♪♪ good day. i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. huge changes under way in the house as we speak.

hakeem jeffries announcing his run for democratic leader. nancy pelosi prepares to hand over the gavel to republicans. and republicans gear up for investigations into everyone from president biden on down. plus, what's happening with twitter? elon musk's ultimatum to employees results in hundreds walking off the job, offices shutting down, users predicting the end is nye. can the social media giant survive? new twists in the investigation into that brutal and chilling murder of four idaho college students. police now telling people to stay vigilant as they search for a suspect. we'll dig deeper into what police are or are not saying about this case a little later in the show. but we start with the seismic power shift unfolding right now in the house. new battle lines being drawn as new leaders step up to do the fighting. we know that nancy pelosi, steny hoyer and jim clyburn are all retiring from the top jobs,

leaving a new generation of democrats to go toe to toe with house republicans and they're going to have their hands full. in the 40-plus hours since nbc news made the call, house republicans have been laying out their plans. not focused on policy changes, but on investigation. lots and lots of investigations. >> this is the focus on the judiciary committee, the political nature at the justice department and the linkage now to what was happening with the hunter biden story. >> we want to get to the bottom of the origination of covid-19. >> i'm happy dr. fauci is retiring. that's going to give a lot of time for him to sit in our committees. >> we can impeach secretary mayorkas. we can impeach merrick garland. >> the majority is everything. even if it's a one-seat majority. it's everything. it gives us the ability to subpoena, to look into the administration, oversight, all of it. and so, yeah, things are going

to change. >> i want to bring in ryan nobles on capitol hill, jake sherman, co-founder of punch bowl news, josh dausy is a reporter for "the washington post," donna edwards is also an msnbc political contributor and brendan buck saved as an aide to paul ryan and john boehner. it's great to have you here. let me start with nancy pelosi and the other democratic leaders. they're no strangers to political fights. as this new republican majority comes in, is there serious policymaking on their agenda, or is it, which it seemed to be a lot about yesterday at the press conference, just about investigations? >> i mean, serious policy could be on their agenda. nothing is going to get done because there's a democrat senate and a democratic president. you could put the policy agenda that has a chance of becoming law in a list of two or three items.

not including funding the government, lifting the debt ceiling and things like this. this is going to be a majority that passes legislation that we call messaging bills, bills that will get through the house but never get through the senate. they'll do a lot of investigations. here's the thing, if you talk to republican leadership and they're being honest, they understand that these investigations are a base exercise and most likely a political loser. does that mean they won't come up with some information or line of questioning that's interesting and fruitful? no, it doesn't mean that. they might. but with inflation raging and interest rates up and all the things that are going on in this country, to just be investigating hunter biden's laptop is not going to speak to the concerns of most americans, that wouldn't appear on a list of 400 things that they care about. i think that's the challenge for house republicans right now. >> so, ryan, talk a little bit

about, if you will, how this shift in leadership is unfolding on the hill and what are you hearing from members? >> reporter: so far democrats seem very positive and have, for the most part, coalesced around these two, three younger democratic leaders to take over the mantle of leadership in hakeem jeffries, kathleen clark and pete agular. we saw in the last hour or two, nancy pelosi out with a statement, doesn't expressly endorse the trio, but makes it clear that she would like to see them as the next group of leaders. there doesn't appear to be any kind of serious fight between them taking the job. the question for democrats much like it is for republicans is what happens in january when the actual governing starts and when they've all got to be on the same page to either oppose any type of republican legislation that they seem to be a problem or in some cases find areas of common ground, the debt limit, things along those lines. that's where you could start to

see there be some leakage within the democratic party. what we haven't heard a lot of in terms of expression of support are from the more progressive wing of the democratic party. the alexandria ocasio-cortezs of the world. they haven't expressed that warm support that we've seen from other members. they're all singing from the same hymnal, but we'll see if that continues on when the real work begins in january. >> and the 117th still had some work to do before we head into the next one. i want to play part of what ben rhodes said last night on msnbc about all these supposed, proposed republican-led investigations. >> they never stop. it doesn't matter what the facts are or what the truth is, they just want to continue the show. the show is the only thing they care about. >> he was actually talking about benghazi which was going on in congress while you were there and i'm guessing the people you

