thank you so much, we really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> that is all in on this thursday night. alex wagner tonight, starting right now, good evening alex. the leverage to make the total cause. >> this is profoundly upsetting in every possible direction. i was brought up short today when i saw that news announcement. i wasn't really focused on it, but it is just such an awful story. >> it is an awful story. and when we will all be watching watching for some time apparently. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. i'm going to use a word tonight i do not use lightly. and i'm not using it because it's my word. i'm using it because it's mitch mcconnell's.

republican senate leader mitch mcconnell told "the washington post" exactly how he saw our nation's debt limit. quote, what we did learn is this. it's a hostage worth ransoming. a hostage. that is how republicans view this, and that is how we should too. here's what happened five days after mcconnell's hostage statement. >> this because dark day for the nation's finances and for millions of americans with a stake in the markets, the very same americans who are still processing the fact that our country has lost its top credit rating. here's the damage from today. the dow down over 630 points. that's the sixth largest drop in history, the worst since 2008. nasdaq lost about 7% of its total value. s&p 500 lost 6.6% of its value in one day. the president went on television at midday to reassure americans,

but the damage was done. the markets continued to drop while he spoke, and the damage continues. it's a bigger systemic problem with no end in sight. >> that was what is now known as black monday. it was an entirely avoidable one. in our entire history as a nation, the u.s. has always paid its debts. because we are such a gigantic economy, loaning the u.s. money has been a safe bet and investment around the world for a very, very long time. if we all of a sudden stop paying our debts, that safe debt would crumble and the global economy would be thrown into chaos. so you would think there would be bipartisan support to make sure such a calamity does not happen forever. but no. in 2011 and 2013 republicans used that safe bet as a hostage and they threatened global financial collapse. now, even though we never actually defaulted on our debt

during those years, the chief economist at moody's analytics found that the sheer uncertainty by this stunt cost the country as much as $180 billion and 1.2 million jobs, and now the republican-controlled house wants to do this all over again. they want their own hostage crisis. today the united states hit its debt limit. we can no longer borough any more money. to keep the lights on, treasury secretary janet yellen has been tasked to come up with creative money to take money from agency to agency to pay as many bills as possible. make no mistake, our country is teetering closer and closer to the edge of financial collapse, that is, until the republicans agree to increasing the debt demands. to really understand what's

happening here, let's go back again to what mitch mcconnell told "the washington post" in 2011. the full coat starts with saying, i think some of our meshes may have thought the default issue was a chance you might take at shooting. it's apt. it's about people, people's lives, their money, their social services, their retirements, their literal 401(k)s. a few years ago the economist at moody's found the impasse could cost the u.s. economy up to 6 million jobs. it could wipe out as much as $6 trillion in household wealth and send the unemployment rate surging. today this was the advice that "the new york times" gave to investors. at a minimum as an investor, you will want to be prepared with ample cash holdings.

basic sure you've got some cash. keep it liquid in case our entire economy and all of your investments and safety nets can no longer be relied upon because of a literal republican stunt, a fabricated hostage crisis. the fact that establishment institutionalist republicans like mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy are so willingly gleeful about about wanting to hold americans hostage is one thing. someone should tell them they are hostages now too. they may not want to trigger a financial global collapse, but do they really control the party anymore? it took kevin mccarthy five days and 15 excruciating rounds of voting to get the speaker gaffle. the idea that kevin mccarthy is in charge here is a myth. now does kevin mccarthy, the speaker of the house, really

think it's something they wouldn't take a chance at shooting? joining us now is jen psaki, former white house speaker and host of the morning show. how are you? >> how scary. >> when "the new york times" says stuff cash under the mattress because we don't know what's going to happen, we should all be alarmed. >> agreed, agreed. >> no one knows how this is going to end. when you look at the tea leaves, the behavior of house republicans, first of all, do you think kevin mccarthy is going to make it out of here still holding his speaker's gavel? >> probable not. kevin mccarthy, first of all, i think it's important for people to understand, he's not a longtime opponent of raising the debt limit. he raised it three times during

the trump administration. it's been raised 49 times under republican presidents. it's been historically until the examples you gave in 2011 and 2013, that's something that just happened because democrats and republicans didn't want to wreck the economy, even when they had moments of disagreement, but i think it's important to note the reason mccarthy is so vague right now as you alluded to, he really doesn't have a plan of getting out of this. he promised spending cuts to the right wing circus in his party, but the spending cuts he doesn't have the votes for because they're all terrible, terrible options. >> you know, jen, i'm reminded of last week whenever the speaker's contest was -- the full fever was breaking around kevin mccarthy, you know, and it's like republicans look on at the raucous right wing of their party. it's a mix of incredulity, like,

