finally tonight, some sad news from brazil. soccer icon pele has died at the age of 82 after a year-long battle with cancer. one of the most celebrated athletes in history, pele led his country to a record three world cup trophies, became the sport's first global icon. after his soccer career, pele went obto serve as a united nations environmental ambassador and became brazil's minister of sport. he was without a doubt one of the most iconic athletes of our time. that does it for me. you can also catch me on the katie phang show weekend mornings at 7:00 eastern on msnbc. i want to wish all of you a very happy new year.

"the reidout" is up next. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> we fight. we fight like hell. and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore. we're going to walk down pennsylvania avenue, i love pennsylvania avenue. and we're going to the capitol. >> a ruling about those comments from donald trump would seem to open up the possibility of lawsuits against the former president by victims of the january 6th insurrection. >> meanwhile, more transcripps were released from the january 6th committee revealing a whole lot of trump insiders with very convenient memory lapses. >> also tonight, more of george santos' lies are uncovered. we'll look closely at his finances which highlight the glaring need for campaign finance reform. and in state after state, midterm voters rejected election

deniers. and now democrats have a golden opportunity to safeguard voting rights. one of the governors leading that fight joins me tonight. >> good evening, everyone. i'm maria teresa kumar in for joy reid. we begin one week after the january 6th committee dropped that damning 845-page report detailing their investigation in an effort to beat the clock before republicans take over the house next week, the panel released a trove of new transcripts today. it includes some names you might recognize, like former trump adviser steve miller, trump lawyer christina bobb, a former white house aide, and alyssa pharaoh. even don jr. and his girlfriend kimberly were in there. steve miller doesn't remember if he presented three election night speeches for trump, one for concession, one for victory, and one for unclear results. he didn't recall any

conversations about trump declaring victory even if it wasn't clear he won. the former president's eldest son don jr. also had a hard time jogging his memory, including when he was asked about what happened to the quarter of a billion dollars raised by the trump campaign after the election. his fiancee kimberly claimed she did not solicit a $60,000 speaking fee for the riot, i mean the rally on the 6th. but that the pay was customary for appearances. she also compared the in-fighting within trump world to the movie "mean girls" and when asked about ali bar, she said, isn't that what terrorists yell? we also had christina bobb who told the committee senator lindsey graham said in a meeting with former chief of staff mark meadows and other white house officials days before the insurrection, just give me five dead voters, give me an example of illegals voting. a small snapshot i can take and

champion. end quote. and former communications director stephanie grisham told the committee even if the secret service had approved it, trump wouldn't have marched to the capitol, saying, quote, i just know him. he's afraid of people. but even one week later, as we are still piecing together all of this new information, there are a lot of unanswered legal questions. what does it all mean for the doj, who else is implicated, and when donald trump finally be held to account? joining me now is david jolly, a former republican and a former republican congressman. charles coleman jr., civil rights attorney, msnbc legal analyst, and host of charles coleman podcast, and hugo lowell, political investigative reporter for the guardian. hugo, i want to start with you because you have been following this so closely. you have been able to give us all the insights following the january 6th committee. when you saw this treasure trove of information that was dropped today, did anything stand out to you? >> i think what stands out to me

the most was the failing memories of these really high-profile trump advisers. people like don jr., in addition to the points you brought up before, that he couldn't remember whether rudy giuliani was around and talking to the president the night of the election. he couldn't remember if there were certain tweets that went out under his own account. he couldn't remember a lot of things. likewise, what kimberly guilfoyle, his fiance, who couldn't recall certain conversations she had with people connected to the january 6th rally, organizers, despite being on some of these communications and witnesses placing her at phone calls. i think this is really a question for the justice department, and the latest batch of transcripts really seem to be areas where prosecutors can now take over and see if they can jog the memories of some of these trump advisers. >> hugo, it was funny because right bever the show started, i was trying to remember what the men in black were using when they were going around. i realized i think every single

one of them that testified were using neuralizers, had their mind swabbed, except for a few key witnesses that were lower hanging fruit that were junior staffer whose decided to come forward. one of the things i found really interesting, david, was the fact that hutchinson came back and said not only did i witness mark meadows putting paper in the fireplace and burning them, but i also remember clearly marjorie taylor greene looking at the photos and saying don't worry, my followers are going to be there, qanon is going to be there. talk about that. is that surprising to you that we're seeing more revelations of this, of marjorie taylor greene really being part of this what seemed concerted effort? >> no, not really. i think what you're seeing is an investigation that's complex, when you have thousands of witnesses, either your junior staffers or you're completely ignorant actors of the law are

