it even mean, woke, well context does that hold? we'll answer a trying to illicit? you know, i have a lot of thoughts about the use of the word woke in this way, but i will and our conversation, with a quick observation which is that, if the idea is that we try to make people become aware of injustice and acting on it, then we have to disparage a whole lot of americans that we really admire, because they had that exact same path and done somect same path and don some the americans we really admire -- >> thank you very much that is "all in" on this tuesday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now. >> ini love when you say the destruction of thee semantic train. i wrote it down. that is peak phrase, and i love

it. i love it. happy valentine's day, buddy. >> you,s too. >> and thank you for joining us at home. happy valentine's day to all of you outle there. we have lots of news this evening regarding the special counsel's investigations into both trump's efforts to overturn theor 2020 election and into whether trump unlawfully obtained classified documents and obstructed efforts to uncover them. first the breaking news tonight in the mar-a-lago documents investigation. it concerns trump lawyer evan corcoran, who's been representing the former president in negotiations with the justice department over documents foundst at mar-a-lago. corcoran has already appeared before a grand jury but tonight nbc news confirms special counsel jack smith isrm invokin the crime fraud exception in seeking more of corcoran's testimony. in a sealed filing of a judge overseeing the grand jury nbc reports that doj prosecutors say

they have evidence of some of trump'sso conversations with corcoranti were in furtherance a crime. the news was first reported tonight by "the new york times." the quote, federal prosecutors overseeing the investigation into former president trump's handling of classified documents seeking to pierce asrgs of attorney-client privilege and compelling one of his lawyers to answer more questions adding an aggressive new a dimension to t inquiry and underscoring the legal peril facing trump. prosecutors have sought approval from a federal judge to invoke what is known as the crime fraud exception, which allows them to work around attorney-client privilege when they have reason to believe client services have been used to further a crime.

so what does all this mean for the former president? joining us nowfo is bradley mos a national security attorney who routinely represents federal officials and members of the military in matters thatin pertn to classified documents. let me first get your reaction to the breaking news from "the new york times" nbc has confirmed. >> this is pretty significant information, and it certainly shows that the i special counse continues to move forward and continued to burrow deeper and deeper into inner parts of the trump world. this shows they have evidence, not just there was various conduct and their lawyers may have been working to further this crime.

it's a high bar to meet and certainly deserves to be efficiently scrutinized. but if can overcome that privilege and get that testimony before thed grand jury that's very damaging for the former president. >> it sounds like -- and this is our own ken dilanian who put it this way -- but prosecutors are tryingt to determine whether trump instructed evan corcoran to lie or whether evan corcoran lied. tat seems to be the essence, right? >> that's part of it and also did trump go through evan corcoran or go through another trump lawyer a who keeps stayin around trump world and keeps overseeing different lawyers. who was giving instruction to evan corcoran and evan corcoran gave the instruction to

christina or was it someone? they've got to have clarity before they decide whether or not to pull the trigger and pursue an indictment. >> do you think this represents jack smith as it concerns mar-a-lago? because of this world around mar-a-lago and pence and their own retention of classified documents some thought smith might be backing off. do you think that's at all a consideration anymore? >> no, i never thought that was aev consideration. nor would i have thought it was appropriate. ifho i there's merit to, you kn the special counsel's case and any criminal liability for anybody with respect to president biden that should pursue its own track and the same thing goes for former president mike pence. donald trump has his own problems, his own criminal exposure, tied to his actions d the actions of his lawyers over the last two years at mar-a-lago. he's not backing off. doesn't mean he's going to

pursue an indictment, doesn't mean he's going to win a trial, but clearly they're not taking a back step to anything. they're going to see this through to the end. >> bradley moss, great to have youos onboard. thanks for your time this evening. really appreciate it. ipp mention that there were als developments today in the justice department's january 6th probe particularly as it relates to mike pence. this was vice president pence back in november when he was asked if he would speak before the january 6th investigation in congress. >> will you answer questions about that day to congress? >> congress has no right to my testimony. we have a separation of r power under the constitution of the united states and i believe we would establish a terrible precedent for the congress to summon a vice president of the united states to speak about deliberations that took place at the white house. >> so you're closing the door on that entirely? >> i'm closing the door on that. but i must say, again, that the

partisan nature of the january 6th committee has been a disappointment to me. >> former vice president pence saying he would not testify before the january 6th committee because as vice president and a member of the executive branch it would establish a terrible precedent when it comes to the separation of powers. the january 6th committee whereby of course, was an investigation in the legislative branch. in theio days after that intervw aired "the new york times" reported that when it came to speaking to the department of justice and its probe vice president pence was, quote, open to considering the request, recognizing the doj's criminal investigation is different from the inquiry by the house january 6th committee. but now barely three months later a grand jury subpoena has been issued by the doj, and according to new reporting today, the former vice president is unlikely to comply with that subpoena. now, this time his argument is that hisoe role on january 6th president ofry the senate made m a member of the legislative branch, so he doesn't have to comply with the doj's demands.

