the way congratulations. and david plouffe. good to have you both. thank you both. that is all in for the tonight. alice wagner starts in this very room, just a few feet away from me. >> i love this. i just have to say when we're talking about candidatelking abu candidate t quality, i remember the christine, i'm not a witch o'donnell and clive akin. >> and mcconnell had two cracks at it, 2010, 2012 and you saw seats that should have been on the board go away twice before they got in 2014, so he has definitely been down this road. >> this is a triggering mome. thank you, chris. >> see ya, alex. and thank you for joining us this hour. we va lot to get to. tonight, a judge in florida says he will likely release a redacted version of the fbi affidavit behind the search of donald trump's florida country club home. "new york times" justice department reporter"n katie benr joins us live. andnn in a new york courtro, trump's long-time top executive

pleads guilty admitting he conspired with the former trump company to not pay taxes and now he will testify against the trump organization. sue craig, "the new york times" reporter who has led the reporting on trump's finances is here in the studio tonight. and the biden cabinet, dispatched to take the president's case to republicans and fox news. transportation secretary pete buttigieg joins us live. but first, we start in september of 2015. donald trump was three months removed from his famed escalator ride announcing his presidential bid. he had already started the top of the republican field leading off the polls and found himself showing off his trump tower office to "the wall street journal." >> this is the shoe right "ther >> that is it? >> tom brady's super bowl

helmet. this is mike tyson's belt. >> shaq's shoe. tom brady's super bowl helmet. mike tyson's belt. we have known for a while that donald trumpow likes to collect memorabilia. if you will. and so when trump arrived at the white house, well, it was no different. here is a "new york times" today describing trump's time in office, how excited he was to show off all that he had access to, the letter to the north korean president, and waved at advisers and some were among the trove that he had with him at mar-a-lago andtr is that why federal accurates retrieved over 25 boxes of documents from his florida home and show off the papers and guests to friends and guest,nd look, look, this one i marked classified, that one, over there, it's marked top secret, check it out.

sure, maybe. or it could be something more nefarious. with that more innocent explanation is true, why has trump not answered the single most importanted question from this entire saga, why didn't he just give the documents back when the government asked for them? before a search warrant was even approved? why not simply hands them over? i mean trump has been anything but quiet when it comes to literally everything else related to the fbi search of his palm beach home. he was the one that first told us, first o told all of us that the fbi was quote raiding his home, breaking into his safe, taking his passports, several of them. trump has even argued that the whole search warrant should be released. let us not forget that the fbi did in fact retrieve 11 sets of classified documents as part of that search, including some documents labeled top secret. wes learned yesterday that federal agents are still sifting

through those documents more than a week after the search. and in thtoday, in a federal courtroomod in west palm beach, federal magistrate judge has a hearingas on whether to unseal e sworn affidavit that served as the basis to sign off on the search warrant and the affidavit is where allhe of the juicy information exist, forgive me for this. that document is the roadman to borrow the government's own description laid out by an fbi agent as to why there was probable cause that crimesth cod be found at evidence at mar-a-lago. the judge says releasing the affidavit, the oneng currently under seal, would harm the department's ongoing criminal investigation, because, again, that is where all of theig juic stuff is. in court today, arguing for the d.o.j., the head of the justice department's counter-intelligence division,

and interestingly enough, trump's lawyer, yes, the former cross-fit attorney and one america news anchor, she did attend, but she just watched. christina bob did not argue on behalf ofon her client, the forr president. this was a hearing about something he is apparently incensed about and yet donald trump did not want an argument to be made on his behalf, which is interesting. . here's nbc's report from inside the courtroom, quote, a top counter-intelligence and national security official argued the detailed and reasonably lengthy document needed to be kept completely under wraps because it contains substantial grand jury information in a unique case with national security overtones. hene also said the government i very concerned about the safety of the witnesses and their identities could become the affidavit sun sealed. the government lawyer went into amateur sleuths on the internet who could maybe find personal

