hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in the east. full speed ahead for jack smith. he of course is the new special counsel responsible now for overseeing two of potentially the most consequential investigations in the 150-plus year history of the justice department. the probe looking into the ex-president's hoarding of classified documents at his private club and the sprawling investigation into the january 6th insurrection. "the washington post" reports newly appointed special counsel jack smith continues to work remotely from europe as he assembles a team, finds office space and takes over two high-stakes investigations into former president trump. complex cases that officials insist will not be delayed by smith's appointment, even as they also said they do not know when he will returning to the u.s. garland and smith have both

vowed that the appointment of a special counsel will not slow the work in either case, and smith already has become involved, albeit from the netherlands. for example, a court filing said smith has reviewed arguments between the justice department and trump's lawyers over papers seized in the search of mar-a-lago. that court fight is the first major public challenge for the new special counsel. lawyers for trump and lawyers for doj squared off today in an atlanta federal courtroom with the justice department looking to put an end to the special master process entirely for an independent arbiter, in this case raymond dearie reviews the documents seized by the fbi. doj has made it clear that process has hobbled their investigation. lawyers for the ex-president who earlier today filed a request to unseal the entire affidavit that

accompanies the mar-a-lago search warrant came under withering questioning from the panel of judges from the 11th circuit. they expressed doubt about allowing the special master process to go forward. no matter what happens in this case, it is worth remembering that the court fight over the special master is in its entirety a procedural dispute. it's a legal fight started by the ex-president intended to simply throw a wrench into the justice department's investigation. no matter what happens with this case, special counsel jack smith will ultimately face the monumental task of deciding whether or not to indict donald trump. all while facing ceaseless attacks from the ex-president and his allies in the gop and in the right-wing media. but unlike past criminal investigations, including the mueller probe, jack smith might be coming into his role as special counsel with some big advantages. namely, because as much as trump likes to say in interviews that he won, we know that he knows he actually lost the 2020 election and is no longer president.

here's how a friend of this program and a senior member of special counsel robert mueller's team, andrew weissmann, puts it in today's "new york times." mr. smith is stepping into a political context very different from the one that confronted mr. mueller. most notably, because of justice department policy, mr. mueller was forbidden to charge a sitting president. now that mr. trump is a former president, mr. smith is not subject to that limitation. trump also no longer has key weapons he wielded to frustrate the mueller investigation, the destabilizing threat of firing the special counsel and justice department leadership to curtail the scope of the investigation and the ability to dangle and bestow presidential pardons to discourage witnesses from cooperating. mr. smith has other advantages that relate to the status of the work he is now called on to perform. he is assuming the helm of two substantial investigations in progress, with designated teams of prosecutors and agents he's inheriting. he is not, as mr. mueller was,

required to fly and build the plane simultaneously. the big questions and the big legal battles ahead for special counsel jack smith is where we start today. mike schmidt is here, washington correspondent for "the new york times." also jackie alemeni and andrew weissmann is here, former justice department prosecutor as well as a senior member of robert mueller's special counsel investigation. all are msnbc contributors. andrew weissmann, take me through what you write today in "the new york times." >> sure. the key thing that i do is really take on this issue of how much jack smith is seeking publicly. obviously i worked for robert mueller. he's famously known for being reticent with the press. if you live by the press, you

die by the press. i contrast that with ken starr who was criticized for overspeaking and oversharing. and then i give another example of a third special counsel who investigated a sitting or former president, and that is archibald cox in the watergate years. the key thing that i talk about is that it's not necessary to be absolutely silent. if you do that, you leave the field to donald trump and his allies to really spin the way in which the special counsel is viewed and the work of the special counsel, and it's going to be really important here if there is a charge for the public to understand what it is that the special counsel is doing and why there's a charge. and a really good example, i think, of where the special counsel, if he does decide to charge, could speak out is to explain how the case against

donald trump is completely called for by prior department of justice cases. in other words, that it is actually following the rule of law to charge him because others who did similar things or lesser crimes have been charged as well, so that he is being treated no better or worse than anyone else. >> andrew, let me read from what i think is that section. it's worth noting that the justice department rules would not prohibit mr. smith's discussing procedural issues and as the investigations come to fruition explaining why any potential charges are consistent with past cases. in other words, if there's an indictment, he could explain why trump would be treated no better or worse than individuals charged with similar crimes. as we proceed along this course where an indictment of the former president seems increasingly likely, the press maelstrom will intensify. trump and his allies are already

working to shape the press narrative, as is their right and they have done in the past. a prosecutor need not and should not stay entirely mute. and let me just, for our viewers who may not know where to find that right-wing you know what storm, let me just show some of what it sounds like. this is the trump and cruz and jordan maligning the newly appointed special counsel. >> this horrendous abuse of power is the latest in a long series of witch hunts, started a long time ago. >> this latest announcement that they are preparing to use the criminal process to try to attack donald trump -- look, pa na banana republics do that. >> if that's not a political justice department, i don't know what is. so this is why we're going to look into this issue and get to the bottom of everything they have been doing at the politicized doj. >> banana republics are calling

and want their coup plots back. but ted cruz's projection aside, it sort of proves your point. the right is going to throw all sorts of manufactured outrage into the gears. and it's worked for trump before. so is there something imminent that could be an example of this new special counsel speaking to his process? >> you know, right now i'd say the answer is no because jack is still overseas and he needs to obviously come back here and get his feet on the ground and his team in order. but i do think that certainly sort of explaining the team, the process could be done. i think it's going to be important very much in the way that mayoric garland gave a press conference when this was a huge brouhaha over the mar-a-lago search warrant. it was in some ways -- gave the

ability for the public to see merrick garland. he's a name and somebody who we internally all know and if you're in washington you know, but it's not somebody who the public knows. i think it's going to be important for jack, even if he doesn't say all that much at the outset, i think it's going to be important for the public to see him. and i give as an example archibald cox. he gave a press conference in connection with a very important decision that he made about seeking the nixon tapes and not getting just a transcript, a selected transcript from the president. and he did that on television. now, we're all on television and in part we know that is an important way to communicate. archibald cox could have done all of that in a legal brief, but in this day and age that's not frankly going to cut it in terms of getting your message out and being heard and also allowing the public to see who

you are and for them, the public, to make up their minds about whether they think the person is acting well within the scope of their discretion. so i just think we should borrow a page from, for instance, the january 6 committee that has been very adept about learning how to get its message out in a way that is understandable to the american public. >> andrew weissmann, with the exception really of yourself, the mueller investigation had no story tellers, and you didn't become one until after you had left and i believe after it was done. can you concede or do you acknowledge that that was detrimental to the work product of the mueller probe in its entirety? >> i do. so i in "the new york times" piece as well as in my book, i write about that i think that was a missed opportunity. i think that there is an