you crazy people, how did it get so insane? here's how it got insane. mitch mcconnell, the guy who understands how it's all supposed to work, made a decision, decided we're going to take the full faith and credit of the united states hostage. once you cross that rubicon, can you really be that surprised that now you have that wing of the party that's actually ready to go off the cliff? >> no, because they made it something that others would do in the future as you just said. that's one of the reasons -- i talked to former officials, my colleagues at the white house, why would you not want to make it a negotiation? once you make it a negotiation, the markets and economy gets scared about the uncertainty.

they want to go back as most sane people do as a mered you of time when it was raised as it has been done dozens of times in history. the people who control kevin mccarthy's mccarthy, they like the chaos. the chaos for them is attention, it's fund-raising. and so there's not an incentive to them, crazy enough, to not make this a chaotic hurdling toward uncertainty around the debt limit. >> how does the white house play this out? it's one thing when the white house can sit back and look disgustingly at the lower chamber when it's an election for speaker of the house. let the republicans camelize themselves. let the sur was continue as many days as they need too. there are real world implications to what it costs in the economy and retirement and jobs lost. how can the republicans play

this and can they let republicans circle up in a firing squad, shooting at each other? >> well, look, i know biden administration sees the senate and the house differently maybe because he was in the senate for so long, but it was mick mitch continue, as much as he was a completely irresponsible actor in 2011 who pulled the republicans together in 2021 to raise the debt limit. democrats still control the senate. so their focus is really on the house and smoking out kevin mccarthy. kevin mccarthy has said he wants to negotiate. that's not a good idea because that creates uncertainty. what's important is to know wand & what the white house is going to keep pushing for publicly i would expect and if you're sitting in a white house right now, you're strategically trying to figure out how to do this and put pressure on the republicans is what exactly they want to cut. when people hear discretionary

spending, most people don't know what that means. what that means is either cutting the military budget, which republicans don't 'do not want to do and most in his caucus will not want to cut out, or it means cutting domestic trams. do they want to cut veterans benefits, housing, health care? or the biggies, the only way they can do the cuts, the size of them is social security, medicare, medicaid, entitlement programs. so what the white house is going to do is keep putting public pressure on them, not try to negotiate, and they're going to not want to negotiate with the cuts kevin mccarthy wants to make. >> does the fact that they're positioning this as a any goern negotiation. i say this because does that in some people's minds somehow shift some part of the insanity

onto democrats, right? the republicans will say, they won't negotiate with us, they won't negotiate with us, and then if we lose jobs or there's economic problems, does president biden shoulder some of this? >> i think yes. that's why he sounded insane when he said, i just want to have a conversation. what's so important and they're doing, there and this is what you're strategically thinking in the white house is how to make the details clear to the public because the devil is in the details here. there's not just some pool of money you can cut in the budget. everything has impacts. that's why the white house has started to talk more specifically and democrats are talking more specifically how entitlement cuts, social security, medicare, medicaid, those could be on the chopping

block. doing that is very, very unpopular. if it's a let's just have a chat, that's harder for the white house than it is if it's a specific discussion when what they're trying to do is cut your social security. >> the transparency is going to be key and barreling toward economic calamity is the outcome they're pressing for. jen psaki, host of an upcoming show on peacock. one of my friends, jen, thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you, alex. we have much more ahead this hour. after the supreme court's drafting of the ruling, after that leak, the court announced an investigation to figure out who leaked the opinion to the press. now, that investigation is basically complete. what did it find? and an inside look into the white house strategy in handling the classified documents found at president biden's private office and home. "the washington post" has

bylined on that very story, and she joins me coming up next. stay with us.