information. this is a volatile situation, with respect to this particular search, p across this political spectrum, hear said, and with o side in particular. the justice department also made the case that the criminal investigation is in its quote early stages. but despite the justice department's objection, the judge ruled that it was quote very important that the public have as much information as it possibly can about the search. the government said, the government, the judge said had, notgo met its burden of showing that the entire affidavit should remain sealed. instead, he ordered the justice department to submit a proposed redacted version by next thursday at noon. he also ordered some other documents from the warrant to be unsealed. these documentsbe do not includ anything particularly revolutionary, but they do want to point out something that they want to know. oneha of those documents is dat august 5seth. and i it is the government's motion asking the judge to allow the d.o.j. to file the

mar-a-lago search warrant under seal and the department gave an explanation as to why they wanted the search warrant to be kept secret from theed public. making their argument, the justice department writes quote, the united states submits that there is good cause, because of the integrity of the ongoing investigation might be compromised and evidence might be destroyed. it is not a surprise for the government to think that evidence might be destroyed if the existence of the search warrant gotte out before they executed it but to see that in simple black and white text about a former president is just astonishing. it is against that backdrop that we will see at least it looks like some version of the affidavit with all of the juicy stuff as soon as next week. katie benner, justice department reporter for "the new york times" covering this story,e a landed several major scoops related to the investigation into january 6thaj.

thank you for making the time ti come into the studio and join me tonight. >> thanks for having me. >> let's start first with the curiousta behavior of christina bob, who is representing the former president in allen of th. do you think there's a reason why she did not actually choose to speak in the courtroom today? ite is sort of maybe one could draw the inference that trump doesn'ter actually want this affidavit unsealed? what did you make of it? >> i'm not really sure what trump's motivation is or her motivationon is, but i think wee seen through her president and post presidency that his most powerful staples come on social media, and he does much better in those venues than a court of law. >> he has made quite a bit of hay over all of this, and the mere fact that he is not saying anything to prove his case in court is kind of interesting in the context of all of this but i got to say throughout all of this, trump has created a t lotf smoke, that he himself could have cleared if he wanted to, do

you know what i mean? there is a question why donald trump has simply not explained why he hasn't given the government papers back. >> if you look at his behavior during the russia investigation, he played against the fact that he knew that robert mueller was never going to say anything and he was able to use that to his advantage and you saw him kinds of doing the same thing in the beginningam of the revelations about this investigation, and he assumed the attorney general merrick garland would be very silent and he wouldd be able t fill that void completely but the justice department interestingly has found ways to fill the void without compromising or speaking directly about the investigation or without saying anything in particular about donald trump and i think you are seeing a recalibration happen in terms of how trump and his supporters are going to respond. >> right, because i think trump's learned behavior from the mueller investigation was, poke the bear and nothing is going to happen and merrick garland has a press conference

after trump said release the information about the raid, the seizure, whatever we're calling it and basically called trump's bluff a little bit, right? >> absolutely. >> what's emerged in all of this as we talk about the recalibration is how deadly serious the department of justice is about following up on trump's claims and rolling stone is reporting tonight that two people familiar with the matter tell "rolling stone" that the fbi has begun asking former trump administration officials when they heards of the so-cald standing order trump claims to have given and in recent days the feds have sent interview requests to the ex-officials including former nfc personal. a standing order to declassify material, which is trump's kind of excuse for all of this. and why he took the documents. i had a standing order to declassify. in craziest times, nobody might have followed up on this, but here is the d.o.j. calling people on the nsc and saying, hey, do you know anything about this? how do you think that affects the sort of mindset inside