educational function of the special counsel that needs to be acknowledged and accepted. it's important, though, to remember there are limits. archibald cox mentioned them, attorney general merrick garland has mentioned them. you don't want to be like james comey. you don't want to give your personal opinion about the guilt or innocence of somebody who has not been charged. there are things that you really can't say. but i do think that it is important to understand that educational role. and if we do go down this uncharted course of having a former president being charged, i think the public is going to be entitled to know more about the department's reasoning than what happened in a normal case. i think there's nothing about the department rules that prohibit it, and i think it would be greatly in the public service to have that kind of

communication so people can understand why such action was taken. >> all right. so you can't make any of this up, but the man who literally put his boot on the neck of the mueller probe and mr. mueller himself in its final weeks of existing says that doj probably has enough to indict already. mike schmidt let me show this to you. this is bill barr. >> if the department of justice can show that these were indeed very sensitive documents, which i think they probably were, and also show that the president consciously was involved in misleading the department, deceiving the government and playing games after he had received the subpoena for the documents, those are serious -- >> that's a serious crime? >> i personally think that they probably have the basis for

legitimately indicting the president. i don't know, i'm speculating. >> you're speculating. >> but given what's gone on, i think they probably have the evidence that will check the box. they have the case. >> do you think they will? >> i think it's becoming increasingly more likely. >> so, mike, if bill barr's standard is evidence that they were sensitive documents and evidence that the president was consciously involved in misleading the department, i think doj has already in files that have been released to the public made clear that they have those two pieces of evidence. is bill barr saying something here to trump or to the right that an indictment of trump is imminent? >> i'm not sure, and i'm not sure what bill barr knows. you know, it's interesting to see bill barr talk about donald trump's conduct the way that he did, because it certainly is through a different lens than when he was attorney general. and i'm sure it's much easier to sit there as a commentator in an interview like that and offer

your opinion than have to be garland and decide whether charging a former president of the united states who may likely be the front-runner at a point of decision on whether to bring charges, you know, being a front-runner of the republican party, whether to go forward with that extraordinary decision of whether to charge. you know, it's -- you know, barr had an op-ed today or a version of an op-ed in "the new york post" that sort of follows a pattern of people when they break with trump, they sort of break hard. you know, they talk about how shocked they are by trump's behavior, when certainly they were witness to some of it when they were there. so i'm not sure what to make of barr. at the end of the day, barr doesn't really matter. it matters what's in garland's

head. does garland think that he can go forward with this monumentous decision if they believe there's enough to do it. i'm not really sure. >> mike, i listened to your conversation on the daily yesterday and there is a pretty lengthy history that jack smith -- i think people outside doj thought who's jack smith, where did he come from? there is a history of overseeing cases into politicians when he saw the public corruption unit. explain. >> yeah. so, you know, he oversaw a series of high-profile investigations that looked at the conduct of politicians across the country. the prosecution of governor mcdonnell in virginia. a case that the justice department won at trial but ultimately lost several years later when the supreme court threw it out. you know, he brought a case against a republican member of

congress from arizona. he oversaw the decision of not to bring charges against tom delay back around the time when he was starting out in the public corruption unit. so he has sat there and looked at the difficult questions of what to do with politicians who broke the law. and how to make that decision. and the sensitivities that come with it. because while everyone is supposed to be looked at under the law equally, the department does go to extraordinary lengths when it is investigating someone where there may be political consequences. there's a larger political impact to that. so he has -- he has that experience. the mcdonnell case is sort of a dramatic example of how these things can take many, many years to play out. this was a case that they had won and that was eventually tossed by the supreme court. so, you know, someone who has that experience on the -- it's

not narrow, but not every case the department makes is against a politician. it's certainly a small percentage of it. and this is someone who has been under the hood on them. >> jackie, in my viewing at the moment that it happened, the most dramatic part of merrick garland's announcement was announcing that mr. smith would oversee a criminal investigation into people who were not on the premises of the u.s. capitol as it pertained to january 6th, which is the bull's-eye of donald trump and a number of other people. i wondering if privately they're cheered that there's a handoff of their volumes and volumes of work? tell me sort of the vibe on the hill that the special counsel will also inherit the criminal investigation into donald trump's conduct around the fake electors and the 2020 coup plot.

>> yeah, nicolle. i think since the fbi executed their search warrant of mar-a-lago on august 8th, members on the congressional committee investigating the january 6th insurrection along with investigative staff have sort of come to accept that this case warrants just as much attention as the former president's role in the insurrection, and if anything is a more clear cut role of the former president that directly implicates him in a potential crime. i think that feeling is reflected inside the department of justice as well, that at the end of the day when you're looking at these two cases side by side, it's more -- again, it's cut and dry -- a more cut and dry prosecution and potentially easier to prosecute and that there is a direct line to the former president. whereas with january 6th, we are all still searching for that, including the committee. but right now congressional staff is really focused on

putting together the final product, the final report, especially now that the house gop has determined that they're going to take back the majority in january and this report is going to be the most lasting part of their work as jim jordan and james comer and other top republican lawmakers are going to become chairman of these committee and work to dissolve the select committee and potentially investigate the committee's findings and work that they have done over the past year and a half. i think that staffers on the committee and now former staffers as a lot of the investigators and lawyers are leaving. they have finished their investigative work and they're moving on to private practice and whatnot. they are also focused on some of the january 6th cases against the insurrectionists that are currently being tried. i think the outcome of some of those cases, the stewart rhodes' case, for example, those could,

i think, determine the potential trajectory of whether any charges will come against former president trump. but at the end of the day i think with both of these cases, the mar-a-lago classified documents case and january 6th, the department of justice is on a pretty tight timeline to get this done before the presidential primary for 2024. this is not something that you want -- you don't want to hand out an indictment and be prosecuting the former president who might be the gop nominee. you want to get that done before that happens. so if anything ultimately does come down from jack smith and his team on either issue, i think we're going to see that happen sooner rather than later. >> jackie, one of the things that was presented but really not resolved by the committee was the participation of donald trump's allies in the house and a couple of senators. ron johnson comes to minding, as