just to break this down, three months ago he was part of the executive branch and he didn't want to involve himself in an inquiry from the legislative branch. now he's an y member of the legislative branch who doesn't want toan comply with an inquir from the executive branch. pence is preparing to cite the speech or debate clause which protects congressional officials from legalot proceedings relate to their work. how did all this happen? joining us now is congresswoman zoe lofgren of california. she was, of course, a member of the january 6th committee. congresswoman, thanks for joiningco us. i feel like what mike pence is doing rightat now is the dictionary definition of having your cake and eating it, too. when it is convenient he creates he's either part of the legislative branch or the executive f f branch. are you reading it the same way i am?e you are trained in the law.

>> this is long headed on many levels. first, he ought to just stand up andus tell the truth and not tr to evade that. it looks very bad. two, this is unprecedented. i don't think there's any case on this but it's not that hard to decide if speech or debate does not apply in this case. all you have to do is look at article 1, section 2, and article 1 section 6 and the 12th amendment. basicallyen those say the vice president shall open the envelopes and the votes shall then be counted and article 1 section 6 says that members of legislative body may not be held to -- shall not be questioned for speech debate in any other place. the vice president's whole premise was that his role on the 6th opening the envelopes was

purelys ministerial. it had nothing to do -- he had no discretion. that's what he told the president, obviously that's not a legislative act. ingi things other than legislatn or activities leading up to legislation do not benefit from the speech or debate clause as lindsey graham found much to his dismay in the georgia grand jury. clearly the vice president's not goingce to go anywhere with a claim of executive privilege before a grand jury has been convened for a criminal purpose. i mean the nixon case made that clear. and i don't think this claim -- speech or debate is really worth much. it's embarrassing that he would make that claim after stating so many times that this was purely a ministerial act. so he may just be trying to get the lay, but i think he may also find out that grand juries get

decisions a lot quicker than the congress does in the civil courts. >> yeah, d you raise such a goo point that mike pence's singular act as vice president was to say he could not playen a part in overturning democracy. he hadtu purely a ministerial re to perform on january 6th no matter what the president of the united states might have wanted him to do. if you were the doj at this stage of the y game what are th questions you would have for mike pence that you didn't get him to answer as part of the january 6 pth committee? >> well, we have lots of questions. we want to know his interaction with eastman. we want to know his interaction with the president himself. we want to know his interaction with mark meadow and a variety of othernd people. now, heth did have members of h staff come before the january 6th committee and testify at some length. we appreciated that, but there are some things only he could

talk about. for example, h the phone call h and the former president had on the morning of january 6th. he left the meeting. he was with his staff and went into another room to take that call. we don't know what was said. so there's a lot that they need to find out that we simply could not find out. >> you made it a point mark short and john jacob provided valuable testimony. he said publicly he didn't want to testifybl before the committ, and we see a delay at least happening d with the doj. is it your belief he will ultimately end up speaking to the doj in this investigation? do you think the law is really on the doj's side here and we are going to find out answers to those questions? mike pence has certainly told the public ace lot about that d already. >> my guess is that he will end up testifying. first, this is not a -- although it's aunprecedented, there's n case law as to a vice president's assertion of speech

or debate, it's not a complicated decision to milwaukee. and i think the judge will make a quick decision because it's not that complicated, and he may appeal, but grand jury appeals go mucht quicker, as i say, th what thei january 6th committe found in our civil efforts to get our subpoenas enforced. so i suspect that he will testify. i would guess he's basically -- i don't know why he's doing this obviously some have suggested it has a political motive that he's appealing to the ex-president's supporters. i have noen idea, but i think is probably too late. i mean this is a group that wanted to hang him. i don't think they're going to vote for him. >> that is true. it was the nuke that was erected on the capitol grounds. and he say the person that said he was open to testifying knowing full well the

congressmen of the doj would say mr. vice president, if you want to do that, let's make a date. >> well, i want to give his lawyers credit for coming up with a very creative approach. i think when he said he was open to testifying at doj he knew that he didn't have any chance of evading that testimony through an assertion of executive privilege. win, and t going to there's no other basis for it. this is a creative assertion that really doesn't stand up if you look at it, at all. >> congresswoman zoe lofgren, it's so wonderful to speak to someone with such an expertise and history on this subject matter. thank you for making the time tonight. >> thanks very much. we have a lot more to get to tonight like the race for the 2024 republican presidential nomination, which got a new runner today. plus all eyes are on the sky after the downing of that

