>> oh, gosh. >> i just saw him at the world premiere. we called many of them the next greatest generation in terms of the kids because of what they have lived through in these military families, and just the amazing standout icons in the family. >> how are you? >> i'm okay. today, i'm okay. there are days i'm not. today i'm okay. and i'm glad we get to have this conversation. >> i suggest everybody go and watch it. record it if you can, because it's powerful and there are highs, there are lows. catch "unconditional" saturday at 11:00 p.m. that's going to do it for me today. have a lovely holiday, everyone. "deadline: white house" starts right now. ♪ ♪ happy friday. it's been building all week

long. you can feel it. the drip, drip, drip of disclosures about the strength and the specificity of special counsel jack smith's evidence in the mar-a-lago documents investigation. and today, "the new york times" is naming names. "the new york times" reveals the workers who moved the boxes containing white house documents ahead of a meeting between donald trump's legal team and doj at mar-a-lago. "the new york times" reports that the two employees were a maintenance worker and trump's valet, and that they "moved the boxes into the room before search of the storage room that sam day by evan corcoran, a lawyer for trump. for trump.

>> this brand new reporting, which we should mention, has not been independently verified by nbc news, raises a whole host of questions when viewed in terms of whether it helps to answer essential questions in the case. did donald trump clearly and flagrantly commit obstruction of justice? as jack smith barrels to an indictment of the president, we have started the hour each day this week with breaking news that could lay out the building blocks that amount to an obstruction case. but it is just one branch of what we believe that investigation encompasses. the other is the actual mishandling of classified documents, including some of the nation's most closely guarded secrets. as a matter of national security it is of paramount importance.

to help us understand the stakes of this investigation, to clarify the gravity of the crisis put into motion by the ex-president when we first learned of classified material at mar-a-lago last summer. that is the former director of national intelligence sue gordon. thank you for being here. we have never replayed someone's words of wisdom and insight as many times as i think we have replayed your comments from that interview. so thank you for coming back. >> well, thanks for having me. i wish we had gotten better. >> one of the things that you carefully articulated seems to be a thread again, we know that most of what jack smith is doing is unknown to us. but in terms of what is public facing is something you put your finger on immediately. that is that donald trump doesn't handle classified materials in a normal way.

whether or not that constitutes criminal activity we'll find out soon enough at the end of jack smith's probe. i wonder if you could just, in your own words, describe how what is public facing syncs up with, or doesn't, your experience of watching him handle the nation's most sensitive secrets. >> well, thanks. first, just let me remind, over the coming days, weeks and months, there will be questions about whether it's really classified, whether it really matters. intelligence is about advantage, and when that information is not properly handled or possibly disclosed, it gives away what we know, how we know it, the capabilities that we possess, who we partner with, and the gaps in our knowledge. if you want to know how important that is, look at the ukraine conflict. which on one level is an

information war, and we have the advantage in that one. so there are real stakes here. the second thing is, you know, classified information, even handled by that former president trump understood the craft discipline significance and strategic implication with each piece of information that he got. and if you don't understand that, then i think you can convince yourself that what you read in the headline of the newspaper is the same thing you read in the intelligence report. and that kind of starts the snowball effect of not just being careful and potentially giving away some of that which provides the nation advantage. >> let me ask you, i mean, that is such an important context for covering and processing all of this utterances. i mean, that's not denying the

central question that has been handed to jack smith, which is one, the mishandling of classified material, and two, the obstruction of the investigation into it. he says, i can declassify by thinking it. he's simply describing his version, which isn't accurate or true or precedented, of declassification in a frame of avoiding criminal exposure. he's never once said what you just said. but i understand these are secrets for men and women who risked their lives to obtain this information. does that concern you? >> it all concerns me. again, you just can't parse intelligence into little pieces of does it matter, does it not? it tends to be additive in terms of what it reveals. even if it's relevant, it has strategic value. again, there are capabilities

and partners in play that are in risk when it gets revealed. but can i talk about this declassification? i too, in my last position, i had declassification authority. i had it for a set of things. in my career, when i had the authority, i declassified exactly one piece of information, which were a whole bunch of paperwork to do so. and the decision was overseen to make sure that it was for an official purpose. so this idea that it is regardless of whether you have the authority, is authority that you casually affect, that you affect without record, or that you do it for a personal reason rather than official is nonsensical. so to portray that this is something that, because you have

the authority you can just execute it according to your preference, that is not the way it works systemically, but if you think what we're talking about, it would make no sense to do it that way if you had a serious sense of what the material really meant. >> well, i think that's an open question whether he did or not, which i think is fair to say. let me stay with this idea, because what he has said in public interviews is that it was understood that anything he either took with him to the residence was declassified or anything he packed in the boxes was declassified. let's give him the benefit of the doubt, i'll do that for two seconds and we'll go back to planet earth. what you did that, what would happen? what would the process if everything he took back to the residence was declassified, what would happen to make that true?

>> i'm stumped at the process that would have to be in place in order for that to be true. remember, we have many examples of former officials who hadded a -- had advertently or ined a -- the results were determined. but, again, the idea that you could just, by definition of possession and authority say well, it's all -- it's all declassified because i said it was, one, i can't imagine that. two, that's not true to the tenants of what the authority really is. and, again, you're not an individual when you have this

authority. it wasn't that sue gordon had the authority. no, the principal deputy director of national intelligence had the authority, and i executed that authority according to the -- [ no audio ] >> we're going to let sue gordon work out any of her wi-fi issues so that we can hang onto her every word as we have in the other instances where i had a chance to talk to her. we also have joining us -- we'll bring her back as soon as we can. but we'll bring in my guests, who have been standing by. i mean, neil, i didn't mean to stump sue gordon, if that's possible, but this is a conversation we started on wednesday. the notion that there was some -- where trump and his inner circle, even if there was some notion in that world where anything that came at the

residence was declassified is impossible and untrue. it doesn't work that way. to declassify, you alert the allies. you alert the agencies. you protect sources and methods. it's simply one of those things where people like sue and people like yourself and people who cover national security have to just pump the brakes and say no way, no how, that is not how the authority to declassify works. >> that's right. when the technical and legal term for donald trump's defense here is poppycock. i mean, anyone who has had national security documents knows there's no declassify in your mind authority. it just doesn't exist. now, sue is exactly right, if you want to declassify a document, there is a long procedure for doing so. for the most important reasons, when you declassify a document, it means that material can be subject to the freedom of information act, it can be turned over to the press, it can