worked for, many of them thought there were absolutely legitimate reasons to investigate even though nothing really came of it. i wonder what your take is now on the lines of investigations that republicans are talking about. >> let's start with the fact that it is the job of congress to investigate the administration. that should not be controversial and every time that there's a unified government, the majority tends to not look into the party of their own party. there's nothing wrong on its face with doing investigations, democrats did investigations of donald trump. what jake was saying, focusing on things that people actually care about is really important. and i'll just say, when it comes to looking into hunter biden, they better have the goods. if you're wasting all of this time going down that rabbit hole and it produces nothing and i'm very skeptical that they have the goods, that is a big -- that is a complete political malpractice. the best thing that could happen to joe biden right now is an overreach from a republican congress.

and we've seen this time and time. we probably overreached after we took back the house in 2010 and certainly bill clinton was able to use the foil of house republicans to get himself re-elected. joe biden has a real opportunity here if republicans overreach. i'm sceptical that they will be disciplined and that's going to be kevin mccarthy's biggest challenge. there's a lot of pent-up energy for it and they're probably going to go hard at some pretty cooky stuff. >> he's making deals with people like marjorie taylor greene? >> we can stop pretending this is an open question, she's going to have a seat on the oversight committee. that's why she's been a vocal supporter of his, trying to get the speakership and that's just the reality of the house at this point. they're going to be very aggressive oversight and people like her are going to have a seat at the table. when you have a slim, slim majority, you don't have a lot

of opportunity to make enemies. and whether it's kevin mccarthy or somebody else, you're going to need marjorie taylor greene on your side. >> pelosi, clyburn and hoyer has a combined 106 years in congress. none of the three who are expected to replace them have served longer than ten. i wonder what you make of how that might impact their ability to go toe to toe with this new republican majority or what the strategy might be. >> well, i think that had all three of them stepped down and left congress, that would be one question. but they haven't. what they've done is they've stepped back from leadership, they're allowing this new generation to come forward and they are there for advice that this new team is going to need as they develop their leadership chops. i think it's a great way to structure a transition and especially in the minority. i think one of the things that

you learn in the minority is how to unify your caucus and democrats are going to need to have very strong unity because republicans will not, and it will offer an opportunity for leverage when it comes to entering into some of these negotiations and i think they've served enough time under the speaker pelosi tenure that they understand how to navigate the caucus and at the same time they will get the benefit of the bargain of the expertise of these, you know, three esteemed and longtime leaders before they have to transition completely into a new congress. >> jake, bigger picture, i want to point out the difference between the way mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy addressed nancy pelosi stepping back. mcconnell releasing a statement saying, quote, the speaker and i have disagreed frequently and forcefully over the years, but i have seen firsthand the depth and intensity of her commitment to public service. there is no question that the

impact of speaker pelosi's consequential and path-breaking career will long endure. mccarthy, on the other hand, skipped the speech and he was meeting with stephen miller. does the fact that pelosi is gone, though, make mccarthy's job harder than it would have been, at least for the effect of she's not a target anymore? >> makes it harder from a practical sense, chris. nancy pelosi is one of the most skilled if not the most skilled legislator and congressional leader of not only our lifetime but probably in the entirety of this country. and there will be things that democrats need to get involved in, things of importance. raising the debt limit, ukraine aid. who else knows what's going to come up next congress with a republican majority. they are going to need to go to democrats. hakeem jeffries, he was the democratic caucus chair, he

wasn't the whip or the leader or anything like that. he's going to be pretty green here. so that's going to impact mccarthy as well. it's going to impact the republican leadership. they need a partner. you might have to call on pelosi and hoyer to help them out. one other note. this is just going back to what brendan says here. mccarthy has so little room to maneuver that he couldn't even going to nancy pelosi's speech to honor somebody who served not only the congress, his state. the state that he lives in and grew up in. steve scalise was there. i found it a little bit odd and off-putting and, you know, mcconnell's statement was obviously much more in line with what congressional leaders traditionally do. >> so brendan, your former boss, paul ryan, also put out a statement congratulating nancy pelosi on her historic career. we know, look, republicans lost a ton of races because of what