trumpland and what is the meaningful impact on that in terms of this investigation. >> yeah, i meanof first thing, donald trump had a rally against the fact that he no longer controls the justice department and these are no longer his appointees anymore and normal investigative step, the kind of steps a prosecution takes when presented with a claimut when ty are investigating somebody, they want to make sure it was true, they would try to vet it, that's not unusual. itth seems unusual, because of e way that trump had been, treat in the past, or because of the perception of his power, or his visibility, and what is truly unusual, that all of these things are happening, these questions are being asked, ofng former president. >> yes. i mean i think there is a sim question, of why trump took them, right? i mean we don't know why he won't give them back. we're not exactly sure why he took them in the first place, but maggie haberman, your colleague at "the new york times" had an interesting,ma wel call it like theorizing, well-educated theorizing, we played that footage of donald

trumpag with shaq's shoe becaus he likes memorabilia and likes taking ilthings, but she has an intriguing point that she makes inig the article today, and say mr., trump repeatedly had material sent up to the white house residence, and it was not alwaysnd clear what happened to it. helear sometimes asked to keep material after his intelligence briefings.li but aides said he was so uninterested in the paperwork during the briefings themselves, that they never understood what heat wanted it for. how do you read that? could that mean? there is like a lot that you could read between the lines thereul and i want to know how u interpret that data point. >> i think it is another wayou saying that donald trump was on ath typical white house officia not a typical president, so the reasonsal why someone would wan top secret classified information may not apply here. he not only won trophies but he lovedhi anything that had to do withng his business interests h, toth do with his personal interests, his personal grievances and you could imagine in the course of being presented with something like presidentiak daily brief, you could see

information kind of come to him, andin it catches attention on le a scene of something very shiny. >> it could be craven to be not interested in how it affects the running of the country but how it affects him down the line. and h i want to talk about mar-a-lago, are we taking our eyes off the ball in the case of the january 6th investigation, because bennie thompson the chair of the january 6th investigation, that they are having nearly daily depositions and all of trump's cabinet is cooperative and talking to the committee and what can you tell us about the d.o.j.'s investigation and the commit's work. >> i don't think we're paying to much attention to mar-a-lago because it is such a bizarre and strange thing to happen for a former president's residence to be searched by the justice department and i don't think we will keep our eyes off the

january 6 committee for too long because liz cheney just lost her election and she will fight to stay in front of the microphone and the microphone she has in the committee and depositions every day and they are gathering more ands more information and you can expect when the next set of meetings come, it will be as explosive as the committee it make it. >> and instead of losing the cooperation of former trump aides, they're gaining. it interesting developments all around. katie tibenner, "the new york times" justice department reporter with d "the new york times," thanks for joining me. >> thanksor for having me. when we come back, the other courtroom that donald trump was focused on today. the one in new york, where his long-time executive pleaded guilty to working with trump's company to rip off the government in a tax scheme, and then said that, yes, he will testify at the trump organization. "new york times" investigative reporter suzanne craig joins us here next. and transportation secretary pete buttigieg joins us live to talk about his one man campaign

on the right wing air waves. we'll be right back. be right ba. (woman) oh. oh! hi there. you're jonathan, right? the 995 plan! yes, from colonial penn. your 995 plan fits my budget just right. excuse me? aren't you jonathan from tv, that 995 plan? yes, from colonial penn. i love your lifetime rate lock. that's what sold me. she thinks you're jonathan, with the 995 plan. -are you? -yes, from colonial penn. we were concerned we couldn't get coverage, but it was easy with the 995 plan. -thank you. -you're welcome. i'm jonathan for colonial penn life insurance company. this guaranteed acceptance whole life insurance plan is our #1 most popular plan. it's loaded with guarantees. if you're age 50 to 85, $9.95 a month buys whole life insurance with guaranteed acceptance. you cannot be turned down for any health reason.