be handled in open settings. and this is really sensitive stuff, nicolle. this is stuff that people give their lives for, alliances depend on keeping this material confidential. you know, it's about sources, it's about methods, it's about all sorts of stuff that can't be out in the open. this is where u.s. has an a classified information regime protocol that says you can't do this kind of thing. that's why, you know, i have always said, and here i have the good company of even people like bill barr, that this mar-a-lago stolen documents investigation is one that will likely lead to an indictment of donald trump, because if the reports here are true of everything we're learning about how trump handled these documents at mar-a-lago, i don't think that the justice department has a choice. i think they have to prosecute. i mean, what kind of message does it send to americans who

risk their lives to obtain sensitive information if the country allows someone to knowingly take these documents, store them where they're accessible to others, and intentionally lie about it obstruct an investigation into it. what kind of message does that send our allies? that's why the result of this investigation is that. >> sue gordon is back. technology gremlins have been addressed. even as you were suspended, waiting for that buffering to stop, you were at an important thing that i don't think anyone who understands has never been around classified material, it isn't just a human or a person, it is the office with the declassification power. can you explain that to us? >> yeah. as i was saying, i had the declassification authority, but it wasn't sue gordon who had it.

it was the principal deputy director of national intelligence. same thing. it's not donald trump that had the authority, it was the president of the united states. and you have it for the duration that you are in the office. and you execute it according to the responsibilities of the office, not according to your preferences as an individual. this is just so central to how the system works. >> sue, when you see in the papers that special counsel jack smith is pursuing information about the post presidency, and specifically about liv golf and six nations, i believe it's france, uae, turkey, china, saudi arabia, kuwait and oman, it just has an echo to what you warned us about, that there is both an ignorance of the craft that goes into every word on every page of a pdb, but there's also a personal agenda that he's

made no secrets about pursuing. what do you make of what the public is facing in a lineup of the investigation looking at trump's ties and business relationships with those nations? >> so, his intention and those activities are not my area of expertise, but what i will say is, umm, as holders of classified information, and with responsibility for national security, you understand that the people with whom you deal with have their interests, and their interests may go through the information or the access that you have. so any holder of special information and quite frankly the trust of the american people, has to be really mindful of the relationships that they are pursuing. not just for their intention, but for how that relationship could be used by adversaries and competitors. so one of the things that's important to thing about is that

it isn't just an act by the individual, it is how careful they are with the knowledge and access they possess in the face of others who will have interest that go through them. >> i want to -- with that established, i want to show you how he answers questions about the material that he had in his possession. this is from the cnn town hall. >> did you ever show those classified documents to anyone? >> not really. i would have the right to. by the way, they were declassified -- >> what do you mean? >> not can i can think of. i have the absolute right to do whatever i want with them. i had the right. >> i mean, we know that's not correct. i would have the right to show them to anyone, but not i can think of? seems like a million things wrong with that. >> umm, so it goes through the thread of what i said before. but when you get down to that last moment, it's like the --

for what purpose, what national purpose, not individual purpose, but what national purpose is that sharing occurring? again, there are times and place where is you need to do it, and the decision to make to declassify something because the nation's interests are served by declassifying it and by showing it to someone so that you can reveal something you know to be true that will help us. but the thread in this is, it's the national interest that has to be served by this. so yes, i can imagine there will be times, that certainly the president and even a former president, might be part of a process by which information was shared in the national interest but it's not the individual's decision to do that. >> in your experience working for donald trump, was the

national interest front of mind some of the time, most of the time, all of the time? >> listen, those of us who serve -- swear to uphold and defend the constitution of the united states and the president is in a position that is prescribed by that constitution, and, you know, in my experience and dealings with him, he was acting as the president of the united states. now, you and i both know that i had the first two years, not the second two years to see it. but i do think that it is a fair lens, and by the way, it's a fair lens that could be applied to any official who has this authority that is given to them and really, this is important, on behalf of the american people. you know, those of us who were granted special privilege are really carrying the trust of the american people.

and so, umm, you know, in my experience, he was president of the united states and we were engaged in national security issues over which he presided. but that carries through not through every day in his office and every day as an individual just as it does with me. >> when you recommended that joe biden cut off his access to classified information, what was that rooted in, and is there any echo in what has been uncovered by jack smith's probe that reassures you that that was correct? >> well, i would probably make the same recommendation today. the point i was making is, and i think this is a really good thing to remember is, you don't have to make special rules in order to do the right thing, even with former president trump. in this case, the basis for

access to information is need to know. and what i wrote then and what i would say now is i don't see a need to know that would warrant access to that information. now, you can always decide the president could always decide, someone in the future could decide that there is a need to know. but right now, all you have to do is apply that standard that is the foundational standard that is part of protection of classified information is, do you have a need to know is and if you can't imagine you need to know, then you don't need access to classified information. >> this was one more thing you said to us that i think about all the time when i read about this part of the jack smith probe, it's the moving of the boxes that seems like a very intense interest in the surveillance footage, which shows the moving of boxes. you told an anecdote about trump carrying around documents

including classified materials with boxes. you said with the infrastructure of the office of the presidency, we could sort of protect that box, including classified documents. when you read his accounts of boxes, including classified documents being moved around mar-a-lago, does that ring to you as a pattern? does that keep you up at night? what do you think of that? >> well, two things worry me. one, is that a secure facility? it is not protected in the way that information purportedly of that level should be protected. so that's worrisome to me. the second is, everyone knows it's right there. it's on the news every day. there's information at

mar-a-lago. our competitors have the ability, and there's a value to trying to understand what intelligence we have that gives them -- takes our advantage and turns it -- my worry is, it isn't being stored according to the standards, and more than that, it is so publicly there if that is still true, that now you have given a road map to those that would try and seek it. so there are all sorts of reasons that the rules exist, and they don't include that kind of storage. >> my last question, do the laws in america governing the handling of classified materials and obstruction of justice, is it important that they apply to everyone, that they amy to donald trump if jack smith finds he broke those laws? >> in general, it ought to apply to everyone.

actually, the greater your responsibility, the more you're responsibility to obey the law. and if at some point in the future we want different rules, different statutes, we should go through that process. but if it's on the books, if it applies to one, it applies to all. responsibility tends to have its own burden. >> sue gordon, thank you so much for starting us off this friday. >> thank you. when we come back, we'll bring neil and luke back in. also coming up, a leading voice in the fight to protect democracy. stacey abrams joins us. he's a champion for protecting the right to vote. we'll ask her over the fight of censoring america's classrooms. and later in the broad cast, republicans taking a page from the trump playbook, weaponizing a simple foundations of how

