it's our son, he is always up in our business. it's the verizon 5g home internet i got us. oh... he used to be a competitive gamer but with the higher lag, he can't keep up with his squad. so now we're his “squad”. what are kevin's plans for the fall? he's going to college. out of state, yeah. -yeah in the fall. change of plans, i've decided to stay local. oh excellent! oh that's great! why would i ever leave this? -aw! we will do anything to get him gaming again. you and kevin need to fix this internet situation. heard my name! i swear to god, kevin! -we told you to wait in the car. everyone in my old squad has xfinity. less lag, better gaming! i'm gonna need to charge you for three people. good afternoon, i'm paola ramos. we are covering to you live this hour covering the trump transition and the latest movements from mar-a-lago on who donald trump may pick to carry out the supreme policies he has promised. we also have news on a white house meeting this week between

trump and president biden. we are also going to bring you the latest on the balance of power in congress with a pair of senate races still uncalled by nbc. in control the house still up for grabs. at this hour, we also want to spend a little bit of time looking at the four years ahead in a country that seems to be on the verge of monumental change, possibly, as trump's own words have indicated, a country that seems to be on the verge of turning towards autocracy. the good news is, we are not helpless. we don't even have to form a new resistance, because the anti-trump movement by trump himself has never really gone away. it is primed and ready for action to provide light in the midst of darkness, and that resistance, that movement will continue to push this country to be a better version of itself. that work needs to start right now. okay, let's start with

nbc's jake trailer in west palm beach, florida. jake is there. we began with reporting earlier today that president biden and president-elect trump will meet in the oval office on wednesday. that invitation, of course, is coming from president biden himself. jake, what are you hearing about this meeting? >> that's right, we've not actually heard from the trump transition team yet or from president-elect donald trump himself, but this is not an unprecedented meeting of sorts that we will be seeing. we know that president biden and president-elect trump spoke on the phone earlier this week, and this meeting between two presidents in the oval office, before inauguration day is symbolic of this peaceful transition of power. why that is incredibly notable is because we did not see that take place in 2020. president biden at the time, president-elect president biden was not invited into the white house by president trump. from did not concede the election, trump also did not attend the inauguration himself. while this is a precedent that

has existed for centuries, it is not something we saw in 2020 itself. >> we know one thing, the transition has named susie wiles as chief of staff. when i said about that, i think about john kelly. someone that we bold, his former boss, a fascist, someone who saw himself as a barrier to trump's worst instincts when he was chief of staff. so, do you have any insight into how wiles will approach her job? how does she see her role right now? >> right, this was a historic appointment. this was the first female chief of staff appointed in the white house in history. so there is history on that part. but susie wiles has long led trump's campaign. for the past two years. but she has done it from behind the scenes. i've spoken with many sources who are a part of the trump campaign who said unanimously that they believe it was going to be susie wiles who

ultimately got the chief of staff will, and they credit that to the amount of discipline and focus she had during the campaign. many people on republican and democrat side have said that trump's 2024 campaign was more focused and more disciplined than it was in 2020, and also in 2016. so the hopes of many from inside trump world is that susie wiles would continue to bring the level of discipline that she brought to the campaign to the white house. >> tell me more about what you are saying on the ground. we know that right now team trump is vetting different cabinet member candidates. do we know who the top contender is, based on who is stopping by mar-a-lago. i am especially thinking about who will take the crucial attorney general spot. what do you know? >> that's right, over the past few days it is pretty rare that we don't actually hear and see a lot of now president-elect donald trump. part of that is because he has been holed up in mar-a-lago hide me the past few days, focused on two things. one has been meetings with

world leaders. secondly, he has been narrowing down his list of potential cabinet members to select who he is going to lead alongside in this upcoming administration. to give you a quick glimpse back to the 2016 administration for a second, donald trump saw over 20 different transitions in his cabinet. there was a ton of turnover, an unprecedented amount that we had not seen in decades. this time around, trump and his campaign, his transition team are solely focused on making sure they get trump loyalists into the white house, people who will stick with him for the entirety of his campaign. as you mentioned, that specific attorney general is one that is highly coveted and important going forward. nbc has reported a few different folks i could see in that role, including matt whitaker, mark valletta, and senator eric schmidt are three that nbc has confirmed are in talks or in consideration for the upcoming ajayi role. >> think you so much, jake. nbc's jake trailer, thanks for everything. now, the resistance to a new