mitch mcconnell described as chaos and negativity. i mean, did you find it odd that kevin mccarthy didn't go to the speech and moving forward do you think that any of those folks in the leadership are going to understand, as it gets closer to the presidential, gets closer to another election season, that that just isn't working? >> i'm actually not surprised that he didn't go. nancy pelosi has not hidden her disdain for kevin mccarthy. she's outright called him stupid. it's not like they've had a close relationship there. that's a pretty tough relationship there. she's not held back when it comes to him. i'm not surprised. it's a bittersweet thing for democrats, it's also a bittersweet thing for republicans. she was a great foil for them to have. she was a tough foil to deal with but she was the best

political opportunity we've had. if you're looking for a party to moderate, don't look to house republicans. that's not where it's going to come from. >> i want to get reaction from you. the house judiciary gop has just put out a statement previewing of what's to come in the next congress. among the people they have sent letters to, potential witnesses to take part in transcribed interviews are ron klain, the white house chief of staff, dhs secretary mayorkas, merrick garland, secretary of education miguel cardona. they didn't waste any time. >> it's quite a list. i think you have to understand from the republican perspective, they see what democrats in oversight of donald trump as extremely aggressive and in their mind they held nothing back. and so they have no reason to hold back here. i think some people will say

that's not a fair comparison. but you have to get in the mind-set of conservative media, what they hear. they think the democrats were breaking all kinds of norm and is they feel like they have the permission to do the same. i think you're going to get a lot of brawling from these committee chairman without little regard for norms. >> and apparently you don't have to win to do some of the brawling, josh. losing isn't going to stop kari lake who has made a point of not conceding the arizona governor's race. she went to mar-a-lago the other day. what's going on here? >> yeah, she is not taking the calls from many in the party to concede. you've seen the election deniers who said in 2020 the election was stolen, made all of these false claims about the election, they conceded. but kari lake has not. she's continued to highlight various issues she said happened

in maricopa county. she's continuing to fight. and then she spent yesterday down at mar-a-lago. former president trump has repeatedly urged her to keep fighting and to say, you know, the election is stolen and so she is doing that. and i don't know that we're going to see a concession soon. the other -- most all the others, even the ones who made such claims about the 2020 election have conceded this time. but she has not. >> congresswoman, let me ask you quickly, we're out of time, whether it's kari lake or whether it's this breaking news about all of these letters going out from the house judiciary committee republicans, what should be the democratic strategy? should they ignore it? should they engage it? what would you like to see? >> obviously democrats are going to play a role in making sure to counter some of these arguments in committee. but mostly i think democrats should just stand back and watch

the ship sink. i think this is not what the american people want and republicans are going to demonstrate that and i view their time in the majority as very short lived. >> ryan, jake, josh, donna, thank you all. brendan, you're going to stay with me. if you want an example of just how important a fully functioning government is, look no further than the massive and early in the season snowstorm that is burying the upper midwest and parts of new york state. the storm is so large, officials worry it could be deadly. so local and state governments are mobilizing. marissa parra is in the middle of it. oh, my gosh. south of buffalo on lake erie, an area i'm familiar with. i would say, how is it out there? obviously we can see. not the most fun assignment you've ever had. >> you can see just how hard it is to see right now, chris. we're not even three blocks away from what you can hopefully

barely make out the silhouette of a car, another one stranded on this road that we've been on for about a couple of hours now. and we haven't even had five minutes without some sort of stranded vehicle, without some sort of vehicle that needs rescuing or some vehicle that's spinning out. when it comes to the concerns here, it's multifaceted. there's the roads. there's travel bans especially in the south area here, south of buffalo. like this area, they have a travel ban for a reason. police were watching and saying this is not supposed to be happening at all. when i asked, are you guys going to ticket them, but they said, we could, but it's impossible to keep up with. we've seen so many cars coming through here. it's very slick and these roads are not safe to be on and it makes it harder for the snowplows. when it comes to power outages, you have the downed power lines. let's take a look right now at how much snow is coming down. you look at this welcome sign