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we're fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly. i think you're going to find there's nothing there. i have no regrets. i'm following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do. that's exactly what we're doing. there's no there there. >> there's no there there.

that was biden's response about classified documents at his office in dc and his home. one of the major questions surrounding the president's current mess is his administration's transparency and communication with the public. the public only learned of the cla feed documents when cbs news broke the story last week even though the documents were first discovered november 2nd, six days before the midterms and months after the papers were found. the administration released a statement confirming the news after the cbs report broke, but a few days later we learned more documents had been found at the president's home in wilmington, and those documents were found on december 20th. now, the white house did not share that information in their first comments to the prus, and thus the questions about the decision of transparency.

but we look at ee daled look at how the white house tried to navigate the discoveries. here it is. early on biden's attorneys and justice department investigators both thought they had shared understanding about keeping the matter quiet, but they had very different reasons. the white house was hoping for a speedy inquiry that would find no intentional mishandling of the documents, planning to disclose the matter only after justice issued its all-clear. as time went on, it became clear that the white house and the doj were not exactly on the same package, particularly when attorney general merrick garland announced the amountment of the special counsel to investigate biden's retention of documents. quote, biden's aides sought to follow the justice department's guidance for heeding control of protocol and reporting additional discoveries, but some of the white house remained

furious at garland and other justice department officials saying the attorney general named a special counsel to pursue biden even after they did everything his department asked. joining us now is an guttive reporter for "the washington post" and one of the reporters on the deep dive of this white house's thinking. thanks for joining me. when you read this accountinging it explains a lot, at least from the white house perspective about why there wasn't more transparency or communication, and it seems like the biden administration was trying to be very deferential to the doj and very much follow the letter of the script they thought they were both reading from. was there a point at which the doj lost confidence in the biden administration? i mean what happened that made the two packets diverge? >> alex, i'm so glad you asked this because we have no indication, no evidence that the

justy department was frustrated with team biden, grew worried about the degree to which they were cooperating, none. we have no indicia of that. what we do have is a recommendation that was kept secret by the federal prosecutor who was leading this review of the handling of these documents and how in the heck they got from the vice president's government offices and homes to places that weren't secured. that person, john lausch, recommended in the first week of january the appointment of a special counsel, just as he was about to leave the department. there's no indication to us here at the post, the team that worked on this that lausch recommended it out of fear. i think what our story discovered is from the perspective of both the department of justice and biden's personal attorneys, they were keeping this thing low, they were staying under the radar for different reasons as

you spelled out, and they both, we understand from sources on both sides, they both believed the biden administration was doing things that needed to be done, reporting voluntarily the finding of classified records, following the department of justice's instructions and protocols for how to search locations later, and how to report what they found, for example, after they discovered some more classified documents from biden's president trump, in his personal home and garage in wilmington. so i think everybody needs to kind of take a breather about this idea that the special counsel was appointed because there was something funny or roten in denmark. in fact, its's very funny to me, not that i can say it's a fact, but we've had people tell us, and i think it's plausible, that

the special counsel was appointed by garland because merrick garland is extremely sense stiv to the notion he needed a special counsel to investigate a former president and he probably needed one to investigate the documents handled and retained by a current president, both of whom who appear to be running in a major run again. >> in the details reporting that you guys offer in this story, at every turn of this investigation, the retrieval of documents, whatever you want to call it, the biden administration is going out of its way to be deferential to the doj. at one point they stop asking -- the biden administration stops asking its own staff how these documents might have gotten misplaced on taken out of the white house or not returned to the proper receptacles, if you will, because it's worried that

there will be the impression that the white house is trying to tamper with witnesses, even though that's like a completely plausible line of questioning if you're trying to get to the bottom of this. every turn, there's a very reasonable explanation for why the white house has behaved the way it has. i would imagine in speaking with the biden white house there must be an exorbitant amount of scrutiny given the assignment of the counsel. >> absolutely. there's anger. even though i believe, alex -- and i talked to some source sources inside this team -- the team that is aligned with joe biden and hopes for his re-election. those sources have said there are plenty of people really angry about the appointment of special counsel, but there are folks in that same group who recognize that garland may have felt like his hand was forced and felt like this was a possibility that this happened strictly because, again, the

person holding the records in his personal home and holding them in his former office even though he's surprised by them being discovered, these are properties from him and these records are from his advise presidency. i want to emphasize two things you make me think about with your good questions. one is absolutely the biden team was thinking about the rule book, the law. let's do everything justice wants, let's get this cleared up, and let's not get in any mess the way donald trump got into a mess by pretending he department have any classified documents, by refusing to turn them over, by trying to browbeat his lawyers, some who refused to agree to claim to the department of justice falsely that all the classified records had been returned. biden and his team wanted to bore the heck out of that. let's not pretend they're not political actors. they did not want this to leak. they did not want any of this