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it was 2011, the 2012 presidential contest was just around the corner and a white knight was about to enter the republican presidential contest, a republican who had been the subject of beltway presidential chatter for years was finally going to throw his hat in the ring as the nominee who would unseat president obama. >> i'm kim pulenty, and i'm running for president of the united states. >> but the 2012 republican candidacy of tim polenti did not last much beyond that announcement. you couldn't have predicted that, though, based on the headlines that preceded it. here was a headline back to 2008, pawlenty looks to political stage. four years worth of speculation and anticipation just snuffed out in an instant. by 2014 there was a new great

hope for the republican party. "time" magazine called him the most interesting man in politics. two days after the iowa caucuses rand paul dropped out of the presidential race. and now this year in 2023 there is nikki haley. >> they all think we can be bullied, kicked around. you should know this about me, i don't put up with bullies. and when you kick back it hurts them more if you're wearing heels. i'm nikki haley and i'm running for president. >> former u.n. ambassador and south carolina governor nikki haley is now the second republican to officially enter the race for president after her former boss, donald trump. and her announcement tells you everything you need to know about the challenges nikki haley faces in trying to win that nomination. she claims she doesn't put up with bullies despite putting up

with president trump's relentless bullying while serving in his cabinet. the campaign announcement video highlights her background as an indian american while chastising the left. neglects to mention her decision to remove the confederate flag from the south carolina statehouse. these are all choices nikki haley feels she needs to make in republican primary of 2023, but it is unclear whether any of them will actually help her win the republican nomination in 2024. >> i'm already going to say i could spend the rest of the show talking to you about these endeavors of these republicans. but let me first get your thoughts about who nikki haley is trying to appeal to in the gop at this juncture. >> that's a really big question and that's one of the biggest problems, it's the same problem

mike pence has. is she trying to appeal to moderate republicans? no. i mean this is somebody who's hopped on and off the trump train so often, i'm surprised she doesn't have a high ankle sprain like the winning chiefs quarterback. she really can't decide if she's for trump or against trump. and i think the words bully in her announcement was some kind of hand signal to anti-trump republicans she's with them and on the other hand she's trying to signal to the trump base she's on their side. and typically someone who doesn't know who they are has a difficult time running for president. the scary thing about running for president you've got to win your own state. i think tim scott is going to run, and keep in mind guess how tim scott became a senator,

nikki haley pointed him. so you're going to have the united states senator from south carolina from running and the other state senator who's for trump and then you're going to have nikki haley. so watch south carolina. it is going to be a food fight, and it'll get negative and get ugly. >> i think it's so telling she chooses in her announcement ad not to mention her decision to take the confederate flag down from the south carolina statehouse, which to the rest of the country after the mother emmanuel ame shooting was the signal moment of her career as governor and tells you effectively everything you need to know about the modern day gop. that that isn't mentioned suggests there is very much still a base of support for the confederate flag within the republican party, and it is really hard for me to imagine that she can manage to keep that part of the base on her side. >> it's interesting that she's

not now but in her mind she thinks she can win the nomination and then she can talk about it in the general. because it doesn't help her in the republican primary. that makes her quote-unquote i've never seen the woke mob, they say it's out there somewhere. but that makes her way too woke in the republican party she'd actually do the right thing around the confederate flag. she doesn't want to mention that in the primary. if she makes it to the nomination she's make it hook or crook. >> donald trump has proved to kind of the litmus test for all republicans. if she doesn't want to talk about that flag, he will talk about that flag. if she doesn't want to talk about the fact she was a u.n. ambassador, a dreaded globalest within the ranks of the republican party, he sure as heck will remind the republican primary audience that she's a globalest, never mind the fact she sent her there, right? i mean, it seems impossible anyone can avoid talking about