trump presidency is already underway as we speak. a women's march held today in washington, d.c. said to culminate in a dance party in front of the right-wing heritage foundation. now, while it provides shades of the massive women's protest held the day after trump's inauguration in d.c. and that key locations across the globe, it is far short of the demonstrations we saw in 18 cities across the u.s., just days after election day in 2016. with the largest events taking place right here in new york city and in l.a., of course. in 2016, the new york times expressed the shock of the moment in its post election editorial. the headline screaming donald trump is elected president in the stunning repudiation of the establishment. on wednesday, this week, the new york times editorial board has a more resigned tone, a more somber tone. simply warning america makes a perilous choice. it is impossible to ignore another key difference this time around. at the start of his first term, trump surrounded himself with well-known members of the establishment, setting up a sort of self-imposed

guardrails, if you will. this time we are expecting a very different group of people surrounding donald trump, and guardrails definitely don't seem to be in their vocabulary. those who stood against trump the first time around are once again ready for what lies ahead. >> i think one of the things the trump team to the first time around is try to enact so many policies that would overwhelm, i expect we are going to see that again. what will have to do is pick the most egregious policy to go after, but we will have to be coordinated with city and state governments, with other ngos, and with people in civil society to really have an organized effort. >> joining us now are in the city see political analyst william castro, former secretary of housing and urban development, republican strategist, and innocently see political analyst susan curcio. natasha brown, cofounder of the black voters matter fund. and national community director

acidic change. i want to start with you. i think there are a lot of people within the democratic party that are trying to understand, perhaps, what went wrong and what can be done that is better. what advice would you give the democratic party about what they can learn from organizers on the ground yourself? >> thank you, paola. here is my truth about what happened on tuesday. while i am so proud of the work we have done and we did so much work. 2.5 million conversations with hard-to-reach, hard-to-find voters. voters that are usually avoided and sometimes forgotten by traditional campaigns. we know that organizing works. and there is so much noise about what happened, and i feel really certain about that truth. and that proves to me that organizing continues to work. every single one of those voters that we had a direct conversation with actually made a plan and over performed

statewide early vote turnout. that is a certainty, that should not be avoided. and, too, the other thing that i know is the infrastructure that we need to actually do eat maga is not here yet. and i know that it will require for us to continue to have conversations with people that are frustrated, with the current political system, that feel forgotten because of the economic hardships that they are experiencing. but this is not the time to retreat. this is a time for offense. >> we talked about the infrastructure, right? the infra structure that will be needed to keep fighting. i am thinking about abortion bans, voting rights, mass deportations, lgbtq writes. what we do know is that trump's second administration will operate with fewer guardrails. i guess my question to you is how do you prepare for what is

to come? >> i think in the same way that was just said, we have to organize. we have to organize. we just can't organize out here, we have to organize on possibilities. at the end of the day what we often happen is we will see this election, we will see because we did not get the outcome that it is a failure. no, it was not a failure. it was one step closer to us becoming the america we desire and deserve. what that means is that we have to engage more people. the opportunity is really on the democratic side, but we can no longer continue to do this work and not embrace and talk about poor people. not talk about the millions of folks we don't even consider in this process. i think that is what we are going to do. we have to organize, plan a division of and what star, and stop centering trump and all of our conversations, as he is the biggest bogeyman that cannot be defeated. people can defeat him. >> secretary castro, thinking about what natasha said, also at the same time, there are