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sam can keep making smart ideas... ...a brilliant reality! the ink business premier card from chase for business. make more of what's yours. neil, i love what sue gordon said at the end, the greater the responsibility, the greater the obligation to abide by the rule of law. >> that's right. and anyone who has handled these documents, republican or

democrat, past administrations, that's generally how you approach it. if you don't approach it that way, you face a criminal indictment. and here, nicolle, we have a circumstance of not only was the kind of -- with great power comes great responsibility mantra being violated, but it's the opposite. here, the news reports today are saying that trump issued dress rehearsals to move the documents in advance of the government coming in to look at them. we all heard donald trump's speeches in the past, and it's clear he doesn't bother to practice those. the only thing he's rehearsed in his life is how to commit obstruction. you know, i am very deeply worried about any sort of precedent that says if you're a government official, including the president, that you don't have to obey requests from authorities, that you can hide and move these documents around in the like.

so there's two big issues here. one is the mishandling, the stealing of classified and sensitive information, and the other is, once that came to light, what did donald trump do about it? and it sure looks like he obstructed the investigation into it. >> you know, luke, the congressional investigation into january 6th had, as all of its narrators, top, close, intimate trump insiders, cassidy hutchinson probably most notably, the mueller probe, volume two, had top white house counsel as close as you can be to anyone who occupies the office of the presidency. it sounds like the documents probe as among its narrators, the people moving the boxes as the narrators of the trump directed obstruction act.

it is so remarkable that is where every look into him takes us. >> yeah. i mean, it's important to remember what's going on here in the big picture. for about 20 months, both the national archives and eventually the justice department have been trying to get back presidential records and classified documents from donald trump and mar-a-lago. and they began to feel that they're being jerked around. there's so much evidence of this in all the court filings, about months going by where they didn't get the documents back and they're asking for them and asking for them. then they feel they have been misled at some point. there's a station where all the documents had been returned. when they searched the premises, there's more than 100 classified documents still there. so what this latest reporting shows is that their

investigation is circling ever more tightly on the people close to donald trump, who may give them more information about whether there was anyone messing around with these boxes, whether there was any more evidence of obstruction of justice. here they have a maintenance worker testifying, telling the prosecutors that he saw people moving the boxes right before the justice department arrived at the scene, and he didn't though what was going on. he offered to help, but that there were people moving the boxes, some of this is caught on the surveillance video i understand, but i think it's all given to that point what the justice department is looking for here, and that is whether or not there was intent here to obstruct their investigation and bstruct the american people getting these documents back into the hands of the national archives. >> neil, with this "new york times" reporting to help us understand what they know about the moving of the boxes, how

they have corroborated what they clearly either saw on the tape or knew existed on the tape, how do you assess the strength of jack smith's probe? >> well, at the top of the hour, nicolle, you said there were a bunch of basic building blocks that have fallen into place in the smith probe, and that's right. so we already knew that donald trump had these stolen documents, more than 100 of them, in his golf club in florida. we already knew that trump had these documents after his attorneys swore that he didn't. we also knew that these documents were very significant. some of the nation's most sensitive secrets. and we also already knew that a federal judge, not just the trial judge, but the d.c. circuit, our nation's second highest court, believed a crime was committed here, and that the crime was so serious that the attorney/client privilege that donald trump had, had to be pierced. we also knew that another donald

trump attorney, who has been working with him on this investigation, has quit on the eve of major prosecutorial decisions, and we also knew that there were about 50 pages of notes that his attorney, corcoran, had turned over to the investigators, and these notes sound like they implicate donald trump, as well. now we're learning today about these dresshearsals. so the dress rehearsals are still a questions. i'll talk about that in a moment. but taken tapestry of a very, very clear prosecution with those building blocks that you mentioned at the start of the show. to me, there are three questions about this latest report about the documents being moved and the boxes being moved. one, what exactly was in the boxes? two, did donald trump know what was in the boxes? and three, did he instruct his staff to move them? >> i mean, real quick, after the search, with e know what was in the boxes.

they found dozens of classified documents. so if it's just holding my, you know, white house m&ms i stole as an excuse, is not going to hold water. >> right. as you pointed out many times, nicolle, the -- you know, the former attorney general bill barr will always bring up this case that he thinks that the obstruction of justice here is quite clear, and that's no liberal democrat saying that. so, you know, this reporting from my colleagues, allen and maggie today, i think that shows the justice department is intensely focused still on the obstruction of justice case, and they're getting more and more witnesses testifying about it. >> so neil, you have to close the loop on your dress rehearsal point or i will hear about it on twitter for the next three days. >> so the boxes that we don't know that -- what was in the

very boxes that were being moved. we know classified documents were found, but the question is, are those classified documents and other sensitive documents the same documents that were in the boxes or was it m&ms? we'll leave it to trump to say it's m&ms. >> for the record, trump hasn't said that. i've just covered him long enough to imagine the excuses. i didn't have any nuclear secrets in there, just stolen m&ms. which is what most people take when they leave the white house. thank you both so much for spending so much time with us on a holiday friday. coming up, stacey abrams is here, like at the table here. we'll talk to her about today's political headlines and climate, and we also get to talk to her about her new novel, which he says was written as fiction but didn't expect the reality of our times to catch up with what she has written about. she'll join us to talk about all of it, next. hey, dad...

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because it asks us to think about our place in this country and how we can make it a more perfect union for everyone. what a fantastic lesson to teach our kids to think about who they are as citizens and people. >> that was our good friend on this program on wednesday, speaking about what a great lesson amanda gorman's inaugural poem is and would be for him in a classroom if he were still teaching. as we have discussed, gorman's poem was removed from an elementary school in florida after one parent complained that it contained "hate messages." the exclusion of gorman's poem is just the late nest a series of crackdowns across our country, as red states continue to ban books and limit access to what children can read. her publisher hooks to take legal action to challenge book bans. one of our next guests, author

stacey abrams voiced support for gorman writing -- >> joining us at the table, stacey abrams, democratic nominee for governor in georgia last year. she's out with her second novel, a thriller about the supreme court. we'll get to that in a minute. it is fiction, but hang on. also joining us, president of the national action network, the reverend al sharpton is here. your tweets caught our attention on wednesday. i said in the break the best thing about this attack by one parent on amanda gorman's poem was the opportunity to play it over and over again, every time i cover this story. but my son is in elementary

