hi there, everyone. it is 4:00 in new york. one of donald trump's nominees is achieving the rare feat of setting off alarm bells across the political spectrum inside and outside of our national security agencies and all across the world today. that would be former congresswoman tulsi gabbard for director of national intelligence. the position that oversees the 18 intelligence agencies that are cornerstone of our national security and our alliances all around the world. it is also the position that is responsible for putting

together, for assembling what goes in and stays out of the president's daily briefs. the pdb. it is an agenda setting compilation of the national security information that the american president and the white house uses to make their decisions. for this role, trump chose someone who has made a career out of defending america's adversaries, the world's autocrats. in 2017, gabbard made a secret trip to syria to meet with dictator bashar al assad. months later, she said she was skeptical when u.s. intelligence found assad behind a chemical weapons s s attack that killed dozens of people there. tulsi gabbard has also been a consistent defender and booster and apologist for russia's vladimir putin. she was instrumental in spreading russian disinformation and talking points about the war

in ukraine. >> presidents putin, zelenskyy and biden, it is time to put geopolitics aside and embrace the spirit of aloha, respect and love for the ukrainian people by coming to an agreement that ukraine will be a neutral country, no alliance with nato or russia and alleviate the legitimate security concerns of u.s. and nato countries as well as russia because there would be no russian or nato troops on the nonbaltic borders. this would allow the ukrainian people to live in peace. aloha. >> that video, punctuated by alohas, was post ed three days after russia invaded ukraine, civilian casualties were soaring, millions of ukrainians were still fleeing. here she is on fox news talking about these things in a way that goes too far for fox news' sean hannity. >> putin made very clear all

along that their security in his mind is what's at stake here. and they do not -- >> i don't want to interrupt you. putin also said ukraine is not a country. and he has been saying this going back many, many years, so this has been -- these territorial ambitions existed a long time. >> they have. they go way back. and they pre-exist this moment that we're facing, but with regards to u.s. and nato, just like we would not want russia to come in and start putting their tanks and missiles on our borders, with mexico or elsewhere, russia says, hey, i don't want u.s. and nato coming in and making their military outpost on our borders within ukraine. >> you lost sean hannity. tom nichols reports this in "the atlantic", when hannity is trying to help herd try trying to shepherd you back to the air lock before your oxygen runs out, you've gone pretty far out there. it is one thing to appear on fox

news and another thing to be placed in charge, to be given the awesome responsibility of being in charge of america's vast and critically important intelligence community and all of its products and assets. gabbard is stunningly unqualified for almost any cabinet post, as are some of trump's other picks, but especially for odni. no qualifi is a reserve lieutenant colonel who previously served in the hawaii army national guard, with assignments in medical, police and civil affairs support positions. she has won some local elections and represented hawaii in congress. but leave aside for the moment that she is manifestly unprepared to run any kind of agency. americans usual little accept that presidents reward loyalists with jobs, and trump has the right to stash gabbard at some make work office in the bureaucracy if he feels he owes her. but to make tulsi gabbard the

dni, however, is not merely handing a bouquet to a political gadfly. her appointment would be a threat to the security of the united states. there is brand-new reporting from politico that flags one of the biggest impacts that her appointment would have, quote, one western intelligence official said it could lead america's allies to curb how much information they share with washington. i imagine israel ill have serious qualms. quote, we're still, what some allies share may not be shaped by political goals rather than professional intelligence sharing, said that official. that's where we start today with some of our favorite experts and friends. msnbc senior national security analyst john brennan is here, with me at the table former under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs during the obama administration rick stengel is

here, director brennan, your thoughts about tulsi gabbard. >> i think you and tom nichols have done a great job, just to underscore all the concerns that people have about this appointment. clearly tulsi gabbard has taken actions and made statements over the past several years that really raise serious questions about her common sense, her judgment as well as her political sympathies. cozying up to putin as well as to bashar al assad, i think it does show she doesn't have the type of perspective that is needed for somebody who is going to head up these 18 intelligence agencies. and as tom nichols said, she doesn't have any qualifications. the director of national intelligence, that's a really serious position and very complex and complicated one that requires somebody who actually has an understanding of the intelligence community. it is like an orchestra conductor, of all the different agencies and departments that are involved in the intelligence process. and i don't think she

understands the instruments involved in this orchestra, nor has she had any experience at the strategic level of running and leading a large complex organization. and the director of national intelligence is according to legislation the president's principle intelligence adviser, the personal responsible for making sure the president's daily brief is put together, in a very sound and forth right manner. the person who puts together the budget and priorities the intelligence community. so i know that this appointment is sending shock waves here in the united states, but also around the globe in terms of is this really somebody who donald trump is going to entrust with the care and the leadership of the intelligence community, an unserious pick for an unserious position. >> let me show you what john bolton, who was one of donald trump's former national security advisers had to say about the pick. >> she doesn't have any experience in intelligence matters. she has demonstrated repeatedly

that she doesn't understand international affairs, she has been quoted as saying that effectively putin was justified in having russia invade ukraine because there were secret american biological weapons laboratories in ukraine. i mean, this is fantasy land stuff. i think the answer here that the nominations clearly is going to be made, it is customary for every senior nominee of a president to have a full field fbi background investigation, particularly in sensitive national security and law enforcement matters. those investigations could begin now in a smooth transition, where the incoming president has announced -- beginning to announce his senior appointees, secretary of state and so on. the outgoing administration can let the fbi loose to do the investigation. and the way the fbi starts, it

interviews mr. john smith as being considered for a senior government job and i would like to speak to you about him. that can happen now. those interviews, including full field investigations for tulsi gabbard and matt gaetz could be done basically by january 1. >> you know, john bolton is a smart guy, but i'm not sure what he's talking about. i mean, trump hasn't signed the memorandum of understanding to commence an actual transition process. i think john bolton actually makes that point. he goes on to say, they don't want the full field investigations. but we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop on who will head the fbi. and it is clear that these people will not receive any of those checks. it is clear that republicans and anyone trying to cover the republicans is a bulwark against trump 3.0 is smoking something we don't have available in the studio here. there are no breaks on trump. what happens, director brennan, to the people that work inside

the agencies, who are trained in mining the intelligence product for information that helps keep america safe, when the person they report to sides with putin over those very agencies and people inside them? >> well, they need to live up to their oath of office and professional responsibilities in terms of telling truth to power. making sure that they carry out their intelligence responsibilities to the best of their ability, irrespective of who might be at the top. and the concern that a lot of intelligence professionals have is when individuals leads they organizations who politicize them. this is something very worrisome, i think, to scores of intelligence professionals. i think john bolton also said that trump is looking for fealty among these various leaders he's appointing. he wants individuals who are going to be at his beck and call and do what he wants. one of the most damning notes of tulsi gabbard is that russian television, today, the political pundits out there have been