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stop companies like google from watching you, by downloading the app today. duckduckgo: privacy, simplified. once the hearing started, there were no cameras alived but thanks to the dutiful work of courtroom sten graphs we have some idea of how it went down, here is one of the charges, the judge, mr. weisselberg, it is alleged that you, together with the trump corporation, engaged in a scheme constituting a systemic ongoing course of conduct with intent to defraud more than one person, and to obtain property from more than one person by false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, and so obtained property with a value in excess of one thousand dollars from one or more such persons, specifically the united states internal revenue service, the new york state department of taxation and finance, and the

new york city department of finance. is that true? the defendant, yes, your honor. donald trump's longest-serving employee, allen weisselberg walked into a new york courtroom and pleaded guilty again and again and again to committing fraud together with the trump corporation. the judge literally used the phrase together with the trump corporation over and over today while reading the charges against allen weisselberg, weisselberg ended up pleading guilty to 15 felonies, 15, all related to fraud and tax evasion that occurred at the former president's business. he is set to serve anywhere between 100 days and five months in prison at new york's notorious jail on rikers island. a lost media attention on this case is focused on the fact that allen weisselberg did not agree to testify against trump himself as part of his plea agreement with the government. but weisselberg did agree to testify against the trump organization, and that is important. because it means that

prosecutors will get to ask allen weisselberg about the crimes he committed at the trump organization, they will be able to ask him under oath who are the others involved in the criminal conspiracy that weisselberg has just pleaded guilty to taking part in, and we do know that there are only a handful of people who could have been involved in that conspiracy, because countless reports over the past few years have revealed that the trump organization isn't the place where decisions are made without sign-off from someone with the last name trump. one of the reporters who has done. so most extensive and detailed reporting on trump's business and his finances is susanne craig, she is part of the team of "the new york times" reports who won a pulitzer prize for president trump's finances and exploded the myth that donald trump was a self made billionaire and revealed that trump's organization was built on a foundation of squandered inheritance and tax dodging. she is exactly the person i want to talk to, today.

susanne craig, thank you for joining me. >> thank you. >> let's first start with the sort of thing everybody is trying to post today, is how meaningful is the difference between testifying against the trump organization and testifying against trump. it seems to be meaningful enough because the whole thing in allen weisselberg's deal. >> it is pretty meaningful. the thing is how you can do that and not testify against trump. donald trump i've covered him for a number of years, his finances and up until the time with lawyers, he is still signing every check. he is still intertwined, and testifying against the trump organization, how can it not be testifying against donald trump. we won't know how that goes in the october fer it does go to trial and if it doesn't settle, i will imagine that donald trump was all for these perks and said take the car and you can have one for your wife, these are some of the things that allen weisselberg was accused, he didn't quite say in court, about doing, and is donald trump, did he know is the question and

maybe donald trump said do this and assume that the taxes were going to be paid on them, because all of these things are fine to get for employees but the problem is, is when they're not reported to the irs as compensation. so i think that if i'm imagining how that's going to go, it is going to be a case of he didn't know, and there's no paper trail that probably shows that he did know. >> we've seen, that would seem to be the suggestion by "the new york times," that allen weisselberg accepted this deal and created this deal. >> it seems hard to believe, but in order to bring a case against donald trump, you have to show the criminal intent. and if he's not willing to testify and say the boss knew, then he is going to say, you know, it is kind of an i alone did it, and there may be a few other people that he mentions but he is going to say i was responsible and it was my fault and that's going to hit the trump organization pretty hard, if it goes to trial and a jury is going to hear that, but that's sort of where i kind of see it coming down, if it goes to trial in october. >> what of the trump

organization? i mean how secure is its financial position at this point? can it weather this next chapter? >> well, it's hard to say, because they, from what we've seen in their taxes than was up until 2008, most of their businesses do not make money, and they've had some hard years since then, they've had covid, and january 6th and a number of businesses walked away from them, one of donald trump's big money makers heading into the white house was these one-off licensing deals where he could get a couple million here and there to put his name on a hotel, all of those things, you know, have hurt them, and in addition, we've seen them sell at least one really big asset which is one of his crown jewel, the old post office, i don't think people do that unless they need money, and he did that, so we don't quite know exactly how much cash they are sitting on, but these things hurt. he is potentially in new york state, looking at a civil fine that could be substantial, you know, tens of millions, it could go up into the high, close to

