okay, i'm not letting you go home without my mvp of the week, it is jarome powell. chair of the federal reservement he has one of the most important jobs in this country. and for the last few years his focus has been fighting the biggest spike in inflation most of us have seen in our lifetime. today, even though prices are still high, he has largely succeeded and he has done it better than any other developed country in the world but that does not mean he is popular with those around trump. here is what he had to say yesterday when asked about his future. >> some of the president-elects advisers have suggested you resign. if he asked you to leave, would you go? >> no. >> can you follow up? do you think that legally you are not required to leave? >> no. >> pretty clear what he thinks

and what the actually law says. jarome powell standing up for the fed's independence wins my mvp tonight. my real mvps are this squad. thank you all so, so much. it has been quite a week. it was a pleasure to end it with you. you can catch the night cap again on saturdays 11:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. for now we are all signing off. thanks for staying up late and i'll see you at the end of monday. the total bill for all the ads bought in the 2024 election broke new records. it almost $11 billion. that is not the total campaign expenses. that was just the ads.

the amount of outside spending which is spending by groups not the campaigns themselves. groups like superpacs, that hit a record $4.5 billion this year. that is billion with a b. more than half of that comes from dark money groups who do not disclose their sources. money polluting our nation's politics since they are allowed to spend as much as they want on elections. this year, we experienced something we never have before. the literal wealthiest earn in the entire used his fortune to tilt the election toward his candidate. elon musk bought political power and we are already starting to see that investment pay off. today, we learned that earlier this week, president-elect donald trump held his first

pose election call with volodymyr zelenskyy. there was talk of his promises to quickly end the war. trump had as many as seven private calls with president putin since trump left office. concerns that trump himself did nothing to quash. >> can you say yes or nowhere you have talked to vladimir putin since you stopped president the president? >> i don't comment on that, but if i did, it is a smart thing. >> and there is another very disturbing to mention dimension to all of this. axos was first to report on trump's call with zelenskyy was none other than billionaire trump supporter elon musk. now that is problematic for a lot of reasons. first off, he is the owner of star link, a satellite internet service that ukraine is deeply dependent on in its war with russia. musk was giving it away for free at first. but now he charges ukraine for

the service. bigger than that concern, he is also reportedly in frequent communication with putin and kremlin since late 2022. they touch on personal topics, business, and geo political tensions. now elon musk is in the room literally on the call in the president's ear. ukrainian officials told the washington post they came away from the call with the presumption that elon musk was going to join future calls as they scramble for a prepare of a change of u.s. leadership following this week's election. the people on those calls between leaders are typically the secretary of state, diplomats, ambassadors, not private citizens with literally zero experience in diplomacy.

it is just an unbelievable amount of access and influence for a private citizen. let's be clear, elon musk bought that influence. he used his position as the richest man in the world to single handedly fund an effort to elect donald trump. that included paying canvassers to knock on 11 million doors in battleground states. spending $30 million in direct mail advertisements. the unquantifyable inkind donation when musk bought twitter. and turned it into a pro trump conspiracy theory echo chamber. we have had billionaire problem ins our politics for a long time but elon musk has taken that to a level we have never seen before. now he will play a major role in actually running the next

trump administration. >> how much do you think we can rip out of this wasted $6.5 trillion harris biden budget? >> i think we will do at least 2 trillion. >> yeah! >> 2 trillion. >> your money is being wasted. and the department of government efficiency is going to fix that. america will reach heights that it has never seen before. the future is going to be amazing. he is so happy because he is getting a major return on his investment. the day after the election, his net worth skyrocketed by approximately $20 billion. again, that is billion with a b. that is because with trump in office, lots of people are making the bet that everything elon musk owns from tesla to spacex to twitter, a lot of investors are making the bet all of those companies are

going to do gang busters under the second trump administration and there is good reason to think that. as the new york times puts it, the six companies that mr. musk oversees are deeply entangled with federal agencies. they make billions off contracts to launch rockets, provide space based communication services. tesla makes hundreds of millions more from emissions trading credits created by federal law. before trump was reelected musk came to him. musk wanted trump to hire some employees from his rocket company spacex to be top government officials. including officials at the defense department. that request would seed spacex employees into an agency that oh, just happen to be one of its biggest customers. there is a word for a government like this. it is a cleptocracy. elon musk has bought himself an unbelievable amount of influence in the u.s.