ron johnson usually does. but i wondering if there's any sense, any angst that any of them could be under any scrutiny by the special counsel as well? >> that's a really good point. liz cheney told paul kane that they were going to include some of the lingering evidence that wasn't put out there during the public hearings in the final report about certain lawmakers that they collected testimony and information on from various witnesses throughout the year and a half of the investigation. but yeah, you would think that throughout the course of the investigation, some of the former president's allies who especially were implicated in january 6th and the planning that went into the stop the steal rally, potentially the money aspect of this who paid for what, enable and potentially

foment this insurrection to be swept up in the investigation even organically. we've already seen a lot of these players become central to peripheral investigations as well. people like john eastman, jeffrey clark. those who facilitated the former president's plans to try to overturn the results of the election. the people who tried to put them into action. but again, i think that all points us back to why the classified documents case might be the -- where you see the special counsel ultimately indict the former president on, because it is -- there's a clear-cut line to him and more directly implicates him. >> all right. i need all of you to city council -- stick around a little bit longer. house democrats are finally on the verge of getting their hands on the ex-president's taxes. they have been the focus of some extraordinary investigative reporting by "the new york

times" and others for years now. what it means for those on capitol hill that have made the case they have a valid reason to get them. plus, what we're learning about the bravery and heroes in the colorado springs community. how instinct kicked in for one army veteran. we'll look at the five victims who lost their lives tragically that night and remember them. later in the show, one of the loudest voices on capitol hill calling for immediate reforms to the supreme court. senator sheldon whitehouse will join us. all those stories and more when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. after a quick. don't go anywhere. i promise to bring you advice that fits your values. i promise our relationship will be one of trust and transparency. as a fiduciary, i promise to put your interests first, always. charles schwab is proud to support the independent financial advisors who are passionately dedicated to helping people achieve their financial goals. visit findyourindependentadvisor.com ♪

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in just a couple dozen words, 31 to be exact, the supreme court rejected a last-minute bid by donald trump to block house democrats from getting their hands on and finally obtaining his taxes. the order by the supreme court marks the culmination of a years-long legal battle between congress and donald trump, a battle that began when the house ways and means committee asked for trump's taxes in april of 2019. a push for transparency that goes all the way back to 2016 when trump broke one of the traditions of politics by refusing to disclose his tax returns. joining our conversation, congressman jim himes of connecticut, a member of the house intelligence committee. congressman, i know this committee's work isn't your work but you have been part of the cumulative efforts over the last six years to hold donald trump accountable under the rule of law that applies to everyone else. your reaction to the supreme court finally weighing in and clearing the way for the house committees to see his taxes?

>> yeah, that's right, nicolle. you know what's interesting to me about this is not so much that the ways and means committee is going to see those tax returns. as you know, the tax returns were turned over to the manhattan district attorney over a year ago. "the new york times" published an expose and it turns out he didn't pay much in federal taxes for 10 or 15 years. no shocker there. as republicans assume the majority of the house of rehave threatened to do nothing but subpoena and haul witnesses and hunter biden's laptop and gary gensler of the s.e.c. and now we get to try out the wide array of objections the trump administration made to oversight. they ranged from ridiculous claims of executive privilege to just saying no to suing and litigating. now it hurts me to say that because some of the obstruction was so an burden that it was embarrassing.

but very, very quickly the republicans are going to learn just what it means to the power of congress when a president decides to drag his heels on legitimate subpoenas. >> congressman, i wonder if you can weigh in, again, as someone who has participated in and had a front row seat to past efforts to hold donald trump accountable, what do you make of the table that's been set for the new special counsel, jack smith? >> i think it's important that it happened. the biden administration and department of justice were in sort of a heads they lose, tails the other side wins. had they not appointed a special counsel, the president trump supporters would have said this is a political prosecution. they did appoint a special counsel and got criticized for that. so i think the appointment itself is really important by creating some distance between the investigation, two investigations of course and the department of justice. the one that interests me most,

i was very, very closely involved in both the event itself and the investigation of what occurred on january 6th. that's a tough one. that really is a tough one. i get into arguments with people all the time as to whether a law was broken by the president. the president -- the ex-president taking dozens and dozens of classified documents and putting them in a storage closet, legally speaking that's not a hard one. that is absolutely not a hard one and lots of people go to jail and suffer legal sanctions for doing precisely that. in some ways i'm most interested in how the special counsel will take that particular investigation. >> let me ask you this. we've all covered enough special counsels and people like andrew weissmann that have helped us understand what it is like to be a prosecutor and to operate in a pressure cooker like that. at mar-a-lago, so much of the evidence is public facing. we know he took very public classified documents. it included human intelligence,

signals intelligence, the kind of signals we protect most fiercely as a country and we also know that he lied about it and sent one, maybe two lawyers to lie about it. why not charge both the crime and the obstruction of the investigation tomorrow? >> i can't answer that question for you because i'm not involved in the investigation and investigations happen behind closed doors hopefully without leaks. what i can tell you is one of the anxieties that i have is if the special counsel chooses not to charge for the dozens and dozens of highly sensitive classified documents that were laying around on a carpet in mar-a-lago, i worry that maybe the special counsel doesn't explain that decision. that does the country a real disservice. remember, i was on the intelligence committee so i think a lot about oversight and the health of our intelligence community. if the special counsel chooses to your point to not charge on something where it looks as clear as day that there was a violation of law, it's going to be pretty important for somebody at the department of justice or

somebody to explain why that is not charged because, again, we need to prosecute those people who spill the nation's secrets. so that's my source of anxiety on that particular issue. but again, we'll let this play out and see where it goes. >> you and i went back and forth ahead of the midterms about what a kevin mccarthy-led house republican caucus would be for and what they would be against. i think you tried to reassure me that on ukraine, speaker mccarthy wouldn't be so bad. do you still have confidence that on issues of foreign policy, mccarthy will get his caucus to the right place? >> i do, nicolle. i'm going to put a little asterisk on that. i'm no expert on the internal dynamics of the republican conference and the majority of what it's going to wind up being, three or four votes. it's not hard to figure out with a tiny, tiny majority, matt

gaetz and paul gosar and marjorie taylor greene together in a room control the fate of kevin mccarthy. so the question is how much does he feed them? my guess is kevin mccarthy if he is speaker will be worried about his legacy. my guess is he's not going to be the guy that's responsible for letting ukraine get crushed by the russians. what that would mean in the history books. my guess is that the red meat that he throws the crew that he needs and the crew that is more explosive and flammable is going to be stuff like letting them investigate hunter biden's laptop. i remember eight or nine benghazi investigations. in some ways that's pretty easy for kevin to get in the way. getting in the way of support for ukraine would be a devastating indictment of kevin mccarthy and frankly the republican party as a whole. >> we haven't spoken since the midterm elections. what was your reaction as you watched the races come in, not just on election night but in

