and they're taking their lives in their hands every time they do, but you come to this thing with the vaccine, i don't think it's fear i think it's something else. i think we're all trying to figure out exactly what it is, but it's sad when it affects people that piece, you can read at "the daily beast." michael, thank you so much for coming in. >> thank you. >> that is "all in" on this thursday night. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. >> good evening, chris. thank you, my friend. very rarely does a politician have to put his money where his mouth is. i can't remember the last time we had a story where a politician made a public bet and they had to pay off when they lost the bet. but that has finally happened.

and look. we have the check. we have the actual check that shows the guy having to pay up. the far right former right wing radio host who is now the republican lieutenant governor of texas, his name is dan patrick, this is a check drawn on his campaign funds. you see in the upper left-hand corner, texans for dan patrick. the check is drawn on his campaign funds. it is for $25,000. payable to a young man named eric frank. eric frank is a young man who you are about to meet. i almost could not believe this story was real until i saw the actual check. but there is the actual check. it really happened. this is impossible. this is impossible. but apparently it happened. we'll introduce you to eric frank in just a moment and get the story behind that, just moments from now, in just a minute. this afternoon in washington there was a bit of a surprise in

the vote in congress that trump adviser steve bannon should be referred for prosecution to the u.s. justice department. i mean, once upon a time, the last time someone refused to comply with a subpoena from congress and congress voted to refer that person for prosecution because of it, the last time that happened, which was way back in 1983, the vote in the house to refer that official, that reagan administration official for prosecution, was unanimous. it was 413-0. the last time the house did it, all democrats and all republicans in the house of representatives all voted together. that was a serious, indeed criminal thing to do, to defy a subpoena. the entire house voted unanimously that that reagan administration official should be referred for prosecution. well, that was the last time, 1983. today was the next time. and today in the house, obviously there was no unanimous vote, we don't do that anymore. i do think a lot of people

thought that republicans would vote all but unanimously against this prosecution referral today. but that didn't happen either. maybe this is the tyranny of low expectations, but it is a bit of a surprise that a total of nine republican members of the house voted that steve bannon should be referred for prosecution. nine democrats -- excuse me, nine republicans and all the democrats. and that was more than enough to get a majority of the house. and so now the matter of steve bannon defying that subpoena, that will be put in the hands of the u.s. attorney in washington, dc to decide if in fact criminal charges against him are warranted. you'll recall that liz cheney lost her post in the republican leadership because of her uncompromising, nonpartisan stance against trump's efforts to overturn the election. she did everything she could today to make this as hard a vote as possible for her fellow republicans. >> there are people in this

chamber right now who were evacuated with me and with the rest of us on that day during that attack. people who now seem to have forgotten the danger of the moment, the assault on the constitution, the assault on our congress. people who you will hear argue that there is simply no legislative purpose for this committee, for this investigation, or for this subpoena. mr. bannon's own public statements make clear he knew what was going to happen before it did. and thus he must have been aware of and may well have been involved in the planning of everything that played out on that day. the american people deserve to know what he knew and what he did. >> the vote today was 229-202. and that was nine republicans along with all the democrats. nine republicans including liz cheney joining all the democrats in the house to refer steve bannon to the justice department

for prosecution over his refusal to obey a subpoena from the january 6 investigation. now, as to whether or not the justice department is actually going to put him on trial, we really don't know. the dc u.s. attorney could decide not to. the d.c. u.s. attorney could convene a grand jury, present evidence to the grand jury and let the grand jury decide whether or not an indictment against mr. bannon is warranted. one other option, i believe, don't hold me to this if this doesn't turn out to be the case, but i believe, based on my understanding of how these things work, based on the type of charge this would theoretically be against mr. f bannon, i believe that the d.c. u.s. attorney also has the option to just draw up the without going to a grand jury at all, which is yet another way to approach this. regardless of how the u.s. attorney's office decides to handle this, though, we really won't know anything about that process until it's done, until a charge is brought, in which case that will be known, or until the

justice department, the u.s. attorney's office, decides to release some statement about their decision not to charge mr. bannon. we won't know until it's done. we may not know for quite some time. and attorney general merrick garland, the leader of the justice department, he today was tight-lipped about what to expect about that process. he told a congressional committee where he was testifying today basically that the department will handle this, like he says they handle everything. they will handle this by the book, no fear, no favor. >> i will say what the spokesperson for the u.s. attorney's office in the district of columbia said yesterday or the day before. the house of representatives votes for referral of a contempt charge. the department of justice will do what it always does in such circumstances, will apply the facts and the law and make a decision consistent with the principles of prosecution. >> we will apply the facts and the law, make a decision consistent with the principles of prosecution.