some activists on the ground, at least some folks that i talked to in places like arizona that are feeling that perhaps the harris campaign lacked imagination and lacked the political courage to mobilize. that is up for debate, course. i think my question to you is is the way forward as a party to take a more center right approach, or should it be a more centerleft approach? what do you think about that? >> yeah, i know there's going to be a lot of analysis in the weeks and months to come, so i think that the answer is probably going to end up being that there are improvements that can be made in different ways. i think that kamala harris was dealt a bad hand from the beginning. i think joe biden should've dropped out and announced that he was not going to run after the midterms and she would've been in better going that way, having more time to really introduce yourself to the american people and not just do it with 100 days left. i would say yes to more organizing, yes to not just focus on liz cheney and so

forth, but not being afraid to say that mass deportation is wrong. in the last month or so of the campaign, when they were pouring it on and blaming migrants for everything and openly calling for mass deportations, you did not see the candidate, or maybe the vice presidential candidate did it once, but say look, that would be wrong, that is not what we are. full throated, something happened there. i think that we have to organize better, we have to reach out on the economic issues, but not forget about our values and lead with our values, be bold in that way. and i think that we can do both of those things. i don't think it is an either or. >> susan, i'm thinking about the idea that this new trump white house will actually be very different from what we have seen in the past. i'm thinking about people like rfk junior being in power, people like elon musk. i am wondering what you think about the new type of threat that those folks could pose if

they get these positions of power. >> yeah, before i get to that, i want to go to one thing about what happened in this past election. and i agree, there will be a ton of reviews of what happened and what did not happen. but at least from the punditry class, i think we will miss a huge thing. we kept saying how can you vote for trump to some of these voters, especially the working class? how can you support him? instead of saying why do you support him? knowing everything you know about him. people who voted for trump in that working-class coalition were not unaware of donald trump's, you know, what he had said. in fact, he was more like the school bully who had a lifeboat, and you knew he was going to pull you in and save you, but he'd still punch you in the mouth, but it was worth being saved. i think that is something we really have to look at very carefully before we figure out how to defeat a maga, if you will, environment. what concerns me the most about

this white house is not so much the names that we saw on the screen before that were being discussed with the reporter. it is that other people, maybe three or four levels down that may have some influence, over things that trump does not care about. they may have vendettas. and trump is a transactional guy. if you supported him and you decide that the doj office in indiana isn't working the right way and you don't like the person there, he doesn't care. he will say fine, or fluoride in the water, we shouldn't have that. fine. rfk junior may not be in charge of all our health services, but he can influence things like that. so that is my biggest concern as far as what to look at going forward, and can government operate under these types of folks? >> let's actually take some of susan's advice, and let's ask the following. why, to susan's point, why do you think that we saw a bigger number of latinos voting for donald trump this time around?

based on what you are seeing on the ground, why did we see this? >> yeah, here's what i know. a friend of mine actually said grief is better to digest when you have no regrets. and i can tell you, from the hundreds of thousands of volunteers, estate partners, voters that we talk to, they have no regrets about the effort and spirit that they put to win this election, and to specifically ask that question. why are you uncertain about your vote? why do you believe that your vote is not powerful? and what we found is that a lot of people are very disillusioned, and a lot of people experiencing real economic pain points. to your point around what we can do, what should we expect, and how do we change that conversation? it is a full paradigm shift that is required. and we have to do better at showing, not just telling, that

our economic models work. we have models, and we actually will need democratic governors, city council elected officials, county officials, legislatures to show, not tell, that our economic progress and the progress of a better future for latino families, but all families here in america, that it is possible if we invest in childcare, if we invest in programs like guaranteed income. if we put forward progressive tax brackets and we just have not been able to really show, not tell voters that they can trust us. one less thing that i want to say is the people that were uncertain and were uncertain with us of the doors, they trusted not just necessarily the candidate, but they trusted us as civil society organizations to be there after

election day. and that is what we are going to do. be there after election day and continue to build the resistance that we know will be required, not just on the defense, but actually on the offense for what a prosperous economic future looks like. >> quickly, just to you, you have been there. you have been there on the ground for many years at this point. but i'm wondering from where you are standing, what is the biggest threat that you are facing right now as a community, as people of color under a donald trump second white house? >> i think one, when we see misinformation and disinformation, this year we have never seen the level and scale of misinformation and disinformation. as we were talking to people, the issues, really understanding what project 2025 was, all of that. i think we really have to see that as an existential threat. we also need to see that literally what he has done as he has exploited the pain points of communities of color.