the days that ensued, to the absence of a red wave? >> well, it's -- if you're me, on the one hand democrats across the board wildly outperformed expectations. we came close to retaining the house of representatives but we didn't. and where i serve the majority is everything and we don't have that. on the other hand what i really, really care about is this. more than the fortunes of my party, i care about the stability of my democracy. all over this country, from arizona to connecticut to maine to florida, voters rejected the most explosive, the most volatile exopponents. it's restored my faith in the country a little bit to know that americans will reject the worst of maga america, because

the worst of maga america will ending our democracy if they are not checked by the common sense of the american people, and they were. >> no one predicted it's the democracy, stupid. i want to bring andrew weissmann back into the conversation who's still with us. could you speak to the congressman's stated anxiety that all this public-facing evidence, it's not even just public-facing evidence, it's been alleged in doj filings the nature of the classified documents at mar-a-lago and the specific ways in which donald trump obstructed that investigation. do you think anything short of an indictment is inexplicable? >> i do. i share the congressman's concern and i wrote about it "the times" today. the issue that whichever way the special counsel goes, the public is going to need to have an explanation for either why it's consistent with doj policy or why they determined in their

discretion they could not go forward. personally, i don't think that we're going to be in this situation where there is no charge in the mar-a-lago case. i think that there is two decisions that jack is going to have to make. first, can he make the case? and the second is should he? sometimes you have the evidence and you have to decide whether it's an appropriate use of your discretion to bring a case. here i think both of those are compelled by the facts and by the fact that the department of justice has, as we've talked about, brought cases against people who are equally or far lesser culpability. i think that really compels the conclusion here and i think it's going to be important for jack smith or the department to articulate that if and when there are those charges. i think that jack is a -- two attributes are that he is tenacious and he is fast.

i am confident that is something that merrick garland thought about, given the timeline here, which is not to let this drag on for months and months into the primary season. so i do think that jack and merrick garland will feel the clock is ticking here. >> congressman jim himes, thank you for spending some time with us today. we also wanting to thank mike schmidt, jackie and andrew weissmann. up next for us, our friend tim miller will be back on the tragedy we were covering at this hour yesterday in colorado. how the whole thing could have been prevented if not for the politicians there who he says made the community a sanctuary for radical ideologues. the very latest on that story and what we know now about the five victims that lost their lives that night. that's next. lives that night that's next. hey greg! ♪♪ uhh... hello? it's me! your heart!

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with downy in-wash scent boosters. if something is about to happen to kid, they're going to jump in front of their kid. that's what i did. i took care of my kid. i took care of my wife. i took care of my family. i took care of my friends. i don't care who he is, i don't care. i'm going to see him in court, if he makes it there. >> that is richard fierro with nbc's steve patterson. he is one of the patrons whoa officials credit with saving a lot of lives at club q. he tackled the gunman who had just shot and killed five people

and injured 19 more at the lgbtq club with an ar-15 style rifle. we just learned last hour that the suspect has been released from the hospital. he will face five murder charges and five hate crime charges. another senseless loss of life from gun violence. officials yesterday shared the names of the victims with all of us in the public. >> we respect all of our community members, including our lgbtq community. therefore, we will be identifying the victims by how they identified themselves and how their families have loved and identified them. the first person i'll identify is kelly loving. kelly's pronouns are she/her. daniel aston. daniel's pronouns are he/him. derrick rump. derrick's pronouns of he/him. ashley paugh. ashley's pronouns are she/her. raymond green vance.

raymond's pronouns are he/him. >> let's bring into our coverage of this story once again, colorado native and writer at large for the bulwark, tim miller and donna edwards, both are msnbc contributors. tim, i didn't get enough yesterday of your wisdom and brilliance on this story. we were -- i was still on the air, but we handed it off when the victims were read. but i was so grateful that everybody that was here yesterday really lifted them up. i mean these were people that were just out with friends and other families are grieving the unthinkable. they have lost their lives. >> yes. it's really heart breaking, you know, to see these pictures. two of them bartenders there at club q. kind of a convening place for people, for queer people, but also for allies. and this is the situation with the fierros who were there to

celebrate something with their family. the richards there who was played in the intro, his daughter's boyfriend is one of the victims. that's just an unimaginable situation, unimaginable grief to have to learn about them. when we were on yesterday, it was right after we got off that they released the story of richard fierro. there was a great "new york times" profile on him that i hope everybody reads. read the story and see this is a guy that was just trying to support his community. he has this great beer company in colorado springs that i was looking into today that supports diversity. his wife is the founder and the brew master there, jess. and so this is just who they are. they're the people that say, hey, on a saturday night we're going to go out to the drag show, support them, have a good night out.

a veteran. he's done with war and now he gets thrust back into war against his will. and so that is kind of the heartbreaking part about all of this, right? any death is a tragedy, but this was really a place of refuge for people, a place of community building in a city where it isn't always easy for them, where they can feel marginalized. the fact that richard and i guess it was the transgender woman had to fight for their lives, had to protect these lives just is heart breaking. >> i understand, donna, the part of this story that makes people feel like it isn't about them should be thrust under the lights. everyone that spreads hate, and there are folks who were named in the coverage yesterday. i think tucker carlson gives a lot of air time to hate toward the lgbtq community. a lot of elected republicans do as well. and this tragedy has not shamed

them at all. let me play for you what secretary pete buttigieg had to say about that. >> there has always been a relationship between the social and political demonization of a group, and that group's vulnerability to be physically attacked. and it is completely unacceptable. and i don't want to hear thoughts and prayers from somebody who has been actively singling out this group for hate, fear and whether they say so or not, ultimately for violence. >> so here's what marjorie taylor greene tweeted today. pass my protect children's innocence act to stop communist groomers like this from using state government power to take children away from their parents to allow a for-profit medical industry to chop off these confused children's genitals before they're even old enough to vote. i don't amplify marjorie taylor greene. i don't think i've ever read a tweet of hers on the show before.

but when there is violence directed at a community that she targets that can't be separated for the purposes of republicans saying i didn't say do that, it is all part of the toxic mess of hate and unstable people with guns. >> well, it is. and i think that what you see here is that hate crimes are on the rise. we've known that for the last couple of years, have been like double-digit increases in hate crimes, and particularly directed at the lgbtq community. and you can see the linkage between the violent rhetoric and these crimes attacking this marginalized community. and i think it puts all of us at risk. and i have to say, i have real questions about these platforms like twitter that continue to amplify and allow this kind of hateful language that then plays into violence happening. i think, you know, it has to --

it has to stop, and these platforms have to bear some responsibility for their role in contributing to it. and i don't even have much to say about a tucker carlson or anybody else who lifts up violence and glorifies violence against a community and then says hands off when it comes to violence that actually does happen in that community. and so this is a tragedy for colorado springs, but the pulse nightclub was a tragedy for florida. it's a tragedy for all of us when people are targeted because of who they are and that it's allowed to happen. >> i'm going to ask both of you to stick around through a commercial. tim, when we come back, i want to talk about your new piece and why you say political leaders in colorado springs prioritized the lunatics over common sense gun safety. that's after a quick break. don't go anywhere. that's after a quick break don't go anywhere.