100, we don't know, that fine, whatever he is facing there, whether he goes to trial or he is hit with a fine, that's not tax deductible, he's looking at, you know, when you go to court and in a criminal case, they're not going to put an individual in jail because it's a corporation, that's going to be another fine, it could be substantial. he's going to start writing some potentially big checks if these things don't go his way. >> and in the habit of having other people write checks for him, like the rnc is paying all of his legal bills and now it is time that donald trump has to pony up himself. >> and you could see additional headlines, or potentially more assets are sold and this continues to go, not just the fines are adding up, but the businesses, you know, historically, they just, they're not making money and he's got a few things that make money and that helps him out, but you know, this is not sort of a great news headline for them. >> you reported back in 2020, about trump's audits and he was always saying i can't release my

tax returns because i'm under audit, is he still under audit? >> he was under audit and we don't know if he is still under audit, an and it is very serious, and we don't know the outcome but potentially another 100 million plus dollars he will have to pay in the irs and there are a lot of things blewing in the background financially that are problematic and he doesn't talk about his businesses very often, occasionally it pops up and he hosted the liv golf tournament, very controversial, i'm sure that brought in a lot of money, so there are things coming in, that are one-off and you can see he's out there and some money is coming in, but there's a lot of storm clouds out there for his finances. >> and if he's convicted of anything on the other legal fronts, then all of his lenders can call in their debts, too? >> we don't know the covenants of the loan but that is something called collateral damage and a lost loans have terms in there, we don't know if his dork and if you're convicted immediately you have to pate money back so that is another

thing that is potentially hanging over him and we don't know if the loans that he has specifically has that covenant and that's another thing that is weighing on him. most do, so they might. >> and the money problems is probably what is most deeply affecting him right now or the threat of the money problems and someone who has followed the ins and outs and the trials and tribulations of the trump organization and the concigliare's, and this week, a doctor was found dead in rikers island, killed in the jail, the correction department captain stabbed in the neck at the rikers island complex. there is not a club fed. this is not cushy. >> that is on the one end and you have to think covid and there is a lot of serious -- >> are you surprised he is going to jail for trump, effectively? >> i think it's a pretty good deal for him. i think only, you know, i think about sort of the calculation he

made, that he wanted to go to trial and face that and just have it continue to linger or could he get this deal? you know, with good behavior, he'll be out in 100 days. and he's going to have probably a lot of protection inside. and i'm sure there was a lot of soul searching that went down on this. but i guess i'm more surprised that we're at this juncture than i am he is going to jail. >> that is probably, where i shouldn't be surprised at anything, but it gives me some energy -- >> when susanne craig is surprised, that is big. congratulations on the set. >> congratulations on the new show. it has been great. last night was fabulous. >> thank you so much. that means a lot. susanne craig investigative reporter for "the new york times," thank you for your time energy and reporting. still to come tonight, as the biden administration celebrates a big win with the inflation reduction act becomes

law, transportation secretary pete buttigieg joins us to talk about the biggest investment this country has ever made in fighting climate change and how he is going to sell it to the gop. okay, mayor pete. okay, mayor pete

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roads. what's a citizen going to do? >> that was a clip from a genuine film that general motors made in 1954. it was called "give yourself the green light", and it was hollywood quality propaganda about highways. it framed traffic as a national crisis that was destroying the american dream. >> so you get a little time away from the city smoke and the shadows of the factory, into the sun and clean air. raise a few kids. some flowers and vegetables. the big dream coming true. but it backfires into a pipe dream. exhaust pipe dream. every night, it takes longer to get home.

