i'll talk to four key members of that group this morning. and they called themselves the ministry of self-defense. now four of those so-called ministers are charged with conspiracy. new reporting on how an organized extremist group planned to swarm the u.s. capitol on january 6th. and it might be the first maskless weekend in more than a year making sense of those new cdc guidelines. we'll be talking about how you're feeling about it and answering your questions. "velshi" starts now. good morning. it is saturday, may 15th. 129 days since the insurrection and the attack on the u.s. capitol. an event the republican party already wants to have you believe was a peaceful tourist trip. we begin with the ongoing decay of the republican party which made crystal clear it's ideology moving forward is trumpism. following her election via a

secret ballot to become the number three congresswoman in the house, elise stefanik said trump is an important party of the gop and that the former president is the leader that they look to. stefanik who along with 138 other house republicans voted against certifying the election results replaces liz cheney who was ousted for voting to impeach the former president. because she dared call out the gop dear leader's lie for what it is, a lie, and a threat to democracy. kevin mccarthy allowanced the election via twitter, a place the failed former president could find an update because he was banned from it. and yet just hours after the gop voted cheney out for the great crime of telling the truth about the election and about donald trump, mccarthy made this ridiculous claim. >> i don't think anybody is

questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. i think that's all over with. >> all over with? they just ousted liz cheney from leadership because she refused to question the legitimacy of the election. a lease stefanik's qualification is that she was willing to question the legitimacy of the presidential election. almost every house republican voted against certifying the results of the presidential election. so, yes, kevin mccarthy, you and your party are very much certainly questioning legitimacy of the presidential election. republicans made clear the litmus test is not policy or principle, it's a willingness to push a lie about the presidential election, the same lie feeding a multitude of voter suppression measures being passed across the country including the ridiculous and dangerous partisan recount being

undertaken by the cyberninjas in arizona. that's the name of a company. mccarthy also says he has concerns about the new bipartisan agreement reached to create an independent commission to investigate the january 6th attack on the capitol. it would be styled after the 9/11 commission and study the facts and circumstances of the january 6th attack on the capitol as well as the influencing factors that may have provoked the attack on our democracy. bennie thompson will join me here tomorrow morning. there's a lot to discuss with chairman thompson including the active duty officer in the united states marines who was just arrested and charged for his role in the u.s. capitol attack including for allegedly assaulting police, obstruction and unlawful entry. new court filings reveal that the violet racist extremist group, proud boys, created a smaller group they call the

ministry of self-defense which was tasked with planning and carrying out the group's activities at the capitol on january 6th. but according to the latest lies from the gop, those activities were the actions of peaceful tourists. >> it was trump supporters who lost their lives that day, not trump supporters who were taking the lives of others. >> my constituents demand answer. the truth is being censored and covered up. the dodge is harassing peaceful patriots across the country. >> so, was january 6th an insurrection or could it be more described as a mob of misfits. >> there was no insurrection, to call it an insurrection is a bold-faced lie. if you didn't know the tv footage was a video from january 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit. >> a normal tourist visit. according to congressman clyde, it's normal for tourists to go into the united states capitol by breaking windows, mull around the floor of congress, assault

and kill police officers, to chant for the public hanging of the vice president of the united states. those are the actions of normal tourists. david cicilline is moving so censure a few gop lawmakers, and now former members of congress and law enforcement officials is demanding that the gop reform or they will create an alternative third party. joining me now, two signatories of that statement of republican principles, former massachusetts governor and former presidential candidate, bill weld, and former governor of new jersey and epa administrator in the george w. bush administration, christie todd whitman. thank you for being with us. governor whitman is the author of "it's my party too" the battle for the heart of the gop and the future of america. she has a new opinion piece out

in "newsweek," four months after an insurrection it's time to move forward, not move on. and with that i want to start with you, governor whitman. what does that mean, move forward, not move on? >> it means take what happened on january 6th seriously, to move forward with this bipartisan commission like 9/11, which is what has to happen. you have to have it so the public trusts the outcome. if it's bipartisan it will. i would have preferred if they would have picked two outside people, a republican and a democrat to be the co-chairs of it like they did for 9/11, be that as it may, this is fine. i can't believe kevin mccarthy is going to try to stop republicans from voting for it. it means let's not -- we can't move away and pretend it didn't happen. we need to understand what happened. that was an effort to overturn our democracy. they were there to stop the