government that will in turn enrich him more and the fact musk was on trump's call with zelenskyy shows that the cleptocracy here is not just a domestic one, but a global one. this is from the wall street journal reporting on the calls. at one point, putin asked musk to not activate over taiwan as a favor to chinese leader xi jinping. who russia was relying on for trade and to get around sanctions. just to be clear, that is putin asking musk for a favor on behalf of xi jinping so china will keep helping russia. did he comply? well, while star link's parent company says it is because of taiwanese ownership requirements, the fact is starlink is still not available

in taiwan. huh. >> let me tell you, we have a new star. a star is born. elon. he is a character. a special guy. a super genius, we have to protect our geniuses, we don't have that many of them. we have to protect our super geniuses. >> joining me now is michael weiss and teddy schlifer covering campaign finance and focusing on billionaires an their influence in american politics. let me start with you in terms of this access, first of all, on some level, does it come as any surprise? the audacity of having elon musk listening in on the phone calls between world leaders and trump navigates his transition is profoundly alarming in a moment when nothing should alarm, this is extraordinarily alarming. what do you make of it?

>> you used the word cleptocracy, but there is a step before that. oligarchy, if anyone understands how that works it is vladimir putin. he made a deal with the billionaires. if you support me, if you give me access to your national news outlets, your media companies, if you act as plenty of my regime and do the bending of the russian federation, you get to keep all the money you want. with the inevitable kickbacks to the boss right? those who defied him wound up in exile or in the gulag, or dead. so what we are seeing here is the beginning of a kind of creeping american oligarchy, you mentioned musk is on the call with putin. also putting to turkish media on a call with erdogan. so these are authoritarians who understand that business is kind of what makes the world go round. and in order to get your political power in place, in order to consolidate your regime, you need to bring the

businessmen to heel. trump likes guys like musk. right? he is powerful. he is megalomaniacal and eccentric. he has enormous control of the flow of information. and it is a bit of a banality to point out putin is a former kgb officer. in the soviet, they had a category of something they referred to as the confidential contact. this wasn't somebody to be recruited as an agent but somebody to be cultivated as a source. you keep in constant communication with them. why? because they come from areas with privileged information. politics, journalism. big business. they tell you things that are a benefit to moscow, in exchange, what do you do? you keep them on the hook by flattering their ego. make them feel important. there is a big peace treaty. putin, musk is cream cheese in

the hands of vladimir putin. he is the richest man in the world. he loves rocket ships, satellites, he has top secret u.s. clearance, he's a bit weird. he named one of his kids after a george lucas student film. and he is impressionable. >> his ego is easily stroked. teddy, just in terms of musk's ambitions here, clearly this is helping his bottom line. his net worth goes up. shoots up by $20 billion this week. but it also seems like he is to michael's point interested in geo politics. the extension of his interest goes well past just tesla and rockets. >> he is actually meeting not only with trump, but elon musk

as well. we have another foreign meeting. it is not unprecedented for business leaders, especially you know, given that elon very well might have a formal role in the transition. to help out with whatever happens on a transition. right? i think what is unique here is it almost feels like elon's role in this transition is almost like vpish. right? >> yes. >> and this specific instance to give the trump team credit here, they are describing this as a chance conversation with zelenskyy. they are talking and elon was in the room. yeah sure, throw him on the line. maybe once that is right. but when erdogan is talking and musk is there as well. or the argentinian president is coming. the number of times this is happening suggests that elon is playing a big role in foreign policy. if he was involved in budget decisions like that's kind of what happens when you have an industrialist play such a big

role. we are so far from his area of expertise and so far into a territory that is rife with conflict of interests given his direct business interests in places like ukraine or taiwan. >> i want to sit on that for a second. michael. i was stunned at trump's victory speech. thanks for going on fox, thanks for talking to the mainstream media. but way more oxygen was spent talking about elon musk and his beautiful rockets. we played a little bit of it. he has been hideing in plain sight as a close adviser to trump but i feel like the scales are falling from our eyes. he is just like teddy says, it is almost a shadow vice presidential role. co-presidential roles.