for the storage space, it's practically buried. you have the concern over downed power lines and then you have the concern over what happens when the power goes out, people turn on their generators. authorities are very worried about people not doing that properly. carbon monoxide poisoning is a big concern. if people put it inside like they're not supposed to, that is something that can happen. when we talk about how much snow there is, the big fear is that if there's too much that might 'cause structure collapse. you may remember 2014, that was a deadly snowstorm. roughly a dozen people died from storm-related causes in the buffalo area. they're doing everything they can to prevent that from happening. and we did see structure collapses in 2014. and that's really hard to prevent. they're doing everything they can to not have a repeat. >> marissa, thanks so you and your crew for being out there. stay safe. we have breaking news that could impact millions of current and former college students. the biden administration now

asking the supreme court to step in and lift the hold on its $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan. the plan has been blocked by two federal courts. the government is trying to get both lifted. the solicitor general said the current situation leaves millions of vulnerable borrowers in limbo, unsure of what's going to happen next. the election may be over, but worries over inflation and the economy certainly aren't. we'll hear live from president biden as he meets with business leaders this hour. twitter employees are headed out the doors in droves. can elon musk save the social media giant. in a case that continues to get more baffling by the second, new details about the weapon likely used to kill four idaho students with the killer or killers still on the loose. you're watching chris jansing reports only on msnbc. g chris j reports only on msnbc. 0 to 60 in under 4 seconds.

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breaking news via the "new york times" that reports the justice department has opened an antitrust investigation into the owner of ticketmaster. if you have anybody who is a taylor swift fan or if you just turned on your television, you know that it has been chaotic to say the least as people try to get online, try to get tickets to her first postpandemic concert series. lots of people crying. lots of people posting videos. anyway, that chaos that it descended into, now the subject of the justice department looking at it. there are members of congress who have been looking at ticketmaster. we'll continue to follow this for you. according to "the times," no response from live nation which is the organization in a merged with ticketmaster and has what many people see has a virtual monopoly on those kinds of tickets. what's trending on twitter today besides taylor swift is

twitter itself. tech experts are warning it could go offline any moment because of a mass exodus of staff. the company's offices are now closed to most employees through the weekend with reports of hundreds of people gone leaving not enough workforce to keep things going. this follows an ultimatum handed down by elon musk who gave staff less than 36 hours, the ultimatum, leave or agree to be, quote, extremely hard core, working along hours at high intensity. let's discuss this with ben collins. is twitter's death greatly exaggerated? could we see something this weekend. i got up this morning, having my coffee and i'm seeing people saying good-bye twitter, it's been nice knowing you. >> look, this website is going to have some dramatic changes in the near future. whether that's the site effectively closing down for a few hours at a time because they can't keep the website up. that might happen. that's what a lot of engineers

are worried about. but elon has made this year. after closing the offices until monday. he sent an email to staffers saying -- to engineers saying show me six lines of code by 2:00 p.m. and come to the office. it's unclear what happens with this website from here on out. but it's just going to be hard to keep it going with no ad revenue and no engineers in house. >> beyond, obviously, elon musk, but the many people who work for him and depend on him to pay their mortgages and put food on the table, m.i.t. points this out, it could wipe out records of recent human history and asks what happens when the world's knowledge is owned by a company that could soon go out of business. it's a place for centralized protests, the reporting of events. put this into larger context. what's at stake here?

>> think about this way, when there's an earthquake in california, the first place people go to is to twitter and say, was that an earthquake? what's going on here? that functionally will not exist in that real realtime, in the moment space until something else comes along to do that. how different would this war have gone from an information war standpoint had we not seen the pictures of bombed out day cares in ukraine. russia could have won this information war and may be it changes the shape of the actual physical war from there. so it's not just posting meme and is doing dumb stuff. it's real infrastructure for a lot of people across the world, not just in the united states. >> ben collins, always great to have you on the program. thank you for that. any minute, the year's long investigation into theranos founder elizabeth holmes will reach a crescendo when a judge