counting of the electoral ballots. we cannot have that in our democracy. we cannot continue to spread this lie about that election being a fraud because now people are not trusting our politics, our -- the way we govern ourselves. that becomes very, very dangerous. >> governor weld, you actually ran against donald trump for the nomination of the republican party. the republican party stood very clearly in your way. there were a number of states where they didn't even hold primaries. what does this threat look like now? what happens? play it out for me. let's say you and governor todd whitman and other prominent republicans form this new party, how does that play out? >> it may take some time. rome wasn't built in a day. even when the wigs were turned back into the republican party in the 1850s, i was talking

about that as a precedence since 2016, they first joined the free soil party and then they became the republican party and elected lincoln in 1860. the bottom line is that the fear, the paranoia among republicans in washington, they're scared of mr. trump and him primarying them. bob woodward's book about trump was called "fear" for many reasons. trump said many times i would rather be feared than loved. that is just pathetic that there's that much paranoia among republicans in washington. so the idea is if we can't get people into the center -- and we're not going to become democrats. this is a center-right coalition. if we can't get people of good will who believe in the rule of law, a government of laws and not of men as it said on the building at 10th and constitutional when i was assistant attorney general of the united states, then something will have to give. i think that that party in washington is going to be an incredible vanishing party.

>> governor todd whitman, you and governor weld were governors of states where they had republican and democratic governors. you're somewhat used to doing things across the political aisle. i guess this does work against the political aisle. you might attract some centrist democrats, and as governor weld says you're looking to be a center-right party. how do you think this gets built over time? if you peel anybody off from the republican party in the next election or the election after that, that really works to the advantage of democrats. >> it might for a cycle, but it's not over the long run. i agree with governor weld, you will see the republican -- if the republican party continues to be the only thing that makes it a party is a litmus trust and loyalty to donald trump, that's not going to last. i think they may win back congress in 2022 just because that's the normal cycle of things. it wouldn't be surprising if it happened. but that's not sustainable over the long run.

and there are millions of voters now who are feeling homeless. more democrats are starting to feel that way as they worry about the democrats moving too far to the left. but these are mostly republicans. i'm sure all of us who signed on to these principles have heard from people that we didn't even know had left the republican party and have said thank you, this is what we're looking for. we have to have a home. we don't want to -- we want to try to get the republican party back to the center and it won't happen overnight but we'll be supporting those candidates who agree to the principles we put out there and working against those who don't. hopefully we'll make a difference in the next cycle and we'll see where the party goes and if we can get the party back before we have to try another tact. >> bill weld, you ran a remarkable presidential campaign which i followed closely. there were no extreme positions in there. you had very informed position on most major issues.

you and i sat and had a discussion about the climate, something that governor todd whitman has been a forward thinker on for decades. there are probably lots of people who wanted to vote for you last time in the presidential election but they knew a vote for bill weld wasn't going to end up with bill weld for president. how do you create a party, if that's what you end up doing, if the republican party doesn't respond, how do you create a party that voters take seriously and say they may not win the next election but i'll use that as my statement. i'll use my ballot as a statement that that's the future of a conservative party i'm looking for. that's the future of whatever you want to call yourself that i'm looking for. >> one way this may play out, look at the 2022 elections, let's say we're able to attract 15% of the regular republican voters who our banner. that would spell trouble for the republicans running for

reelection in washington who have hitched themselves firmly to the trump wagon and who have shown that they're just terribly afraid of this would-be out autocrat. mr. trump made no secret that he wants to be an autocrat. that is just saying we're giving up our democracy. if those republicans who clung to fear of trump as their motivating factor, if they should lose their seats, too bad. that's showbiz. it would not be good for the republicans in the midterms, but, you know, that's a foreseeable consequence of what we're doing. we understand that. we're fighting against people being scared of trump as their motivating factor. >> you two have been frequent and gracious guests of mine, what a great thing it would be to book you on the show and talk about the conservative approaches to our policies rather than lousy politics.