praising her nomination as well as the nomination of matt gaetz to the attorney general. so, i think there is a shock wave that is going through the intelligence community right now about this nomination. >> let me show you some of the really critical russian disinformation she communicated into this country, in march of 2022. >> here are the undeniable facts. there are 25 to 30 u.s. funded biolabs in ukraine. according to the u.s. government, these biolabs are conducted research on dangerous pathogens. ukraine is in an active war zone with widespread bombing, artillery and shelling and these facilities, even in the best of circumstances, could easily be compromised and release these deadly pathogens. now, like covid, these pathogens

know no borders. if they're inadvertently or purposefully breached or compromised, they will spread throughout europe, the united states and the rest of the world causing untold suffering and death. so in order to protect the american people, the people of europe, the people around the world, these labs need to be shut down immediately and the pathogens that they hold need to be destroyed. >> this was something tucker carlson pedaled at the beginning of the war. here is "the new york times" fact check. theory about u.s. funded bioweapons labs in ukraine is unfunded. since 2005, the united states provided backing to a number of institutions to prevent the production of biological weapons. but tucker carlson, the fox news host and others have misleadingly cited remarks from american officials as proof that the labs are producing or conducting research on biological weapons. why does this matter this sort of pipeline from russia disinformation into the american

public information system? >> it matters because it pollutes our public information system. and people are either credulous about it or they're doing it in a positive way in terms of using disinformation. i'm going to actually make a larger point about this, which is that let's for the sake of argument say she saw this and thought it seemed credible and wants her constituents to know it. what the russians specialize in are false flag operations. when they see someone in america, parroting or echoing something in russian disinformation, they do stories in russian media about it like we saw the one about her and matt gaetz today, which create a sense of doubt in the minds of other people, like is this person a russian agent? and to the point about will other powers, or allies want to cooperate with our intelligence agency when they have someone who the russians are saying is basically one of their agents? that gives everybody a kind of red flag to pause. and this is what the russians do

and what they're so good at. so, not only is she completely unqualified for the job. but she raises alarms all around the world in terms of the purity of our intelligence. >> which is all out in the open. trump surely knows that going in. i guess the question is why. i have to turn to some breaking news, though. sources tell nbc news that the president-elect donald trump is expected to pick robert f. kennedy jr. to be the secretary of health and human services. trump had previously promised rfk a big role, after rfk abandoned his independent bid for president and endorsed donald trump. "the new york times" describes him like this, as a quote, environmental lawyer who has no medical or public health degrees and has promoted antivaccine conspiracies for years, end quote. regarding the food and drug administration, responsible for our vaccines, cosmetics, food,

veterinary medicine, an agency under his purview, rfk said entire epartments have to go. let's bring in msnbc medical contributor dr. kavita patel. your first reaction? >> oh, my god. i mean, those of us who have spent our lifetime decades working in and around hhs, i'm not kidding, nicolle, my nexts are flying off the chain, democrats and republicans saying this can't be real. someone must have gotten this wrong. this can't be possible. and now the second underlying chain, there is some silver lining, the second thought i had was he can't get confirmed, can he? but i'm listening to you speak about the dni and other roles that require some sort of white house confirmation, some combination, and here we are. it is really hard to believe there are career staff texting me saying this was just the push they needed to try to get out. they were already on the fence

and worried. we're not just going to see this incredible kind of integration of ideology that has no science behind it, but, nicolle, we're going to see the best of the best career staff leave. leaving agencies potentially hollow that he would oversee. >> just for people that aren't familiar with how hhs interacts with the medical community and people's lives, just take us through a little bit of that, if you will. >> yeah, so the secretary of health and human services, as you mentioned, has a purview over many agencies that touch our lives. you touched on a couple of them, food and drug administration, the cdc, centers for disease control and prevention, you may know these tters as we talked about vaccines during covid, it touches everything. our food supply chain. i'll give you an example, we had a supply chain shortage of baby formula, this hits a lot of people at home because none of the shelves could keep the formula stocked, the hhs

secretary pulled it all together and worked with other departments to try to make sure that we could get americans formula to feed their children. add into that, just all the research, think of the national institutes of health, nicolle, that's under hhs, research on drug development, and i actually pulled out just to remind myself a tweet from rfk jr. when running for president, where he says that if he were president, i guess thank goodness he's not, he would stop research on drug development on infectious diseases for eight years. and i think he was proud of that. anything that you do in the medical community and let me tell you where it hits home, during covid, we talked about the medical reserve corps and public health service agency, all the people who actually help to facilitate getting vaccines across the country, getting covid tests across the country, that's under hhs as well. anything from a safety net clinic to the medicines that you trust are safe, that is now potentially going to be under

this environmental lawyer with no training whatsoever. and very dangerous views. >> i have a little one, so i'm on a vaccine schedule again. and i trust my pediatrician with that. rfk has criticized childhood vaccination schedules, linked them to autism and other health issues against studies. it was warned in 2022 the vaccine misinformation is one of the biggest threats to children's health. in the sort of pickled community of antivaxx disinformation, there are people that refuse vaccines and there are outbreaks of polio and measles in this country, diseases that were once thought eradicated. what should people watching do if they have young kids? >> i do think that -- if there is any solace, what you just said, that as doctors, we're trained, we are trained, we

talked about doctors and many states not being able to talk about certain issues. i really hope and pray that vaccines and public health do not become another set of issues in addition to reproductive and women's health, but right now your pediatricians, primary care doctors, they have your best interests, they treat you in front of them and they're not worried about the politics. i bet most of my medical colleagues don't realize what is happening because they're doing what they should be doing and taking care of people. i do think that it is worth just having that direct conversation with your pediatrician, and i also do encourage people to look at the evidence. i do not try to dismiss people when they talk to me about concerns about vaccines. it is worth bringing back up that initial study that has been debunked and refuted and in fact journals have retracted any of the mentions, not because they're afraid, but because we want to put good science forward. and, nicolle, i'm all for telling you we can probably do things differently. i know i talk with my own pediatrician with my children about do we need to do all of these vaccines in this one visit, can we spread it across

two visits? all of those conversations are appropriate. that is not what we're talking about. that's not what rfk jr. is talking about. he's talking about implying a direct causality between vaccines and autism and in addition to that, other claims we have. and he couches it by saying he's not antivaxx. he's just anti all the vaccines we currently have, which is effectively being antivaccines. >> let me show you, let me do two things, show you trump's mandate that he gave rfk and told him to, quote, go wild, and then bring in vaughn hillyard. first, donald trump. >> i'm going to let him go wild on health. i'm going to let him go wild on the food. i'm going to let him go wild on medicines. the only thing i told him, though, you got to do one thing, do whatever you want, just go ahead, work on the pesticides, work on making the women's health -- he's so into women's health and he's really unbelievable, it is such a passion. >> vaughn hillyard joins our