the unquestionable things -- sorry, uncomfortable things in a primary process that will be dominated by a person who will make no bones about saying the most inappropriate and, you know, be very plainspoken in a republican primary in a way that can be proved very inconvenient for literary anyone else in the field. >> you know, here's what's going to happen, you're going to have snow white and the seven dwarfs. and if desantis gains more steam you're going to have two big gladiators with a cast of thousands around them. he doesn't believe in running anything but a campaign full of calling people names, making things up, cooking people in the shins, behaving like a boar and ignoramus. the question is what's going to happen to all these other

people, all these wannabes? at the end of the day i think donald trump right now is saying the more the merrier. if a bunch of people get in i think his chances go up because that 20% of the republican party that is going to be loyal to him in a cultish way, they're not going anywhere, alex. >> why is mike pence running? mike pence is out there trying to position himself as a culture warrior especially on it topic of abortion, but i feel like ron desantis outranks him as a general in the culture wars each and every time. he's already persona non grata with the trump base. what's the point of someone like mike pence even running at this point? >> i think there's an unwritten law somewhere if you've been vice president you're required to run for president. i don't get it. there's a lack of self-awareness there. i don't think he has a warm,

comfortable home anywhere in the republican party or in the democratic party. i honestly think he's a guy who thinks he's going to be politically viable, and i don't see how it's going to happen. i guess things surprise you. i said at this point, you know, in 2015 that donald trump could never be president, so i need to be careful what i say, but i actually don't think -- pence is doing the same thing that haley's doing. he's trying to have it all ways. he's trying to be -- not say what he should say about what trump tried to get him to do around january 6th, but he's also trying to say i did the right thing and i'm not trump. >> i think it's pretty much guaranteed you can't have it beth ways. thank you always for your time, claire. it's great to see you. >> you bet. happy valentine's day. when we come back after the latest in a long list of deadly mass shootings democrats in the state of michigan are planning to take on the, quote, uniquely

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internet customers. so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. we know this is a uniquely american problem. today is the fifth anniversary of the parkland shooting where mere weeks passed the lunar new year shooting of a dance hall and a few months past the

shooting of an elementary school in uvalde. with a year of shootings at a grocery store, parades and so many other ordinary every day situations, we cannot keep living like this. >> last night that uniquely american problem made its way to east lansing, michigan. a gunman fired shots in two michigan state university campus buildings killing three students and wounding five others. the interim president of the east lansing hospital treating the five students in critical condition there said it's too early to provide any prognosis for those students. today police released the name of the three students who died, brian phraser, alexandria verner, a junior. police found the suspect a 43-year-old man just before bid night last night before a caller phoned in a tip. police say he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. he'd been previously arrested in

lansing in 2019 for carrying a concealed handgun without a permit. before police found the suspect thousands of students were under lockdown, and some of them had been through a version of this before. just 15 months ago when four students were killed and seven injured in a shooting at oxford high school in michigan which is just a one-hour drive away from msu. at least one other msu student under lockdown last night was 11 years old when 27 people including 20 children were shot and killed at sandy hook elementary school in her hometown of new town, connecticut. >> i am 21 years old and this is the second mass shooting i've now lived with. the fact this is the second mass shooting i've now lived through is incomprehensible, but we can no longer just provide love and prayers, we need to see legislation, need to see action. it's not okay. >> and yet it keeps happening. all across the country states are still reeling from the more

than 600 mass shootings that happened in 2022. families are still mourning and our judicial system is still processing some cases. tomorrow the shooter who killed ten at a grocery store in may will be sentenced for the 15 charges he pleaded guilty to including murder and domestic terrorism. these massacres keep happening. the michigan state university shooting was the 67th mass shooting this year. today it's only the 45th day of the year 2023. joining us now is senator gary peters, democrat from michigan and chairman of themland security and governmental affairs committee. thank you for being here. as a michigander i offer all of my condolences to you and the residents of your state. maybe you can tell me a bit about what a shooting on the campus of msu means to you. i know you got your masters from msu but what does that school represent in the minds of

michiganders? >> well, michigan state is classic michigan. students from all across the state that go there to get their education, you know, we take great pride all our universities. when you have michigan state football weekend that often brings people from various backgrounds together. and so to have this just absolutely horrific act, this murderous attack on students really hit home as did so many people across the state. and to think you have students who were shot indiscriminantly and have a shooter go across the campus terrorizing students, this is after we had a previous mass shooting at oxford high school, which you mentioned in the opening, you know, this should never have happened. and certainly i feel just great sadness and the people who are the victims, who are suffering from this are in my heart and in hearts of everybody in michigan. but there's an awful lot of