big weld, former republican governor of massachusetts and presidential candidate. christie todd whitman is the former republican governor of new jersey and head of the expa. later in the show, i'll be joined by two other signatories to this new call for american renewal, former homeland security secretary, michael chertoff and michael steele. coming up after the break, to mask or not to mask? that's the question. the cdc's new guidance changes the answer. i asked to hear your thoughts on the cdc's new mask guidance. kim sent me this email. i do not feel comfortable going maskless for several reasons. the major reason is i'm immunocompromised. what about those who have not been vaccinated and the variants? i put in too much time protecting myself up to this point to get covid. ahhh! ♪♪

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today many americans are getting ready to have their first maskless weekend in over a year. the cdc released new guidance this week that fully vaccinated people can stop wearing masks and social distancing in most indoor and outdoor settings, but they're raising questions for business owners and state officials who still need to enforce protocols and have no way of knowing who is and is not vaccinated. since the guidance was issued, some major u.s. retailers say they will update their mask requirements. however the new store rules must comply with state or local mandates. apple, cvs and walgreens, no change to their policies at the moment. they're still worried about whether the vaccines are entirely effective against strains new and old. we're getting wind of cases where fully vaccinated people are contracting covid. i have tons of questions. i put out on twitter to see what you thought about it. you got lots of questions, too. joining me to answer them is dr.

nahid bhadelia, the medal director of special pathogens unit at boston medical center and an msnbc medical contributor. good to see you again. i want to pick up on a conversation you and i were having last night about a number of cases, bill maher is one of them, a number of the yankees, all of whom have been fully vaccinated, testing positive for covid, in almost all cases fully asymptomatic except for one, tell me what you make of that. >> whether it is in trials or many of the groups that we've observed since then who have been vaccinated, we expect break-through infections. none of the vaccines out there are 100%. but what you're seeing is in almost all of the cases of break-through infections which are small, they're rare, you see mild or asymptomatic disease. so the question then becomes so what? in a world where the majority of

the people are vaccinated it becomes safer even if the virus is circulating for two reasons. if there's some break-through infections, if you expose another person if they're vaccinated as well, they're safer. the other question you and i talked about is in these break-through infections, where people do end up getting the virus in their airway, the science remains unclear whether they can transmit that. there's enough virus there for them to transmit that. and for those reasons i think that, you know, the cdc's guidelines, the changes are reflective of the idea that in many communities there are potentially enough people vaccinated where the individual vaccinated person's risk is low. i do wish they or maybe the state might do this, is have benchmarks to wait for enough people to be vaccinated or cases being low enough so the stakes of potentially, you know, unvaccinated people who are now remaining also unmasking becomes more than than what it has been

to this date. >> so, let me just -- we used to talk a year ago about viral load, right? how much virus you have in you and how potent that virus is. one thing that you're suggesting is that those people who are vaccinated who then tested positive test positive because that's how the tests work, but they may not have as much virus to shed and pass on to other people as they would if they had not been vaccinated. >> and then there are studies that show that. in vaccinated -- the airways of people who are vaccinated and get these infections, the viral load seems to be lower, but the trouble is we have not set up the load, the viral load that is required in my business, what's needed to infect other people. overall the data is clear, in communities that are highly vaccinated, transmissions go down. which means vaccinated are not transmitting it at the same rate

and not only that, the studies of the cdc's front line health studies show all infections are reduced up to 90% after people are fully vaccinated, which means you don't get any asymptomatic infection or symptomatic infection you're less likely to transmit. the trouble is not the vaccinated. the trouble is the people who remain unvaccinated or people who do get the vaccine who may be immimmunocompromised who hav not mounted enough of an immune response to the vaccines, the vaccine is still protecting them but maybe not at the same level as everybody else. i'm concerned about communities where the vaccination rates are not high and cases are still high. >> i want to ask a question i got from kathy. when i see somebody without a mask, the question is are they really vaccinated? how do i protect myself? >> the best way to do that if you have not been vaccinated is to get vaccinated.