the ones who give you the most information. the obfuscation, your failed memories come from your senior members who might be facing some type of culpability or liability. so often they're coached that maybe you don't really remember the specifics and the honest answer is to simply say i don't remember. so what do we get from cassidy hutchinson, from sarah matthews who was a deputy to kayleigh mcenany, who resigned on the day of january 6th. you actually get a lot of honest and prescient recollection of facts that ultimately tighten the screws on the senior staffers who are saying i just can't remember the insurrection. i don't remember my role in the insurrection. you know, one of the damning things in addition to 1600 pennsylvania avenue were the likes of marjorie taylor greene and others who are duly-elected representatives in the united states congress that clearly aided and abetted not just the planning but the day of. we know there were members of congress in contact with insurrectionists that day. ultimately, these are hard cases for the department of justice. most of this comes down to the

judgment of voters, but there will be elements that the department of justice can look at and make some hard prosecutorial decisions. >> charles, that's why i want to follow up on, now that we know that the january 6th committee basically recommended very strict argument of why donald trump possibly giuliani, mark meadows, and eastman should be prosecuted, possibly. they didn't touch their colleagues, these members of congress that david is referring to. what is the recourse, though, because it does seem there is plenty of receipts to demonstrate that they were part of this insurrection as well? >> you're absolutely right. i do think the january 6th committee focused primarily on donald trump and his wrongdoing as it related to everything that happened with the insurrection, but in no way, shape, or form should that limit the doj in terms of what they can receive in their own investigation. if they decide they want to go after any of his coconspirators

or people involved in helping the move the plan forward, they can do that. and the serious thing they need to consider is lying to the doj about what it is you don't remember or fudging a story there is not going to go away so easily as it will talking to the january 6th committee and congress. people need to understand nat prosecutors are used to dealing with witnesses who all of a sudden don't have the best of memories and there are tools in terms of an investigative approach that you will take when questioning a wednesday who claims to have a fuzzy memory to pin them down. i would expect jack smith and the prosecutors working with him are going to use those tools and we may see additional people prosecuted by the doj. >> hugo, it seems they worked so meticulously, the commit, to insure that any lay person could pick up what the report was and actually skim through it. i want to talk to you about the chapters. i thought the chapters of how this was organized really speaks

to how possibly someone even at the doj or any individual american could pick it up and really cleanly understand what just happened. i want to get your take. the fisone, chapter one, the big lie. chapter two, i just want you to find 11,780 votes. that would have been the president. chapter three, fake electors and the president of the senate's strategy. chapter five, just call it corrupt and leave the rest to me. chapter five, a coup in search of a legal theory. chapter six, be there, we'll be wild. chapter seven, 187 minutes of dereliction. talk about that breakdown. >> yeah, look, it's a really smart way to lay out the story of january 6th. and i think the committee did a really great job in simplifying it. i mean, for those of us covering the investigation and basically the events leading up to the capitol attack itself, these are all the key moments that preceded the capitol attack. it really did start before the

election. you have people like steve bannon and people around the president counselling him to declare victory when he had clearly lost. that was obviously the big lie, all the way through to the post-election period, for instance, in december, mid-december, when he was talking about seizing voting machines, when he met with the freedom caucus to start planning out ways to object to the certification on january 6th and the key tweet, be there, it will be wild. that was the crux in the timeline that led to a lot of far right groups like stop the steal, oath keepers, proud boys, the guys who stormed the capitol, gear up. we saw a lot of this in the transcript. when you read through the transcripts, for instance, with ali alexander, you see how the pieces fit together, but it's in a way that you don't need to read the transcripts. you can read the report and get a sense of just how the president was involved at every step of the way leading up to

january 6th. >> i think that's right. charles, what i find striking is this headline from nbc. jack says trump may have been urging supporters to do something more than protest on january 6th. and when you see this coming from a judge, and then you also see the january 6th committee saying that trump was personally responsible for inciting the riot, one of the things that came to mind for me, charles, was whether or not this actually creates an opportunity for civil lawsuits to go against the president for sadly the lives lost that day by police officers. and those that were maimed. is there a possibility of civil lawsuits based on what we're finding? >> i think there is. i think that, you know, from a creative lawyering standpoint, it is not out of the realm of possibility that we might see a wrongful death lawsuit emerge from everything once the smoke clears. i think that there can be a case made that through his words being incendiary, he incited this level of violence. i also think that the key piece