wasting more time and gasoline. no wonder everybody's acting so nervous. what's a citizen going to do? what can a citizen do? to help find out, a better highway contest was recently conducted. the purpose, arouse nationwide thinking on how to plan and pay for the safe and adequate highways we need. >> general motors was not alone in making films like these. ford made them. dow chemical made them. basically every car that sold cars or asphalt or tires turned themselves into production companies in the 1950s, movies selling americans on the concept of highways. the reason was the federal highway aid act of 1956. companies were either pushing for that $51 billion bill to pass or trying to convince americans to let them build highways through their neighborhoods once the bill did

pass. and it worked. the bill passed. the legislation built 41,000 miles of new highways. now, there's no doubt that the implementation of our country's new highway system was very often flawed. particularly since it often divided communities, especially those of color. but it became the largest public works project in the nation's history. it completely changed america. and now, today, with last year's bipartisan infrastructure act, and this week's inflation reduction act, the biden administration is attempting the biggest infrastructure transformation our country has ever seen since that act in 1956. those pieces of legislation actually aimed to correct some of the very real problems that the initial highway system imposed. the pollution, the carbon emissions, the destruction of primarily black and brown communities. the goals of this law are ambitious. they fund a national network of electric vehicle charging stations and encourage americans to switch over to electric cars with tax credits.

the laws try to make public transportation good enough to maybe convince americans to get out of the cars they sit in. taking together all of this could be another major shift for this country. but it is one that is going to have to be sold to the american public. and unlike in the 1950s, no mega corporations are pumping out well-produced films to help convince americans that environmentally sustainable transit is a worthwhile investment. this time around, one of the main salesmen for this hugely transformational part of the biden administration's gend, is transportation secretary pete buttigieg, he has made a name for himself as one of the most effective communicators in the president's cabin, someone who has been known for his willingness and the ability to speak to those across the political divide, but this time he really has his work cut out for him because attacking this part of the biden agenda is the conservative media's bread and butter. >> let's start right at the top.

pete's highway to hell. that's the focus of tonight's angle. >> mayor pete is pushing electric cars on struggling americans. >> in november, he told americans in rural areas, the poorest parts of this country, to go ahead and get electric vehicles get a prius and 50 grand and in the same month told us our highways are racist. and the transportation secretary has been telling us the one thing that will fix our high fuel prices and clos commercial airline travel and that of course is abortion. >> transportation secretary pete buttigieg has his work cut out for him. he joins us live coming up next. . he joins us live coming up next. it's time for the biggest sale of the year, on the sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. our smart sleepers get 28 minutes more restful sleep per night.

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♪ pete buttigieg, biden's transportation secretary, seemingly out of touch on what it takes to own an electric vehicle in this country. listen. >> i'm still astonished that some folks, i felt this, i was testifying in congress yesterday, really struggling to let go of the status quo. >> struggle to let go of the status quo. >> astonished that there isn't a bigger transition to evs, you can put it up on the screen, the average cost of an electric vehicle in the united states today, senator, we wrote it out, didn't round down or up, that is it, $66,997, for a new ev. >> that was fox news. the day after transportation

secretary pete buttigieg testified before the house transportation and infrastructure committee last month. if that fox news host had listened to what secretary buttigieg had said in that hearing she would know that he had already offered a counter-point. you can buy a brand new fuelly electric chevy bolt for $25,600 right now. and that doesn't even take into account how the biden administration's new electric vehicle tax credits can be applied in the purchase of used cars. so how does the biden administration get passed the relentless accusations and alarmism from the right? a man with that answer is joining us now, pete buttigieg, president biden's secretary of transportation, mr. secretary, thank you so much for being with us tonight. >> thanks for having me on and thanks for that sharing that the footage from the 50s, that's fascinating. >> we are fascinated by what is happening in america and what

has come to pass. i have to ask you, you have been kind of like the one man band, the loudest and most effective one man band in talking to the right which has been highly resistant to renewables and electric vehicles, do you think you are going to be able to convince the viewers at fox news that what is happening here with the biden administration, and what they would like to do and indeed what the country must do in this century is move towards renewables? do you think anyone is listening to the message that you have been offering on fox news? >> i think, so look, obviously, you have a political apparatus, an opinion apparatus of commentators, politicians, trying to keep everything the same. trying to keep electric vehicles more expensive than they have to be, trying to keep people in, locked into yesterday's energy. but i think people are looking to the future and looking for solutions. at a certain point, there is going to be a disconnect between these politicians and opinion