and we can no longer literally allow him to do that. we have to center this idea of we are going to collectively, in this nation, build something different and it is going to require is really taking the time to organize and educate people, but also we've got to check our own biases. as we are doing this work, that often times we do not take responsibility that we created the environment for trump. but as long as we are doing work and we are seeking policy just for ourselves and are not in the best interest of ourselves and our neighbors, we will continue to go down this road. >> with those words, latasha brown and grisha lima, i appreciate it. after the break, it's not a done deal just yet. control of congress is not completely set, with the house still up for grabs. we will get a live update next. airmac

nbc news is now projecting that incumbent democratic senator jacky rosen has defeated republican challenger sam brown, holding onto an important seat in the highly competitive swing state of nevada. donald trump taking back the white house and the gop winning control of the senate, every single called race in congress counts. the house, at least 12 races are too close to call, and the final results will determine whether republicans or democrats end up controlling the chamber. in the senate, for example, two races remain too close to call according to nbc news. nbc capitol hill correspondent julie sirkin joins us now.

julie, how are things shaping up in the senate? what can you tell us about a fight for control of the house? what are you saying? >> it's okay to be with you. there is so much drama, especially coming out of pennsylvania, because dave mccormick who is the republican challenger to three term incumbent bob casey, a democrat, is currently leading him by about half a percentage point. now, throughout all of this, we have heard from the national center republican committee that is essentially the campaign arm for senate republicans in the upper chamber, they just released a statement a couple moments ago saying it's time for bob casey to end this pitiful charade and concede obvious truth, he lost his race to dave mccormick. every democrat says they must call on casey to stop undermining faith in our elections and concede. i will tell you, most republicans did concede in their races, except for wisconsin. that race was actually called days ago. in the case of casey and

mccormick in pennsylvania, nbc news and many other outlets have not you call that race because there are still at least 100,000 provisional ballots within the state of pennsylvania left account. casey's campaign, i talked to a number of officials over the last couple of days, they tell me they will not concede. they will have patience until every last vote is counted in this race, and of course, they are doing this because control of the senate is so important. publicans already have a 52 seat majority. if dave mccormick is declared the victor in pennsylvania that brings it up to 53. that is a bigger majority than republicans have seen in years, and certainly donald trump needs that to be able to do some of the widespread things he wants to do when it comes to the tax code and a couple of other things, as well. the board or one of them, as well, as you have reported on extensively. >> let the drama continue. julie sirkin, thank you so much. up next, it may be trump's biggest promise. to deport millions of undocumented immigrants inside the united states.

how would it work, and what will it look like? we are digging into that just next. next.

president-elect donald trump made that a centerpiece of his campaign rally, the key promise for his first day in the white house. he said that he would start deporting millions of undocumented immigrants living in the united states. the question is, now that we are here, how exactly will they do that? he has actually been very light on the details over just how the biggest deportation effort in history would actually work, and for instance, who would actually conduct those deportations. what are the details? and of course, there is also the small issue of cost, which the american immigration counsel says in one estimate could be more than $300 billion. in an exclusive telephone interview with nbc's kristen welker, of course, the moderator of meet the press,

the president-elect said he would make the border quote strong and powerful. when asked about the cost of the plan, he said it is not a question of the price tag, it's not really. we have no choice, there is no price tag, he said. joining me now is alejandra ole miss, the director of living for change in arizona, and also with he is former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst deborah mcquaid. lillian castro and susan del percio are still with us, as well. i will start with you, you are on the ground and you have been in many ways ready for this moment, because you have been building the groundwork for many years at this point. but ground is in this reality, potentially what could mass deportations look like in arizona, particularly thinking about all the mixed status families that you are constantly in touch with? >> we have already heard from our communities that they are thinking about leaving to mexico. this is a reality that we experienced in 2010 with jan