coverage. vaughn, take us inside your reporting on how this came to be. >> reporter: right, it was just last week he suggested to me here in palm beach he was going to actually live here in palm beach throughout the next months, throughout the course of the transition because he wanted to be close to the operation and it is helpful as he could be and i asked him about the hhs secretary role, questions of whether he would be able to be confirmed by the senate and he suggested he was actually interested in a role of a white house health czar which allow him to be inside the white house without having to be confirmed by the senate. but as you just played from those bites, donald trump was specific he would let him do whatever he wanted, including on vaccines. and i think this is, you know this is a year plus long conversation that we have been having with mr. kennedy, and it was one that last week i directly asked him about when it came to vaccines because as dr. patel and you were talking about, he says he is not

antivaxx, just anti the vaccines on the market here today. and during the covid pandemic, he was very public in his opposition to the fda granting emergency authorization for americans access to the multiple and various covid vaccines brought to the market. and last week i asked him whether he, inside of the white house, overseeing the fda, would seek to use the fda to block such authorization if there was another pandemic or as new vaccines come to the market, or whether he would seek to remove any vaccines from the market. and interestingly, he followed up and told me he would not do either of those, that he would not block any new vaccines and would not pull any from the market. instead he said he would ensure that all americans have all of the access to information. of course, there is a lot to unpack there. and you're taking robert f. kennedy jr.'s words after decades of work, fighting vaccines from being available to americans on the market. and the second part of that was from our interview, nicolle,

skied ski i asked if he would seek to remove a part of the civil federal workforce, working at the 13 different health agencies under hhs, including the cdc and he told me he would seek to even eliminate some departments including the nutrition department. now, of course, there is a large conversation about health in america, and he's attracted a large following of people who are concerned about ingredients and sugar in american food products and drink products, but then there is that next part of robert f. kennedy jr. that is going to undoubtedly get questions from senators on capitol hill and that's his posture on vaccines, especially coming off a time in which americans just lived through a pandemic under the trump administration. >> director brennan, if you're still with us, let me bring you in on the picture shaping up around the world of an america with appointments that are not designed to be confirmed by the united states senate, nobody

with a straight face thinks that matt gaetz is going to be vetted and confirmed, nobody with a straight face thinks that tulsi gabbard will be vetted and confirmed. what is shaping up outside of this country among our allies and adversaries as the direction of the american people have chosen to go with donald trump? >> well, the people that i've spoken to are just asking the question, what has happened to america? what is going on? putting these institutions, intelligence, justice, health, homeland security defense in the hands of unqualified, sometimes incompetent, inexperienced people, i think really raises serious concerns among our allies and partners about what is happening inside the united states, how are we going to deal with the challenges of the 21st century. and when these people go in with agendas to slash and burn and to cut programs, and people, it really sends a message that the united states government is

going to be destabilized within the next several months, you know, in the trump presidency. so i'm hoping that the senate republicans are really going to live up to their responsibilities. and do the type of vetting and whether they go through the review of these portfolios, these individuals, but rfk jr., in charge of hhs, which has as we pointed out national institutes of health, the cdc and obama administration i was the homeland security adviser during his first term, we worked very e ly with the organizations dealing with the pandemic, other issues. these are serious, serious programs that the people there i think are just going to be gobsmacked at the prospect that robert f. kennedy jr. could ever be their leader. >> and who benefits, quickly when the u.s. is destabilized? >> our adversaries, of course. i'm sure vladimir putin is just sitting back in his armchair with his advisers and colleagues

and just looking at the united states with a great big smile on his face. these are the types of things that he has wanted to have happen to the united states for many years. he was unable to do it. but as you pointed out with tulsi gabbard, russia pushes out disinformation hoping that u.s. officials are going to pick it up. and this is part of their information operations. then they will run back the comments of the tulsi gabbards and others that traffic in these conspiracy theories, russia, china, ed adversaries around th globe will benefit as the united states, i think, is going to be shrinking from its global responsibilities and not going to have the wherewithal to carry out its responsibilities that it has basically over the last 75 years. >> john brennan, thank you for ng us off. dr. patel, i'll ask you to stick around. we'll have more on rfk jr., the vaccine skeptic, now leading hhs. and later in the show, we will

try to make sense out of all of this with my friend and colleague rachel maddow. she'll join us. we'll have much more when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. " continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. this land we love belongs to all of us. yet not everyone is treated equally. right now, millions of americans are fighting for the things promised to all by the constitution. freedom. justice. equality. you can help by joining the american civil liberties union today. so please call now or go online to myaclu.org to become a guardian of liberty. your gift of just $19 a month, only $0.63 a day helps protect our democracy. this land is your land. this land is my land. from california

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clearing out the corruption in your terms, would that mean clearing out the top level federal service workers that are currently at the fda and the cdc? >> in some categories, i would say. >> what does that look like? >> in some categories of workers, there are entire

departments like the nutrition department that are -- that have to go. that are not doing their job. they're not protecting our kids. >> that is donald trump's pick to head the agency in charge of health and human services. joining our breaking news coverage, "new york times" investigative reporter susanne craig is here, she's done extensive reporting on rfk which reveals rfk said he had a dead worm in his brain that caused him to lose some of his memory in a legal filing. your thoughts? >> no, it is interesting, i have to say, when i started covering bobby kennedy almost a year ago, i didn't think we would see this day. but that story was really interesting and it gave to me some of the -- i think deepest insights we have seen about bobby kennedy and his concerns about mercury and what happened. i think most importantly to him,

back in 2010 or '11, that has to deal with the worm, they did find a dead worm in his brain and he came to doctors complaining of severe long-term and short-term memory loss. in those discussions he had with doctors, they discovered the dead worm in his brain, but i think what was actually causing his problems was that he had mercury poisoning. they found that the mercury levels in his system were ten times the epa average. and it is interesting, that seems -- i talked to bobby kennedy about it, he thinks it what was causing his memory loss, but he got that through eating predatory fish, tuna was one of them. he said he was subsisting on a heavy diet of tuna that caused the mercury levels in his system to spike. it is interesting, given he was an environmental lawyer, he had railed against mercury levels in fish, that he actually decided

that a diet that heavy in that sort of fish was okay. but after that, he went through kelation therapy to remove the medals from his system. it is the same mercury as the thing he is concerned about that is in some vaccines as a preservative. this is sort of all tied together when i talk to him and he went through this therapy to actually strip his system. he went through -- he did it with a cream, he said, which was a lighter therapy than other therapies that people go through. this is all tied together when we now we come back to the issue of vaccines and how he's going to treat it now that he's running this incredibly important department. >> sue, was the dead worm in his brain from a vaccine or from the sushi? >> from neither, actually. as far as we don't quite know how the worm got there. he thinks it came from eating pork when he was overseas