hosts who, you know, will go on a segment or a program like that, trying to get everybody to think that, you know, an electric vehicle in this country starts at $66,000, when you know, those same viewers are going to watch the commercials during the commercial breaks, and see what the prices are, and now, what they won't see is that we're fighting to get those prices lower. unless somebody like me is out there to talk about this. that is part of the reason why for example the inflation reduction act is going to help so many americans, we are fighting to make evs cheaper, bought if we make them more affordable for more americans, more americans can save at pump and of course, that is also going to help us build up a u.s.-made ev industry, with american jobs, american soil and american workers, all while helping us to fight climate change. i'm under no illusions that everybody here in washington is coming to this conversation in good faith. but i'm also under no illusions that people who don't already agree with us are going to have

any idea what our message is if we don't go out there and talk about it to anyone who will listen. >> and i, by no means, no one, is any trying to shame you for talking to form news or talking to republicans because that is part of the job, right, but it seems like you're battling something more than just the economics of this. this feels like a cultural battle as much as anything else. so much of the american myth making revolves around the open road and gas powered engine and the highway videos from the 19 50s, many people are still very much entrenched into thinking about what kind of country this is and i wonder how you think you combat that, right? people want to hold on to this, this past of america, that is no longer our present, and certainly isn't going to be our future, but how do you get them to let go of what you call, you know, i think perhaps you have said the status quo, how do you think about your work in that game? >> yes, i think the most important thing to remember is that if we want to be true to a

tradition, we got to remember that that tradition was about looking to the future. in other words, the best things about our past had to do with getting out of the past, and the worst things about our past are things we don't have to repeat. so when we're thinking about how not just roads, but transportation in general should look, going into the 2020s, '30s, '40, making it work by the 2050s in a whole new way, it's not going to meet the needs of this country to have the mentality of the 1950s. we know better. you know, in some ways, we knew better then but we definitely know better now when it comes to climate, when it comes to how our cities are laid out. and there is a history to it, there is a romance to it, and some of it should be honored and some of it will always be with us, the open road, road trips, always going to be an important part of what it is to live in america and we need to create more options for people, more opportunities for people, whether you live in a big city or a smaller community, with for

example, making it safer and easier to get around with public transit, or on foot, on a bike, so that you know, whether you own a car or not, you don't always have to drag two tons of mettle with you everywhere that you go. this is also an issue of equity. we've got to make sure that we have ways of organizing our infrastructure for the future that don't exclude people, or worse, divide or segregate, something that we've seen a lot of in this country, but there's no reason we have to do it all over again, just because that's how things worked in the past. >> i wonder politically how this is, you know, how you guys are thinking about this moment, because it is obviously a huge, it's a huge piece of legislation for the president, and we've seen some increasingly positive numbers in the midterm races, or at least in the projections of the midterm races and a falling out today that has democrats up by 4%, generally speaking in broadly in the senate races that are happening this november, some senate seats that look like they could go to the democratic

side of the ledger, raphael warnock could keep his seat, mark kelly, and fetterman, and do you think this plays, does the ira, does all of this play a role or does gas prices and i ask you because you are the transportation sec and you have to think about gas prices, how much of this is sort of the lofty proposition of a new future, vis-a-vis the biden administration, and how much of this is just about people saying oh, my gas is $3 a gallon, not $6? >> i think people are looking around at how their lives are different, how they're shaped by forces around the world, and political decisions, made in washington, that's one of the reasons why gas prices is something that's on everybody's mind. obviously, you know, gas prices aren't controlled by any individual policy maker in washington, but they're a part of what it is like to live in the american economy, and they hold, you know, americans hold those in charge responsible for the overall conditions, and to some extent, we've leaned into,