to any sort of civil lawsuit and a wrongful death that ensues or wrongful death suit that ensues is that last chapter of the report, that 187 minutes dereliction, because that's where you're going to actually get the most bang for your buck. and the argument there would be, regardless of whatever you may have intended to promote, regardless of whatever it was you were pushing these people to do, at the point you saw the violence erupt, at the point you saw this protest get out of hand and turn into a full fledged riot, you did nothing for over three hours that you could have called in the national guard, you could have provided law enforcement with additional resources and backup. you could have literally instructed your followers and your revelers to go home. you did none of that. so i think that would be the key linchpin for anyone trying to make an argument that donald trump is ultimately responsible on a civil side for a wrongful death of any of the capitol officers who lost their life that day. >> nigh question to you, david, is where does this trump indictment, where does that

leave the gop? >> with a front-runner for the 2024 gop nomination who is facing indictment, not just for january 6th but he's facing it for election tampering in georgia, possibly on tax fraud in manhattan, and a number of other courtrooms across the country. does it matter to the gop? i think the fascinating thing, maria, is this. the party writ large is kind of ready to be past donald trump. i would say it's almost unanimous, but that's only if you're looking at republican leaders which is very different than the republican base. if you take mitch mcconnell, kevin mccarthy, ted cruz, ron desantis, they want the j-6 committee and doj to do the dirty work for them. they actually want donald trump to be indicted, they want him prosecuted. they want him to fall. then they will carry forward his grievance deep state narrative as they seek their own political fortunes. the question is what happens to donald trump's voters in that

type of fractured gop nomination process. we just don't know. i mean, politics is about addition, and how do other candidates take control of the party without donald trump's base? it can't happen. there's a hard road ahead for donald trump and all the other interested republican leaders in today's gop. >> the folks weren't ready, david jolly laid out what 2023 will be about. it's 2024 presidentials. thank you so much, david, charles, and hugo. >> up next, george santoss lied about practically everything, but about what how he financed his campaign? that's now under investigation. is it yet another reason to talk seriously about campaign finance reform? "the reidout" continues after this. stay tuned. stay tuned

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now, it seems like just about every day we learn a little bit more about just how dishonest congressman elect george santos truly is. we know that santos lied about his education, his business dealings, his philanthropic endeavors and his self-proclaimed jewish heritage. we're also now learning he lied about where he went to high school and he has offered conflicting accounts of how his mother died. you can't make him up. during his first campaign, he claimed he attended an elite new york city private school in the bronx. but that financial difficulties forced him to drop out. the school could not find any

records of him. and last year, santos sent out a series of contradictory tweets about his mother's death. in july of 2021, he claimed that 9/11 claimed his mother's life. five months later, however, santos stated his mother died in december of 2016. dishonesty is not a deal breaker for members of congress or soon to be members of congress unfortunately. however, unsavory, it's not necessarily a crime. lying about how you financed your campaign is a crime, and that is what federal and local prosecutors are investigating. santos, who says he spent most of his life in poverty, made a sizable personal loan to his campaign after dramatic jump in his reported personal wealth. the big unanswered question is where did all that money come from? now, you are allowed to loan money to your campaign, but it is illegal to use a company to funnel cash in order to disguise corporate campaign contributions.

huge difference. on wednesday, santos told semafor, he made it in the capital introduction business, negotiating contracts with high net worth individuals but he refused to divulge how. the multi-million contracts entailed or if he could share the names of previous clients. today he told the daily beast the money he moved from his company to his campaign was legally loanled from his own personal funds because he was the company's sole owner. the daily beast also reported that number of his companies' clients also happened to be, get this, campaign donors. joining me now is tim miller, writer at large at the bulwark, msnbc political analyst, and cohost of the next level podcast. and cudete cobell, political reporter who spoke this week to congressman elect santos. how did this conversation go down? >> yeah, so i talked to him

right after that very controversial hit with tulsa gabbert on fox the other day. he was in his car, and i explained to him previously that i really wanted to talk to him about this extremely controversial story which is arguably like something as scandalous as we haven't seen like the trump era. and i wanted to get down to the unanswered question about where the money he was able to donate to his campaign, because we all know that two years ago, i think he reported that he made $50,000, and he agreed. he seemed like a person that was, you know, understanding and wanted to clear the air about what his finances involved. but when i did follow up about some of the contributions or who these clients were that he told me about, he didn't respond.