spent the money on the campaign. he's got the foot soldiers. spreading the disinformation. launching the rockets. his fingerprints are everywhere. >> and they are gemini twins right? they first made a ton of money. they became super famous. elon musk wiz one of two westerners celebrated as a hero. the fact he flips on a dime about ukraine and is talking about when they gave crimea back to the ukrainians. he didn't know anything about this. so the question is where is he getting this information? >> you are talking about just for people, star link is, he basically gives star link tech to the ukrainians. >> by the way, he said this is not designed for people to kill one another and yet i know they were using it on the battlefield before he decided to pull the plug. >> he changes his position.

>> it was going be they were going to hit the black sea fleet in crimea and he yanked it. >> and you are saying who told him to do that? >> exactly. but what i'm saying to you about his relationship with trump, i mean, they see eye to eye on so much. they want to get involved in politics because politics for trump, he has now been gifted legal immunity. all of his problems will melt away and he has the power to use this fabulous wealth to make more of it. trump towers springing up in parts of the world where he is on the phone with elon and dictators saying let's make a lot of money together. >> in terms of the disinformation piece which seems critically important not just here in america, but around the globe, what could go wrong by having elon musk in touch with president erdogan and putin and xi jinping being someone who owns one of the largest, most influential social media companies. there is an interest that extends beyond making money.

it is who controls the truth. and that is where elon seems to be sitting squarely in the seat. >> the media is you, he is saying that every ten minutes now. what he mean is that you know, the information brokers are no longer people that are on the set right now. but it could be you know, president zelenskyy, president trump. put it where you want on the internet. you know. and look, elon clearly has a tremendous amount of influence. i almost feel like the money he spent on politics is honestly not even the most important part. right now, and we are getting started. november of 2024. the next four years, a huge store line will be this disintermediatuation of truth. a lot of it will be about twitter. there will not be any real sensorship. and you can also say what elon

is building to challenge accuracy. they will have direct relationship to elon. it is not only about elon. who is to say. foreign affairs are kind of, what is truth in foreign affairs could be very much driven by elon's personal relationship. >> friend of the show, and personal friend ben rhodes has an op ed in the new york times and he writes among other things the play book for transforming democracy into a soft autocracy is clear, redraw districts, change voting laws. harass civil society. pack courts with judges willing to support power grabs, enrich cronies through corruption. turn them into right wing propaganda. use social media to energize supporters. it's like check, check, check, check, check. really feels like it. >> it happens very slowly.

not overnight. people have this characterture that it would be another january 6th. suddenly you are installed into power. no. it is death by a thousand cuts. hungary has done it. turkey has done it. and i keep coming back to russia, putin has spent the last two decades doing this. and again, what is the relationship between oligarchy and power? look at the russian ports where all the russian yachts are parked. they are sanctioned because they have been serving the people and the person in particular who allowed them to make all that money for a reason. >> oh boy. this is the same week as the election. what's going to happen next week? michael weiss, thank you guys so much for your thoughts on this. really, really important. appreciate the important conversation. coming up, how cocaine owls, false claims about canada's prime minister being related to fidel castro paved the way for

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elon musk and steve bannon ands vladimir putin made a winning bet on donald trump. but so did chief supreme court justice john roberts. mark joseph stern writes you have to hand it to john roberters. he played his cards right. he has dropped his post as a moderate. he has instead thrown his weight behind donald trump, reestablishing his control over the supreme court's conservative supermajority. his acts of self-preservation in anticipation of a second trump term turned out to be the smart bet. roberts will arguably hold more

power than ever. joining me now is mark joseph stern. who covers the courts. thank you for being here. i wanted to talk about the role of the courts. i'm eager to hear how you envision the relationship between what trump want to do and where john roberts sit. >> let's be clear, he is a huge reason donald trump was able to retake the white house. it was john roberts who maneuvered a decision allowing trump to get back on the ballot after colorado removed him and other states were threatening to and it was john roberts who gave him the sweeping immunity from prosecution that delayed trump's trial and essentially now let him off the hook for charges over election subversion and theft of classified documents. going deeper than that, i think that the john roberts of today really shares a vision of governance with donald trump. which was not necessarily the