an unvaccinated person next to you for the reasons we talked about with the cluster with the yankees or bill maher, even if you're exposed and you might get the infection, you're not going to have the symptoms most likely and you're not going to get severe disease. that includes, by the way, variants as well. there's a lot of concern about the variants. to date the variants of concern in this country, the data from trials er looking at real-world data or laboratory data shows in most cases the vaccines that we have on the market will protect for the most part severe disease and death. that means that to date the variants that we have, you are protected. so you should still get vaccinated. if you do not feel comfortable in those crowded spaces, you can still wear a mask. cdc guidance is just that, it's guidance. it's been a tough year. there's still places that do not have the same level of vaccination and if you feel more comfortable wearing themask for

a while, many of us feel the same way. >> i know you didn't get more sleep than i did because you and i talked on tv late last night. but you seem more awake than i feel. thank you for giving us great guidance. dr. nahid bhadelia. we have breaking news right now out of the middle east. a building that houses media outlets in gaza city has just been hit by a rocket. let's get right to nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel in tel aviv. gaza city is due south of you. what do you know about what's happened? >> so, it is not far on a map, but it is worlds away. the building in gaza city is the gaza media center. one of the tallest buildings in gaza city. it was warned. the israeli military gave them an hour's notice saying the building was going to be destroyed. it houses the associated press. it houses the bbc.

it houses many media organizations, al jazeera. it was -- i've operated there myself quite a few times. they were told to leave, to evacuate, that it would be destroyed. and then almost an hour to the moment, to the second later, it was hit by a rocket and did collapse. it is a significant move. it also houses apartments. it is also a symbol that israel believes that that media building was a legitimate target that it wanted to destroy. here in tel aviv, we've been seeing incoming rocket attacks. over the last two hours or so, the air raid sirens in this city have been going on. the iron dome missile defense system in this city has been in action. and we heard it. we saw it. what happened is first the air raid sirens go off, people clear the streets, they rush to their homes, they rush to shelters. a lot of apartment buildings in this city have aerate shelters

in the basement or people have safe rooms in their homes. then the iron dome starts to fire its projectiles in the air to intercept and destroy the incoming rockets. an nbc producer saw one of the rockets crash into the sea and there's been one significant impact about four miles from the center of tel aviv in another town. one man was killed. he did not have a shelter. one other israeli was critically injured. it's because of these rocket attacks that the israeli military is continuing its air assault and tank assault and artillery assault on to what it describes as hamas rocket launching capability tunnels and other infrastructure in the gaza strip and apparently now it's already considering that media building part of a -- part of

its legitimate target. but there are many who will say this is an attempt to silence those in gaza and to try and prevent the world from seeing what's happening. a very tough situation in gaza and here in this city. >> i want to use your eyes to tell us. we have a picture on the left side of the screen of a building being bombed. i don't know if that's this building. but it gives you a picture of gaza city. just to give viewers a sense of it, it's one of the most densely populated places on earth. new york city where i spend much of my time has a population density of 10,700 people per square kilometer. gaza has 13,000 people per square kilometer. so when we see these bombings, it's next to impossible to take out a building in gaza city and not have civilian casualties or collateral damage.

>> so the geography throughout this is critically important. gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the planet. gaza city is the largest city in gaza. it's separated from israel by fences and walls. it is a completely isolated area. the people who live in gaza, the palestinians there who are governed by hamas, the islamic militant group cannot leave without permission that is extremely difficult to obtain from egyptians or israeli authorities. many describe it as the world's largest open prison run by hamas. they feel oppressed, anger, that's why every few years now the people of gaza led by hamas will organize uprisings and launch rockets into israel. launching them over the walls, over the fences, and firing them

more or less indiscriminately because these are unguided rockets. yes, when the israelis respond, they do try to hit rocket launching sites. but if you're firing into gaza city or the areas around it, it is virtually impossible not to cause -- not to cause damage, significant damage. according to israeli and palestinian medical officials, around 13 palestinians have been killed in the last several days. and that includes about -- almost 40 children now when you consider the attacks that took place overnight. >> we were showing you on the left of the screen, we will continue to -- we have imagery reportedly of that attack that just took place moments ago. there it is. the destruction of a building that does house international media outlets. there are unconfirmed reports coming through of injuries in that building including of journalists. we do not have that confirmed. as richard will tell you, it's