information to come out until they had an all-clear, can they had a good reason to think eventually they would have an all-clear because how is this so different the way joe biden said. his lawyers found that information and that day notified the national archives. they asked what can we do, what do you want us to do, the search of records to exhaust actively return anything that may be problematic. there's no criminal exposure i can see in any of the reporting i have done for joe biden or even for some of the people that packed up the records because criminal exposure is when you have intent, and that's not the problem here. >> you also mention -- sorry, carol. to that end you mention that biden's longtime assistant kathy chung is worried she may be the reason that some of these documents were moved into his office, that the vice president,

president may have not had anything to do with any of this. >> i want to emphasize, she's confided to associates she's very worried she caused a part of this unnecessary wound for her boss. she is the executive assistant for joe biden who helped pack some of these records and relocate some of the boxes of records, a mishmash of political records, planning documents, policy documents, to the penn biden center. she's worried she may be at the root of this but is not sure, but it is an innocent mistake and it happens to be costing joe biden a lot in political capital right now. >> we heard the president's response today. there is no there there. this is important reading to back up that assertion. carol leonnig for "the

washington post." thanks for your reporting. still tonight, one of the figures who tried to keep donald trump in office in 2020 has a new version of events for what really happened in the leading up to the january 6th insurrection. we'll tell you all about that. but next, it's been more than eight months since the drafting of the reversal of abortion rights and the leaked reporting. still there are no suspects. we'll have a thorough investigation. stay with us. ugh investigation. stay with us

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after may 2nd of last year protesters took to the street and steps of the supreme court to protest a decision that had not technically been made yet, but the whole country had already had access to every word of it in print. in a draft opinion of date of birth versus jackson women's health had been leaked to and published by "politico." emotions were high and people were on edge including the justices of the supreme court itself. justice john roberts called it, quote,. they still do not know who did it. the court released this statement. after months of diligent anal sis of forensic evidence and

interviews of almost 100 employees, the team determined no special investigation was warned with recollect to the 82 employees who had access to electronic or hard copies of the draft opinion. the marshall said her team conducted interviews of all 97 employees and they all denied leaking the draft. while they determined the i.t. system was not breached, the marshall said while working at home and the gap in security policies created an environmental where it was too easy to remove sensitive information from the building and the i.t. works, increasing risk of both deliberate writ and accidental disclosures of court-sensitive information. investigators continue to review and process some electronic data that has been collect and a few other inquiries remain pending. to the and tent that there are

leads, the investigators will pursue them. apparently for good measure the court asked michael chertoff to conduct a review of the investigation. chertoff found it was conducted thoroughly and agreed, quote, at this time i cannot find any additional useful administrative measures. i mean, i can. from what we glean, the investigators do not appear, we think, to have talked to the justices themselves or to their spouses, and they did not check their electronic communications, so we very much have a whodunit on our hands in a court that has seemed to have reached a breaking point that has been catalyzed by this leak. joining us now is co-host of the legal podcast "strict scrutiny" and an msnbc analyst. melissa, the last time we talked -- i mean, it's juicy, but also how is this conclusion of the investigation? >> it began with a bang and

ended with a whimper. this is truly a whimper. let's first start. the whole idea of having the marshall service investigate this leak is by itself eyebrow-raising. the marshall service is part of the court, but it really is there to provide physical security to the justices. it's unusual that this court, the highest court in the land with all of the resources of the american government at its disposal chose to investigate this leak using an arm of the court that probably isn't equipped to do this. and you see in the report how they were ill-equipped, how they had to consult external forces to help with some of the forensic issues. it's not clear this was the best use of the marshall's agency and maybe they should have used another body. >> machblt it's almost like they didn't want to get to the bottom of it. >> who knows? but it is an interesting way to

wind all of this up, especially at a time the court is getting lowest approval ratings from the public in years. this is a court that much of the public believes its work is animated by politics and not law, and here is an opportunity to investigate and get to the bottom of this and be transparent with the american public. instead, we've got more opacity here. we don't know if the justices were interviewed. we don't know anything. we do know that some of those interviews were asked to sign affidavits saying they had not disclosed the information, but then they had to later come back and annotate their affidavits because they realized they had actually discussed the decision and vote count with their spouses and partners, and so you wonder. was that widespread and were other people discussing this with their spouses and partners and why don't we know that. >> but also maybe it was a -- oh, i forgot we had go glasses of wine, we were about to watch "game of thrones" and i sort of