school studying history. one of the most important things kids learn is when something was created. the idea that she delivered that speech after an insurrection, it is so essential. >> not only should every child have access to the message, they deserve the context it provides. i was in elementary school when the "challenger" accident happened. i can imagine what it meant for someone in my age range articulate the pain and the grief that i was feeling. and that's what books and poetry, what access provides. and we have to remember that school libraries are often for many children, their only access to that information, so it is disturbing to me that we watched these families and these groups attack a place that should be a safe space for children, a safe space to question, and a spaf

safe space to process what is difficult to articulate. >> but to take a poet and a poem that should be held up across partisan lines and demonize the piece itself and the creator of it, i understand from reporting it was one parent that complained, but i have not seen one republican depend amanda gorman or her poem. >> what strikes me as so devastating is that it's amanda and her poem. but she's the tip of a much larger iceberg. we know that there have been indiscriminate attacks on lbgtq writers, on non-white writers, and she's not immune to this type of attack, but a single person can deny an entire slew of children this moment of grace is not just ridiculous, but it should be shameful. i wish that we could get beyond

our polarization and return to what we like to call our citizenship. and that says you do what is best for children regardless of who is delivering that opportunity. >> i spend -- i try to understand where the right is and how it happened. but this story doesn't seem like it's the most important story, but we could argue it should be, because this is a piece of american history, recent american history that's given 14 days after the insurrection. and i have not been able to find one national republican saying not only should this stay on the shelves, but this should be -- what happens when one of the two parties is willing to let this be the rule of the minority and the tyrants? >> well, what happens is that we lose a sense of what we are

really living through and evolving from and going through. you cannot deal with fruits without dealing with the roots that it came from. i think by this poem interpreting for america, not young folks, not old folks, not black folks, for america, the inauguration. we're talking about she read this poem at the inauguration of the president of the united states. so you're not just talking about some poet that is at a workshop that i might have in harlem. you're talking about an inaugural poem that you're going to remove, which is american history. that's the extent they will go through to cast a shadow on what they -- >> why? >> i think because if they can build in the minds of kids a certain, singular kind of perception, then they can guide you where they want to guide you. so if we're told women are treated differently than men,

and we're told blacks and latinos and others are treated differently, if you would think they're just not equipped and can't rise to the occasion. if you have the context, then you understand what you're looking at. i think as stacey said, she's growing -- where i grew up, i looked at -- i was 12, 13 years younger than jesse jackson. i looked up to them. if they weren't there, i would have looked up to whoever they put there. so you emulate and imitate what you see. if they can remove what you see, they can remove who you be. >> nicolle, if i can add. >> sure. >> we were chatting earlier a bit. but lauded americans for not committing treason. but heroism is taking an action despite the blowback. and if defending a young woman who had the audacity to speak truth and to say that quiet is not peace, to paraphrase the

line that offended this parent, if we cannot come together to defend a young woman who spoke for so many millions, why would we dare believe that they will defend the rest of us in another time of trouble? >> right. shows us we are not broken, we are unfinished. there were republicans saying worse things than that about the state of our country. we just need to sneak in a break. when we come back, we'll talk to stacey abrams about her new novel. acey abrams about her new novel.

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false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for cologuard. ♪ i did it my way! ♪ at a moment when the public's trust this the integrity of the u.s. supreme court is if rapid decline, it happens to be a recurring theme and our guest, stacey abrams' new novel, "rogue justice" follows a supreme court clerk involved in another washington conspiracy. this time involving our nation's courts. we're back with stacey and the rev. i love all of the it little things that are so perfect and accurate that only someone this the arena can get right when they write about the arena. so i have to congratulate you on writing this just exquisitely crafted novel. >> thank you. >> tell me about your character in this book.

>> avery cain is a supreme court clerk who stumbled into a conspiracy or yanked it into by a supreme court justice that fell into a coma. but it was a story of what do you do when you have responsibility but no authority? what she did led to a fairly dramatic end. so the next book is how do you face the consequences? when you win, it doesn't necessarily mean that bad is done. so you have this tendency to think this is finished and we move on to the next. but she gets pulled back in and is addressing the possibility of blackmailed judges as the fisa court. >> so you're so brilliant to write this with so much focus on the supreme court. but i want to ask you about that bigger, what you feel in your gut is what you just described.

how much of your writing process is sort of your feelings and your processing of the political moment and how much is just escaping into the characters? >> it's both. as someone who has been fighting for democracy and voting rights, we celebrated the peaceful transition of power in 2020 as you pointed out. but that doesn't mean that the threat of authoritarian and autocratic behavior in the united states is abated. it's just become more surgical and more obtuse and obscure to many. so we know that the danger is still out there. it's hard to get people to pay attention. so part of the goal is to have an avatar who grapples with what it means to do the thing you said you were going to do and find out that your work is not done. >> i think this idea is so important. i think there's a piece for culture to do for books and film to do in this moment for democracy that it's not doing. why do you think that's the case? >> i think that we have become

so performtive that we don't deal with real in depth themes and in depth positions. what is so refreshing about someone who is so engaged in changing what we had as the body politic, as stacey abrams was, there's no question you talk about the changing, the new south. you would have to put a picture there. so she's somebody that is engaged, and then has used her talent. if you read this novel, her writing, she could have made it just as a novel all by itself. and her writing, coming from her, it's like churchillian. churchill could write and other than she divided my little family dinners, i have one daughter who is a novelist fan.

she said, is she going to run? nobody would be in office if it wasn't for stacey abrams. this is just a bridge to the next mountain, i hope, for her. >> i think that is well put. >> is that a yes? >> i'm certainly not done with public life. i think that it's important to use all the tools in your toolbox and to explore questions and conversations that we don't normally get to have. part of what i love doing with the novels i write with the children's books, with the non-fiction is to explore themes and conversations that we off don't think we have time for. if you get to do it while you're sitting on a beach and you happen to learn about cyber theory, you feel better. >> i think we should do a better job lifting up the arts, especially when they deal with the themes that we care about, and you have probably reached people that would never turn on the news because it's too much. there are legitimate concerns about getting upset, watching

the news. but you read this book and it's smart and important. i have to ask about the supreme court, though. how much of this crisis, if you look at gallop and the people polling on question of trust in the supreme court, how much of that is having this as a backdrop, how does having to talk about that or getting to talk about that play into having to look upset in that place? >> it's important, because we take for grant it that we have controls on our president, we have controls or at least the theory of control on the presidency and on congress. but we leave the judiciary to manage itself. they are the only ones with lifetime appointments. you can vote a president out. you can vote a congressional member out. they're there, and there's nothing in the constitution that removes them except for high crimes, misdemeanor or death. and misdemeanor is a big "m,"

not jaywalking. so what's important for me, we don't know if they're being blackmailed. that is not to suggest this is what is happening in real life. i write about possibility, not probability. but what it means is that we have to also put in place controls to make sure that the possibilities don't become realities. we need ethics laws that are enforceable and that are clear. it's not a harm. >> amazing. it's really good and important. thank you so much for being here. and rev, thank you for being here at the table. the new book "rogue justice" is out right now. still ahead, the ex-president has urged republicans to drive america off the economic cliff. breaking news on that when we come back. don't go anywhere. t when we come back. don't go anywhere.