but to be clear, he talked about being, as you mentioned, a capital intro person who was just basically brokering deals between hedge funds, people at hedge funds and wealthy people. >> so i have to say, i have never heard of that title ever in my life. tim, i want to bring you into the conversation because your podcast is aptly called next level. this is next level. if you can't agree with me. what i find quite interesting, though, is that this, getting elected to congress, tim, you're a republican reform strategist. this doesn't happen in a vacuum. this takes a machine, many people to actually make this happen. i know of so many kids, one day they wake up and say i want to be in congress too. they have to work really hard to do it. yet all of a sudden this guy comes from out of nowhere, comes from making $55,000 on his returns to anything between $3.7

million to $11 million. and no one knows where the money came from, but there are donors and a republican party that seemed to have propped him up. can you talk about this? how does this happen? >> sure. look, i think that the trump era gop was like a magnet for grifters. i think it's important to understand this. there are a lot of obviously, there are people like myself that left the party over trump. but then there's another category of people that are republicans that may be in a different world might have run for congress as a republican, people with legit resumes, people who had accomplishments in the military or business, the types of folks you would recruit. and they didn't want to run on the same ticket as donald trump so they didn't run. what you had both in the strategist class and the candidate class is c and d and f, and maybe in george santos's case, f-minus candidates who

were thrown way above their -- excuse me, punching way above their weight class. people that would have had no business running for congress, that would have lost primaries against more competitive people in a different era and a different time. and during the trump era, because trump had won in spite of all of his myriad flaws and myriad corruptions and bigotries, kind of the conventional wisdom congealed these lower candidates can run with similar flaws and be successful. that's how you get george santos, herschel walker, dr. oz. we can go down the list of all the terrible republican candidates this cycle. i think that what also congealed during that time is the consultant class that maybe in the past would have said i'm not going to help this guy, not going to work with this guy, i smell a rat here. starting to say hey, we're going to get along and keep pushing them through, and we'll see what happens when we get there. >> so, tim mentioned the trump resemblance, wanting to be like trump. one of the things the daily

beast is now investigating is the fact that they may have shared even possible donors. there is andrew, a cousin of one of the russian oligarchs. he was also one person that had a dotted line to michael cohen and was using michael cohen as a consultant at the same time as trump. and more revelations of possibly having these foreign actors possibly being part of this campaign. can you speak a little bit to that, of where you think maybe some of these donors are coming from and perhaps what you're learning as -- since the last time you spoke to him. >> so as i said, he didn't -- he wasn't willing to talk about some of the donors. but i have to say, this is a person who has repeatedly -- he's talked about, you know, punching up and, you know, associating with people of the upper echelon. and some of his arguments are

that, well, i had to pretend because there's so much stress or, you know, pressure to be like this person you aren't so our entire conversation, he's told me that he was, like these are his clients, these are people, he is always associated with people who, you know, rich people. and people who can use his services to negotiate contracts or negotiate different -- buying different services. so as far as he will tell you that, since 2015, he's been around this cloud of, you know, like rich people, specifically on long island. >> there's so much that we need to dig into, but i want to ask you this, tim. you seem to find some republicans, even though they're retiring, actually say, we need to investigate. and i'm referring specifically to retiring republican john

cato, who told politico, at a minimum, it was a colossus lack of judgment. it's a no win situation. if he were to advise or you were to advise mccarthy at this moment, what would you tell mccarthy to do? >> just really quick, this is all obviously a felony. we'll see. this guy couldn't pay rent and he's making capital introductions to billionaires, the whole thing is ridiculous. katko has the ability to be honest with mccarthy, give him honest advice since he's leaving. he also voted to impeach trump. he doesn't have the same incentive mccarthy has. this is the problem. it's very clear the smart decision for the medium term is for mccarthy to throw this guy overboard. this is obviously better to wash your hands of it. the problem is, he doesn't have the 218 votes to be speaker yet. so he's got to get every vote he can, and santos has said he's going to support him. i think the interesting question is what does mccarthy do if and when he gets the 218 votes, maybe the calculation changes.

for now, i think politically speaking, he feels stuck. >> i think one of the biggest challenges is that you actually haven't had a member of congress since traficant being impeached out of office. >> up next, minnesota governor tim walz says he has a plan to protect voter integrity. stay with me.