hard to confirm information because there's a lot of propaganda that comes out. there's things that appear on social media that are postings of old things. it becomes hard to get to the bottom of it. >> i can describe that building if you'd like. >> please do. >> i worked in that building many times. it's one of the tallest buildings in gaza, which is why so many media organizations use it. generally media organizations will rent out an apartment that has a live shot like this. keep their equipment there. they were given a warning. they were given just one hour, as you know, television is not a light thing. in the last hour journalists in that building have been scrambling to not only get out but get as much equipment as they could out of the building. there were some early reports that some journalists didn't want to leave. they wanted to continue broadcasting, but they did get notice and that is a pattern that has played out in this and other conflicts where the israelis will try to provide warning shots or sometimes

directly call the people who are involved. in this case they called the owner of the building and told the people to get out that the building will be destroyed in an hour. but evacuating an 11-story building with media organizations and equipment is not an easy thing. there are other people and guards who live in that building full time. so it is a chaotic scene, just in that building over the last hour or so since they got that warning. and that is just one target that the israelis have struck in gaza as they continue this campaign to stop the rockets that are still flying from gaza. >> once again, you're watching imagery of a building in gaza that was just destroyed moments ago by israeli fire. it housed journalist organizations. richard, don't go far. thank you for your immediate

coverage of this. richard has been providing a great deal of context, analysis and news reporting. he is in tel aviv. we talked a lot about the israeli military's role in the conflict. it's worth noting that unlike the united states where americans enlist, in israel serving in the armed forces is mandatory for all citizens over the age of 18. but when an israeli teen is forced to join up they may not know what they're fighting for. a veteran's organization called breaking the silence, is trying to better inform the world about what life in the israeli military is like. at breaking the silence we aim to expose the public to the daily reality of the occupation and israeli military rule over the palestinian civilian population in the territories. a reality we witnessed firsthand during our military service. joining me now is the executive director of breaking the silence, avner gvaryahu, with whom i toured some of the occupied territories in 2019, in particular, hebron, one of the starkest examples of the

apartheid-like situation that exists for palestinians. avner, i want to talk to you about some of the news we're getting right now first. this does feel like an escalation with each passing hour. we're getting more reports of rockets going from gaza to israeli cities, being intercepted by the iron dome and morestefforts by the it's railly israelis and punish the gazans. >> i think that's the precise point to understand. we're living this groundhog day of cycles over and over and over again. i'm speaking to you now from my apartment in tel aviv. any second now i could have to rush off to a bomb shelter, something that just happened literally less than an hour ago.

i think part of what i keep trying to remind myself is this reality that's taking place just a few kilometers south from mere in gaza is a man made crisis, one that i as an israeli, i see myself as an israeli patriot feel responsibility to speak out against in order to change the reality on the ground. >> avner, we know many people in the united states whose kids willingly go over to israel to join the armed forces in standing in solidarity with the country they rightly believe deserves to live in peace and free of harassment. but there are some things that you know, that you and i saw together. we saw israeli soldiers doing that parents of these american kids don't know is going on. that this is not necessarily exclusively this patriotic job

of protecting for and standing for the state of israel, which is an important job. there's more to it than that. there's active involvement by members of the military in really breaking the spirit and controlling the lives of palestinians. >> i mean, i would say -- this is true to gaza, but definitely true to israel in general. israel not only has the right but i believe the duty to protect its citizens. and shooting into populated areas, i believe, is indefensible and should be condemned. i say that, you know, unequivocally and i think that's important to understand. but we also have to realize that when we talk about israel's control over palestinians -- and this is true to the west bank and this is true to the strip -- what we've been doing for many, many years now -- and this is definitely true with netanyahu's leadership -- is do whatever we

can on the entrenched occupation. we have patrols, checkpoints, night raids, making our presence felt, showing our control as we have discussed on the streets of hebron. some of these streets are totally closed off for palestinians or as soldiers call them, sterilized roads. we also see a reality not only in hebron but also in the gaza strip that part of the way that we control the gazans are these recurring operations. the concept of mowing the lawn, that we are sort of in these cycles of violence. this does not mean there is no palestinian violence. this does not mean there isn't responsibility on leaderships on both sides. i think it is important to say a big part of the energy israel is using with its military forces is not in order to defend the