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because when you help feed kids, you feed their hopes, their dreams, and futures. kids need you now more than ever. so please call this number right now to join me in helping hungry kids or go online to helpnokidhungry.org and help feed hungry kids today. we want people to know we're a strong community. you know, you attack one of us, you attack all of us. >> i just want to say our voices are louder than gunshots. they can do all the things they've been doing, but it affects change in a better way. >> tim, you wrote a great piece.

tell us about it. >> there's a lot to be said about the hate speech and what you say in the last segment what what marjorie taylor greene and fox and everything says. that's awful in its own accord. also there's a law, red flag law, that could have prevented this massacre. it has 81% approval in polls. it says that police or family members could petition the court to take guns away from people who are a danger to themselves or others. this shooter last year -- a video came out where he was barricaded in his home threatening to kill the police, threatening to kill his mother. his mother called the police. there was a stand-off and he gets arrested. yet, they didn't enact the red flag law because politicians

decided it was going to be a sanctuary from this law and they weren't going to follow something signed as the law of the land in the state that 81% of residents want. this is not about republicans or democrats. it's about rogue politicians in colorado springs who refuse to enforce basic common sense laws. there can be real tangible change to stop this stuff. i look at the stuff from doug lamborn, the congressman from this district. he didn't mention gay people or transpeople, or the lgbtq community. he offered prayers for the victims and thanked law enforcement. that is just not enough. here's the thing. we can recognize that there was a specific group targeted and they can enforce the law that the already on the books in that

state to make sure it doesn't happen again. i encourage people in colorado springs, obviously an outpouring of support for the lgbtq community, but also demand that this law is enforced. it should have and could have prevented this massacre. it didn't and it's those politicians that refuse to follow the law. it's their fault this massacre happened. >> wow. i mean, donna, the extremism of the gop is the back drop against which people voted a week ago. the extremism in the gop is creating a climate that makes people unsafe, not just marginalized communities. it makes everybody unsafe when guns are the hands of people with prior violent acts. what do you do about these extreme pockets? >> i think to tim's point, i mean, not only was there -- are

there laws on the books already, but part of what republicans claim when it comes to gun violence is that we should enforce the laws that already exist. here you have an instance where a law -- the red flag law is in place, but the local officials refuse to comply with them. i mean, i am actually appalled that you have members of congress, local officials who stand up and they will say i'm sorry or thoughts and prayers and the rest of us are tired of thoughts and prayers because i could have been in that club. look at richard fierro. he's not part of the transcommunity. he was there at the club, supporting the community with his family. yet, everybody in that community was brutally attacked. trust me, if the transcommunity is not feeling safe in that club

nobody is feeling safe throughout the community. all of us across the country should feel unsafe going to a grocery store, church, on the street, in a club. >> so grateful to have both of your voices on this story. tim miller and donna edwards, thank you so much. up next for us, the u.s. senator calling on the supreme court to get its house in order. someone who has been doing so for a long time will be our next guest. sheldon whitehouse will be here after a quick break. se will be after a quick break.

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♪♪ in my experience around politics, when you find hypocrisy in the daylight, look for power in the shadows. the term for this anonymous funding pouring by the billions of dollars into politics is dark

money. this shows considerable effort when somebody goes to that much trouble to create that many organizations to hide how much money they've spent to control the nomination process to the court. hi, again, everyone. it's 5:00 in the east. for years senator sheldon whitehouse has been warning about the influence of dark money in the u.s. supreme court. how donors have contributed massive amounts of money to serve who gets to control for life on the bench. he's made speeches on the senate floor. he addressed it during supreme court confirmation hearings. he wrote a book about it which is why "the new york times" posted reporting about an alleged leak by a supreme court justice.

he tweeted, at scotus the problems run deep. this is a story we covered at this moment in the show yesterday. we're going to back to it and go deeper today because of its importance to the health of the u.s. government and its democracy. the times reports the actions of the reverend rob shank. he said he was told of a supreme court decision weeks before it was announced authored by justice samuel alito that ruled in favor for hobby lobby for the right to contraceptives. fast forward to the summer and shank told chief justice roberts about this leak saying he was passing it along in case it helps with roberts' investigation into the leak overturning roe v. wade. what was so striking is how it

details shank's planning to woo and influence the conservative justices. quote, mr. shank recruited wealthy donors, encouraging them to invite justices to meals, their vacation homes or private clubs. he advised allies to contribute money and to mingle with justices at their functions. he ingratiated himself with court officials. mr. shank wanted the conservatives on the court to hear from people who hailed them as heros if they seize the opportunity to strike down roe. the goal he said was to, quote, embolden the justices, to lay the legal groundwork for a reversal by delivering unapologetic conservative dissents. senator whitehouse and hank justice wrote a letter demanding

answers. this is where we begin with senator whitehouse of rhode island. in some ways it's embarrassing how right you have been and how long you've been right about the supreme court. in that spirit, i do have to ask you if you believe change is possible, if you believe these two stories will help change an institution so averse to reform? >> i think so. i think that as public pressure builds and as public understanding builds of the actual problems at the supreme court that can be identified and listed, then the court is going to have to take more responsibility for its own ethics and own behavior and come out of the ethics-free zone it's inhabited and be responsible about assuring that, when ethics concerns are raised, there's some kind of process where

complaints can go, where facts are found, where determination are made and reports are produced that explain what is going on and clearly the question of this leak is something that merits scrutiny. so, by the way, does the larger problem of this scripted and orchestrated series of dinners designed to manipulate the court. this from justice alito and his larger campaign of influence, which is just one thread, all that needs to be looked into. that's the point. >> you know, without your expertise, from the outside, the court seems to have sort of a three-ring circus of problems that jeopardize its trust in the public view.