case in trump's first term. i think that john roberts has shifted to the right and come to embrace the maga vision of governance in a way he did not four years ago. what we will see is a fusion of trump law and the trump white house itself. and an allyship between those two branches of government that i think is potentially going to shift law and policy in this country considerably more than it would have if roberts had decided to remain independent. and even act as a guardrail against trump as he once did but probably won't now. >> john roberts evolution on maga mirrors that of the republican party. it is try to resist the siren's call of trump. but capitulates to it and refashions itself in trump's image. not sure if roberts has gone that far, but on the very big top line promises of the trump candidacy, whether it is mass

deportation camps, whether it is tinkering around with contraception or abortion or whether it is rescinding gay marriage rights and gay rights more broadly, where do you think roberts can make the sort of biggest impact? >> one major area will be trump's effort to take over the federal government. to purge the civil service. to fire holdovers and anyone who stands in his way or tries to slow down his agenda or block illegal acts. roberts has adopted the executive theory in a big way. not really to joe biden's advantage because biden has played by the old rules. but in a way that sets the stage for trump to act more like a king than arguably any other president in history. he will come in on day one and fire a ton of people who just five or ten years ago would have been protected by the law

thanks to roberts' decisions. when we get to the government doing its job, protecting people carrying out congress' commands, john roberts is seriously weakened all of the federal agencies that do that day in and day out work of protecting americans and executing the law. and trump will immediately begin to try to further that goal. to gut the civil servants who are responsible for doing that work. to weaken agencies. to issue executive decisions and rules and regulations that defy congress' will. and render these agencies totally toothless. behind the scenes on the stuff that matters i think roberts and trump are sort of in a handshake agreement here and it is a bit shocking to remember it was only six or seven years ago that john roberts was stopping trump from repealing daca. protecting dreamers from trump's wrath. stopping trump from meddling with the census. this roberts would never do any

of that. and again, the fusion is going to carry both men much further down their dream policy paths. >> what do you think of the other supreme court justices? you and i have talked about this. about alito and thomas. thomas is 76 and alito is 74. they might decide to announce their potential retirement. is that something on the horizon given how strident they have been and how much they helped donald trump win reelection through their delays and court opinions? >> i am confident that samuel alito will step down. he is tired of the job and hates washington. he has shown less enthusiasm in doing his job in recent years and he is ready to go and the trump lawyers already have a replacement lined up in andrew

oldon. far right extremist on the fifth circuit. one of the most extreme conservative jurorrists in the country. he will be likely anointed to replace alito but 30 years younger and able to shift the gravity of the court in his direction. alito is off doing his own thing. but get someone younger and that might shift the court. clarence thomas has more hubris and likes the job morement he want to hang on and won't leave unless it is in a pine box. but i think that trump will be able to do the charm offensive on clarence thomas he did on anthony kennedy. to wine and dine him. to pressure politely his wife and family. if trump can convince jenny to

tell her husband to retire, i think justice thomas may well step down and be replaced by someone similarly extreme but much, much younger. >> well. we have a lot to look forward to. mark joseph stern, thank you for your thoughts and wisdom tonight. >> thanks so much. still ahead this evening, who has more power? the boys or the new york times? what does the election mean for legacy media? that's next. legacy media? that's next.