state of israel so much as it is to defend israeli control over palestinians. part of what groups like breaking the silence are demanding and calling for is for the sake of israelis and palestinians, we have to rethink the way we're operating. another round is just around the corner. nothing that another building in gaza will collapse or sadly another israeli citizen shot or killed in his apartment will end. the only way to end it is with political will and that's why it's so important for us to -- as those who carried out this military control, to speak out. >> avner, i understand there are sirens going on around you. please seek shelter. thank you for going on. avner gvaryahu is an executive director of breaking the silence. we'll continue to monitor the situation in gaza where a building that houses media

organizations was just hit by rockets. we're trying to determine whether they were able to evacuate that building fully. there's conflicting reports now if it was fully evacuated. new disturbing allegations involving drugs, escorts and matt gaetz. the bowls are back. applebee's irresist-a-bowls all just $8.99. ♪ [truck horn blares] (vo) the subaru forester. dog tested. dog approved.

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relatively quiet in the last month but that's changed significantly. first we learned that joel greenberg is expected to cooperate with federal investigators as part of a plea deal. in a court filing yesterday, greenberg, who agreed to plead guilty to six federal charges admits to spending more than $70,000 between 2016 and 2018 to pay women to have sex with him and other unnamed men including one woman who was 17. hours after that broke, the daily beast dropped a bombshell of its own reporting that gaetz himself snorted cocaine at a gop fund-raiser with an escort who had a no-show government job according to two unidentified witnesses. gaetz denies any wrong doing. i'm joined by one of the reporters who broke that story, my old friend, jose pagliery. good to see you. you have been extremely busy with this story. i don't know where to start. that sentence i just read about

what your reporting said has so many words in it that don't normally go together on a saturday morning. what are some of the biggest points in this news story you published last night? >> good morning. yeah. i know, let's start with the basics. my colleague at the bailey beast and i have been investigating matt gaetz's roll in what we're hearing is this sex ring where matt gaetz would leverage his wing man, joel greenberg, to acquire young women and pay for sex. we've been hearing about parties for weeks now, but in the story we ran yesterday we zero in on one of them because we got the goods. we were able to get two witnesses in the hotel room after a political fund-raiser in orlando in 2019 where gaetz, after he delivered this very trumpy speech saying he was the most trumpy person in congress, he retires to his hotel room with this woman, who he's had a

transactional relationship with in the past. now, in this story we identify this person because not only did she have a transactional relationship that was pay for sex with matt gaetz, but she also leveraged that into a government no-show job locally with joel greenberg where she got paid almost $17,000 for not actually working. so in this story, what we do, we zero in on this after-party where two witnesses who were there tell us that matt gaetz and this woman who at the time was his paid escort brought cocaine, snorted it with him on a bathroom counter. and this is extremely relevant for at least two reasons. the first is that matt gaetz keeps saying he never paid for sex. we have witnesses who say differently. the second is that this doesn't just involve somebody who landed a no-show job at taxpayers expense. the congressman also expensed this particular hotel stay as a campaign expense.

so we know donors footed the bill at least for this instance. >> and this business of corruption is central to this whole story. greenberg was charged with 33 things in the beginning. he's pleading guilty to six of them. a lot of what joel greenberg did was stuff on the public dime. access to stuff, things that he had access to because of an elected office that he held. so there's an overlay -- matt gaetz wants to convey this idea he's a man about town who parties a lot and had an active dating life. but in fact there's a level of corruption and use of public funds and resources that complicates this story. >> definitely. look, to understand why all this attention is on matt gaetz we have to understand who joel greenberg is. he's a local politician in florida who the second he got into office, according to federal investigators, he started misusing that office. misappropriating funds, starting to generate bitcoin from his

computers there. he gave his friends no-show jobs he shouldn't have given them. he started making fake ids that he would pass along to young women to entice them for sex. once you understand joel greenberg and his role, that's where we can start understanding what matt gaetz is doing. as we also revealed a few weeks ago, joel greenberg wrote a confession leader in a bungled attempt to get pardoned by trump detailing everything, who he is, and his relationship with matt gaetz. in that letter joel greenberg explicitly states he was with the congressman when they both had sex with a 17-year-old. this would make this 17-year-old girl an underage minor in florida. and that's why this is so relevant. yesterday's news that greenberg essentially admitted to six of the 33 crimes he's charged with, one of them was sex trafficking of a minor. and that girl is also tied to