in other words, i'm not going to tell what you we're doing. we are just going to do it on our own times, we don't take advice from anybody, so you can leave me alone about it. which is, honestly, the right way to answer those kinds of questions. and, you know, stepping back from this, just in terms of the newsworthiness of all that's going on in washington, the personalities involved -- i think the liz cheney drama is particularly piquant. but if you step back from that drama and the personalities, the discrete question of whether steve bannon will have to go on trial for this, it does matter in its own right. right? it does matter that it's the new normal that if you're a trump ally, you don't have to respond to subpoenas. you may remember steve bannon previously blew off other subpoenas from a committee investigating russia's involvement in the 2016

election years ago. he blew off those sps from congress as well, and republicans in charge at the time decided they would just let him blow off those subpoenas apparently because he was close to trump and they didn't want to bother donald trump about it. that can't be the way this is left. it matters whether or not he feels safe defying the law here. as congressman adam schiff said today in the debate before the vote, if steve bannon is allowed to get away with defying this subpoena, he will not be the exception that proves the rule. he will become the new rule of how republicans deal with what are supposed to be mandatory legal instructions. so it matters in its own right. but the reason this whole fight is happening, this whole fight over whether or not steve bannon is going to be forced to comply with the law here, beyond the specific legal matter and the specific precedential matter at hand, the question of whether or not steve bannon is going to comply with this investigation has actually grown in importance over time, because of the renewed and strengthened and

even more radicalized commitment on the right to the cause that brought the january 6 rioters to washington, d.c., in the first place, a cause that steve bannon and donald trump are even more publicly committed to today than they were back then in january. which liz cheney spoke to as well today with sort of admirable succinctness. >> the people who attacked this building have told us on video, on social media, and now, before the federal courts, exactly what motivated them. they believed what donald trump told them, that the election was stolen and that they needed to take action. >> that is what this is about. i mean whether or not steve bannon gets prosecuted for refusing to comply with subpoenas from the investigation into the january 6 attack t reason the january 6 attack happened is just exactly what

liz cheney said there. it was that trump told them the election was stolen and they needed to take action to remedy that. and that part of what went wrong on january 6, i mean, no matter the scope of this investigation or who they get to testify in the investigation, that part of what we want wrong on january 6 is still operative, is still quite operative. not just in trump world, when it comes to, you know, statements and actions of the former president himself. that part of what went wrong, the belief, the deliberately-stoked belief that the election was stolen and trump supporters need to take action to remedy that, that is alive and well not just in the immediate circle around trump but more broadly in republican politics today too. i mean, just today in the news, the colorado supreme court today rejected an appeal from a county clerk in mesa county, colorado. she's an elected republican county foishl run mesa county's elections.

she became a stop the steal promoter who signed on with the trump conspiracy theories about the election. we handed over proprietary elections equipment and software from the county to the trump conspiracy theorists who promptly posted all the information online including the county's passwords for accessing its secure election software. beyond the county now needing all new elections machines because those are now going to be decertified, the colorado secretary of state, democratic jana griswold, started an investigation into what happened in mesa county. the fbi reported they started an investigation as well. griswold decided for the safety of elections in that county, that clerk has to be removed from her job overseeing elections there. a judge agreed with that assessment, and just today the colorado supreme court dismissed the clerk's appeal, and so, in fact, somebody else will have to come in and run mesa county, colorado's next elections, because if you leave the crazy

trump conspiracy theory people in charge of actual elections machines and software and counting processes, we can't actually count on having real elections anymore. i mean, that was colorado, just today. in texas just today, they decided, however, that they're just going for it. here's the headline today in "the texas tribune." governor greg abbott's pick for top texas election post worked with trump to fight 2020 results. here's the lead. governor greg abbott today appointed jon scott as texas' new secretary of state. as secretary of state, mr. scott would oversee election administration in texas, a task complicated in recent years by baseless claims of election fraud from republicans in the highest levels of government fueled by former president donald trump. jon scott is a ft. worth-based attorney who represented the former president in a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in pennsylvania. on november 13, mr. scott signed on as counsel to a lawsuit filed by trump attempting to block certification of pennsylvania's election.