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america is on the brink of defaulting on its debt, and donald trump is telling republicans in congress -- >> you're going to have to do a default. >> he's pushing an extreme agenda to slash the basics we depend on, hurting the middle class, seniors and veterans. it would crash our economy, delay social security checks and put basic services at risk with so much on the line. now is their chance to finally stand up to trump's chaos. so tell republicans in congress, say no to trump. say no to default. >> hi again, everybody. that ad put out by future forward usa action in a seven figure nationwide ad buy gets to the heart of the current crisis in washington, d.c.

the republican party has so willingly given itself over the ex-president that they are following him and will follow him wherever he leads. they followed him off a cliff when it came to america's democracy in elections, destroying our foundational principles because trump could not accept his defeat. now they could be following him off a claf into default. so what exactly is going on here? the debt ceiling is the amount of money congress allows the government to borrow to pay bills. janet yellen warned that if the ceiling isn't raised, the u.s. could run out of cash. in the last hour, she revised the date it needs to be raised from june 1st to june 5th, buying a few more days, meaning that without a deal, the country will default on its debt. now, this has never happened in our country's history. just a few days to go, and the

clock keeps ticking it. it does not look like a deal will be reached today as we head into the holiday weekend. one congressman telling reporters on his way into speaker mccarthy's office, that no in-person meetings were scheduled with the white house today. republicans flirting with the idea of a default as no joking matter. the financial consequences of a default could be disastrous. as "vanity fair" reports --

>> this is just the latest example of republicans taking a page from trump's playbook, weaponizing what is usually a routine procedure, causing and creating chaos and risking the well-being and security of the american people and our economy. that is where we start the hour. editor at large and msnbc contributor charlie sykes is back. with me here special correspondent with "vanity fair" molly is here. so take me inside two things, how much time we really have, and does this look and feel different from what you have experienced? >> sure. so you have to back date it from i would say at least six days, perhaps even more. speaker mccarthy put in place, that every bill that goes before congress needs 72 hours to be

read, and they are serious about this. so it will take one to two days to be written. and then it just hits the floor. then it has to go to the senate. so even though june 5th seems relatively far away, we are really getting there. now, it is fascinating to me the degree to which this, the markets and the general public think this is inevitable. this is far from inevitable at this point, that is because the republican party are literally saying that if you do not take poor people off of social assistance, if you don't cut significant spending, and if you do not make it easier to drill for oil, we will destroy the economy. in exchange, they are offering the democratic party nothing. the democrats are waking up to that. so as the republican base revolts against any potential compromise, democrats in congress will have to come on board to this. they will literally have to save kevin mccarthy.

and that means that they will deserve concessions. so there is a lot more to come here. kevin mccarthy, when he was running for speaker, proved that he can barely count republican votes. i see no evidence that he can count democratic votes, as well. there is a lot more to the story. >> let me follow up on two important things. i mean, one, this idea that the public isn't paying close attention, i think that's right. but in the markets and the public's defense, this has never happened before. but i would argue, did you see the 2020 election? that had never happened before either. the very ball hans that sent them back to congress were saying were fraudulent. do you think it's an opportunity or do you think it's a necessity to use this to sort of talk to the country about how extreme and destructive the republicans are? >> crazy doesn't suddenly become not crazy. so from january 6th to the debacle of the speaker's election and the disastrous

public policy that the republicans have put forward, that is the same party claiming to be a civilized, rational negotiator. far, far from the case. so i think it's certainly apt that joe biden uses the bully pulpit that he has, to speak directly to the country and properly frame the republican party as the radicals that they are. at the same time, though, the house democratic caucus, putting forth in a unified manner, a motion on the floor to actually have a clean debt ceiling raise, where all they need is five moderate republicans to show courage, you will see increasing pressure on them to do so. i this i the democratic party is going to stay extraordinarily unified under leader jeffreys in their effort to exact that pressure. if they need democrats to pass this bill ultimately, the democratic party needs something in return, and they should show that power, and actually show the fact that, you know, look,

the republican party is demandsing that poor people go hungry, plain and simple. they're demanding that social services are cut. fine, democrats, demand something in exchange. i believe that they're waking up to that. >> charlie sykes, i know you've been thinking about this. tell me your thoughts today. >> well, two of them. first of all, let's go back to the way you set this up. it is extraordinary, it is not normal for a former president of the united states to essentially endorse default. let's just stop right there. he's the leading republican candidate for president. we can debate the nuances of what kind of spending to cut, but here is donald trump calling for something that every economist knows is a cataclysm, that will affect every american, that will cost millions of jobs, that will destroy people's 401(k). so first of all, this is another one of these moments where do not normalize what donald trump

is saying. this is extraordinary, it is dangerous. which also then leads to the question of, where is the messaging pointing this out? i was glad to see that ad, but the fact is, the president of the united states has the biggest bully pulpit in the country and joe biden has not been using it. i know he's playing the inside game here, but this ought to be relatively easy to message. the republican party has taken extreme positions that endanger every single american and the u.s. economy. it is reckless and it is potentially catastrophic. they ought to say this. now, if joe biden doesn't want to play bad cop, there are 24 members of the cabinet, including 15 department heads. there are all of these ally groups, leaders of congress. and i guess the question i have, why is kevin mccarthy and the republicans on television every day and we don't see or hear from joe biden? there's a reason why democrats

on capitol hill are getting frustrated, because they understand that even though i think they have a hell of a story to tell, they're not telling it. so two things -- number one, we ought to stress how incredibly extraordinary it is for donald trump to actually call for the country to go over the fiscal cliff. and raise the question, where is the bully pulpit and when is joe biden going to address the nation from the oval office and warn the american people of what is about to happen? now, maybe he feels it's too delicate, but if these negotiations go sideways, joe biden is going to have to do that. quite frankly, i'm going to be -- i think people ought to be watching, you know, whether or not the airwaves are filled with these other surrogates, these other members of the cabinet saying this is what this will mean if this does not happen by june 5th. >> i am going to play what