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in the georgia senate runoff today, candidates are crisscrossing the state to convince as many people as they can to get out and vote one more time. democratic senator raphael warnock has just released a new ad with an interesting strategy because it doesn't mention his own name at all. just donald trump and herschel walker. from the airwaves to the courtroom, warnock and the democratic party are fighting to expand early voting. for more on the strategies of both campaigns, let's bring in shaquille brewster, the president of next general america and brendan buck is back with us. the warnock team asked a judge

to expand early voting by opening up polling centers next saturday. what else is going on today? >> it was an extensive hearing that we watched this morning and the judge seemed at least more -- to be a little more skeptical of the state's position. the state of georgia's arguing that state law prohibits early voting on the saturday after thanksgiving. democrats in the warnock campaign are suing the state saying that's a misinterpretation of state law and that that provision doesn't apply to the runoff election. so that's what the two sides are going back and forth. the judge said he understands this is a timely matter, but no specific sense of when we will hear a decision from the judge. outside of that back and forth, for voters, it's about making that final decision. which candidate are they going to support and i've been talking to a lot of voters here who support both candidates and i want you to listen to a little bit of the themes that we're picking up on in those conversations. >> herschel walker is -- i think

he'll be good for the state, but his personal life was dragged into it. i vote republican. i'm going to vote for my party. >> i took walker for what he was, the man he was. and i thought give him a chance and see how that works out. >> walker should have stuck with football and being that leader he was then, okay? stepping into politics is not what he's supposed to be doing. >> reporter: now you've mentioned some of the new ads that we're seeing. warnock made clear that part of his strategy is pulling over some of those republican and moderate voters. those who voted for brian kemp but did not support herschel walker. for the first time this weekend, you'll see brian kemp and herschel walker appear together for a joint rally on saturday. that is something that was absent during the general election that you'll see for the first time this weekend for this runoff, chris. >> christina, your group is kicking off a phone bank today hoping to reach 1.4 million

young georgia voters, very ambitious. first of all, how are you going to do that? once you reach them, what's your strategy to actually get them to the polls. >> well, we know that young voters are going to be critical in this case and exit polls show that 63% of young voters voted for the democratic senate candidate. we're contacting 1.4 million young people with our army of 28,000 volunteers across the country that are sending calls and texts. we're calling and texting young people every single day until election day. and until the polls close. we know that it's really critical that what this senate race really represents is what happens with abortion, what happens with climate change, what happens with raising the minimum wage, what he happens to reform on criminal justice issues. these are top issues that young people care about and there's a clear distinction between warnock and walker on these issues. once you reach them whether it's

a text or phone call, how do you make sure that turns into them actually going and voting. >> well, we provide them all the information about where their polling location is, how to vote. many young people don't know what a runoff is and if the rules change and we can see right now just from hearing that we don't know whether -- next saturday young people or people at all in georgia will be able to vote. we make sure they know exactly when and where to vote. we ask what their voting plan is, if they're going to take friends and family and we follow-up up with them until we know that they voted. >> brendan, how tough is it to get people to vote in a runoff. people need to get a turkey on the thanksgiving table. some of them are starting to do their holiday shopping. is this kind of old-fashioned gotv still the most effective way? >> you have to do it, absolutely. there's a lot of people in georgia who have been hammered with ads for months and months. and i don't think they

appreciate having to see them again. the sort of generic get out the vote tactics are important. but the ad that warnock is running is a pretty big get out the vote. donald trump excites -- or at least angers democrats voters and turns them out. that's going to be an important part of the warnock campaign. on the flip side, what shaq talked about is important, brian kemp being out there for herschel walker. brian kemp kept herschel walker at arm's length. it's not a mistake, he did not campaign together the entire time which is pretty crazy. now the fact that brian kemp is out there throwing the same direction as herschel walker, i think that's a big deal. georgia is unlike a lot of states in the south is not a trump state. it is a brian kemp state. he can say that i trust and i endorsed this person. that could be what puts herschel walker over the top. >> i apologize, i'm just looking