"the texas tribune" today helpfully posts a link to that lawsuit in which trump wanted to throw out the 2020 election results. sure enough, there he is, listed as trump's counsel. he eventually dropped out of that case, but he literally lawyered trump's effort to have the results of the election thrown out. now texas republicans have put him in charge of administering all elections in texas from here on out. that's like his qualification for the job. this comes the same week that texas republicans drew up their new congressional district. you might have seen headlines about this this week. it's quite amazing. texas is the only state in the country that grew so much in the past decade that the state got two new congressional seats, simply on the basis of population growth. well, what accounts for all the population growth in texas? well, the population growth in the last ten years in texas, 95%

of it, 95% of the population growth in the state is people of color. the fastest growing populations in the state are non-white populations of all kinds. the latino population in texas is particularly responsible for texas' growing population and it, therefore, getting two new congressional seats. latinos and white texans are roughly equal numbers in the state now. latinos more than anybody else account for why texas just got two new congressional seats. latinos alone account for about half the population growth in the entire state. but texas republicans this week went to draw the maps for the new congressional districts in the state. and you can probably guess how that went. republicans in texas decided they would give control of both their new congressional districts to white voters, to majority white populations.

in redrawing the maps in the rest of the state they also managed to somehow actually reduce the number of congressional districts where latinos make up the majority of voter. they reduced the number of districts where that's true, reduced it from eight to seven. even as the latino population growth exploded in the state, latinos actually now have control of fewer congressional districts and will have less representation in congress. the number of districts where black voters are the majority in texas went from one before to zero now. they got rid of the state's only district where african-americans made up the majority of voters. again, population growth in texas gets the state two new members of congress. population growth in texas, 95% people of color. and so they make the congressional districts way more white in response. things are going about as you would expect in texas from texas republicans. but as i mentioned, here is that

aforementioned bright spot. the week after the november election, november 10, texas' republican lieutenant governor, bomb thrower dan patrick, posted this offer of a reward. it's all in the headline there. patrick offers up to $1 million in bounties for voter fraud convictions. texas lieutenant governor dan patrick saying, quote, anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest and final conviction of voter fraud will be paid a minimum of $25,000. almost immediately, somebody took dan patrick up on his offer. but it was assuredly not what dan patrick had in mind. lieutenant governor dan patrick's counterpart in pennsylvania, the democratic lieutenant governor in pennsylvania, john fetterman, started finding cases, individual cases here and there of republicans committing voter fraud in the state of pennsylvania.

nothing that was going to affect the result of the election but a few people here and there who basically tried to vote twice for donald trump. forwarding those cases to the attention of lieutenant governor dan patrick in texas, john fetterman demanded that dan patrick pay him the bounty, tweeting things like this. quote, hey, governor patrick, it's your counterpart in pennsylvania. i would like to collect your handsome reward for reporting voter fraud. i got a dude in forty fort, p.a., who tried to have his dead mom vote for trump. this continued as lieutenant governor fetterman found a second and then a third case, again, individual, one-off cases of random republicans trying to cast two votes for trump. you can see that december headline from "the houston chronicle." pennsylvania lieutenant governor fetterman relentlessly trolls dan patrick, seeking $1 million voter fraud bounty. through all of this, i will not speak for you or for lieutenant governor fetterman, but i thought the sparring between the

two governors would be the end of it, right? there would be no money actually paid out. to my shock, i was wrong. because here is the check drawn on dan patrick's campaign funds, made out to a young man in, where else, pennsylvania. the reward actually paid out. the first reward actually issued for information leading to an arrest and final conviction of voter fraud. the reward actually was issued for one of the voter fraud cases that john fetterman had flagged, a republican man in pennsylvania who voted, came in and voted for trump, then he left the ballot station, left the polling place, then he came back, this time wearing sunglasses, and cast a ballot in his son's name. he got caught doing that. john fetterman picked that case as one of the ones he trolled dan patrick with. but the reward ultimately did not go to john fetterman but to

a young poll worker, eric frank, from chester county, pennsylvania. mr. frank, thank you for making the time. this must be one of the weirdest moments in your young life. >> hi, rachel. yeah. first of all, thanks for having me on. it's been a whirlwind, today specifically, but this whole process has been way more than i ever expected. >> can you just -- leaving aside dan patrick for a moment, can you briefly tell us what happened when you were working the polls that day? we know -- i should say, as a matter of setting the stage, there was no widespread voter fraud, that there was no fraud on any level in any state that could have conceivably affected the results of any election in any state. that said, in pennsylvania, there appear to have been a few one-off cases. you appear to have brushed up against one of them. can you just tell us what you saw, how you reported it, how that went down?