traveling. >> pork. >> yeah, and it got in. we don't really know though how it got in there. he normally when you have a worm in your brain and it is alive, it can live for a long time, and then usually the symptoms when the worm dies is usually the worm, there is inflammation, and it flares up and what you show up to the hospital with is usually seizures. it is not memory loss. and short and long-term memory are controlled by different parts of the brain, so it is interesting because when he went there, they -- the worm was found, because they thought that the severe memory loss that potentially he had had a stroke or had a tumor in his brain, they weren't sure, because of what his uncle had gone through, his uncle ted kennedy died of a brain tumor. he was immediately seen by doctors across the country. and they -- they immediately thought he had a brain tumor and wanted to operate on him and then he was preparing to

actually go down to duke to have an operation, and another doctor that he met kind of in this process of seeing doctors said, hang on, i think it could be something else and what they saw in the scan was actually the dead worm and it turns out all that was unrelated and that separately he just had this mercury poisoning that was going on that was actually causing the long and the short-term memory loss. it is an incredible journey and i learned about it all so people are kind of wondering how all this came to light, i learned about it through depositions that i reviewed that were given as part of a divorce proceeding from his second wife, mary kennedy. >> a lot of commentary over the last week has been about the confirmation hurdles. it is unclear that trump's intent is that any of these people are confirmed. he has a real affinity for acting officials. should he proceed with an fbi background check, which is a

stop in the senate confirmation process, what sorts of things do you think would be unearthed? >> i don't know about unearthed. i think he'll get a lot of questions about his views on things like vaccines and other views that he's espoused in terms of his background, i'm not sure what will come up there that would be fishy. i'm just kind of churning my memory now. >> no pun intended, right? >> yeah. yes. good point. but i think a lot of what he's going to face in front of a confirmation hearing is his views, a lot controversial, as we have been talking about on different things and his plans for these departments. he's talking about wholesale shutting a lot of them down. >> i want to make a larger point about tulsi about bobby kennedy jr., about matt gaetz, it is a

gigantic attack on expertise on the idea that there are people who know things based on their training, based on their education, that regular folks don't know. and by putting people who are unqualified as the head of these agencies, and by the way, people who have never run big agencies, another expertise they have, it is a way of trump saying i'm immune from criticism because you -- i know just as much as you do. i'm putting you there because of your fealty to me, not because of your expertise. and one of the classic harbingers of authoritarian leaders is this attack on expertise, because experts can question them. and by putting people who are not experts and not qualified, he then becomes exempt. that's the larger strategy and it is a real disservice to the american people. and, you know, where -- we have been in the business of defending the status quo for a while, because he has been so out there. but these are agencies and places that really take

expertise and knowledge and by putting people who don't have that in there, that's making everybody more vulnerable. >> i mean, i think that's the reality of it, that the political reality is that it is devastating for trump if none of these agencies function. he ran on a promise to lower crime. you can't do that without the department of justice. he ran on a promise to get his arms around illegal immigration in this country, you got a dog killer in charge of that agency who may or may not be confirmed. the idea that you can dismantle every agency that touches people's lives and survive politically seems like the foolish move here. >> i completely agree. i hope that chicken comes home to roost. what he's also depending on is that discretion within the senate, on both sides, where a president has the prerogative of pointing who he wants and we need to give the president the person who he wants and, i mean, i also think it is just insane for some of these folks to

accept his offer to go through that process, because, you know, whether it is matt gaetz, bobby, tulsi gabbard, you're going to have all kinds of things come out that you don't want to have to see the light of day. >> dr. patel, when trump says he can go wild with the women, what specifically concerns you there? >> yeah, i mean, there is so many things, but let's kind of talk about the fda, we talked about the food and drug administration has for decades been able to evaluate the safety of common drugs, over the counter as well as prescription drugs. most recently talking about reproductive services, women's access to healthcare. we talked about mifepristone, talked about miscarriage care, also we have over the counter plan b, over the counter birth control, all of that kind of gets wound through the agency in order to make sure they're safe and effective. you can imagine diluting and

weakening any of the protections that are in place to make those drugs accessible. all the things that the biden administration had to kind of reinforce given the supreme court and state decisions. so you can easily imagine not just the secretary, but remember secretary has kind of oversight and then convenes a lot of the heads of these agencies and has to work with them, but you can imagine him working in concert with an fda head, imagine him working with a number of people to make it hard to get what is technically safe and effective. and i think that's what worries me the most. i have to say, nicolle, i can't even imagine, like, all the other areas, that's just one of them, drugs. every aspect from nih to doing the office of women's research in secretary's office, imagine if that all just gets zeroed out or decimated, you have lost potentially generations of research. we're only finally getting to be aware of, like, putting women in clinical trials and making sure we have an appropriate number of women in clinical trials and imagine now if you're working with the head of the nih and

decide that we're not going to ask congress for those appropriations, not going to fund those offices. we're used to that during changes of administration, we're used to different administrations kind of zeroing out budgets as a way to kind of take away thing that are not consistent with their priority and then up to a strong senate and house to put the priorities back in. that's what ted kennedy did. i just think this is incredibly ironic. i worked for ted kennedy and he's turning in his grave thinking about what is happening at the very institution he fought for decades to protect. >> amazing. dr. kavita patel, sue craig thank you so much. up next for us, we'll turn back to trump's pick for attorney general, matt gaetz is sure hoping to keep the ethics report about his behavior under wraps. but now senators on both sides of the aisle are saying they would very much like to see it. that developing story is next. lt that developing story is next.

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check singlecare to make sure you're getting the best price. visit singlecare.com and start saving today. there are some new developments to tell you about in the saga of matt gaetz. donald trump's pick to be america's attorney general. after matt gaetz abruptly resigned from congress effective today. moments ago, senate judiciary chair dick durbin calling on the house ethics committee to preserve and release its report on its investigation into potential misconduct by matt gaetz. gaetz has been under investigation for sexual

misconduct and illegal drug use, accepting improper gifts, misusing state identification records, converting campaign funds to personal use, sharing inappropriate images or videos on the house floor, among other transgressions. just what we all want from america's top cop. his resignation from congress yesterday may not have been a coincidence. multiple outlets including "the new york times" reports that gaetz resignation comes 48 hours before the committee was set to vote on releasing its report into matt gaetz's conduct, which the times characterizes as, quote, highly critical. the committee is set to meet tomorrow while the house ethics committee has no longer has jurisdiction to punish matt gaetz, it is not clear if they will still release their findings. an attorney for a woman who alleges that she was sex trafficked by matt gaetz joined calls for the report to be released, saying this in a statement, quote, mr. gaetz's