brewer and sheriff arpaio creating fear and targeting our communities with sb 1070, the show me your papers law. but there is one fact that remains, that we are not the arizona of 2010. and, in arizona, what we have found is that latinos by and large supported democrats. and what we are hopeful is that the work here in arizona has been happening for over 15 years , and we have that memory of sb 1070, and what we know is that we will not back down. so while we are getting calls from people that are seeking what they need to do and what are their rights in this moment, what we have also heard from is the patrol, from the police. this year we had proposition 314 the past, but we heard testifying from border patrol

and from the police saying that this is unenforceable. there is no money for this. and they don't want to be immigration agents. >> barbara, i think what alex is saying is a really important point. one thing is what donald trump is saying what he wants to, the other point is the law and the reality. one of the things that trump has said is that he will deputize local law enforcement to help him carry out his plans, but the question is, what are the legal barriers that trump will face as he tries to actually carry this out? >> yeah, you will notice that he is very adamant in his plans, but very vague in his details about how he would execute these plans. and there are really two barriers that i see here. one is legal, and the other is logistics. legally, in terms of his authority, some have suggested that he could use the alien enemies act of 1798.

these were part of the alien and sedition acts, three of which were later found unconstitutional. but the one remaining does allow the president to deport people who are from a country with which we are at war. since none of the countries that he is concerned about deporting immigrants have come from a country with whom we are at war, that is really an unavailable tool. so he is left with a more traditional means, which is orders of removal by judges after people have been, have had a chance to appear before them and have received an order of deportation. they are still entitled to that process. so that is where the logistics come in. the resources to engage in mass deportations are no more than they were before. he says money is no issue, but that means you are taking resources away from something else. currently the way ice prioritizes deportations if they look at people who have been ordered deported and they decide who is a threat to national security or public safety, and that is the priority list. instead, if they are looking at

every grandma and child who should not be here, that means we are not prioritizing peep who are a threat to our public safety or national security. so, it's really a lot of bombast, and it does not make our nation any safer. >> i think it is undeniable that this country has shifted to the right on immigration. that is what it seems like. but do you think if we were once again to be exposed to this reality, families being separated, the cruelty that is about to ensue, do you think that american voters will once again sort of be morally conscious of what they are seeing? will they sort of start shifting back to the center or to the left on this issue? >> oh, definitely. that is absolutely what i expect is going to happen over the next couple of years. granted, there is more fatigue, i think, in terms of resisting and protesting versus where we were at in 2017 and 2018. during family separation. but what you are going to see happen on immigration is that you are going to see a swing,

again, as he becomes more and more extreme. i will also say, this is one of the stupidest ideas that donald trump is ever spoken about. if you actually tried to do mass deportation you would decimate the american economy. would cause a whole bunch of small businesses to go out of business. would immediately revolt if they actually had to deal with the consequences of mass deportation. not just the emotional reaction, the moral uprising that you would get, the backlash, but dealing with the disco conversations of the government private sector, it is great a stupid for trump to even try. >> and really quickly, i think so many people are having conversations around what happened to the latino vote. but i think in arizona perhaps there is a different story, where latino voters seem to have overwhelmingly sided with democrats. very quickly, why do you think that is the case? then i would love for you to take us inside what a war room looks like right now is your group is having these conversations about what the

future looks like. >> yeah, i think also an important context to this entire story is that this did not happen in this election. this has been coming since the brenner bill in 2006. the fomenting of fear and hate, and of the ring of the immigrant community and other communities of color, quite frankly, when you have republicans that are talking directly to the communities that have been devastated after covid and are the most hurt, and you are fomenting this fear that there is not enough in this country, you begin to see that also there is a deficit in information from the other side, from democrats around this issue. and what is really important here is that for our