one is what you focussed on for so long, the dark money and the funneling of money from rich individuals to people who are part of the federal society who have zero oversight who mainline and pull the strings of the process. the second is what justice sotomayor talked about the stench of public legislators saying they're passing this legislation because of the judges that trump has appointed. first, your take on the money. >> the cure to the money problem is disclosure. it shouldn't be okay for somebody to spend $15 million or $17 million and send it to the judicial crisis network and have the judicial crisis network, which is right down the hall

from the federalist society, run tv ads for nominees who get on the bench and nobody knows what business the check writer, the 15 or $17 million check writer has before the court. that is potentially by the court's own terms a due process problem. the first step to curing it is to disclose it and that information should be public just in the interest of the court's integrity. >> on that, has the court ever indicated any -- has it ever been receptive to reforming a simple issue of transparency that the other branches are held to? >> not at all. they're very happy with the rule it is way they are. they wouldn't even try to clean up disclosure of who is behind the groups that file amicus briefs so you don't have special

interests sending things through eight or ten or fifty at a time. luckily the circuit court of appeals has taken interest in that and they're looking at that saying it's wrong, we have to fix it. at the supreme court, just screaming silence. >> it's amazing. the second piece is obviously linked to that. i mean, i remember when justice sotomayor talked about the stench. she wasn't insulting her fellow justices. she was talking about the republicans and state legislators passing abortion bans because gorsuch, kavanaugh and coney barrett were now justices. she talked about the stench of the state legislative policy

because of that. casey and roe were decided by justices nominated by republicans. we've never had these voting blocks before. how do you fix that? >> the groups around them aren't exactly subtle about declaring victory and pointing out what they want to achieve politically. they're degrading the court's authority as they do that, but they can't resist because it's stuff they failed at democratically for so long. now with a captured court they can get done what they wanted without democratic scrutiny and they can do it through people who have jobs for life and no consequences. the cheering section is an embarrassment to the court. the court actually contributes to this by allowing special interest groups to rush cases to

them often upon the invitation of some of the justices. they've created a fast lane for cases to come to the court with weird signals like plaintiffs who come into the district court and say, please, your honor, i would like to lose and as quickly as possible and go up to the circuit court of appeals saying your honor we want to lose as quickly as possible because they're in a rush to get in front of friendly justices on the supreme court. that's not what real litigation looks like. it's a stenchy signal that something is wrong. that something the courts participate in. >> it's amazing. they go out and give speeches and seem both pouty and surprised. >> at the federalist society. >> and complain that the public doesn't like them as much as they did in 2000 which on the heels of bush v gore, 60% of

americans approved of the court and now they're down to 28%. do you see any recovery of their reputation without reforming either of these two buckets? >> no. i think they need to be serious about reform. pretending that nothing is going on there is not working for them. they now face a choice that many of them wish they didn't have to face. they have to choose their master. they have to choose whether they'll serve the donor who put them on the court or serve the path of justice and call balls and strikes for real and honor precedent and follow originalism wherever it leads, even if it leads away from corporate interference and dark money. this is going to be an epic choice for them. it's the future integrity and legitimacy of the court will depend on in large measure.

>> you look at clarence thomas and his wife ginni thomas and her admitted participate in the fake elector scheme. spouses can do whatever they want i suppose. the problem and the stenchy part of it seems to be justice thomas' voting record and his participation in the january 6th select committee. what do you do about justice thomas? >> this is a double decker problem. the first problem is his excuse for not recusing himself in the original case was that he had absolutely no idea what his wife was up to in the insurrection plot. believe that or not, it is a factual question. factual questions lend themselves into inquiry. there should have been inquiry into that. if chief justice roberts can launch an investigation into who leaked the alito/dobbs draft, he

can launch an investigation into what justice thomas knew and when he knew it. there's a problem refusing to enforce the code of ethics or look at the facts to see where this fits against the code of ethics. then you get to the recent case where he voted again in a related matter. now we know that he does know what his wife was up to because we all know what his wife was up to because it's been front page news across the country. still no recusal. that raises a different problem, but both need addressed by the court and both can be facilitated if there was some process where people who have a legitimate concern could get a legitimate inquiry and legitimate report. >> i didn't produce it for today, but the recent members of the supreme court all affirm

their commitment to precedent. they describe roe as precedent, law of the land. they all voted to overturn it. would you consider boycotting confirmation hearings? have they been rendered meaning less? what can the legislative branch do to not be played by these nominees who go in and say whatever they say but don't abide by it once they get to the bench? >> the problem at heart is the problem of dark money. if you accept my proposition that the same interests that spent more than $500 million to get a majority on the supreme court that would do its bidding and that they also contribute enormous amounts of dark money through outside expenditures and super packs to the republican

party, particularly to mitch mcconnell's senate spending groups, then you have this sort of perfect storm in which hearings aren't going to be real because everybody's strings are being pulled by the same donors. it's hard to solve that problem unless you put the lights on and show where the dark money is coming from and everybody has to be accountable. >> i'm so glad you mentioned mitch mcconnell. it's a piece of poetic something that the supreme court was such a political dead weight that he remains minority leader of the u.s. senate. senator whitehouse, thank you for spending time with us and talking about this. >> thanks for having me on. joining our conversation joyce vance and charlie sykes. they are both msnbc contributors.

it matters, charlie, that mitch mcconnell is the puppet master of this exact composition of the supreme court and it cost him a senate majority. it matters because to the senator's point it's all connected. they're all the same donors. >> it is. leonard leo played a massive role there. this is a real ethical crisis for the supreme court they can't avoid. john roberts is an institutionalist who came to the chief justice position determined to maintain the integrity of the court and yet look what's happening here. unfortunately this is not just the story of the u.s. supreme court. it's a story of state supreme courts, lower courts all around the country, the influence of billionaires, rich donors and the irony here that one of the reasons why mitch mcconnell is not the majority leader is

because this court has become so ideological. the senator raised fundamental questions about the integrity of the court, whether you're a democrat, liberal, republican or independent, you ought to be concerned about the issues he's raising. the fact there's no disclosure. the fact we don't know how many people writing these massive checks have business in front of the court. whether the court has been so politicized that it's being influenced. these are real issues not going away. i'm glad that other judges are taking it more seriously. we need to continue to shine the spotlight on the reluctance of the supreme court to get seer kyle rittenhouse about having an ethics code that applies to itself. >> the senator said he has some optimism reforms are possible. do you think they're likely, joyce? >> it's a tough call.