you know forwarded her the attachment of the dobbs opinion. this is the first time -- well, second time, right? this is the second time a major opinion like this has leaked ahead of the final ruling, and it seems to me not coincidental that both are highly controversial, that they're not favorable to liberals, progressives, democrats. the first was leaked by sam alito, the hobby lobby decision. but yet sam alito from what we understand has not been interviewed in all of this. here's a guy who likes to set fire to buildings. he's an admitted arsonist, but in this latest building fire, we're not going to ask him anything about it. how could they not specifically ask the people who have been named in the press n the reporting, who have an interest in leaking opinions? >> again, this is an epic failure on the part of the job of justice roberts. whether justice alito leaked the

hobby lobby finding, we don't know. because the question lurks out there, because of this reporting by "the new york times," they had this whole expose on the whole coordination of the justice department with justice alito and some of the others at its center. it's attach and associated with the leak of dobbs and you don't talk to them and you're not forthcoming about whether or not you talked with the justices. again, a really unforced error. unless it wasn't unforced. >> the point of this is john roberts attempted to restore the integrity of the court, and i feel like it's done the opposite. it's added another layer of skepticism of whether or not -- the intentions of the court and how partisan it's become. s no specifying whether they talked to the judges is one thing and then closing the book on it with michael chertoff

playing the advisory role saying nothing to see here, folks, i have nothing to question. >> michael chertoff is so interesting to me. he's the former chair of homeland security, he has some experience in security breaches. he has a consulting firm, and they didn't ask him to conduct an independent investigation. instead they asked him to review this investigation, an investigation, which by their own admission required some additional expertise because they didn't have it in-house to do it while. wouldn't you allow him to do an independent investigation, external independent investigation instead of this pro forma report that seems to be like, no, no, there's nothing to see here? again, a lot of wasted resources and wasted capital with the public. >> i will say there's at least one person who knows the leak, and that person works for "politico," and there are two people bylined on that story that broke. they know the truth. putting people under the scrutiny of an affidavit, i think, is really important because, you know, if you lie,

you can be found out. there's someone that knows the truth in all of this. >> well, "politico" has been active on this beat this afternoon, on the reporter who was one of the reporters who broke the leak initially, reporting on this conclusion of the investigation, which, you know, you might take it as some high-level trolling from "politico." they must know or at least have some chain of causation in this like that can eventually get to the person who is the source at the court. we do know it's at the court. the one thing they can rule out is it was no external hack. no need to look abroad. it was coming from the house. >> thank you. melissa murray host of the podcast "strict scrutiny." i hope the next time you come we can actually know who the leaker was. >> probably not. >> probably not. up next, one of the schemes

to keep president trump in power in 2020 claims that what everyone else says happened didn't actually happen. barbara mcquade joins me to discuss. stay with us. to discuss. stay with us er been healthier. shingles doesn't care. but shingrix protects. proven over 90% effective, shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today. before dexcom g6, my diabetes was out of control. i was tired. not having the energy to do the things that i wanted to do. before dexcom g6, i was frustrated. all of that finger-pricking and all of that pain, my a1c was still stuck. there is a better way to manage diabetes. the dexcom g6 continuous glucose monitoring system

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two days after the 2020 election, a far right lawyer desperate to help donald trump overturn the election results wrote the following email. john, what would you think of producing a legal memo outlining the constitutional role of state

legislators in designating electors? you would be the person to wliet it and maybe get others to sign it. that john in that email is john eastman, the quote, unquote expert who became central to the trump scheme to hold onto the presidency. we don't know how he replied, but he came up with two plots and use them to pressure vice president pence to certify the election for trump. in the first memo written days before january 6th, eastman wrote vp pence presiding over the joint session begins to open the ballots and count. there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed. that means the total number of electors appointed is now 454. a majority of the electors ajointed would be 228. there are at this point 232

votes for biden, 222 votes for biden. pence then gavels president trump as re-elected. wow. he secondly outlined war game scenarios. despite all this evidence and despite what the january 6th committee has uncovered about the plot, john eastman is now telling the "new york times" he is the reason the more perilous outcome did not happen. seriously, he's casting himself as a hero in this story. mr. eatman claims in an oval office meeting on january 4th, he helped convince trump pence did not have the power to pick whoever he wanted as president, that his advice is only that pence should pause the certification of the legislation, giving legislatures more time to consider fraud allegations in certain states where mr. trump had lost. the problem with eastman's version of events is it differed greatly from what others are saying including vice president