likely nomination as attorney general is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events. we would support the house ethics committee immediately releasing their report. she was a high school student and there were witnesses, end quote. this is who america picked. the guy who picked that guy to be attorney general. let's bring back into our coverage nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard, and joining us at the table, "new york times" editorial board member and msnbc political analyst maura gaye. to vaughn hillyard, it has been reported in a couple of places there was a list of five or six trump world standard normal people and matt gaetz wasn't on that list and then there is the schedule of the release of the ethics report. senate republicans saying things like matt gaetz showed us sex

videos and said he chugged, crushed ed drugs and then chased them down with energy drinks to go all night, end quote. i'm imagining it turned up that kind of stuff if republican senators are saying those things in interviews with journalists. what do you know about the ethics reports findings? >> reporter: i think the question that kevin mccarthy earlier this year when out in nevada and had a chance to talk to the ousted speaker there, the way that he framed matt gaetz to me was that not only would matt gaetz not be in congress soon, but he would be in prison soon. if you fast-forward to the conversation we're having now, he's going to be accurate that matt gaetz isn't in congress, but it is not clear he's in prison. we know that from the ethics committee they were looking into the investigation that was running a parallel investigation into the department of justice, which ultimately announced it was not going to bring charges against matt gaetz.

but, a friend of his, serving 11 years in prison, for sex trafficking minors. and he had noted that there were other men who he had done work with, and there were questions about the extent to which matt gaetz may have been involved in this scheme. and that is where we are waiting to find out what was in this ethics report. we know, though, that matt gaetz made the decision to leave the congress, this is going to be potentially an effort to prevent it from being publicly released, and at the same time this calls into question not only matt gaetz's confirmation process and we know that matt gaetz has not run away from the spotlight, but we also know that this will only intensify the scrutiny that will be on whoever he picks and nominates to be the deputy attorney general, and whoever donald trump selects to be the acting attorney general in the acting deputy attorney general inside of the doj in these first months of the administration. >> so, an alleged child sex

trafficker and d sexual abuser and a man who thinks even when marriages are violent are better than divorce. >> yeah, nicolle, it is hard to take in. i think in a new environment in which we are being challenged, i think to react to everything donald trump does or says, i think we're going to have to be very thoughtful about that. but i think that this is a hill to die on. i don't know how much hope there is that republicans will do anything to oppose this nomination, to be clear. but that just means that there is even more burden on, for example, people who have been investigating matt gaetz to release that report. there is even more of a burden on truth tellers to tell the truth and to refuse to go away until the american people can hear us. and whether you have a bully

pulpit, or seat in congress, you know, that's kind of to you. i also just think that there is an element of even if you voted for donald trump, you really should -- you would think get pause or give pause by the idea of having someone like matt gaetz, not just in office, but in charge of enforcing your own rights and the rights of those in your family. so, i think, you know, we have to bring this home to people. there is a sense that republicans really want to stick the thumb at government in general. but the reality of what that means for americans and their day to day lives, i don't believe that many people who voted for donald trump, i think therery a are a lot of people didn't quite know what they were getting in this sense. they knew who donald trump was, but not every american has thought through what this looks like in their day to day lives and all the different ways in which american government supports their day to day lives.

this is chilling. obviously also just the message it sends to women is disturbing. and i think -- i don't know what else to say about it except to say we have to hold the moral ground, even when there is not power to hold someone accountable. so -- >> i mean, i think it is a good point about what people thought they were getting, because i think if you -- the crudest political analysis makes clear that what trump was saying about crime, illegal immigration, and the economy, right, at least some of that accounts for some of his vote, particularly popular vote. crime, do we think crime is going to get better, worse with matt gaetz in charge. immigration, will that get better or worse with matt gaetz in charge of the department of justice and the economy, do we think destabilizing the country with tulsi gabbard in charge of national intelligence is going to stabilize or destabilize the economy? >> i mean, how does somebody who

has been under investigation for sex trafficking, a minor, a minor, i believe a 17-year-old girl, how does somebody like that keep american communities safe? >> when the fbi is in charge of sex trafficking. >> he's also, by the way, he's also americans should know, we can't say this enough, he has vowed to abolish the fbi. >> right. and they haven't found a spot for some of the whackiest whack jobs yesterday. the idea that this is -- i think there was some analysis including at this table that this won't be that bad, he won the popular vote, the prize he always had, he wants to stay popular. all of our moral of bjects to a alleged sex trafficker, the impact of highly incompetent people being in charge of the

agencies that are going to touch and shape the public perception of your administration the most is, you know, back to my plan of the politics of this, absolutely idiotic. >> and, i mean, we spent four years, we spent eight years talking about the fact that government and people in government don't do a good job about explaining what government does. but to have a guy as mara said who treats running the government as a reality tv show, and appointing people that are completely unqualified and often have different values than those agencies, i do think that ultimately has to give some people who voted for him pause. and i think some part of what we need to do over the next four years is to explain things in a way that people realize, you know what, maybe that vote wasn't such a good idea when he puts a child sex trafficker, alleged child sex trafficker ahead of the justice department. we have to do a better job of doing that. and you did a beautiful job of it just now. >> well, thanks.

i fear that there are many americans who are so siloed in the kind of political content that they consume that they may not know, for example, what we know about matt gaetz. and so i think the question has to be how not only how do the -- how does a pro democracy coalition rebuild itself, and bring in working americans to a much larger degree because that's larger soul searching work for sure, but also simply how do we take the facts that we know to be true, because they are just simply facts, and make sure that they are actually reaching the largest number of americans they can? i think not just in the media, but just for civic society, that's just a larger question. >> it is a good point about -- i have a different -- i think people are really smart. and i think that all voters will be -- the people attacking matt gaetz for these -- this conduct

are republicans, republicans that revealed this tale of him showing sex videos of himself after crushing ed medicine. i mean, i think it is a question for joe rogan who seemed to be the most influential tastemaker about what it meant to be a man. is it a man to be an alleged child sex trafficker? is it a man to be an adjudicated sex abuser? is it manly to say that women should stay in violent marriages rather than getting divorced? you have to go to the men who shaped the perception of men in this cycle. that's a larger conversation for another day. joe rogan is welcome to join it. vaughn hillyard, rick stengel, mara gay, thank you. stengel, mara gay, thank you. er: exactlyt and trade on my own... client: yes, and let them manage some investments for me too. let's move on, shall we? no can do. client: i'll get out here. where are you going?? schwab.