that the president took a lot of steps to help stabilize gas price, not that, you know, he controls them, but things like releasing the oil from the oil reserve was designed to bring some relief and breathing room and stability, and i think that's contributed to this falling in gas prices. i think what is going to be very important in talking about the inflation reduction act and for that matter, the bipartisan infrastructure law that we're so excited to be implementing in my department, is not to get so hung up on talking about the legislate ive mechanism, or the finer points of the policy, and really focus on the difference that is actually going to make. look at the inflation reduction act for example. part of what that contains is lower prescription drug prices and most people are on board with that, i think we should have done it a long time ago, it really was kind of the american people, the president, and democratic senate and house members on one side of this policy issue, and big parma, and republican senate and house members on the other, but that's not how the american people lined up. i saw somewhere, i think

something like 70% of republicans, around the country, think it's a good idea to let medicare negotiate prescription drug prices, even if it got zero percent support among republican members of the house and senate where the vote came up. and talking about the specific thing that will make a difference in your life, whether it is a more affordable electric vehicle and whether it is more affordable prescription drugs and whether it is the tax credits that will help you, make your house more energy efficient, save on your energy bills, or the fact that, you know, right now, we are now able to announce improvements to ports, improvements to neighborhoods and bridges around america, a whole new round of grants that we just rolled out that will benefit everything from airports to, you know, pedestrian crossings, that people are feeling, and that's where i think we need to keep the focus. >> unfortunately, i mean what we're hearing, on for example fox news, is racist highways, which is, you know, in typical fox fashion, not actually

accurate, and to be euphemistic, and glosses over what is a really serious issue. we talked about this 1950 highway act and what it did is pave through black and brown neighborhoods and destroy communities of color and you are addressing that and i want to ask more about that. and you pledged $3 billion to remove. so highways that the federal highway act built that divided and destroyed those communities. can you tell us more about what that means and you know, where you're looking to do this, since so many communities were touched and affected by this? >> yes, one thing i've noticed is everywhere i go, when i, i raised this concern, that there is often a highway or an interchange or a railway that divides one neighborhood from another, that removed a neighborhood, or is even segregating a community, heads nod and you can see in people's eyes that they are picturing

their communities' version of this. this is not just something that happened in south or communities, it happened in pittsburgh, in minnesota, in the south as well, it happened right here in washington, d.c., and the point here is not to diminish our ability to get around on roads and highways, it's to connect people where infrastructure is doing the opposite of that, which is divide. the point of transportation infrastructure is to connect, not to divide. and yet, in many places, it is actually connecting some but dividing others. and the thing that strikes me why wouldn't you want us to be dealing with that and preparing for the future. there are a lot of different shapes that this can take. and atlanta is working on a project to do just this. sometimes it is a very intense project that you are capping an entire highway that is running through the heart of the city, putting something over so t-so

it is connected and maybe new land that can be used for community use, for park, or for development. and sometimes it is not going to be as big of an intervention of that. it might be more about introducing transit or pedestrian crossings to safely get over or under that railroad or highway. the whole point of this initiative is it is going to look different in different communities. i'm not going to sit at the d.o.t. headquarters and figure out what is right for every community. we will invite them to work with their ideas to help get this funding better connected. everywhere i, go the very fact that our american english vocabulary includes the phrase wrong side of the tracks is of course a very racially motivated phrase, too, it tells you everything you need to know about infrastructure, whose purpose is to connect, can also serve to divide. >> such a poetic and practical point. more connection, less division. pete buttigieg, this is why you are the secretary of transportation. thank you so much pour being

with us tonight. best of luck in your efforts. we'll be right back. >> thank you. f luck in your effs we'll be right back. >> thank you

we ran out of time again tonight, so we're going to but out one extra segment that we had planned online, at msnbc.com/alex wagner tonight. it's a good one. check it out. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. a federal judge rules the affidavit for the mar-a-lago search can be unsealed. but how much of it will we actually see? we'll go through what is next in the legal process. plus, a midterm prediction for mitch mcconnell, why the senate minority leader is feeling more confident about his party's chances in the house. and the biden administration seems to be getting serious about monkeypox. the new action it is taking as the virus reaches state of emergency status in parts of the country.