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voters stood up to democracy this year, electing democrats who campaigned heavily on preserving it. those democrats are working to insure citizens, meaning all citizens, can participate in a democratic process. by allowing every eligible voter to vote. but for the first time in a while, democrats have a governors and legislators to help back this vision. take minnesota for example, where democrats are in charge of both chambers for the first time in eight years. and where governor tim walz is asking his fellow democrats to think big when it comes to voting issues. in michigan, democrats took control of the state senate for the first time in nearly 40 years which is why both states plan to go on offense in 2023. says "the new york times," putting forward proposals that include automatic voter

registration systems, preregistering teenagers to vote, restoring the right for felons released from prison, and criminalizing election misinformation. joining me now is governor tim walz of minnesota. governor, i have to say, i'm so excited you're here because you're speaking my language. i deeply believe that every single american should have the right to vote, and you're doing exactly the right thing by safeguarding it. so before we dig into that topic, i want to ask you, why do you think that the democrats did so well in state legislators? >> well, first of all, thank you for having me this evening and thanks for your work around this issue, the fundamental issue of democracy. i think mainly we saw it here in minnesota. this issue of preserving democracy was fundamental, the ability of women to access fundamental and safe abortion services, the idea that public schools matter and fair wages and access to health care matter. we were talking about things that impact people's lives and we have been fighting for two years on this massive

misinformation campaign, first with covid and of course since january 6th, as your other guest so clearly pointed out. it's insidious. it's getting into every aspect of our lives. you see people bring up these lies in states and use it as an excuse and say well, it won't hurt to tighten up our voting rights. the fact of the matter is across this country and here in minnesota, we have safe, secure, and fair elections. we have high voter turnout here, and voting should not be some type of proving ground to run a marathon or stand in line for eight hours. i admire the people who do that, but it's ridiculous. i think folks across the country are done with it, and we're going to use this opportunity in minnesota to make it as easy as possible for people to vote. making sure we're doing all the things you mentioned from preregistration to registration, automatic registration to making sure we're translating to as many languages as possible to be able to have access to that, and then making it economically easier to vote. it's ridiculous that the john

lewis voting rights act hasn't passed and it's ridiculous to me that people are held up from voting because they can't afford to get off work to cast a ballot. if states need to lead, we need do it here. i'm with you, an exciting time that democracy prevails. and it doesn't mean they're going to vote for democrats. it means more people are going to have access to the ballot box and we get better representation. >> that's exactly right. and one of the things i have learned in studying all of this with democracy modernization is that the more people that participate, the extremes of parties go down because you want to get all the voters. i think that what you're putting down is absolutely correct. i want to just before i ask you another question, i want to talk about what you just mentioned ibt misinformation. because oftentimes before in previous political chapters, disinformation, telling people where to vote the wrong way, these were considered shenanigans but it's becoming more ominous. can you talk about that and what you will do to insure that there are penalties for that?

>> yeah, years ago, it was the little things. telling people to vote the day after the election, and we kind of brushed them off. now we know it's intimidation at the ballot box. it's undermining the idea that mail-in ballots aren't legal. i think we need to push back on this. there's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy. tell the truth. where the voting places are, who can vote, who is able to be there. and watching some states continue to weaken the protections around the ballot i think is what is inspiring us to lean into this. again, all we're asking is to make it as easy and simple as possible to exercise their right to vote and participate in our democracy. and i'm in 100% agreement with you. that makes it so more people are there. you get more opinions brought in, and i think it tempers that extreme that we get because again, i can't imagine someone going and standing in line for

eight hours to try and vote and then being told that, you know, maybe the votes didn't count or maybe something is wrong. you have these candidates who lose and are on these ridiculous court cases that they keep bringing up and losing on. here in minnesota, we're going to bring faith back into the system. it's already been here. we're very proud we're near the top in voter turnout, but there's more we can do. >> i really like the way you slide in you're the top in voter turnout. i want to ask you this other question. >> it's passive aggressive minnesotan. >> i got it. i got it and i applaud you and we can all learn from minnesota. i want to ask you this question. a lot of the folks that ran for secretary of state based on the idea of the big lie, however, every single one of them who ran for secretary of state in battleground states lost. and the brennan center did a beautiful article about it. what does that say to you init showed not only is the progressive democratic base