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so. turns out, voting works. it's real. as much as we [bleep] thought they had it rigged, as much as we thought there were shenanigans and it is just a puppet show and there is no way anybody can buck the system, turns out, voting still real. >> that was the most popular podcaster in the country. joe rogan grappling with the contradictions between trump's conspiracies and his victory. you know there has been much discussion about the role of rogan and the man-o-verse podcasts. if you don't know what i'm talking about, here is a sample. >> way up with cocaine. more than anything else. >> okay, turn you into a damn

owl, homie. you'll be on your porch, your own street lamp. >> he is the son of fidel castro, they say. and could be, anything is possible in this world. >> how do you plan to unify the divide in the country as far as left and right? >> by coming back on your show. >> weird conversations about cocaine, absolutely baseless allegations that justin trudeau is fidel castro's son. that's the kind of thing trump was talking about. as ridiculous as all of this sounds, the man-o-verse was a key part of trump's election strategy. he thanked many of them by name. now the question many are

asking is how did fact free bro podcasts that many people have never even heard of, how did they gain so much influence? the answer lie ins the system ins which people receive information have completely broken down. the rise of social media and tech companies the past few decades fundamentally change the way people receive news and information. facebook founder mark zuckerberg used to say his company's motto was move fast and break things. and tech companies did just that. they broke things. they broke the business model for traditional newspapers. had to compete in the wild west of the internet where information and opinions spread like wild fire. our sense of shared reality fractured as platforms who were supposed to connect people did the very opposite. driving people into information silos where no one had to

encounter anything that challenged their own biases and world views. they broke our brains by creating a set of incentives that prioritized provocation over truth telling. when they got caught, they made vague gestures and waved them away. one of the people who has been thinking about this problem a lot is former los angeles times reporter matt pierce. he wrote a piece on his sub stack that sort of diagnosed the problem we face. america's information economy is rotten from top to bottom starting with the digital infrastructure that stands between quality journalism and the public. the new york times has more readers and less relevance than ever.

there are too many billionaires and ceos in charge of too few information choke points. too many user haves too few biases. there are plenty of legitimate criticisms to levy at news organizations and how they covered donald trump. but focusing on that aspect instead of the broader forces that are quickly driving legitimate news sources into relevancy is missing the forest for the tree. matt pierce joins us next. matt pierce joins us next. can hn feel the difference with nervive. only purple's gel flex grid passes the raw egg test. no other mattress cradles your body and simultaneously supports your spine. memory foam doesn't come close. get your best sleep guaranteed. save up to $1,000 during our blackfriday sale.

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visit purple.com or a store near you misinformation, extremism, and conspiracy theories have dominated the unregulated right wing media spaces where donald trump and jd vance spent a lot of time campaigning this year. and as evidenced by the election results, that strategy worked. matt pierce, formerly of the los angeles times points out how it worked. we operate in an increasingly post literate media economy my friends and that trend only moves one direction from here on out. a very small minority of voters may ever encounter the carefully prepared written material that many professional journalists produce at any news room anywhere. as we approach a second trump administration, the question is, how does the truth even

begin to compete guest all that? joining me now is matt pierce. i found your sub stack incredibly depressing. incredibly thoughtful and deeply provocative so i'm very glad to have you join me. could you elaborate on what you mean by a post literate media economy? >> sure alex. and thanks for having me on. we have gotten to used to talking media and politics the way we talked about it in the 20th century. that is missing the biggest story happening on our own smartphones. we have multiple trillion dollar company that's regulate the information we see and how we see it. when we encounter it. if you look at regular people

are consuming information about the information, most of them are not going to huge companies like the new york times. they are getting it from tiktok, youtube. i elon magazine bought a social media platform. twitter. the number one social media platform for news. the trend is a move against the kind of journalism that often was written down and appeared in newspapers. newspapers and particularly local newspapers have often been the backbone of the information economy in many of our communities. from informing local tv stations. now we don't understand what

people are seeing because they are broken in pieces by these gigantic platforms totally opaque to us. >> is there a way to cultivate a counterpoint to the misinformation. is there a way to cultivate that on the left and for those who seek the truth and more responsible and fact based information out there or does this have to happen organically? >> i think the reality is that truth is at a fundamental disadvantage here. opinions are cheap. my sub stack is free. it doesn't cost anything for me. facts are expensive.