>> yeah. so first off, i wasn't even supposed to be there that day. my father, the judge of elections, asked me to help cover someone who had called out due to covid. so i said yes, and i was the one handing out the ballots to the voters after they signed the check-in book. yeah, a gentleman, one of the first voters that morning, came in, ralph thurman. he had first asked -- he put his i.d. out. and the one poll worker said, we don't need to see your i.d. because you voted here for many years. and he then -- basically he said, well, couldn't i come back and vote for my son? and at that point i said, no, you couldn't do that, that's illegal. and he then responded by saying, well, how would you know? and i kind of just left it at that. and he went on his way and voted. and then about an hour later, i'm in my same position, and i

hear the last name "thurman," and i look up, and, lo and behold, it's the same guy, wearing a hat and sunglasses. so i couldn't believe that he was back after we just had a legitimate conversation about how he could not do that. so, yeah, that's how it handed, and we reported it to the authorities. and, yeah, then the case kind of took off and went to court. i testified as a witness. and then a reporter from "the dallas morning news" reached out on a whim. she was the one who worked with me on the original story and helped me apply for the bounty, and here we are. >> when you applied for the bounty, did it ever occur to you that you would actually get paid

the bounty money? i think all of us observing the sort of fighting between the lieutenant governor in your state, john fetterman, and dan patrick, less fighting than fetterman just trolling him on the subject, i think all assumed that dan patrick would never come through and pay any of this because it wasn't obviously for the purpose that he intended to offer this reward, to sort of hype the idea of fraud as being something that was endangering the integrity of the whole election. did you actually think that you might get paid? >> no. i never thought in a million years that i would get paid. i thought this was just somebody kind of speaking too much in the hopes that it would just get them more attention. i just think it's extremely ironic that they were -- it's my opinion they were trying to see, you know, voter fraud on someone that was a democrat, and it turns out that at least for me, for my case that i witnessed, there was a republican voter. so, in fact, i think it kind of blew up in their face a little bit.

>> in terms of the reporting on this in texas, in "the dallas morning news," you, as far as we know, are the first and only person who has sought to get the money. you received $25,000. that's the minimum amount that dan patrick said he would pay out to anybody who did what you did, provided information that led to a conviction in a case like this. $25,000 was the minimum amount. he said he would pay up to $1 million. do you have any idea why you get 25 grand and not a million? >> yeah, i was hoping for a little more. no, i wasn't actually expecting anything, to be honest. but i did ask the manager for dan patrick, mr. blakemore, just how they came up with that minimum amount, if i was the only one who had come forward to report. and his response was, well, we were hoping for bigger fish, to cite his exact words. i still don't know what he means by that. to be honest, you know, was he

look for a celebrity? was he looking for a big political group? i really don't know what he meant by that. but listen, $25,000, i'll take it. it will go toward a new house for my fiance and i. we're looking to move out to the suburbs. so i'm very grateful. and i'm also grateful that they kept their word, to be honest. >> yeah, remarkable turn of events. eric frank, democratic poll worker from chester county, pennsylvania, who randomly finds himself $25,000 richer because of this weird reward from the texas lieutenant governor. totally strange story. i'm glad to hear about your plans with your fiance. good luck. thanks, eric. >> thank you very much, rachel, i appreciate it. we have much more ahead tonight. stay with us. tonight. stay with us

one of the biggest grocery chains in the northeast is called stop & shop. they've got more than 400 stores, most of them gigantic. they've got tens of thousands of employees. and in april 2019, tens of thousands of employees who work at stop and shop walked off the job. tens of thousands of them went on strike for better pay and benefits. the strike lasted 11 days. it was a really, really big deal in the northeast. it was a big enough deal that it attracted support not just from local communities and local politicians, but from people running for national office,

too, including a few of the major democratic presidential candidates at the time, including one that would ultimately go on to get the nomination and become president. and, you know, it's one thing for political candidates to show up on the stop and shop picket line, stand on the picket line with workers while they're running for higher office. it's different thing, it lands differently if those same politicians do the same kind of thing once they've risen to some of the highest offices in the country. u.s. secretary of agriculture tom vilsack yesterday visited a picket line in iowa where 10,000 workers at john deere are striking against one of the biggest agriculture manufacturers in the country. secretary vilsack told the workers on the line, quote, i'm here for you. he showed one of the strikers his own union card. we spent some time yesterday and today looking for any modern precedent of a sitting u.s. cabinet official joining workers on a picket line during a strike against a major u.s. company. we could not find any modern precedent for that.