anger as well, that this has got to stop. certainly -- certainly our hearts go out to those folk whoorz suffering right now, but we have to take some action. we've got to pass legislation, common sense legislation that can make sure that incidents like this don't happen or incidents like this certainly the gun violence that we see each and every day all across our country as people are dying we know there are common sense things we can do to save lives, and that has to be the standard. we've got to take the energy and anger we have from this mass shooting at michigan state university and hopefully lead to action. i know our state legislature is poised to take action. we now have control in the democratic state legislature for the first time in 40 years. governor whitmer is focused on gun safety legislation, and certainly we're hopeful we'll see some concrete action taken by the state legislature in the coming days. >> yeah, and certainly the states has been much more aggressive than the federal government. i have to ask you because you're

the chair of the homeland security committee in the senate, how is it that schools have becomet shooing ranges and that mass casualty events are now a rite of passage for our adolescents? i mean if this was any other threat, if this was a virus there would be committees convene, there would be legislation suggested. how can congress do nothing? is this a matter of reframing this as a homeland security issue or should we effectively give up on the federal government in congress in terms of doing anything meaningful on this? >> well, we can never give up. we've got to keep pushing for that legislation, and i agree this is a homeland security issue. and when you think of government's role, i think probably one of the most fundamental roles government has is to keep us safe and to keep children safe in their school should be the top of the priority list, or folks who go to houses of worship and expect to be safe in their sanctuary that are killed, in neighborhood grocery stores, that is simply unacceptable.

we were able to pass meaningful gun legislation last year and our safer communities act, probably the most significant legislation in decades. it didn't go as far as i would like or certainly the vast majority of american people would like, but at least it was a positive step forward and also focused on mental health issues and school safety issues and the illegal trafficking of guns. but we can't stop there. we've got to keep moving forward. we've got to do things by making sure that background checks can't be circumvented with loopholes. it's going to be incumbent on folks to stay focused on this issue each and every day understanding that this -- these violent attacks using weapons happens every day, and keep pushing legislators to put the bill on the floor, force a vote, and hold people accountable if

they do not support common sense gun legislation. >> we will keep doing just that. we've become the abomination of the globe in terms of mass casualty events and gun violence and it's time we shed that title. senator gary peters, thank you for your time tonight, and again our condolences to all of your constituents that are affected by this. >> thank you. we still have more to come tonight including while we were all looking up in the sky at a chinese spy balloon, there was a whole lot of other spying going on all around us. more than on that coming up next. around us more than on that coming up next we planned well for retirement, but i wish we had more cash. you think those two have any idea? that they can sell their life insurance policy for cash? so they're basically sitting on a goldmine? i don't think they have a clue. that's crazy! well, not everyone knows coventry's helped thousands of people sell their policies for cash. even term policies. i can't believe they're just sitting up there! sitting on all this cash. if you own a

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two weeks ago the same day we learned that a chinese spy balloon had been spotted in a sky above montana, that very same day the largest hospital system in northwest florida, tallahassee memorial health care, was brought to a screeching halt by a much less visible security threat, a cyber attack mchb the entire hospital system had to effectively ditch the computers and work on pen and paper. they had to divert most emergency medical patients to other hospitals and cancel all nonemergency surgeries. it wasn't until today that tallahassee memorial was able to start transitioning some of their hospital system back online and off paper. they are still diverting some emergency medical patients as of today. now, i don't make this comparison to blame china for the cyber attack in tallahassee,

florida. it was most likely the work of criminals. and it happens a lot. the cyber security firm counted 290 hospitals hit by ransom ware attacks last year alone. i also don't mean to diminish china's spy balloon as a security threat because we really don't know how damaging that could end up being but we do know exactly how much of a security threat cyber attacks are to this country. in 2014 there was the office of personnel management where hackers stole information on more than 22 million government workers, their families and everyone who had undergone background checks. in 2015 there was the hack of a health care company, anthem, that exposed the personal data of 80 million people. and in 2017 there was the equifax breach that exposed social security numbers for more than 140 million americans, and if memory serves that included me. the u.s. has explicitly blamed

china for all of those attacks. joining us now is nicole, she was a "the new york times" cyber security reporter for a decade and now an advisor for biden's cyber security and infrastructure security agency. her book this is how they told me the world ends, the cyber weapons arms race comes out in paperback a week from today. and she's been loud and proud how she believes the general public's reaction to the chinese spy balloon is will we say overinflated, pun intended. thank you for being here tonight. >> happy valentine's day. >> happy valentine's day. what a loving topic to talk about. the spy balloon has captured everyone's imagination i think because it's a crazy thing, right, these ufos flying over the country. it is weird to me we do not pay nearly the same key to attacks that actually affect almost every single person in this country.