communities in arizona, because we have the experience of sb 1070, omnibus bills to separate families, there is a real fight, a palpable fight that has not stopped for 15 years. to make sure that we don't go back to the days of family separation. and so, that memory is real for our communities here in arizona. what you see is that the latino community in arizona overwhelmingly supported democrats. so they are not feeding into the rhetoric. but, what is important also to say is that no community is a model with. we have to be a bloods to talk in nuanced ways to voters in the southwest, voters on the east coast that are of latino descent. and that is what republicans were doing in this entire election. to foment fear. >> alex, thank you. susan, we know that if donald

trump doesn't lament these mass deportations, that will cost billions of dollars. so, do you think that republicans are prepared to actually pick up the tab? >> well, mike johnson, assuming he remains speaker which is not the case, we don't know what will happen. but he already said that is going to cost an awful lot of money that we don't have. i think what we will see, this is typical donald trump. he starts with this big oratory of mass deportations. look to him to first get money for the border, build the wall, that kind of stuff. then go after limiting people coming into the country, and then going after people who are maybe in the process who are here. but this is not going to happen overnight. as much as he may want to see it. as barbara said, logistically, this is going to be a nightmare. and when you start putting those costs on to the states and taxes have to be raised if he really wants to get this done, i don't think it's going to fly. but he will continue the

rhetoric. and that is what we have to pay attention to. is how hateful will it get? how fearful will people who are legally here, even, fear of their status, that maybe the president can just take it away. because this is a man who believes he has immunity and the ability to do anything. he could say you are a citizen today and not tomorrow. so that, to me, is where the focus has to be, on constantly calling him out for what he is saying and what is actually possible. >> alejandra gomez, thank you so much. barbara, susan, stick with us. we will be right back.

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>> except for day one. they said you're not going to be a dictator, are you? i said no, other than day one. >> except for day one. that was just some of the authoritarian rhetoric voters heard from president-elect donald trump on the campaign trail. comments like those have left many americans fearful about what he might try to do to the country's institutions over the next four years. just before election day, david leonhardt of the new york times highlighted several ways donald trump could actually we can democracy. it started with trump's promise to prosecute his opponents, and includes rewarding supporters, replacing federal employees with loyalists, and ultimately refusing to transfer power peacefully. sounds familiar, right? here now to discuss is former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst arbor mcquaid, secretary castro, and susan del percio are back with me now. barbara, i'm going to start with you. i am thinking about how we have got to this point.

before being elected as the 47th president, how has trump already laid the groundwork for a possible autocratic shift? >> well, the rhetoric that perhaps bothers me the most is the threats to use the law to go after his political rivals. this is the very same thing that he has accused the current justice department of doing to him. you know, these claims of weaponization of the justice department or the use of l'affaire against him. you know, there is nothing to suggest that the cases against him are anything but legitimate cases based on fact and law returned by grand juries. but, if you were to turn the tables on his opponents and use it to go after them for political reasons, that would really just crumble a foundation of the department of justice and what it stands for. i am hopeful that there are enough checks inside the system to prevent that from happening, but that requires career

professionals to stand up for the rule of law, and what happens when they do? perhaps they get fired and replaced by loyalists. so, i do worry about that, and i think even just threatening to use it undermines public trust in the independence of the justice department. >> i think that is the point you just said, right there. what will the career prosecutors do in the face of donald trump weatherizing the doj? i guess what can they do? >> well, i hope they will stay, for one. i worry that people say i don't want to work in a trumpet administration now that i have seen what he can do, but i do think is important that they stay. because they can stand up for the policies of the department of justice. justice manual specifically states that partisan politics may never be part of a decision to charge a defendant in a criminal case. there are number of factors in the principles of federal prosecution that prosecutors should consider, but it explicitly says partisan politics may never be part of that calculus. so if an appointee as an

attorney general or an assistant attorney general were to direct a career employee to try to prosecute someone based on partisan politics, they could point to that provision and say it is against doj policy to do that. and then, i suppose, they have a choice of resigning or being fired, but they can at least try to push back and call attention to these abuses should they occur. >> secretary castro, as we are talking about potentially this country sort of shifting towards autocracy, i cannot help but think about the way that so many different americans were thinking about democracy and such different ways as they were voting on tuesday. you have nbc news exit polls that found that three in four voters said that they thought that democracy was being threatened. so i guess the question is how do you function in a society where voters on both sides of the aisle have completely different ideas of what democracy even means? >> yeah, i think that is part of the polarization and