secretary vilsack did that. today is day eight of the strike by john deere workers, and protests and strikes are going on at multiple john deere facilities across iowa. in davenport, iowa, a judge side with the company. there were only four protesters allowed at each entryway, which greatly curtails what it means to do a picket line. because of that, today members of the union and members of the local community showed up to support workers at the local facility. instead of at the plant, they did it as a rally at the local courthouse. it's been a busy week of direct action all over the country this week. not just on the issue of labor. this is right outside the white house yesterday. five young climate activists say they are basically starting a hunger strike, demanding that

joe biden refused to appease centrist democrats like joe manchin and kyrsten sinema who are radically trying to scale back and scale down his initiatives. they want president biden to commit to leaving the climate parts of the bill intact. they started the hunger strike, the five of them, yesterday. it continued today, outside the white house. they're taking in no food, no liquid other than water. outside the white house today they confronted president biden's deputy climate adviser. they say they plan to continue this hunger strike indefinitely until they say their demands are met. a different set of climate activists from greenpeace today unfurled this huge banner at the marina. it's where -- i don't know where you call it, where you park your yacht. senator joe manchin, where he parks his yacht, what he calls his houseboat, they unfurled this banner, calling on him to help with the protections,

saying, "joe manchin, who will you throw overboard? " activists posted at a senate office building to demand that president biden and the democrats also keep health care protections from being stripped out of the legislation as well. they set up their chairs there like it was a waiting room in a doctor's office. they called it a care can't wait protest. a group of protesters from 13 different states set up these chairs to look like a waiting room in a doctor's office. they did block access to the building. they told stories about how many of them have lost loved ones because they couldn't afford health care. six people were arrested at that protest yesterday. they were blocking access to the building. today, there was another care can't wait protest, this one focused on a different kind of care. parents and caregivers and a bunch of members of congress spoke outside the capitol today about the importance of family and medical leave, paid family and medical leave, as well as home and community based care for the elderly and people with disabilities. these are more core provisions of the build back better bill that are on the chopping block thanks to kyrsten sinema and joe manchin.

there was direct action this week on voting rights as well, calling on joe biden and democrats from the other side of the white house fence to step up and do whatever is necessary to protect the democracy, to protect the right to vote. former president of the naacp, the current head of people for the american way, ben jealous, was arrested at this protest earlier this week. and then yet more. today we got a different kind of direct action aimed specifically at senator kyrsten sinema. as we've been talking about, she's one of the two democratic senators who is blocking what all the other democrats and president biden want to do, standing in the way of the senate passing either voting rights legislation or the build back better bill. and so today, dramatically, five u.s. military veterans who formally advise senator sinema announced they have resigned from that advisory group in protest of america behavior. they say they can no longer work for her while she continues to be one of the, quote, principal obstacles to progress, to

describe and dramatize and make clear why they're doing what they did, they put out this video today, which i think is a pretty powerful statement. >> dear senator sinema. as members of your veterans advisory council, we feel as though we are being used as window dressing for your own image and not to provide counsel on what's best for arizonans. you've repeatedly ignored our feedback urging you to act on three issues that support our veterans and protect the heart of our nation. we must protect voting rights by passing the freedom to vote act. we are appalled by your failure to address this issue. he campaigned on lowering prescription drug prices but now you're opposing the build back better act.

are you choosing to answer to big donors rather than to arizonans? you were a no-show on the commission to investigate the insurrection. these are not the actions of a maverick. we respectfully resign from your advisory council. call on senator sinema to support the build back better act now. >> we are appalled by your failure to address voting rights. we respectfully resign. it's a fairly stunning action. it was veterans that were part of this advisory committee to senator sinema. i should tell you that the veteran who narrates that video who just resigned from senator sinema's advisory council and protest, she's going to be a guest live on "the last word with lawrence" coming up in the next hour, which you'll want to see. lots of people sort of going beyond just advocacy and putting themselves on the line here. it's a busy day. it's a busy day. busy day, busy week. we've had lots of pressure coming from all directions on decisionmakers right now, particularly senator sinema and senator manchin. we have much more ahead tonight. stay with us.