everything that senator whitehouse says is absolute common sense. if you're a member of the supreme court, if you've risen to that high office, wouldn't you want the public to hold that court in high confidence? wouldn't you want to have the public's confidence in your integrity? by refusing to have an ethical code, a code that every other judge in the country lives with, the justices hold themselves out for the situation they find themselves in, where public respect has plummeted. here's the problem, there's not really a stick in that area because the separation of powers would make it very difficult for congress to come in and write an ethics code that they would force on to the court. unless the justices themselves agree to adopt an ethics code, there's not anyone who can force them to do it. it's tough to believe the chief justice has not broached these

conversations with his colleagues. it must be that there are one or more justices unwilling to adopt a code. it would be difficult for a court to have a divided vote here. you can imagine the rancor and how that would spill over andy diminish public confidence. i think senator whitehouse is correct. something must be done here. the situation has boiled over into the public in such an extreme way that how the chief justice is going to finesse that remains to be seen. >> i will just say i have worked in institutions, never as low as 28%, but with low public esteem in my career in republican politics. if you're not having crisis meetings 24/7 to deal with having 28% approval, then you're part of the crisis of that institution. i would be shocked if there

aren't active conversations. it's not in the interest of the court or anyone on it or the country for them to be okay sitting at 28%. that's half the people who identify as independent. it's an astonishingly low number of americans who have confidence in the court. i'm going to ask you both to stick around. we have more to get to. when we come back, we'll talk lindsey graham. he's testifying in front of a grand jury in georgia. what we're learning today about the fulton county district attorney's case. plus the biggest january 6th prosecution to go to trial is in the hands of a washington, d.c. jury. the question before the jury, whether five members of the oath keepers are guilty of seditious conspiracy. the right wing's

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president meddled in the 2020 election. the senator maintained that he did nothing wrong and was barred from appearing on constitutional grounds. the supreme court said not so much and lifted his stay on november 1st, allowing his questioning to proceed. it took place today. fulton county d.a. wanted to ask graham about his calls with georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger about the mail-in ballot s. joining us greg bluestein, thank you for making time to talk to us. any sense on how this went today? >> well, from what we understand is the prosecutors were interested in any efforts from lindsey graham to appeal directly to secretary of state brad raffensperger to find

absentee ballots, to find out how to toss out pro democratic ballots. we understand it was hours of testimony. the irony here is that senator graham fought so hard to avoid this testimony, but he's been in georgia nonstop. he's rallied with herschel walker in west georgia later tonight. even as he's trying to fight a subpoena, trying to fight this testimony, he's been in georgia stumping nonstop for the republicans. >> that's amazing. just remind us what came of that. i remember learning that lindsey graham was part of the team sort of pressuring raffensperger and we all heard donald trump doing just that. is lindsey graham a fact witness? is he a potential target? what is lindsey graham to the d.a.? >> he's a fact witness right

now. they haven't ruled out further investigations, further inquiry. we understand he's a key fact witness. from what we understand secretary of state brad raffensperger shut him down, just as he did donald trump's efforts to overturn the election. >> brad raffensperger has also already testified. did governor kemp go in? i know she paused the investigation ahead of the midterms. >> governor kemp went in shortly after he won his election. governor kemp felt like he could go in and speak about it, causing him no aftermath with the maga crowd. he testified under oath for hours as well. >> joyce, when you hear all this, what do you make of at

which stage the investigation is in right now? >> so the d.a. has indicated that she hoped to wrap this up by the end of the year. it looks like this is one of her final witnesses. she still has a problem. there's still other witnesses who are fighting their subpoenas. general flynn, mark meadows and newt gingrich, all of whom she subpoenaed are in court trying to avoid testifying. the question is how essential their testimony is? sometimes you can decide whether or not you have sufficient evidence to prosecute without speaking to witnesses who are recall is he trent. sometimes you need to lock them down. it can be important in a case like this, not so much to build your evidence, but to know what kind of defense you're likely to hear if you indict. that may slow her down a little

bit. the case has always come down to the tape of the former president saying can you just get me the votes i need. it's compelling and now she's simply trying to tie down whether she can establish trump's state of mind when he made that phone call to decide whether there's enough to indict. >> has she lost any legal battles to obtain testimony pertinent to her investigation, joyce? >> you know, she hasn't. some of these have moved more slowly than others. it can be tough for a state d.a. to obtain testimony from out of state witnesses. because some of the southern states have this interstate compact which says that she can enforce a georgia subpoena in south carolina, she's had more access than she might otherwise have had. it's an interesting feature of this investigation that even after joe biden won the presidency and appointed a u.s.

attorney in atlanta, the feds haven't really shown up in this case. there's no indication that the u.s. attorney in atlanta is an active participant. that can help with an investigation if you're a state d.a. she continues to look like she's doing it on her own here. >> charlie, lindsey graham gave one of the weirdest speeches on january 6th. he seemed a little choked up. it was just bizarre. it's been a fun ride, donald, but it's of. it lasted about, i don't know, 15 minutes. he was right back in the cooing and the mischief. is he a credible witness? >> it's been a wild ride for lindsey graham. it is not over. look, there's something about testifying before a grand jury under oath that focuses the mind marvelously. i assume he's not going to want

to expose himself to further legal jeopardy by perjurying himself. it's extraordinary to the extent he had gone to not testify. he had to go to the u.s. supreme court. i suppose the most hopeful thing is we're reminded no one is above the law, including a united states senator. it's remarkable how far he was willing to go to be part of the former president's plot to overturn an election. in the last segment we talked about the issues involving the supreme court. look, this is a multi-front war in the assault on democracy. if people begin to doubt the integrity of elections, that undermines democracy. if people begin to doubt the integrity of the courts, that really undermines the rule of law. i think we ought to see both of these as really at the very

frontlines of this assault on democracy. it's good news that lindsey graham was forced to tell the truth under oath about an attempt to steal the election. >> greg bluestein, thank you for making time to talk to us. when we come back, the jury is deliberating as to whether five members of the oath keepers are guilty of seditious conspiracy for their role on the insurrection of the u.s. capitol. an update on that case after a quick break. don't go anywhere. don't go anywhere. into the no-too-distant future of lincoln. ♪ ♪ it's what sanctuary could look like... feel like... sound like... even smell like. more on that soon. ♪ ♪ the best part? the prequel is pretty sweet too. ♪ ♪