ready, but it shows this idea of denying election security doesn't sit well with americans in general. speak to that. >> that's right. yeah, and here it was independents, and remember, we're a state where independents had the governors office with governor ventura. these are legitimate big "i" independents that they care about this. here in minnesota, we have an incredible secretary of state, steve simon, and you won't find a more dedicated civil servant. these are folks who do their job to protect democracy and they do it with, they're so passionate about it, and these election judges out there. my mother has been one, my 80-some-year-old mother was so proud of that ability to be a nonpartisan election judge, and you have folks out there trying to undermine them. i think what you saw, and i was convinced of this, attacking democracy, attacking access to health care, was a losing proposition. and not only did they win, but in states like minnesota, where it was predicted this would be a

close race, we're a purple state, our secretary of state won overwhelmingly, double digits. i think not just minnesotans, i think americans should feel very hopeful. i think we should feel frustrated we haven't seen the john lewis voting rights act, but we have states and more trifectas in states than we have had in a while. don't let this opportunity go by. we're not asking for fringe democratic pet projects here, if you will. we're asking for the very basics of defending our democracy that was bipartisan not that many years ago. i still think there's large number of republicans that agree with this. just get people a fair chance to vote. let them vote, and then accept the results of the election and work together to improve lives. >> minnesota governor tim walz, thank you so much for making sure that everybody has access and for preparing us for 2023, and reminding us that the voters decided our fate just recently in the midterms. thank you so much. >> thank you. the january 6th committee report was mainly focused on the

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at booking.com, finding perfect isn't rocket science. kitchen? sorted. hot tub, why not? and of course, puppy-friendly. we don't like to say perfect, but it's pretty perfect. booking.com, booking.yeah. in placing the blame directly on donald trump, the house january 6th committee stopped short of issuing criminal referrals against sitting republican members of congress. in five days, republican leader

kevin mccarthy facing a vote for house speaker from a republican caucus with even more election deniers than on january 6th. more than 150 of them were elected or re-elected to the house in november. some members mentioned in the report could be in a position to undermine mccarthy as speaker, if he gets enough votes to take the gavel. mccarthy is one of the four members of the january 6th committee referred to the house ethics committee along with a gang of congressman jim jordan, scott perry, and andy biggs. biggs is challenging mccarthy for the speakership. jim jordan is expected to become chairman of the house jushy committee, he's also described in the report as a significant player in trump's efforts to overturn the election. i'm joined by molly, a special correspondent for vanity fair and host of the fast politics podcast, and mark leibovich, author of thank you for your servitude. molly, i want to start with you. where does this leave these members of congress that seem to

have been implicated in the january 6th report but not asked to actually be in any way face any repercussions, where does this leave them? >> i mean, with all of these people who haven't faced repercussions there's a question of will they do it again, right? when you get away with it, what's the impetus for not doing it again? i do think that, you know, it is sort of surprising there hasn't been more accountability here. and it is quite scary, and you know it's upsetting. there are other members of congress, too, who weren't -- like representative loudermilk where there were allegations that weren't followed up. it's actually quite worrying and i wish there had been more accountability there. >> so mark, one of the things is a lot of the reporting you're doing is that the people that are coming into office, they are now much more election deniers.

but that's not what resonated with voters in november. many of them if anything rejected them and wanted more people to basically tone down the effects, safeguard our democracy, and you see there's going to be this juxtaposition between what we're going to witness, perhaps under the ring leader of kevin mccarthy and his circus versus what is going to be expected for 2024. can you dig a little bit about what you see there? >> yeah, i think what people -- what you have to realize, i think almost by definition there's going to be more election deniers in the house than there were in the last election in 2020 because election denialism wasn't really a thing in the 2020 election. right? it actually became a big and significant issue in i imagine that the people who are full on election deniers are very safe -- they don't have the check and balance of knowing that, you