charlie just described. i think, you know, i agree with the need to tell the country what's going on, because you're right, they're not panicked. but when they do, you don't want the first narrator to be kevin mccarthy. here's donald trump. oh, i'm sorry, i don't have it. so trump says, i say to the republicans out there, congress and senators, if they don't give you massive cuts, you're going to have to do a default. do a default. i don't believe they're going to do a default, because i think the democrats will cave, because you don't want that to happen. again, with his massive platform, that is perhaps the loudest voice people have heard from on the default. >> i'm not surprised that donald trump wants to not pay his creditors. we have seen this before from him. i don't think he understands the

magnitude of a default and what it would mean to down grade american debt. i don't think he understands a lot of things. what we have seen from the biden administration is a kind of quiet sort of negotiation, sort of back to "normal," and i think that's what the reporting i read sort of shows that he's in there quietly doing this. i think he's trying very deliberately not to raise the stakes, right? mccarthy, obviously democrats don't want to destroy the economy. that's a pretty good message. i think that mccarthy, you know, seems like a lunatic. look, these republicans -- i don't think he thinks he has the votes, right? there is a percentage of these republicans in congress who want to, you know, kill the federal government. and that's a real thing. so i do think that ultimately biden is just trying to quietly make a deal behind the scenes. >> i mean, i only disagree with one thing. even if trump did, i think he doesn't understand those things.

i think we have to move beyond that. assuming he does understand that and he wants the economy destroyed under joe biden. whether he understands or not, it's the same, which is the destruction of the economy. >> ronna mcdaniel said this could be good for us, to kick it into recession would be bad for the biden administration. these are people who are really on the edge, and so i think that biden is trying to calculate that. >> importantly, i'll let you respond to all this advice from democrats, because you are one, but importantly -- go ahead, respond. >> look, this is economic terrorism. the united states has a policy that we do not negotiate with terrorists abroad and we should not negotiate with terrorists at home. here's what i do know --

>> that really cuts through with it. >> there's 18 republicans who represent districts that joe biden won in 2020. and those republicans have not yet felt the pressure. they will in the coming day it is the democrats hold firm. if they hold firm. and negotiations are important. i think responsible stewardship of our economy and the nation at large is important but weakness is not important. they can't go face to face with the republican party as they say give us everything we want and in exchange we want destroy everything, and treat that from an equal standpoint. that's not what adults do, and that's not what patriots do. as we come to memorial day, we consider the weight of our constitution. we should stand up as a party and leaders of this nation and

say, let's just move on and continue to build the economy for all, plain and simple. >> i hear you highing. -- sighing. what do you think? >> no, i think he just used an important word, patriot. one of the great narratives of our time is that donald trump is a patriot, america first. what we have seen over and over again is donald trump's willingness to betray this country. i do think that he knows the consequences of a default, and he doesn't have any problem. he is fully prepared to tear everything down if it hurts his opponents and it helps him. this is the nature of this man. we have seen this when it comes to january 6th. we have seen it over and over and over again. i think this is where you take him on, you say, you know, does someone who loves this country and who loves his fellow

americans, does he behave this way? does he root for default? he goes right to donald trump's strength or alleged strength, his belief that he alone can defend america, that he will keep america strong. yet here he is, talking about weakening america, and destroying the american economy. and this case has to be made. it would be a very powerful message this weekend to say who are the real patriots, the people trying to keep the government open, keep the lights on, keep our troops paid? or donald trump who is rooting for a default. go right at that question of, donald trump's phony, fake patriotism. >> well, i think it will answer the question for itself. i think if the country is going to make another choice in 2024 and it's between the people they chose between last time at these moments when they do turn to a political crisis, and this one is a manufactured one, this has never happened before.

we are leading with it today, but it was a norm busted and we said we'll see what happens. as max is articulating, we're pretty damn close. i heard matt gaetz talking about i'm glad we got the one remember that can get rid of the speaker in place. do you have any doubt in your mind that kevin mccarthy is worried about the one vote that will deprive him of his speakership? >> he also understands the consequences of a default. when he got into that speaker's position, he made himself hostage to the extreme elements of that caucus. this has been something we talked about. we talked about this back in january. ut you could circle this issue. this would be the moment at which a weakened speaker would sit down with the president around doing a negotiation, without necessarily being able to deliver the votes from his own caucus, and having this gun

essentially aimed at his head, that any single member of that caucus could oust him. so he's between a rock and a hard place here. so this notion somehow that he has the upper hand or running rims around joe biden, that may be the pr impression, but he is deal from an incredibly weak position here. >> you know, the rock and a hard mace are two things he installed himself. >> yeah. i mean, remember, he has a five-vote majority, it's very slim. i do think what he said before about the 18 seats, you know, this is a very flipable house, and you could amy pressure to these 18 republican congress people and explain -- they will have done this, right? it's not clear that there is time for a discharge petition, but that has been worked on. there is a world in which that happens and democrats pass it that way. >> what do you predict? >> we can't just look at this in

the context of the debt ceiling. if the democrats buckle right now and concede to everything that the republican party wants, don't get anything in return, and reverse many of the incredibly significant wins they have achieved over the prior two years, the republican party will become emboldened to shut down the government, destroy our economy just to achieve their legislative, radical hopes and dreams. we have to stop this right here and now. i think that's where we will see the democratic party awake on the that over the coming days. >> i wish i was more optimistic, but when trump maligns and assails like he did our elections, that there would be more of an outcry, that everyone would say we're not doing everything, we're going to start every day with a news conference for the public to understand the harm being done. i am displayed that this week when the department of homeland

security came out with a bulletin describing the targets for domestic violent extremism and terrorism, that nobody said anything. because everybody but republicans. it's almost -- i mean, it's so many people, it's almost too vast in scope. are you confident that we're at a moment where our politics still has sort of an advantage to communicating the reality of just how extreme republicans are? >> no, i'm not confident about that. i'm confident that if this case was made that the majority of americans would listen to it. but right now, we're really seeing the clash between the responsibilities of government and the extreme politics of constant outrage and demagoguery. that's what concerns me. whether or not the united states

is still run by grownups who are -- and the rest of the world is looking to us. they rely upon the dollar. they want to know, can we solve the problems and keep the extremism at bay, can we continue to pay our bills? this is a huge international test. i'm not really confident that we are going to pass that test. but this is a fight that has to happen. this is a fight that i think needs to be articulated even more powerfully, again, coming back to the bully pulpit of the white house. it's great that you have ads, but nothing compares to the president sounding this alarm. >> charlie, thank you for starting us off on this. molly and mack, stick around. when we come back, the republican attorney general in the state of texas is now facing impeachment overallegations of abuses of power in his home state. he's the guy that played a major role in ex-president's coup

attempt. remember the one that tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election? that's next. plus, ron desantis' glitch-filled presidential campaign launch this week is good reason to remind voters across the country of his abysmal record on voting rights and the sweeping voter oppression law he enacted that makes it harder for people to cast ballots. and why a former football coach is bigging in, blocking promotions for military leaders, including joe biden's newly announced nominee to be the next joint chiefs chairman. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. e continues after a quick break. (man) it's pretty simple. i kinda just want things the way i want them. (woman) i want a network that won't let me down. even up here! (woman #2) with an unlimited plan that's truly right for me. (woman #3) with verizon's new myplan, i get exactly what i want. and only pay for what i need. (man #2) now i'm in charge... ...of my plan. (vo) introducing myplan from verizon, the first and only plan where you pick your perks...