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today, we have added secretary of state, under secretary of state for public diplomacy, the nasa administrator, head of the forest service and the president's personal assistant. we have gone through the big wall in three columns. anybody else going tonight? there needs to be a new director of the cia, as well, and now tonight the national security adviser is out too. and so, yeah, we're going to need another wall soon. >> hi again, everybody. 5:00 in new york. one of the hallmarks of the first trump administration was our friend and dear colleague rachel maddow and her wall, keeping tabs on and listing all of the many people who left the white house under trump. often under duress, often fired,

after a blowup, many of them unceremoniously fired on twitter by the ex-president himself for not giving him exactly what he wanted. we show that blast from the past, that time capsule with you, because this time it is not clear that rachel is going to need a wall and maybe not one that big because donald trump is now surrounding himself with the kind of people who would never have any tension with him, the people who only say yes, people whose only qualification for the kinds of jobs they're getting are that feature, that fact, that they're loyal only to him, not the constitution, not the expertise. once associated with the agencies they have been tapped to lead. just take the most recent cabinet picks, fox news weekend morning show anchor to head the department of defense, a former democratic congresswoman who publicly spreads russian talking points, who has been now tapped

to lead the agency's spy agencies and the man who was a target of a sex trafficking investigation to lead the department of justice. and the breaking news s brough you in the last hour, robert kennedy jr. to lead the department of health and human services. of course, the choices still have to come to pass, either bypass senate confirmation or by some ultimate humiliation of the republicans in the senate, be confirmed by the senate, and "new york times" editorial board, mr. trump clearly expects the senate simply to roll over and ignore its responsibilities, remaking the federal trump inc. subordinate to him. he demanded the senate give him ability to make recess appointments, bypassing the senate's consent process when

the chamber is adjourned for ten days or more. and not just the position at the top of the agencies that trump is filling with unqualified yes men and women, he has threatened to purge the departments of civil servants who he believes are not loyal enough to him. republican party has already demonstrated over the last nine years that they almost always let minimum have his way with whatever his attention demands. here is congressman troy nelles after trump spoke to the house republican caucus. >> donald trump is -- he was in there, everybody loves listening to him. he could have sat in there for two hours, three hours and we would all be listening. he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. if he says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch

our heads. that's it. >> at least they admit it. helpful feature. we're going to forget about the constitution, the guiding principle of the country and the republican party, and replace it with donald trump, liz cheney warned us, we are slow walking into autocracy, though at the rate this week is going it looks more like we are running. it is where we start the hour with the host of the rachel maddow show here on msnbc, "new york times" best-selling author, my colleague and dear friend, rachel maddow is here. where to start? you go. >> well, i don't know. i don't know where to start. i do feel like, nicolle, that you maybe more than anyone has been very clear-eyed about what was coming. and about what was being promised here and that there was no reason to expect this to be moderated or normal or that this

is going to tack back toward the center, toward anything that looked anything like traditional american politics. you did your autocracy in america series and, listen, we saw what was going to happen and now it is happening. so i do feel like this is a moment for people to get real, and for people to stop saying, like, oh, this is going to end up being much more moderate than anybody expected, when are you going to stop -- when are you going to start apologizing for saying that democracy was threatened. it is time to get real and realize this is really what we're up against. but i also think the fact that we all feel a little bit, i don't know, flummoxed is the right word, rocked by the increasing incredulity of the choices is that it is meant to shock us, it is meant to adjust our sense of what is normal, what is possible, and to sort of so disorient us as to what it counts to propose governance in the united states that we're ready for the most radical

pronouncements and actions. and i do think we're supposed to feel the way we do right now. that's a part of it. it is a shock and awe campaign against american traditions and morets and that's how most of the country feels about it. >> i think to sort of sustain the military analysis, the iraq war starts with a shock and awe bombing campaign, the war is a catastrophe. it doesn't connote ce, it doesn't signal he'll succeed in successfully demolishing american democracy, it does mean that we as a press still every single time chase the shiny objects and that's named matt gaetz, tulsi gabbard and rfk jr. . those are those are the shiny objects. it is propelled by this hatred of the democratic party and the media elites and also a promise

to deliver on the economy, on immigration, and the people in charge of those two things, one of them is an alleged child sex trafficker and the other by her own telling a dog killer. the competence is maybe where he gets sort of bulloxed up. >> i think the idea of the authoritarian promise is that everything shrivels in government other than the will of the leader, right? so, you don't necessarily put a robert f. kennedy jr. in the -- in charge of you're hoping for great things from hhs. matt gaetz, he has explicitly proposed abolishing the justice department, not specifically abolishing the fbi, and the atf, but talking about abolishing the justice department. tulsi gabbard as the director of

national intelligence is -- the idea that tulsi gabbard in a normal circumstance could get a security clearance to be a walmart style greeter at any u.s. intelligence agency, let alone get past the security barriers is insane. you do that because you want the worst for these agencies, you want the worst for the u.s. government, because you think that the u.s. government is worthless. that's part of consolidating power, to make the u.s. government nothing other than the leader and people who will do what he says. and are not being any repository of expertise, let alone, you know, just general day to day know how anywhere. so it is a sort of -- it is -- steve bannon said it is a leninist project, destroy the state. this is the cabinet you nominate to not to run the u.s. government, to do anything, but to destroy the u.s. government.

and so that the u.s. government can be fundamentally reimagined as something much more like a unitary authoritarian or autocratic for lack of a better term, system. >> what are you looking at as the friction points? in the first trump presidency, it was the firing of jim comey after he refused to, quote, let mike flynn go, comey says no, trump embarks on a four-year long crusade against the fbi and the department of justice. to your point, matt gaetz is going to be in charge of department and is expected to replace his last handpicked head of the fbi christopher wray. he's sort of threatened jerome powell who said it is illegal for him to replace me. where do you expect any friction between trump 2.0 and the institutions that stand? >> well, the first one is going to happen over the question not

of the appointment of any particular nominee, not of the confirmation process for any particular nominee, but whether there will be a confirmation process for nominees. the first point of confrontation is going to be between trump and the republican-controlled senate and going to be over the basic question of whether or not the senate has any role in confirming any of these nominees. trump will have to go to very arcane, very, very unusual and untested corners of the constitution and president to find any way he can shut down the house and the senate himself. he's going to tell republicans in congress to shut themselves down. thus marginalizing themselves as one of the three supposedly co-equal branches of government, so that he can set up the executive branch himself without anybody having a say about it. now, why would you want to do that rather than just have all of your nominees confirmed by

the senate, which i'm sure the republicans the in the senate would be happy to do. you want them to not have a role in the confirmation process because you want the legislative branch to shrivel, you want the legislative branch to go away. what authoritarians do is they consolidate power within the executive and then in the person of the authoritarian leader. and so, that's why it is an advantage to get a recess appointment rather than a senate confirmed appointment, even if he's guaranteed senate confirmation for even the craze yefts crazeyest of these folks. >> he said shrivelled twice, i'll go there, we have an alleged child sex trafficker as trump's pick for doj, and adjudicated sexual abuser and president-elect himself and the man who believes a violent marriage is better than a