gaetz. here's why. as we at the daily beast revealed weeks before that, matt gaetz sent a venmo payment to his wing man, greenberg, mentioned hit up and he mentioned the girl's name. yesterday's plea agreement signed by greenberg was welcomed to us because it actually lined up perfectly with all the reports we've done so far. we know the name of this 17-year-old, how much she was paid, where she has been, and this is where the world is going to come down crashing for this congressman. the feds have the receipts. they're getting the witnesses. we know that joel greenberg is just the first person that the feds have really gotten to and turned essentially into a government witness. there are more and we'll learn more about that in the weeks ahead. >> right. and you've actually spoken to many of them. so i assume if they're speaking to the daily beast, the fed also have a conversation with them as well. jose, this is a wild story. i covered a lot of stories, this

one is wilder with each publication you make. when people ask me to explain it, i tell them go to the daily beast and read it. it's a lot of detail. jose pagliery, political investigations reporter for the daily beast. federal prosecutors are filing charges against a small chapter of the proud boys for their role in the january 6th insurrection. they call themselves the ministry of self-defense. but now they're on defense against the feds. apart from that, it's asian pacific heritage month now and today nearly two dozen rallies are scheduled to stand against the thousands of anti-asian hate incidents that have been reported in the last year. cleveland, cincinnati, houston, los angeles, new york, d.c., those are some of the cities hosting events today. if you're nearby, show up, lend your support to our asian pacific islander brothers and sisters. tune in tomorrow morning as i go across america for a conversation with six members of the aapi community in san

francisco about their struggles and what message they would like to convey to the country in this critical moment. "velshi" airs tomorrow from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. eastern on msnbc. we'll be right back. new parodontax active gum repair kills plaque bacteria at the gum line to help keep the gum seal tight. new parodontax active gum repair toothpaste.

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in clinical trials, weight, cholesterol and blood sugar changes were similar to placebo. if you're affected by schizophrenia, ask your doctor about caplyta from intra-cellular therapies. they call themselves the ministry of self-defense, and now they've got to defend themselves in court. newly filed documents show that the far right group the proud boys, designated a small group of its members to orchestrate and carry out its activities during the capitol siege on jan 6th. the special chapter included proud boys chairman enrique tario and four other men. prosecutors say the messages exchanged between the men reveal a plan to storm the capitol and let the crowd loose. however, prosecutors say they don't know yet who established the full-scale plan. meanwhile, to dig further into the origins of the capitol

attack, on friday the house homeland security committee reached an agreement to form a bipartisan independent commission to investigate the capitol attack. the ten-person group will be made up of individuals with expertise in law enforcement, privacy, civil lints, cybersecurity and intelligence. the group will have the power to issue subpoenas but they will face what you might describe as hostile witnesses on one side of the aisle. a republican party that is rive with members intent on denying what we all saw on camera with our own eyes. >> there was no insurrection, and to call it an insurrection in my opinion is a boldfaced lie. you didn't know the tv footage what a video from january 6th, you would actually thing it was a normal tourist visit. >> five people lost their lives at the capitol that day. 140 more were injured. democratic representative roger krishna of illinois joins me.

he is a member of the house oversight and intelligence committees. congressman, good to see you. you and i have a long history of talking. i don't even know what question to ask you after hearing this nonsense. when we had the 9/11 excision, people may have had questions or disagreements as to the underlying causes of the attack or the intelligence failures but we didn't doubt what happened. we saw that. some people did, but members of congress didn't. what do you make of this? >> good morning, ali. i find it disgusting and revolting in that particular case of representative clyde. i believe that he called this a normal tourist visit and i think congressman gosar during a hearing a couple of days ago called these people peaceful patriots. they were neither petitionful nor patriots, ali. i think the american people, the big majority of the american people based on the data that i see view this as an

insurrection. this was not some left wing conspiracy that led to this attack on the capitol and that trump was at least partially or mostly to blame for the attack. so when gosar and clyde and others say what they are saying, i think it really flies in the face of what most people believe. i think that it further leads to the republican party getting more and more disconnected with what the american people believe and want. >> and there's that part of things. there's an intransigent republican party, but you also had an exchange with the former acting defense secretary. i want to play that for our audience. >> mr. miller, i have a picture of january 6th and what the nation saw on tv. i can assure you, these pictures of mayhem and insurrection do not suggest anyone had their game together that day. >> i am a little concerned that