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in a bleak and rather shameful 2023 kind of way, you almost have to hand it to ken paxton. you might remember the name, ken paxton. the texas tribune identified him as the state's election denier in chief. the attorney general of texas, he filed a lawsuit in the u.s. supreme court challenging the 2020 presidential results, not in texas, but in georgia, pennsylvania, michigan, and wisconsin. you get the gist, right? the challenge by the way that the supreme court tossed out quickly. it brings us to this week's events in texas. in a statement, ken paxton alleges corrupted politicians are using reports to overturn the results of a free and fair election. that statement has to do with this, a texas house committee

voting unanimously this week to recommend that paxton be impeached. in the last two hours, we learned the historic final vote on his impeachment is set tomorrow. from nbc news -- >> joining our coverage is the founder of democracy docket, mark alice. and matt dowd is back. matt dowd, as a texan, you get to go first here. >> you know what's amazing about this is that this is all -- much of this is known for years in the course of this, which is why republicans tried to unseat him in the primary in 2022. they weren't successful, even though they laid out a bunch of the information and the republican primary voters voted to keep ken paxton as their nominee. the democrats didn't support the democratic nominee to any extent

that she had any possibility. i always thought the most vulnerable person on the ticket was ken paxton. but now he's reaping what he's sewn. to me, this isn't about the republicans, you know, waking up on the side of the bed saying we're for integrity, we're for this and that. they now view this guy as a complete utter liability. so the way texas law works, interestingly enough, unlike federal law impeachment, if the house votes, which i think the house right now has the votes to impeach him, he's removed temporaily from office until a trial in the state senate happens. and the other interesting part of this is, ken paxton's wife is a state senator. so she would sit in the trial if it ever comes to be in the state senate in texas. >> matt dowd, i think you were the first to really voice his

manufacturing of this issue, allegations of voter fraud. he looked and looked and spent tens and tens of thousands of dollars and he found i think less than half a dozen votes -- >> 13. >> just talk about his try as an election denier. >> so ken paxton launched into this thing after the 2020 election saying he was going to prove all this election fraud. i think 13 people out of more than 11 million votes cast, he found did in some way, i don't think those 13 people have fundamentally been brought to trial, but he found 13 instances. he didn't spend thousands and thousands of dollars. he spent millions and millions of state of texas taxpayer dollars on this. so this has been his brand. donald trump has been completely supportive of him in the whole course of this, all along the way, i have noticed donald trump hasn't said anything in the last few days about this in the course of this. and so this is a guy who

completely follows the trump playbook thus far, and finally, finally there is some level of accountability to it. but i don't think it has anything to do with republicans don't like the things he's done on voter fraud. they cheer him on with his invention of this. they just realized he's an anchor and been disruptive to state government. >> mark, let me play some calls for affinity and unity with donald trump delivered where everyone goes to speak to donald trump on steve bannon's podcast. >> just knowing that we had 12 losses that we had to win, and if we had lost one of them, trump won by 620,000 votes in texas. harris county mail-in votes were 2.5 million, all illegal. we were able to stop every one

of them. had we not done that, we would have been in the same situation, i was watching election night, and i knew when i saw what was happening in these other states, that would have been texas and we would have been in the same vote, one of those battle ground states that they were counting votes for three days and donald trump would have lost the election. >> i have no words, so mark, over to you. >> first of all, it's like the election deniers and the vote suppressers fighting one another. it's hard to know who to root for, you have the bad guys versus the bad guys. the second is, ken paxton is a blessing for ted cruz, because ted cruz was the most despicable politician in texas. and now you have ken paxton. you know, what we have in the state of texas is not a legislature that somehow decided it wants to get on the right side of democracy. we have an interparty skirmish,

but it is disingenuous on all sides. ken paxton claiming he's concerned about the will of the voters is ridiculous. the legislature has known that ken paxton is not ethical for a very long time, and they're acting now because it's opportunistic. >> we talked a lot about texas and voting rights when the democrats came to washington to draw the nation's attention to the voter suppression laws in texas. it's a quick race to the bottom, but texas is close, right? tell me what's going on, on the voter suppression front, which as you point out, this republican party fight shouldn't distract us from that. >> texas is one of the hardest states to register to vote and to vote. this is a state where people would be surprised where you can't actually just decide to go

out with a clip board and voter registration materials and register people to vote without going through a whole lot of hoops. it's a state that does not allow no-excuse absentee voting. it's a state that's found time and time again when county officials find solutions to the problems voters face, for example, harris county instituted 24-hour drive-through voting, the legislature outlawed those things. this is a state as close to a country as a failed democracy, in that they are making it so hard for voters to vote, targeting black, brown and young voters that you are left what can they do next? yet here they are again with another set of laws targeting just harris county, because harris county is a diverse, large county and a county democrats do fairly well in. >> we'll give you the last word. >> i just want to follow this

up. texas hasn't always been like this. texas in the '90s, when the democrats were in charge, was 14th in ease of voting in the country, ranked 14th. after republicans took over power today, texas ranks 50th. 50th in ease of voting in the country. there are more people who -- there is 5.5 million texans who didn't vote, and many weren't able because of the system that is in place in texas. we are the worst state in the country today for the ability for texans to vote, for the ability of voters to go to the polls. >> it's amazing and something to watch to see if that becomes a driver, right? these bigger issues of democracy and voter suppression. thank you both. when we come back, we'll tell you what is being done to fight ron desantis' voter sup prex law in florida. we'll be right back. ' voter sup prex law in florida.