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after a nearly two-month trial, the jury is now deliberating whether stewart rhodes and his four associates will be found guilty of is he seditious conspiracy. prosecutors saying the oath keepers felt they were above the law on january 6th. the u.s. attorney said, quote, they took matters out of the hands of the people and put rifles into their own hands. they claim to wrap themselves in the constitution. they trampled instead. they claimed to be saving the republic. they fractured it instead.

joining our coverage is nbc news justice reporter ryan riley. ryan, take me into this moment for the prosecutors. >> reporter: what's good for prosecutors is they get the final word before it goes to the jury. he tried to impart on them a sense of responsibility for the broader implications of their verdict. the jurors had to look over an astounding amount of evidence. this trial started with opening arguments on october 3rd. we could see a lengthy period of deliberations. they got in a full day today. they're return monday after the thanksgiving break. there's complicated issues for jurors. it's the first time we've seen a seditious conspiracy charge in d.c. in decades.

the last time we had a trial for seditious conspiracy was a decade ago and that didn't work out well. the doj took a shot here. if you're going to take your shot at seditious conspiracy charges, an attack on the u.s. capitol is the case you want to make here. prosecutors said there was this agreement for them to oppose the peaceful transfer of power through any means necessary, up to and including violence. they didn't present any direct evidence that there was a plan to storm the capitol. instead they presented evidence and had testimony to the effect that individuals in the oath keepers seized this moment when the crowd began to go inside the capitol because they thought this was their opportunity to use force to stop the peaceful transfer of power. it was definitely really interesting hearing from three of the oath keepers during the course of the trial. i'm not sure how that will sit with the jury and whether or not

that's going to benefit them in the end because besides one defendant, stewart rhodes had a tough time accepting any account accountability or his actions surrounding january 6th. >> ryan, you also have reporting on a threat to fbi director wray and a democratic member of congress. tell us about that. >> reporter: there's a michigan man who called up a democratic member of congress from california earlier this month and when that office received that threat, they passed it to the u.s. capitol police unit that does a lot of these threat assessments. it ended up that they sent out a local officer, detective, to go out to visit this man. when that detective showed up, this individual had a gun on him and made some veiled threats. he also later sent some threats

to the fbi's facebook page where there was a live stream of christopher wray. those were two threats against a lawmaker and the fbi director that were taken seriously by the fbi. this individual, like a lot of people who we see get caught up or get charged in these threats, has a history of mental illness, but this is certainly something that given the attack on the capitol hill and the escalating threats and the attack on the husband of nancy pelosi, law enforcement is taking it seriously. >> the climate of political violence is unbelievable. thank you for your reporting, ryan riley. we've seen rhetoric from the right have real world consequences. that's what makes our next story so disturbing and tragic.

former secretary of state mike pompeo, a man with obvious presidential ambitions trying to score cheap political points with an attack against randy winegarden, the head of the american federation of teachers. we'll have that after a quick break. have that after a quick break.

cia and the former u.s. secretary of state, a man who is

well aware of the heinous nature of putin's regime, the sadistic regime of kim jong-un and the brutal murder of jamal khashoggi carried out by the saudi leader, none of those dictators are autocrats, or the leader of a terror group, or even a criminal, like a rogue arms dealer. no. to mike pompeo who in a gross attempt to lunge for the political limelight in the gop's "game of thrones" like way, to him the most dangerous person in the world is a teacher. quote, the most dangerous person in the world is randi

weingarten. mike pompeo's comments are horrifying and they're not an isolated incident. they're part of a gop effort to levy smears and lies about teachers. teachers. it's part of their effort to remake the american public school system, remake it or destroy it maybe. randi weingarten responded, quote, i know that mike pompeo is running for president and i don't know whether his characterization of me is ridiculous or dangerous. joining us now is randi weingarten. i think it's ridiculous and dangerous. i want to give you a chance to respond. >> well, you know, i was actually on my way back from an

international trip with labor unions from across the world, like in brazil, in ukraine, who have been fighting autocrats and fighting this disgusting, polarizing division and feeling people inspired by that. nicolle, it was both ridiculous and dangerous, but more than that, it was pathetic in that he is attacking teachers. the piece i found most dangerous and pathetic was when he called what we do filth. we know what code that's about. at the end of the day these are the people who all through covid zoomed in like you and i are doing right now, who engaged with kids in any way they could, who lift kids up every single day, who teach ann frank, the

diary of ruby bridges and he's calling this filth. that's what's pathetic to me and dangerous to me. i don't really care about what he says about me. i really care about what he says about the people who are trying every day to help our kids, joining with parents, help pursue the american dream and help keep a democracy in place. >> so you're going to be more eloquent on this than me. having spent time in the american right, the hypocrisy of the right landing on this attack -- >> god bless you. >> -- their indictment of democrats and teachers is our kids are suffering because they weren't in school. that's a fair debate. you're so essential that missing

a nano second of in-person learning is destroying our children's lives, but you're teaching filth. they can't both be true. pick a smear. >> look, this is -- i mean, the hypocrisy -- as you know, i'm a social studies teacher. i was just in ukraine. thinking about him not saying putin is the most dangerous after hearing teachers from kherson talking about torture is flabbergasting. the hypocrisy is beyond. it'skalal. it is just unbelievable. but what's happening in terms of teach injuries is that this sphere campaign calling us groomers, give me a break.

saying we're so, so important and yet we're trying too convince kids to change their sexes? again, another smear. talking about, you know, not being in school and then how important it is to teach math and to teach english? again, a smear. but the real issue for teachers is that it's making our jobs harder. it's making it harder to lift kids up, to create empathy, to create a safe and welcoming environment. it's scaring the bejesus out of people because, you know, when people go after me, they feel like what's going to happen to them? and these are the folks who are at the core with parents of helping kids have a future to critically think, to get their mojo back. if i sound really angry, i am. not about myself. i don't care what he calls me, but i'm angry because of what they're doing. the devos is doing it, he's doing it.

they spent $50 million against trans kids in this last election. how dare they? and you wonder what just happened in the club in colorado? so what's dangerous is their rhetoric. what demonic is their rhetoric. the fact they think this is going to get them the republican nomination, i think republicans are better than this. >> i don't know. i don't know if i can agree with you. i hope they are. thank you. thank you for taking some time to talk to us about it. >> thank you. >> quick break for us. we'll be right back. rates deep into the tooth to help actively repair acid-weakened enamel. i recommend pronamel repair to my patients. [ music playing ] when we first arrived at st. jude,

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zwroo thank you so much for letting us into your homes. the beat with katie is here. >> thanks, nicole. happy early