somebody who was in office at the defense department seems to be echoing some of the messages of your republican colleagues. >> yes. not only that, he echoed the messages of donald trump later in that testimony. i was able to get him to confirm that he had denigrated the pentagon, that he had praised the russians and, of course, he was incompetent. for one and a half hours, 90 minutes after the mayor of washington called him and his lieutenants for urgent assistance from the d.c. national guard which he over sees, he did not actually provide those resources. only 90 minutes after she called did he authorize it. hours after that he actually provided the forces. so this individual is unfortunately in the mold of donald trump, neither willing to take accountability for his actions and, unfortunately, very

incompetent. >> talk to me about this january 6th commission. it is going to have ten bipartisan members. the commissioners need experience in law enforcement, civil liberties, intelligence, various things. they will have subpoena power. how will we ensure that this thing is not doa, that it is not -- it don't become some weirdly partisan conspiracy theory-based thing right out of the gate? >> well, i think the good news is that bennie thompson, who is the chair of the house homeland security committee, actually came to an agreement with john katko, the ranking member and a republican on this legislation. they introduced it together yesterday, and they crafted a compromise of sorts where it is going to be evenly split between democrats and republicans, and that subpoenas would only be issued if both sides agreed. now, i think at this point we're going to have to see how kevin

mccarthy and rich mcconnell react. so far mr. mccarthy has not signed off on this. but, again, he -- if he fails to do so, he does so at his peril because, again, the vast majority of the american people want this type of commission to be composed and to study and prevent this attack on the capitol. i have not seen any evidence that a majority of americans or even a significant number want their capitol to be attacked, because at the end of the day what happened was an attempt to overturn the democratic processes. regardless of whether you are republican or democrat, that is not something that i don't think the vast majority of americans, democrats or republicans, want. >> congressman, thank you for joining us. democrat representative roger

krishnamoorthi. don't go anywhere. 100 republicans are vowing to split from the gop. the former rnc chairman is on the list. i will talk to him next as well. another hour of "velshi" begins now. good morning. it is saturday, may 15th. i'm ali velshi. we have a heaping helping of news for you this hour, including what is standing in the way of president biden's next big, ambitious plan for rebuilding the country. whose taxes mitch mcconnell is dedicated to keeping low. spoiler alert, not yours. and the ongoing rot in the republican party which has made clear that its ideology going forward the trumpism and only trumpism. we begin with breaking news out of the middle east where earlier this morning a building in gaza that houses media outlets was hit by an israeli rocket. it is reported that the israelis gave a warning the building would be destroyed and to evacuate.

an hour later the building was destroyed as you see on your screen. we will have later on the escalating situation later on the show. joel greenberg, a former associate of matt gaetz, has agreed to plead guilty to sex trafficking of a minor among other charges and to cooperate with authorities. he has agreed to plead guilty of six of the charges originally levied against him. gaetz was not named in the court papers. he has not been charged with any crime. the justice department is investigating whether gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and for possibly paying for women to travel for the purpose of having sex in the bahamas. gaetz has denied ever having sex or a relationship with a minor and denies paying for sex and any other criminal wrongdoing, but now another layer to the story. this "daily beast" headline says it all. representative matt gaetz

snorted cocaine with escort who had no-show government job. usings. a little early on a sunday morning for those words together. two witnesses tell "the daily beast" that gaetz attended a 2019 gop fundraiser in orlando with a paid escort who led a cocaine-fuelled after paergt in gaetz's hotel room. "the daily beast" reports the fun fact gaetz wrote off the hotel room as a campaign expense. in a statement to "the daily beast", his public relations firm issued a statement. the privacy of women living private lives should be protected. "the new york times" has previously reported that during encounters with women he paid to have sex with in 2019 and 2020, gaetz and others took the mind altering drug ecstasy according to two people familiar with the encounter. gaetz currently remains in his powerful position on the house judiciary committee and is set to host the second america first caucus, a rally next friday in arizona with