divorce and women should stay in it. i think of all the post election analysis that is undisputed, joe rogan's influence is clear, the massive audience i think i saw somewhere that trump's interview was seen by 34 million people. and vice president harris' podcast appearances were seen by maybe hundreds of thousands of people. what role do you think the man sphere influencers have in saying, no, that actually isn't masculinity in america, to brag -- in the words of a republican senator, jd vance, quote, crushed ed medicine, chased it with an energy drink so he could go all night, end quote. that's the kind of stuff that republicans are saying about matt gaetz, the pick to be ag. shock and awe, how much can we sort of clinically ask the people who influenced more americans than maybe anybody else to either own these kinds

of men and this definition and this example of masculinity or say, maybe not? >> i don't think you -- i don't think you ask those folks for what you're asking. one of the things we know from looking at the rise of authoritarians in other countries and throughout history is that there is almost always machismo play. there is almost always a performative masculinity and dominance sort of pageant that goes along with it and it is always ridiculous. you get, like, a schlub like berlusconi or a schlub like donald trump, you know, or you get robert f. kennedy, who is 160 years old and juiced to the gills and talking about how we need to get all the chemicals out of our food, it is, like, yeah, dude, can you say that with, like, i can't hear you

over the biceps in your seventh decade. >> i think he did push-ups, very putin-esque though, right, he rides horses in the winter without shirts on. >> exactly. it is a very shirtless vibe, despite the type of man who does it. and that's part of it, right? that's their performance of dominance, and that's why there isn't a female dictator who we put in the list of all of these things. this is part and parcel of how you sell strong men leadership. i don't knee need process, rule traditions, anybody who knows anything, that's what you love about me because i'm going to flex until my shirt sleeves fall off and get it done. that's the sale. and so asking guys who have been selling this their whole lives, like joe rogan, look at what his career has been up to the point where he got his -- into his podcast, looking at the people who have themselves been

profiting off that kind of salesmanship in terms of what they have to offer, they're all sort of proudly dumb, right, like i don't know, but i know i don't know, and i know i can do a better deal, it is all the same shtick and you can -- this goes back to gladiator times. this has been around for a long time. i don't think those guys are going to have a conscience about it and decide to cash in against their own interests. i do think that most people have critical thinking skills, right? and i think most americans are capable of answering to our better angels. and so i think there is an alternative to asking people to sign up for the sort of dana white, joe rogan model, hulk hogan model of masculinity. and, you know, it is a matter of one side sort of prevailing over the other, not asking the other side to have a conscience. >> i still believe that too. that people -- the better angel reaches them when they're home

and they're not on their phones that they can be reached. why do you think that didn't happen in this election? >> i don't know. i feel like the -- my electoral politics antenna have been about yea long and not very well tuned. i don't think i know who is going to win an election or why. but it does feel like some of the -- some of the global -- the global forces that work here that have caused every governing party in every industrialized democracy to lose in every election that's happened in recent years, like, i think some of those global forces are at work here. i think america is willing to go for this strong man promise and i think that the same way that it worked in lots of other countries, both in our own time and in previous generations it worked here for all the reasons that it always works and it never works because you think that this guy is secretly

competent at something that looks like governance. it never wins because you think this guy is going to be more normal than you expected. it wins because this guy says i'm going to get in there and break everything. i'm a real man, i'm a strong man, nobody else is worth anything, i alone can do it. it is the same pitch from every other guy and why can i alone do it? there is an enemy within, and we have to use force and violence against them and this is an emergency and it has been -- we're in decline, and we need to make ourselves great again by defeating the enemy within and be ruthless and crush them and i can do that because i'm the one willing to break all the rules. it is the same stupid preachy pitch going back for more than 100 years in industrialized democracies and it all ends the same way. but it doesn't make it less appealing to voters. and that's why most of these guys do get into power by the choice of the people, and then once they're there, it is also the choice of the people whether they stay there and in the very short-term for us, it is the choice how much they get away

with, how much pushback they're going to get, and how -- and what they find difficult to do. people owe it to the country to make what they're doing right now hard. if it is easy, they'll do it more. that's where we are right now. that's the clarity of purpose we all have and how to try to save the country from further autocratic slide. >> your new yorker piece is also about a defining feature of autocrats. they fleece you. talk about how that might be a rub. >> yeah, i mean, this is, i think, just something for us in the media to keep in mind, also for something for us to be aware of what we can learn from other countries, and other experiments in the past. autocrats, would be authoritarians, are always crooks, they always steal. why bother getting rid of the rule of law if you can't then steal from the country blindly?

it always happens every time. and it happened with all of our american demagogues throughout history. they all have been incredibly corrupt and have stolen from the people who they have persuaded to vote for them. there is no reason to expect this will be any different particularly the way the run-up to this next term for trump has gone and it just -- it is worth being aware of that both in terms of self-protection, watch your wallet, but i think it is also worth us being focused on as the fourth estate in terms of looking out for kleptocratic stuff, looking out for the establishment of an american oligarchy that isn't just scary because of power, it is scary because it is stealing the country out from under us. they do it in every country, they do it everywhere and i do end think the american people will like it if it is well documented. it is our job to document it. >> rachel, our north star on and off the air and says every time we talk on and off tv that these jobs are such a tremendous

privilege. i that up about that, i i thought about that and repeated that more than a few times over last ten days. thank you for the privilege of getting to talk to you at top of this hour. great to see you. >> thanks for having me. i'll be back anytime you want me, nicolle. >> any day, any day. you know where i am. well when come back, the end of the line for one of the purv. what is next for alex jones? that's coming up. also ahead, it took donald trump one week to dispel any notion he's at all interested in any other than retribution and a perth purge of the deep state. he tapped robert f. kennedy jr. to go wild on health, the very serious danger of what that could look like from people on the front lines. later in the hour. "deadline: white house"