division, you are right. some people when you asked that question, they are thinking about the threat, the autocratic threat that donald trump presents. for others it may have been hey, i think that the 2020 election was fraudulent , and they believe what trump said, that is why they think there is a problem with democracy. normally the way you would bring people together would be you would have cooler heads prevail, somebody that legitimately wants to do what is in the best interest of the country, willing to reach across the aisle come to work with folks that don't necessarily agree with him. but that is not what trump is. he wants to be an autocrat. he is only interested in lackeys and yes-men. now that he has a senate, a supreme court, and we don't know yet about the house, but he is going to have a lot of opportunity to get his way, especially because we have seen a lot of cowardice from republican politicians who think about their primary and are not willing to stand up to trump. so we are in for quite a ride this time around, and what we need are folks that are

committed to actual democracy to push back with everything they've got. >> susan, the secretary just said, we have seen a lot of cowardice from some republicans. i mean, do you have any hope at all for future republican parties that steps away from trump? or i guess are we facing, at the reality of these authoritarian policies being around for decades? >> i don't think it will be around for decades. i do think that it is really about trump, or otherwise we would not see as many splits as we did in u.s. senate races, for example. trump works for trump. i don't think many other people can carry the mantle, because his doctrine, if you will, is not founded in any principles or policies. it is founded in himself. so i don't think he will continue to rain for decades, or maga will continue to rain.

there may be people who will try, but i think long-term is just four years of being absolutely brutal with him there. the thing that i hang my hat on is he does, donald trump does have one thing he likes. good publicity. he cannot take it when it all piled down on him. so i think we saw that with separation of families during his first term. he could not take the pressure on it, and he acquiesced a little bit. but i think you will play to that. the other is, again, he's going to focus just on the things he really cares about. unfortunately, i think it will be doj, which does scare me. >> another thing that scares me is tanking about, barbara, the maga extremist right now, and the message that trump's win signal them, particularly if he follows through on his promises to pardon january 6th insurrectionist. what kind of

messages do you think these extremists are digesting right now? >> i could not agree with you more. that really concerns me, too. because people are looking to him, just as the proud boys were enabled when trump said stand back and stand by during the last election cycle, during the debate, i worry that this is a rallying cry, this moment suggests to all of those who opposed the election in 2020 and the transition of power feel rejuvenated. i think if you were to follow through with pardoning the 1500 defendants who have been convicted for crimes on january 6th by storming the capital, in an effort to use brute force to disrupt the lawful transfer of presidential power, i think it would be a very dangerous signal to the rule of law and vigilante violence, that if you don't like the way things come out in court you can just take

things into your own hands. and as long as you are acting in service to the leader then your crimes are going to be excused. i think it is a very dangerous place for us to be as a country. >> you been in some of the most powerful rooms, you have served in the most powerful roles in this country. even at the white house, you've seen it all. so, from your perspective, what are the first signs i can start indicating the sort of verged towards authoritarianism or towards some form of autocracy? having been where you been, what is the first sign? >> well, i think we've seen it. the first sign is in the rhetoric. now i think he feels he has a mandate. now in the transition period you're going to see by who hires, the plans they put out, more of those signs. but really, we're going to get a sense of this at 12/01 on inauguration day. i suspect they will have a

whole slate of executive orders, undoing many of the executive orders that the biden administration did, and putting extreme executive orders in place on immigration and on a number of other items, and stacking the white house personnel with crazy right- wingers that are not interested in following law or going by the rules. and immediately i think we are going to plunge into that path that people fear. >> robert mcquaid, who in castro, i really appreciate that. that does it for me. i'm paola ramos, our coverage continues after a short break with politics nation and reverend al sharpton.

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good evening, and welcome to politicsnation . tonight's lead, down but not defeated. >>