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campaign, do we call it a launch? launch, desantis signed even more voter suppression into law. appearing to apparently target minority voters, the bill includes -- >> the bill has sparked immediate lawsuits, voting rights attorney writes this --

>> mark, what's interesting, because we have been having this conversation now for years, is how far out of the closet it all is. even in the beginning, it kind of masqueraded, but now it's just flagrant. >> it is. and make no mistake, ron desantis is an election denier and vote suppressor. if anyone thinks he's better than donald trump doesn't know ron desantis. he's promoted the big lie, and

this legislation is just the latest iteration of that. ron desantis won his election in 2018 by 1/10th of 1%. people who think florida has been a reliably red state, that was a razor thin election. what he's done is targeted with near surgical precision black, brown, and young voters so that he can win elections and his cronies can win more easily in florida. i'm sad to say, it is in many respects working. let me give you one statistic. in this lawsuit, one of the things, and in full disclosure, we represent the naacp and other plaintiffs. in the lawsuit, we point out that people of color are five times more likely than white floridians to register with the assistance of third party registration groups. there is a reason why they went after third party registration groups. there's a reason why they're

going after groups like the naacp, because they know that it is precisely voters of color and young voters who rely heavily on those things, and ron desantis is threatened by that. >> the problem with this brazen, flagrant voter suppression campaign is that it is inherently asymmetrical. to fight against it is an inherently defense of action. what is the political -- and privately, when federal voting rights legislation seemed destined for failure, people would say, we've got mark elias. but mark can't save the country from every voter suppression law, which is a political as well as a legal strategy. what is the political strategy? >> there's nothing mark elias can't do. look, this is not about voting rights. that's not the political issue. the political issue here is not

even about democracy. it's about freedom. and that, i believe, has actually been when the democratic party is really moving, politically speaking, that is always the basis of its politics and messaging. go back to when it took the house in 2006 on an anti-corruption, freedom based agenda. move again to 2018, where from all across the country, the democratic party flipped seats, talking about the fact that we need to not just put the economy back on the side of working party, but put the entire system back on their side. look at this today, voting rights seems to often times, you know, an average person, it's semantics, an intellectual matter. but when we talk about this as freedom based, as the right in this country based off your constitutional rights to be

free, then it's a very potent, very salient political issue. >> thank you for get thing conversation going. when we come back, we'll talk about the dangerous political game being played with our national security by one tommy tubberville, who can't stop talking. that's next. who can't stop talking. that's next. so it's decided, we'll park even deeper into parking spaces so people think they're open. surprise. [ laughs ] [ horn honks, muffled talking ]

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americans are preparing to celebrate memorial day to honor those who gave their lives fighting for our freedom. but tommy tuberville and his political stunt holding up military promotions is likely to hold up general c.j. brown, jr., from assuming his post. and by extension, endangering our military readiness. he's sacrificed u.s. national security over the policy that provides service members and their families travel expenses and time off to receive abortion health care. back at the table with molly and max rose. the tuberville story is just amazing. the damage he's done to the military and doing to maybe not the republican brand in the eyes of the republican base, but the republican brand in the eyes of any american who cares about the u.s. military and its readiness. >> yeah. he is an incredible -- i mean, yes.

and he's being advised by a former "vanity fair" writer, his security chief is morgan murphy, who was a -- who has this incredible story about him where he had written -- he was a food writer. i mean, this -- >> it's all making sense. this is the blind leading the blind here. this idea of holding up the military and it's not going to matter, i don't know if you heard him speak on this, but he says it doesn't matter because people will just be acting. it's this whole sort of trump thing of, nothing matters, we should destroy the federal government. it's really scary and also, again, you see republicans attacking the military all the time, saying they're too woke, and you heard ron desantis saying that this week. and it's not true. these are just not true things. and it's really an opportunity they're trying to divide americans. >> what do you do -- i mean, the

military is inherently by design apolitical. how does it defend itself from a party that is comfortable swerving into these political snares? >> i think everyone needs to tell senator tuberville to go back to the football field and keep his wife on the battlefield in this particular instance, because his actions are so incredibly dangerous. this is not just about human beings, but i want to get to that. the way the military works is that individuals, when they are promoted by acts of congress, acts of the senate, to a position of authority, they are endowed with the responsibility and the authority to engage incredibly significant action all the way increably significant action all the way up to taking peoples lives overseas in combat. and he is denying people from ascending to those positions of authority and is directly impacting our military readiness. but also let's actually focus on

these individuals. they have spent their entire lives in service to this great country, and they finally reach a point of incredible prominence that their service warrants, their incredible abilities warrant. and now this guy because he is so hungry for press, he is denying them these opportunities. this is so incredibly tragic. now, eventually it will end. eventually they'll agree on some compromise, they'll get the opportunity to put up an amendment and he'll recede back into the obscurity he deserves, but the american people should never, ever forget the absolute horrific damage he has done to our national security and our military readiness. >> why does mitch mcconnell put up with it and second this is about an extreme position of military readiness in an extreme position of abortion access.

>> and also about trying to throw sand in the gears of the federal government. i mean that's what this about. >> this isn't some bureaucracy. this is literally battlefield readiness. >> trump did this too with military nominations and this is another way just like the debt ceiling where they could throw sand in the gears and make it harder to do normal things. and you've seep it with trump and desantis, too, they're really into attacking these federal workers who are not politicized at all. i mean there really is a sense in which they sort of want to take apart the government piece by piece. >> and let's think about for a second what he's objecting to. he's objecting to a military policy they enacted post-roe calling for the military to just provide transportation funds to service members who want to seek out health care. >> legally. >> legally where it is available. that is what he is objecting to. it is incredibly inhumane.

>> thank you both for being here on a friday. and thanks to all of you for being with us. we have more quick break and we'll be right back. have more d we'll be right back. blocking heartburn before it starts. one pill a day. 24 hours. zero heartburn. (woman) with verizon's new myplan, i get exactly what i want. blocking heartburn before it starts. and only pay for what i need. (man) now i'm in charge... ...of my plan. (vo) introducing myplan from verizon. you get exactly what you want and only pay for what you need. and it all starts at just $30. it's your verizon. hey all, so i just downloaded the experian app because i wanted to check my fico® score, but it does so much more. this thing shows you your fico® score, you can get your credit card recommendations, and it shows you ways to save money. do so much more than get your fico® score. download the experian app now. mamá, growing up... you were so good to me. you worked hard to save for my future. so now... i want to thank you.

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes for another week of show. we are so grateful. "the beat" with jason johnson in for ari starts right now. hi, jason. >> thanks so much, nicolle. welcome to a special 2-hour edition of "the beat. i'm jason johnson in for ari melber. we start with special counsel jack smith closing in on former president donald trump. "the new york times" reporting a mar-a-lago maintenance worker helped move boxes into a