at my email and i'm trying to figure out exactly what this is. a doj official says in the mar-a-lago case and key aspects of the january 6th investigation, may recollect merrick garland has named a special counsel. it comes to us by way -- it's harry litman, is that you're saying? or i have harry litman. i just named you special counsel. >> no, please. >> i'm like, oh, wow, okay. let me get your reaction. this is serious stuff that he's named this special counsel, again, for mar-a-lago case and key aspects of the january 6th investigation. >> very serious stuff. and it's triggered by the entry of donald trump into the presidential race because that entry means there's a conflict of interest for garland and the administration because taking

trump down, even though they would do it anyway, even though it wouldn't change because they're going toward the finish line, means that it does biden and garland -- it helps them with their jobs. that is a conflict of interest. there are special counsel regulations for the department that says when there is a -- when there is a conflict of interest, you must appoint a special counsel when it's not in the public interest. garland obviously looked at the letter of the law and said, you know, look, there's really a conflict here and for public confidence in what we're doing, we now need a special counsel. one more quick point, chris, many people said don't do it because of all the delay. it will occasion some delay as

the special counsel gets up to speed with the ongoing investigation. >> yeah, i was going to ask you about the advantages and disadvantages, the arguments for and against. and you just laid them out. how quick or slow is it to get a special counsel up to speed? >> in normal circumstances, it's fairly slow. they assemble his or her own staff. we're already in the shadow of the 2024 election, believe it or not, by the time -- if trump were to be indicted say in the next couple months. that part they should be able to do. another very important point, under the regulations, may recollect merrick garland still makes the final decision. the special counsel will provide a report to merrick garland and i think it will be very influential from garland's position. if a special counsel says don't indict, he would really be

swimming upstream to indict. if the special counsel says indict, it makes it more insulated from charges of political bias. although, in our current landscape and profile, those charges are going to come anyway. robert mueller was a special counsel before. lifelong republican. straightest of straight arrows and they called him a political hack. there's no way around political turmoil, but this will mute it, at least in garland's view and it's just how he reads the law and the regulations and he follows them to -- wherever they lead him. that's the kind of lawyer and judge he was. >> i wonder if you think this will mute some of the criticism. there's been a lot of conversation about the justice department trying to reach a decision before it gets too much into the 2024 election season. >> earlier in the show, the republicans have made investigating the doj one of

their prime targets. it's highly political sized in their minds. i can't imagine who exists out there that would give the impression that this is a completely nonpolitical investigation in the eyes of republicans who see the doj as part of the deep state. it doesn't matter who you are, they see this is an effort to take down donald trump. and i imagine donald trump will be quick to say, here we go again, robert mueller-style investigation to take him down. this is certainly bad for donald trump. don't get me wrong. i'm certain he's going to lean into this and play victim again. so much of his brand is about victimhood and grievance and these shadowy figures in washington coming out to get him. i'm sure this is going to be a major theme for his campaign going forward even though it's designed to take the politics out of it. i just don't know that that's possible right now. >> for his campaign, but also as you point out, thematically for a new majority in the house that

has already -- as we talked about earlier in this program, laid out a whole series of investigations that they're planning to have against the democrats and against joe biden. >> chris, may i make a quick point on that? >> sure, go ahead. >> remember mueller when there was a house republican party, they did everything they could to interfere, stall, shake down the department to get information. it's not supposed to work that way. i don't think garland will let it work that way. but that will be part of what's happening. i think, by the way, you won't see a high profile person, you'll see a very well respected career professional. it has to come from outside the department. might be a former u.s. attorney. could well be a republican. the broad middle of professional and professional lawyers will understand this helps for objectivity, dispassion. but just as brian says, there's no way around the hornet's nest that this will be to house

republicans and trump saying here's a person exercising a one-person vendetta against me. >> i want to bring in ken dilanian, our investigative correspondent who was the one who broke this story for us. what can you tell us? >> i can tell you -- >> have we lost ken? >> sorry, we had a technical problem. i can tell you that the senior justice department official is telling us that attorney general merrick garland has named a special counsel to oversee all aspects of the department's investigation into the retention of national defense information at mar-a-lago as well as key aspects of the department's january 6th investigation. and that's basically all we know at this point. we're expecting the attorney general to make an announcement fairly soon and give us more details, chris. >> i'm sure that there's been a lot of speculation about who it might be and you don't necessarily have to name names ken dilanian, what have those