know, voters in their district could actually punish them for being full election deniers. although i do think that the agenda is probably going to ramp down. i mean, the x-factor here is trump. if trump decides, you know, he's going to sort of continue to talk about election denialism, how it was stolen for me and kari lake and the whole, you know, go through the whole gauntlet, it's going to probably become something that they talk about. but i don't see it as being a resident issue, certainly for voters. i imagine at some point, republicans will realize that is not really doing anything, there's nothing they can do in the congress. >> i think it's interesting because i think you're right, i think a lot of folks aren't looking forward to investigations, right? for the biden administration, i think people feel like they've been passed that and they actually want to do the peoples business. but molly, i think the challenge for kevin mccarthy is that they don't seem to have a political agenda. i mean, a policy agenda. all they seem to have is a political agenda. so, as we enter this new congress, molly, what are you looking for? what are these o signs that the

democracy is in trouble from within? >> well, i mean, i think mccarthy isn't speaker yet, right? he still may end up not being speaker. we've seen, you know, he doesn't quite have the votes. it's five days until this election, this could be the second time he gets passed up. so, i wouldn't and again, there's a lot of reporting that says that he may actually, you know, not be speaker for very long. there's a bunch of different, you know, his republicans have a razor-thin majority, plus they have all these different fractions who are warring, then you have steve scalise waiting in the wings. so, i don't necessarily think this is a -- and in fact, you know, there may be so much internal kind of drama that they may never get to all of the stuff they have planned or just largely investigations under biden of hunter biden's laptop. >> so, outside of investigations, mark, what else can they accomplish?

>> well, i mean, a lot of them, i mean, there is some real nuisance, but there is a real substantive thing around the debt ceiling, especially. it's not like they're going to pass any bills, right? because one, they have the very slim majority, but also they don't have the senate, they don't have the white house. that's not going to happen. but no, the debt ceiling is the one thing that goes beyond just trying to sort of nuisance their way through to various news cycles. so, and, you know, i think no one has a real appetite for that. i think the x-factor there, though, is that moderates or these sort of what people consider these non freedom caucus parliament republican, you know, congress right now. i mean, they're fairly empowered and even if, like, 20 or 30 of them sort of band together and say, look, we are going to be reasonable here if we have to work with democrats, we will. and frankly, we are not in the safe districts that you might be. where may be in swing here districts, where in might be

more bought moderate by temperament. so, we're not going to play this game. so, whoever the speakers is going to be is going to be deeply squeezed, right? it's not going to be a fun job no matter who gets it and i think that's -- manage the power or so, but ultimately, it's sort of a nuisance role at this point. >> right and i think one of the things that you mentioned, mark, is hopefully they, the far-right, cares about their fellow colleagues that are in these safe districts. i have yet to believe that, though. molly -- and mark elliot, thank you so much for joining. still ahead, remembering soccer legend, pele, who turn sport into art and give millions of people of underprivileged fans a voice along the way. we will be right back. ht back. it's a storm that crashes, and consumes, replacing thought with worry. but one thing can calm uncertainty. an answer. uncovered through exploration, teamwork, and innovation.

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the brazilian king of soccer who embodied the beautiful game. growing up in poverty britain in brazil, his breakthrough into the world of soccer

highlighting latin american excellence, while also breaking color lines wasn't inspiration to countless people and kids in particular. all of latin america claimed him. pele was 82 years old. >> it's called the beautiful game that they vote on soccer by its greatest player, halle. a man who made the impossible look effortless. born into poverty in são paulo, brazil, in 1940, -- nacimiento dominated the schoolyard where he picked up the nickname, hey late. in 1950, he watch his father cry after brazil's world cup loss to uruguay. >> then i told him, father, don't worry. i'm going to win one world cup for you. >> pele made good on that promise. in 1958, at just 17, he burst onto the world stage, becoming the youngest player to score a goal in a fifa world cup match. brazil went on to claim the cup, the country's first ever. and later, two more with haley

as their star, making him the only player to win three world cup titles in the sports history. the major european football club tried recruiting him, but paley also nicknamed the king by commentators, stayed a loyal 19 years with his brazilian team, santos. pele also became the world's most highly paid athlete, recognized everywhere. few americans at the time knew any professional soccer players. thrilled when he signed with the new york cosmos in 1975, before finally calling it quits. >> i feel very, very sorry because i love soccer. and it's like part of my life that i lost. >> in his later years, he served as a u.s. ambassador and a champion of both of the poor and the environment. but always remained beloved as simply, pele, the greatest soccer player ever. sam brock, nbc news. >> what