how and why -- how do we change that narrative and why do you think that is? >> i think it's been an incredibly frustrating cycle for those of us covering chinese espionage and sabotage. i always thought what is it going to take to get the american public and policy makers to make that? if we could see a bomb go off at every company that's been breached that would do it, and now it's a balloon over every company and every american. when i first started covering "the new york times," and there's been more than a thousand american companies. china has taken more business data and personal data than any other agency. this is the greatest transfer of wealth in human history.

>> wow. the balloon people don't know exactly what was being captured by the balloon attack. some people think it may have been views of the military installations across the country. it's unclear yet. when you talk about the value of personal data, to just be a dummy about it, what is so valuable in it, why is it the largest transfer of wealth? >> so originally i think it was ip theft. they were sick of being the world's -- the shortest way to catch up is steal the ip, then we started seeing these attacks of equifax, the office of equal management, marriott. they've been building out a database of americans' information, particularly government workers who stay at

marriott and have security clearance aopm to see where china travelers are living and staying at the same time at potential government workers to build a data intelligence database of potential chinese american spies. so that is the thinking originally. now i think it's shifted to how much are they taking here? because they've breached essentially data on every american and we can talk about tiktok and what kind of threat that poses to what people are now calling psycho security, but we've seen them take the ip, we've seen them take the personal data. more than a year ago the government declassified the report of a lot of chinese hacks. this is china trying to get into our pipelines and might need to sabotage the systems one day. >> i mean china is obviously an

aggressive actor when it comes to these attacks but what about russia? they have a very aggressive posture in say ukraine and they are notorious in terms of their cyber threats and cyber team. what are they doing independent of the chinese? >> so i think the best explanation and the difference between cyber threat from china and cyber threat from russia, the director of the nsa who said russia is the hurricane, china is -- >> neither of those things are good. >> neither of those things are good. and russia has been pushing on sabotage particularly in ukraine. a couple years ago we saw them shut the power down in ukraine. they inflicted an attack, but essentially it was an attack on most government agencies of the government in ukraine but also the railway system, the network. it didn't hit just every business in ukraine but every

business working remotely in ukraine. it paralyzed merk's vaccine production that year. you can imagine how bad it would have been during covid. they've been very aggressive on acts of cyber sabotage. the cyber attacks have not been able to compete with the images we've seen on -- but it's not something to ignore. >> yeah. >> we've seen them in ukrainian substations. it was eradicated but they tried to take out the power. just today there was a report in politico about a tool they call pipe dream that was discovered in development and all signs point that way that looks to be a sort of swiss army knife of critical infrastructure tools, and it looks like it was designed to attack power grids and pipeline networks. and it could sabotage these networks. now, they've been fairly

restrained in targeting these attacks. i think you know my personal theory is despite these threats, nuclear threats, it's much more likely that if he were to retaliate it would be the cyber attacks. >> very valuable and very important to keep in contact. thank you for your time tonight. happy valentine's day. we'll be right back.

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our last story tonight is perfect for valentine's day. president biden since the start of his presidency has prioritized changing the federal bench by appointing qualified judges who reflect the diversity of america's citizens. yesterday the senate confirmed a biden nominee, judge cindy chung, who became the first american asian judge at the third circuit court of appeals of in philadelphia. today the biden administration achieved its 100th judicial confirmation outpacing president trump at his point in his presidency. and it is another historic appointment to the federal bench, another first. the judge was confirmed today as a junl in the federal district court of puerto rico. she's the first openly lgbtq plus american federal judge to sit on that court. judge mendez miro is married to the chief justice of puerto

rico's supreme court who herself is the first openly lgbtq plus judge to serve as chief justice on that court. here is what judge mendez had to say about her partner in her confirmation hearing in july. >> your integrity, encouraged me, inspired me, and give me fortitude. we are parents to 4-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, who we hope can one day understand our passion for the law and justice, our commitment to public service, and our belief in a judicial system that safe guards the rights to all. >> prop tuesday the u.s. senate for making her new job official today of all days. happy valentine's day. that is it for us tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. i want to take a moment to say our hearts are with the students and the family of michigan