mike pence. the former vp wrote in an op-ed that eastman personally told him on january 5th, 2021, to simply reject the rightful electors from the several swing states. who do you believe? next week on january 24th, a hearing be held whether to make public about the grand jury effort for trump to steal the election in that state. the focus has been the fake electors plot, and john eastman is the potential target. joining us is barbara mcquade, former attorney and district attorney of michigan and professor at university of michigan law school. let me get your thoughts on john eastman's contention that he somehow saved us from more uncertain peril in all of this. >> well, alex, there is a reason that lawyers often tell their clients when they're under investigation not to say anything out loud because you might say something foolish that can be used against you later. he took that advice, john eastman did, when he was

testified before the january 6th committee, invoking his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. when it didn't count and he's talking to the press, he has a story and he's got an explanation. when it matters, he chooses not to answer those questions. i think that's a tell right there. i also think this is inconsistent from what we're hearing from mike pence, pence's aides, and others in the white house means in the end i think it's going to be difficult for him to persuade the jury that he's telling the truth and everything else is lying. >> why do you think? is he under pressure or in greater legal peril as time goes on and it's going to convince someone out there? what's the potential of lying "the new york times" at this stage of the game? >> i don't know. maybe it is to try out some defenses and see if they fly. you know, this is a less of a risky forum to say it in the

public domain as opposed to in a court of law and see how it flies. but it's not something i think that any lawyer would advise. i think any lawyer would advise him to keep his mouth shut. when you start to say things in the public domain, people who know better may come out and refute you and it kind of locks you into a corner. everything you say even to "the new york times" could be used in court. he could be cross-examined with that. is it true you told x, y, and z, and it puts him in the awkward position of having to refute it. you can plead the fifth amendment again. there is also the argument he's waved his fifth amendment right with regard to that and could be forced to repeat them in court. we'll see if he can stand by them when he's under oath. >> where do you see his legal

peril? the fbi sees his phone as part of the doj investigation into january 6th. the committee itself referred to him by name in a list of criminal charges. where do you see the biggest threat to him coming from? >> i think they're both big threats, but it seems that georgia is the most imminent. georgia for a number of reasons, one is the aggressive of fani willis. she's only looking at what happened in georgia. he was the architect of this plot, and so i think that there's a very strong chance he could be indicted there and that that could come very quickly. but i don't think that means that's the only place where he faces criminal exposure in the federal investigation. i think he can face exposure for his conduct in georgia and all of these other states where fake

electors were solicited. and he is right in the heart of that scheme. you read from that memo. we know what mike pence was saying on january 5th, which is very different from what john eastman is saying. the treasure trove of evidence is what is in somebody's phone. people send all kinds of text messages and write notes for themselves and that could be very perilous. >> thanks as always, bausch. >> thanks, alex. we'll be right back. thanks. we'll be right back.

i screwed up. mhm. i got us t-mobile home internet. now cell phone users have priority over us. and your marriage survived that? you can almost feel the drag when people walk by with their phones. oh i can't hear you... you're froze-- ladies, please! you put it on airplane mode when you pass our house. i was trying to work. we're workin' it too. yeah! work it girl! woo! i want to hear you say it out loud. well, i could switch us to xfinity. those smiles. that's why i do what i do. that and the paycheck.

there is a new allegation of george santos's past and it's chock-full of hypocrisy. the openly gay new york congressman used to perform in drag back in the day and had his own persona namd kitara. there's nothing wrong with him performing in the rich drag

tradition. but a secret drag past is a problem for anyone looking to get ahead in a party that's gone out of its way to attack and vilify and legislate againsts who gender presentation does not match their biological sex. over the last few years they've focused in on the drag performers as part of the lgbtq agenda. mike johnson has introduced federal legislation called the stop sexualization of children act which specifically targets drag queen story hours, which are public events where drag performers volunteer to read children's books to kids in local community spaces. and george santos himself has been a full-fledged supporter of the anti-drag panic. he's endorsed ron desantis's don't say gay bill which specifically targets drag

material. and he falsely claimed, quote, there are a total of 300 drag shows per day in new york city schools. no there are not. at this point we're well beyond hoping that george santos is going to come clean about anything in his past. maybe the best we can hope for at this stage is kitara will make her own triumphant return for drag queens within the republican party. i know a certain republican who could make an excellent drag mother. >> i like that. >> that does it for us tonight. we'll see you "way too early with jonathan lemire" is coming up. you look at donald trump's role on january 6th and the role of many others