facts by investigative journalists who might workweeks on a single story that people may or may not read. that is just a structural disadvantage. i have seen progressives say what does it mean to recreate something like joe rogan on the left? where progressives can feel they have a space where they talk about culture and introduce some politics and come election time, that is how candidates can reach the public they want to vote for them. but the reality is that joe rogan is in a sense nothing new. the right wing of the country has long dominated am radio. they have been good at it. fox new is a successful cable channel so there are a lot of successful predecessor to this. but it gets cheaper to put a podcast on the internet. that's one of the revolutions of technology. t only gets more expensive to

produce investigative journalism. it is not something ai can replace. ai will not fulfill a public records request that an official is fighting you on. so we have to fund it through philanthropy, direct reader donations or public policy. all of that is hard and requires effort. and something of an agreement. there need to be an intervention to advocate for the truth and quality information. but a lot of people find tiktok a lot more entertaining and it is also free. >> yeah. i mean, it is a depressing state of affairs. i will reiterate what i think you were saying toward the end.

supporting people who during the hard labor intensive costs of investigative journalism. so go give money to propublica right now. don't cancel your washington post subscription. now is the time to support the fourth estate in any way you can. matt pierce, thank you for thinking about this deeply and joining me on the show tonight. >> alex thank you so much for having me. coming up, where jack smith's federal election interference case against donald trump stands, and the political retribution trump's top allies are promising in return. that is next. stay with us. blackfriday sale.ing our visit purple.com or a store near you.

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new developments likely mark the beginning of the end of jack smith's prosecution of donald trump. smith asked the judge to effectively throw out the current pretrial schedule for his federal election interference case. shortly after, judge chutkin granted the request.

sources at the department of justice tell nbc news that officials see no point in continuing to pursue both of their outstanding federal criminal cases when the defendant will become the sitting president weeks from now. and no one is happier about that than trump and his allies. steve bannon, freshly released from prison wasted no time in promising revenge. >> jeff clark is going to be the attorney general of the united states. so merrick garland, when we throw you in prison and jack smith in prison, remember, jeff clark you tried to destroy. >> joining me now is joyce vance. joyce, what a long and winding road we have been on. let me start with the threat that's have been made levied explicitly at jack smith and merrick garland. he posted on x, president trump will not use the doj for political purposes.

that is to go after individuals simply because they are political opponents. but just because you are a political opponent does not get you a free pass if you have violated the law. does jack smith need to be worried that trump's doj will come after him? >> he absolutely does and it's the expense and the stress of defending against this sort of an investigation. something that could come from the legislature and doj at the same time. smith by all accounts is conducted himself in an above board manner and there is no doubt he anticipated from the start this day might come. and would have been very careful in all regards but the interesting thing about that clip you played of steve bannon is that sets up a defense for jack smith and anyone else that the next justice department

might choose to go after. it looks like a vindictive prosecution. when you have multiple people out there saying the sorts of things that steve bannon said and some of what we have seen tweeted then perhaps that is the silver lining for people like jack smith. >> it may be a silver lining but yeah, the threat is probably pretty chilling and i wonder whether that has any impact on the likelihood that they will release a report with the findings of this two-year investigation and indictment he put together. do you think the public will ever see effectively the fruits of jack smith's labors? >> first part of your question first. i don't think the threat of prosecution will impact their decision making process. they are obviously human beings susceptible to stress and aware

they are operating in an entire reunion new environment. but the decision about winding down the investigation and whether or not to release a report, the deal is at least for the federal cases they will be dismissed. that is not in doubt. the question is whether it is better to leave them for the next administration and force donald trump's next attorney general to dismiss the case. or whether there is some tactical advantage to letting jack smith do it now. that could involve issuing a report. but in the january 6th case, most of that information is already publicly available. there might be more detail. it is certainly important to preserve that record for historical. donald trump could order it destroyed and that would not be a criminal act because the supreme court has given him immunity. where this issue of a report is more interesting is in the

classified documents case. where we have not seen much evidence and we have an about to be commander-in-chief who is credibly accused and indicted by a grand jury of mishandling classified documents and then obstructing justice to try and hold onto them. that is the jack smith's report that would be interesting to see. smith will have this tension on whether it is appropriate for him to issue a report of that nature. >> there's a lot of known unknowns. the outgoing doj, the outgoing attorney general is anyone's guess. joyce vance, thank you for joining me as we continue down this long dark winding twisting road. this long dark winding tw road. that was a lot of