conversations been like? >> to be honest, the conversations i've been having with people involve reasons not to do this. there's been a lot of people arguing including our own chuck rosenberg wrote a recent op-ed making the case that this move doesn't get the justice department anything because whoever this person is will be criticized, will be branded by donald trump and the people under investigation, just the way robert mueller was and that ultimately the way the special counsel law is constructed, the attorney general -- this person works under the auspices of the justice department and the executive branch. so we'll have to see how this plays out and a lot will depend on the identity of the person and whether that person is perceived as independent and we'll have to wait and see on that, chris. >> what are you looking for, harry? >> first, i think it's reading tea leaves, but the fact that

part of january 6th and all of mar-a-lago tells me it's all about trump. the second thing i'm looking for, i think the profile of the person will be a lower profile known within the community. this is a bad example to use given how it turned out, but john durham, a former u.s. attorney who people knew within the department but not -- even, you know, bill barr, a republican, they wouldn't go with. they'll never get anyone who is political. i'm looking for a former united states attorney because it's somebody who has to come from outside the department, meaning they won't look down as they recently did in the investigation and pluck the very best trial lawyer there to oversee it's someone who is probably overseen before. so not knowing anything, that's the generic description i'm looking at, a former united states attorney or high-ranking prosecutor with no political,

you know, vestiges or identification on either side and who you'll here the attestations within the department that this person is 100% solid. but that won't stop the republican congress from saying look at the library fines he accrued and his nephew who made a contribution to democrats and there will be no doubt open season on this person. >> and you already touched on what you think the republican reaction will be. but i want to read to you something from what harry litman actually wrote when he did a recent column. he said, as it does across the political landscape, trump's candidacy throws his singular situation, a former president tied to highly unlawful acts, into cosmic weirdness. what are you going to be looking for after what we are expecting to be this announcement from the attorney general? >> yeah, i expect donald trump to turn his eyes on it and ask

his allies in congress to try to meddle in it. hold back the curtain a little bit. harry got in something before, we spent an enormous amount of time and energy when i was in the speaker's office convincing some -- or trying to stop some of our members from getting in the middle of mueller's investigation. at every step, they wanted to come and demand things, ask for things and we were a hard no every time. paul ryan did everything he could to defend that investigation and said it was important to carry through to its end. i don't know whether the new republican leadership is going to have the political capital to be able to rein people in and say no in the way that we were able to do before. i'm going to be very interested to see what the committees in the house do and whether they can be reined in at all. >> does mccarthy have the will? >> i don't know that he has the ability to, you know, i don't think he has enough political capital to spend to say, hey,

guys, knock it off. this is more serious than politics. this is about the law. i just don't think that's how this conference thinks and he's going to be able to convince anyone of that. >> chris, jim jordan is one of the most aggressive. he'll be pushing. but at the end of the day, garland, it will be garland who pushes back and says you can't have any of this information and it's just going to be a at loggerheads for two years. >> joe biden just had an event talking about the economy with business leaders. it was not brought up. you don't get any service in that room, so the members of the media who were in there may not even have this was coming do unto ask a question about that. but no comment from the white house yet. one of the things you wrote, as you talk about merrick garland, harry litman, is you say this could probably be the most important action the d.o.j. has ever undertaken. talk a little more about that.