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first there was the new social media platform that donald trump was going to launch this past spring. his adviser said it was going to be the hottest ticket in social media. it was going to completely redefine the game. when this game-redefining social media service launched, it turned out to be just a blog that looked like it was visiting from the 1990s. trump ran that for a few weeks. then he shut it down before it got to be one month old, reportedly because he could not stand the mockery over its hilariously low traffic. then act 2 was something called gettr. get who? get 'er? a trump social media app, not a blog, this one's an app, launched by trump's former advisers. that one has been hilarious from the get-go too. as soon as it launched, all the personal information of all its

users was exposed. hackers immediately took over the accounts of a bunch of high profile trump world figures. it was kind of an open book. then, next, the entire site was overrun with pro-isis propaganda, like literally freaking beheading videos and stuff. that was nice. that was a nice sort of next move there. you know what? maybe the third effort's a charm here. now mr. trump says he's launching a new social media service, not the blog, not gettr. now it's some other thing. but from the moment he made the announcement last night, it's kind of felt familiar. for one thing, this supposedly new social media platform appears to be him just taking somebody else's off-the-shelf software and calling it a new thing. it's literally run on free open source software that anyone can use to build a thing that kind of looks like twitter but isn't

twitter. also when trump made his big announcement last night, his team apparently forgot to do anything to protect or prepare the test version of this thing that was just sitting online. the "washington post," i think, quite ably described what happened next. quote, within hours, pranksters found what appeared to be an unreleased test version and posted a picture of a defecating pig to the donald trump account. the site's early hours revealed lax security, rehashed features and a flurry of bizarre design decisions, sparking the creation of the donald j. trump account and the defecating pig posting. a "washington post" reporter was able to register and post under the account name "mike pence" without any stops in place, although, thankfully t mike pence account left the pigs alone.

anyway, this is going well. it only matters if donald trump ultimately intends to launch a social media network. what he's actually done so far is announced he's raising money for this venture through what is essentially a shell company, a company trump insists with a straight face is worth $1.7 billion. the pig video alone, come on. he's happily accepting donations -- i mean investments from all his supporters who would like to invest in the policeman. i'm sure it will be nothing like any of the other grifts that he has marketed to his fans and supporters over the years. speaking of alleged scams, as we reported last night, it does look like there is another criminal investigation into the former president and his company that is newly under way. this one by a new york state prosecutor in westchester county just north of new york city. the district attorney there, in developments first reported by "the new york times," has apparently subpoenaed records

from trump's golf course in westchester county as well as records from the town where the golf course is located. this appears to be an investigation into whether trump and his company lied to tax authorities in order to reduce the property tax bill associated with this golf course. we showed you last night what this might look like, in this example from just one year, 2016. in that one year the town assessed the value of the trump golf course at $15 million for tax purposes. the trump organization said no, that's ridiculous, it's worth less than a tenth of that, it's worth $1.4 million, that's all that we should be paying taxes on. meanwhile that same year, trump on his financial disclosure form as a presidential candidate decreed that the golf club was worth over $50 million. and, you know, lying is one thing, but lying to tax authorities for the purpose of reducing your tax burden is a crime. and that appears to be what's under investigation by yet another state prosecutor, even as the trump organization is

already under felony indictment by another prosecutor in new york state for alleged tax evasion at his business in manhattan. joining us now is the former deputy chief of the criminal division in the southern district of new york. she also served as a deputy attorney general for the state of new york. as such she is very well-positioned to help us understand the significance of these investigations. ms. perry, it's really nice to see you. thanks for being here. >> thanks, rachel. >> so i've laid out the very, very basics of what we know about this investigation so far. look at those basics, given what you know about new york state law and what a district attorney might pursue in a case like this, what potential crimes do you think this prosecutor might be looking at, what do you see as the potential scope here? >> well, from the reporting that we've seen so far, i think it was quite carefully worded, according to the sources in "the new york times," what the

westchester district attorney's office is looking at is whether or not tax officials in ossining were misled by some of the valuations that the trump organization provided in the assessment of its property taxes for many years, i believe from 2015 on. so the question is not, i think, going to be, you know, ultimately -- let me back up for one moment, excuse me. the town ultimately settled after years of litigation with the trump organization and they came to a negotiated number that was far less than what the town had assessed, but far, far more than what the trump organization had been pressing. so what i think is going to be the rub here is not what -- there's no such thing, i think, here as an objective value of the property because the town

