particular fire hose. but when they realized the new algorithm would hurt right wing publishers more than others because right wing outlets were pushing more misinformation than others, the companies once again pulled back. they kept pumping misinformation knowingly into people's news feeds because limiting it would mean limiting more right wing sites. funny how that works. why is that. eventually the company announced that politicians writ large would simply be exempt from facebook's fact checking and its community guidelines on banned speech, and yes, that rule applied to all politicians but it was obvious that at least in the united states, it was tailored to one politician in particular. this decision by facebook that the most important thing was that they not appear to be targeting donald trump and conservatives even though they were the ones spreading all the misinformation and conspiracy theories, that decision had enormous consequences. president trump of course was

free to use that platform to lie about, say, the coronavirus, and to promote dangerous fake covid cures and lie about bogus election fraud claims and claim ultimately that the 2020 election was stolen. it took a freaking violent attack on the u.s. capitol for facebook to finally change its mind, to finally recalibrate its concerns. after president trump used facebook and other social media to incite the january 6th attack, saying it was too dangerous to allow him to continue to post there. but although twitter's ban on trump after the insurrection was permanent, for life, facebook's wasn't. facebook executives basically punted on deciding whether trump's facebook account should ever be reinstated. that punted that decision to something called the facebook oversight board, which is 20 renowned experts from around the world, funded by facebook but operating independently, that's the group that's going to announce their decision on whether trump will be allowed

back on facebook tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. eastern. and i'll be honest, tech companies and how they make their decisions i feel like, what do i know. but for obvious reasons, this decision tomorrow morning is going to be a very big deal with big implications for tech and social media but also for politics and for democracy, and because, what do i know, i wanted to talk about it with somebody who really does understand this stuff and deeply. joining is kara swisher, "new york times" opinion contributing writer, host of the podcast sway, ms. switcher, it's nice to have you here tonight. thanks for making time. >> nice to be here. thanks for inviting me. >> this isn't my wheel house at all. and i feel like i have come to learn over the past five years how the misuse of social media to undermine democracy plays out in real life, but i have yet to understand what the tech companies can do about it. >> well, they can follow their

rules, and kick people off that violate their rules, which donald trump did numerous times, over and over and over again, and they let him do it. it's sort of like you don't want to -- you can't even compare it to anything. he was allowed to violate the rules without any repercussions until january 6th when he crossed what is a very bright red line which was to insight violence, and because many of these companies didn't want to become hand maidens of violence in this fashion, they moved him off the platforms very quickly. in the case of twitter, it was a permanent ban. jack dorsey did what it took and made the difficult decision to take him off. it took a long time and a lot of violations. facebook did remove him, and punted. that's exactly what they did, saying they just didn't know what to do, they didn't want to be the arbiter of truth, why build a platform that requires them, and now they have sent it over to this facebook oversight board, which is going to make this decision, which many people

think probably will return donald trump to facebook. that's actually sort of the over and ender in silicon valley right now that he will be returning to the platform and facebook will be compelled to do it and not have the responsibility of making the decision or not. >> is the oversight board making this decision about trump based on an assessment of whether or not he has held to facebook's rules or are they making a decision on the basis of some sort of understanding of some greater good? >> well, they're trying to do a greater good thing. they couldn't make a decision based on how he's behaved on the platforms, he has violated the rules all the time. honestly, it's not his fault. why wouldn't he if it was good for him, why wouldn't he try to increase fundraising, he uses facebook for fundraising, why wouldn't he use twitter as a megaphone, i hate to say this, the tools are available to him, and they do nothing about it, and they give warnings, as you

know, twitter slapped warnings on it, which was, i don't mean to be rude, it's laughable, he continued to do it, and his base continued to re-tweet it. and in the case of twitter, they finally said that's enough, and other sites like reddit did the same thing, the ceo told me, there's a thing, you know, malignantly cooperative that a lot of these trolls are, and so he decided that they weren't cooperative and tossed them off when they were violating the rules. in facebook's case, i think it should boil down to that. here's someone who breaks the rules incessantly. he shouldn't be given a pass because he's the president or former president, especially when he moves into dangerous territory like this. but he had been flirting with it for a long long time. >> if they decide to allow him back on to the platform tomorrow, do you think that means he's both back on the platform in the short-term but also essentially indemnified from being kicked off again for the kinds of things that he's been shown to do that they have decided to look away from by

putting him back. >> no. no, i think there's going to be strings attached. if they do allow him back on the platform, if he does things like the big lie. if he starts doing it again, because of course he's going to do it again. why not? why shouldn't he? he never has repercussions for what he does, that's precisely what you would want to do if you had influence, and you had a malignant idea of influence. so if he does certain things from what i understand, he will, again, be subject to sanctions, but this is going to be like whac-a-mole with him. instead of just considering him like a lot of people who misbehave on the platforms a bad actor and kick him off. that's what they have done with lots of people, including conservatives, some liberals, all over the place, and they have done that before, and they just don't want to apply it to this particular man. i see him as an outlier, and there's not going to be a lot of them. what i worry about is someone someday who's a little smarter who doesn't make unforced errors

the way he has so many times, which i think he can't help himself in a lot of ways. >> kara swisher, "new york times" opinion contributing writer, the host of the podcast "sway," thank you for helping me understand this. as i said, this is not my wheel house. i'm aware of the sort of stakes here and not the nuance, you have helped with that a lot. >> thank you. >> more ahead tonight. stay with us. >> thank you >> more ahead tonight. stay with us

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son again. and then they took him. he was 15 years old. now, 3 1/2 years later, after the biden administration set up a task force to reunite families that the trump administration separated, brian is one of the first four kids to be reunited with his family. and when we met him last night through jacob, brian sid he knew he was likely to see his mom again sometime this week. well, we can now report that the reunion happened today. just south of san diego, california. here are brian and his mother enjoying one of their first hugs after nearly four years apart. brian then spoke to some assembled reporters about what this moment means to him after all this time. >> there's no words to describe the happiness that i'm feeling right now, and i'm grateful with all the people that they did this amazing work to allow my mom to come back. i just hope that they can -- all

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which shows will you be getting into tonight? how 'bout all of them. netflix. 'cause xfinity gets you really into your shows. when one burns for someone who does not feel the same. daphne, let's switch. from live tv to sports on the go. felix at the finish! you can even watch your dvr from anywhere. okay, that's just showing off. you get all of this on x1. so go on, get really into your shows.

you need a breath mint. xfinity. it's a way better way to watch. especially the young people, your president has your back. >> the president has your back. that was joe biden at his state of the union address last week. we're not supposed to call it the state of the union, but it was the state of the union, pledging his support for transgender americans. as i mentioned, the daily beast was first to report today that the u.s. justice department is expected to start fighting in court against what the beast calls the rash of anti-lbgtq and anti-transbills proliferating in state legislators. the justice department, interestingly, confirming that in a statement saying "the

department willfully enforce our civil rights statutes to protect transgender individuals." again, that reporting today from the daily beast. but as more than 120 different anti-trans laws continue to move in republican controlled legislators around the country, watch this space indeed, for the federal government to enter the fight, which could be not just game changing, but it could change both the profile, the tenor and the prospects for that new discriminatory crusade by the republican party in state legislators around the country. that's going to do it for us for tonight. see you again tomorrow. now time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." >> good evening, rachel. you are going to make an appearance very early in this hour. elizabeth warren is our first guest and we're going to show you that video with elizabeth in her home i