>> sure, i mean look, the prosecution of a former president and on such serious crimes, it's just territory we've never been in, and as much as the department and garland are determined to do it sort of by the book, the facts, and the law, the only even possibly precedent is nixon and when the country had to decide, to decide what is in the best interest of the country as a whole. he knows moreover, even more so than nixon, whichever way he goes, there will be hugely passionate reaction and objection to him. it is going to play as political. so he is very single-minded, especially in mar-a-lago, which is likely to come sooner rather than later, and that will be interesting, because the special counsel will be getting up to speed very near a prosecutorial decision. he wants to say how did, what

conduct did trump do, what did we do in other situations, like this, but there is this huge broader political context, and it just means the department is going to be judged on this. this will be an event that the department does that will be in the history books. and it will have a huge aftermath that we cannot predict, he cannot predict, and of course, it will roil the political landscape for years to come. that's pretty big. >> when you talk about years to come, at the beginning of this program, you were talking about when you want to be speaking about, you know, what's going to happen with the republican congress, the idea of grievances versus actually doing legislation actually getting things done, now when you're talking about the potential of a presidential campaign, and this going on in the midst of it and we don't know who else, what else, they might formally announce, the only person who has formally announced of course, is former president trump, and then it becomes

grievances versus issues, do any issues get discussed? does this become the main factor as we look at a presidential campaign? >> well, i think it is important to look at congress right now, at least the house, as part of trump's campaign. look, there's a lot of people who don't want donald trump to be the nominee going forward. but the people who are there, jim jordan, as mentioned, kevin mccarthy, elise stefanic, they will have to be on donald trump's -- they will probably do a lot of his meddling and what he would like to see investigated for joe biden, so it is hard to separate the two. this is going to be a major team. they don't have a whole lot of legislative agenda to be working on. they have a lot of free time, frankly, so yes, they may not be able to get a lot from the d.o.j., but they've got a lot of time to send press releases and a lot of time to pass contempt

resolutions and demand things and have a big thrust and does this help the party that needs to win over the middle? absolutely not. so many members are still there and you have to think about what is important to them. their political incentives are still in play to the hard right and still to play in the republican base and this is the kind of stuff that rallies republicans back to donald trump, and it has in the past, we saw the same effect when he, his home was raided at mar-a-lago, i think you will see a lot of the same dynamics here, where republicans, both in the congress, but also in the broader sort of ecosystem, rush to fill this void, and talk about things that only help donald trump's case, in the republican primary. it hurts in the general election but helps in the primary. >> you have been very generous with your time and i know you have things to do and people to see and place does go, and thank you for doing this. let me go back for a minute and talk about the work that goes into making a decision like

this. the enormous political implications that you have laid out, and obviously, that brendan buck has just laid out and what do you think those conversations were like leading up to this moment that is coming? >> at this very moment, i imagine they tried their hardest and under garland successfully to mostly, mostly filter it out. what i wrote, and the reason i wrote that op-ed, is it seemed obvious to me, once trump got into the ring, there was a conflict of interest, and i think garland, for all of the concerns and considerations on both sides, he's first and foremost a guy who reads and follows the law. and he would have seen that, too. and so then, i think there was a series of considerations, talking about, not that they read chuck rosenberg and me and ruth marcus, but talking about the same things. look, is this really in the public interest? because here's what they're doing. all of the things that brendan was just saying, that ken just

said and i have said, and i think garland took what, by any account, is a pretty balanced, nuanced consideration, said look, we just have to call it on, we have to call the tie on behalf of the special counsel because that's the best we can do, and it doesn't, it's far from a panacea, far from a cure-all to try to assure the public we are doing it without fear or favor, and not because he's the presidential candidate, but because he committed crimes. but if he's indicted, every motion, every-everything, for two months, for two years, will be the story of the day in the campaign, and it's going to be a complete cosmic situation. >> former federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst joins us now, carol, are you surprised by this decision by merrick garland and why not? >> the question why not is an

interesting one. one has to wonder whether merrick was inclined to do this several weeks but he held off because of the midterm elections. and i think when harry says cosmic weirdness, i have to agree with this, this is in a sense a no win situation for attorney general garland, because either way, whatever the justice department decides to do, whether it is to bring an indictment or not, the politics is almost impossible to separate at this point. so he is doing the best he can by saying we are going to make this as impartial a decision as we, can but at the end of the day, he holds, he still holds, under the independent counsel statute the final word as to whether an indictment will be brought or not. >> carol, thank you very much. harry litman, of course, for staying with us, we appreciate it. that will do it for us for this hour. make sure to join us for "chris jansing reports" every weak day at 1:00 msnbc and i'm sticking

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