signed off on it, a judge signed off, the school board signed off, the assessor signed off. it's really with there any false or manipulated inputs, i think, on the value that the trump organization put on the property. i think what investigators in westchester are going to be looking at is, how did the trump organization come to this valuation, what did they tell the town, and were there any objective metrics that were monkeyed around with, for lack of a better word. i think that's what it sounds like it's starting with. of course, it could branch out into falsification of business records for sure. if there were false statements made in that court case, of course there could be obstruction or perjury charges. and so i think it will flow from the question of what the inputs were and how that valuation was arrived at, and how that settlement was come to.

>> one of the things "the new york times" reported about this investigation, danya, is that a longtime former sdny prosecutor -- again, this is a state case that we're talking about -- but a man named elliott jacobson who according to "the times" spent more than three decades as a prosecutor at sdny, came out of retirement to take on working the public corruption bureau in this d.a.'s office, also taking on this trump golf course investigation specifically. you as a former sdny prosecutor, i just wonder how that resonates to you and how we should understand the importance of the fact that somebody with that kind of a record as a federal prosecutor has come on board, has indeed come out of retirement specifically to helm something like this. >> i think it's significant. elliott served as a prosecutor

for, i believe, over three decades in the southern district of new york. he was a state and local prosecutor before that. so he comes with decades of experience, particularly in the white collar space, public corruption, and tax fraud investigations. and he's known as a meticulous investigator, someone who is anything but the kind of knee-jerk hot head looking to, you know, go on a witch hunt that is being portrayed. he is going to build this case, if he does, brick by brick. and, you know, federal prosecutors are trained differently, i would say, than local prosecutors. they typically build out investigations that are proactive rather than reactive. and so the fact that he's on board, has come out of retirement for this, is i think

significant, that that is something that they're looking at quite seriously. he's also local. he's lived in westchester for i think his whole career. and this is very much a local issue, at the end of the day. it seems, you know, there were protests and there was a lot of upset because there was a very large tax refund at the end of the day that was issued to this luxury golf course that literally came out of the pockets of, you know. someone with the skill set and temperament and ability to build the case was probably brought on board very, very carefully. >> danya perry who preev previously served in the criminal division of the sdny, thank you for putting this together for us.

i appreciate your time. >> all right. thank you. >> we'll be right back. stay with us.

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election day is less than two weeks away in the great state of virginia. a former governor of the state, democrat terry mcauliffe, is up against a trump-endorsed republican named glenn youngkin. youngkin is running as a trump candidate through and through while simultaneously trying to get media coverage suggesting he's not, but he's hitting all the right trumpy notes including demanding an audit of virginia's 2020 presidential election results as if there was something wrong with the election in virginia. biden beat trump in virginia by ten points, but, you know, sure, knock yourself out. somewhat amazingly, though, for a state where biden beat trump by ten points, latest poll from monmouth university shows that the race between terry mcauliffe and glenn youngkin is a dead tie, 46-46. this is the same poll that had the democrat terry mcauliffe ahead by five points just last month. this new poll showing the race

deadlocked has democrats sounding the alarm. you might have seen this headline today at polito.com. quote, everyone should be very worried. democrats seek wake-up call as virginia goes to the wire. democrats are urging the party to pull out all the stops to try to keep this governor's seat in democratic hands including ramping up donations and bringing on more volunteers, bringing in more democratic firepower. vice president harris is going to hit the stump tonight at a campaign rally for terry mcauliffe. former president barack obama has cut a new ad for terry mcauliffe. he's going to appear in person with him in richmond, virginia, on saturday. president biden is going to hold a second campaign event for mcauliffe on tuesday in arlington, virginia. democrats really are throwing everything they've got into this closer than expected race. watch this space.

it's friday eve, which means tomorrow is friday. that's going to do it for us tonight. i'll see you tomorrow when it will actually be friday. "way too early" is up next. ♪♪ there are people in this chamber right now who were evacuated with me and with the rest of us on that day during that attack, people who now seem to have forgotten the danger of the moment, the assault on the constitution, the assault on our congress. >> after bitter debate over the january 6th capitol attack, house lawmakers, including nine republicans, vote to hold steve bannon in contempt of congress. the question is will the justice department prosecute? plus, across the nation, data shows coronavirus cases are dropping with vaccines set to