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can you muster a war cry? >> a big joke. >> it is not really, though. it is but it isn't. it is inspiring. >> it's my resistance to them, it is a human under attack. [ war cry ] we're going to beat these people. i'll try to be dramatic, but it

has been a hard fight. >> if you are worried that you won't be able to see him anymore, you have reason to be concerned. i think that tv safe version of the expression is fool or mess around and find out. whatever it is, that was conspiracy theoryist alex jones and today he found out, remember, he owes the families of sandy hook victims more than $1 billion for defaming them. so this week his assets which included what we just showed you, his conspiracy-minded show, which airs on his website, his platform infowars, were for sale at a bankruptcy auction. guess who bought them. well, the onion, of course, a satirical publication that spoofed jones for years. full details of the purchase are not yet known, but the sale did have the backing of a number of sandy hook families. joining our conversation, the only person we could think of

qualified to talk about it, former rnc spokesman, tim miller. this counts for a long overdue justice for people who deserve it, perhaps more than anyone. but i will just point this out, donald trump jr., the president-elect's son, said last month, there are a couple of people i want to put in as press secretary, that would be like laura loomer would fit in for that one, alex jones for a month. going from infowars, but perhaps not gone from our creens. >> well, first, thank you for playing that video and the intro. i didn't realize how much i needed it until i watched the yelling. that was good. look, here is the thing, in this time, right now, where there is this really annoying thing happening and more than annoying really troubling thing happening which is a lot of bad people

that have acted badly and that have acted outside the law and that have defamed people are being rewarded, you know, the trump cabinet is a good place to start with that. a in a new one today with rfk jr. it is nice to be reminded that amidst this era where bad people have been rewarded for acting badly, there have been some people that have really been punished and have suffered because of their actions. and that there is a accountability out there. alex jones and rudy are probably at the top of that list. but there have been others and, you know, the wheels of justice and the wheels of fate sometimes go a little slower than we would like, but eventually they come around. eventually karma will bite you and it bit alex jones really deep. >> what do you make of the picture where i think the rubio pick was the head fake, right,

and gaetz, gabbard and rfk are the real impulses of the president-elect. i know we share in a complete reassurance that trump is indeed still trump. but what do you think the play is? do you think it is to have them all as acting or to get the senate republicans to humiliate themselves and confirm them over their own objections? what do you think he's up to in. >> it is funny how terrible and clownish it is. i think that's actually part of the strategy, right? if you have chosen one, maybe the republican senators get the courage to put down gaetz, that's like how do you rationalize not approving get, but e approving putin stooge enthusiast, enthusiast is the

right word, to be in charge of our national intelligence. it is hard. i think trump is going to beat them down. maybe because of gaetz's personal relationship something happens there. but either through submission on the hill or through recess appointments, this clown cabinet is going to be his cabinet and it is interesting. i do feel like us never trumpers and democracy watchers of this show understand trump than the people around him. i was watching a clip of his transition chair howard lutnick saying rfk won't get hhs, you know, over on capitol hill a bunch of republican senators saying, no, we need a serious pick for attorney general, and it is, like, trump's own chair of the transition and the republican senators that supported him don't understand, like, still they continue to delude themselves a decade later. and they're getting what they signed up for. i've been saying if you lay down

with a clown, you're going to come up with some clownmakeup on. they're either going to confirm them or trump will go around them and i think that's the reality. >> i asked rachel maddow this question, you know, first trump presidency, the pressure points were between trump and the national security agencies who were investigating whether his campaign wittingly or unwittingly was targeted with or colluding with russia. you have tulsi gabbard as the head of . odni. what do you make of what the pressure points will be? it seems like if you have run on crime and immigration and you put matt gaetz in charge of the agency whose offices will touch crime and immigration, that isn't going to go well and the thing you promised isn't going to happen. but do you think -- is that sort of chess while he plays

whac-a-mole? >> to me, what i expect this time, this is not to say it is not worthwhile to resist and to oppose and to try to gum up the works and for democrats to do what they can and if republican senators want to do the right thing, i support that. i think unlike 2017 where a lot of this, the comey thing and then the -- you point out the comey thing, the outrage over that, that started, you know, the series of events, i think back more towards the muslim ban, and he implements it and then -- and it was for like an hour people are upset and there are protests and then it is, like, wait a minute, we don't know how to implement this. there are legal green cardholders that we're holding in cells because they're from another country originally. but they weren't capable. and to me i think it is hard to predict, but putting somebody like hegseth in charge of defense, rfk, hhs, gaetz, it

will be the actual actions this time where they're going to be way out over their own skis on some of this stuff. i do end no don't know if is it deportations or tariffs or rfk, is he going to fire the people in charge of all of our infectious disease research, who knows. i think that the actions, you know, of the administration will be the things that yield a response time rather than outside forces. >> and just holding a mirror up to how all that goes. tim miller, thank you very much for being here. please keep your schedule free between 4:00 and 6:00, we're going to need that. >> thank you for sharing that alex jones video. when we come back, to be clear by now, donald trump meant what he was saying on the campaign trail. he plans too purge the deep state and go after his perceived and imagined enemies.

he's also handed over health to rfk jr. and vowed to gut the department of education. the grave danger these moves will cause to american children and families. that's next. cause to american and families that's next. woah, a lost card isn't keeping this thrill seeker down. lost her card, not the vibe. the soul searcher, is finding his identity, and helping to protect it. hey! oh yeah, the explorer! she's looking to dive deeper... all while chase looks out for her. because these friends have chase. alerts that help check. tools that help protect. one bank that puts you in control. chase. make more of what's yours. no matter who you are, where you live, or what you believe, there are things we all have in common for black americans and for all people. what matters most is family, community, and a chance to thrive. but a future where we can all thrive is under threat, and our schools and our towns, even in our halls of justice. the naacp® has been on the front lines for over 100 years,

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powering possibilities. comcast business. power's out. it took donald trump one week to clear up any question in anyone's mind about whether he was serious about or interested in anything other than political retribution. and a purge of the deep state in

his second term. as promised, sure to be in the cross hairs of his plans is the department of education. and what happens to the people in charge of educating our kids and keeping them safe. trump ran on a promise to abolish the entire department of education, hard to get that one out of my mouth. project 2025 lays out the plan to do that. a plan "the new york times" says could lead to vast increases in public education and affect low income children and those with disabilities. trump has named rfk jr. as his pick to lead the department of health and human services. he is an antivaccine conspiracy theorist with no medical or public health degrees, someone trump said he wants to, quote, go wild on health, end quote, whose outrageous plans include, quote, undermining fda authority to rein in inappropriate medical

treatments or to warn about products that can damage the public health. joining our coverage, president of the american federation of teachers, randi weingarten is here, and joining us pediatric physician dr. michael anderson. after meeting your long title, i'll start with you and this idea of expertise. if you have a child today, and you're just googling rfk and seeing all of the things he's put out over the years about the links between vaccines and autism, who should your first call be to? >> it is another unprecedented day and we got a series of unprecedented days and you and i have had this discussion many times. first and foremost, parents and families are starting from a time of stress. the surgeon general put out a report in august that families are stressed base line. now the aftermath of the election, i think families are even more stressed. and now even this notion of

antivaxx taking a firmer hold is really disconcerting. i keep coming back to the relationship that families should and will have what their primary medical care home. the bottom line is we know that vaccines save lives. i'm old enough and have enough gray hairs to remember seeing kids with influenza die, to see kids with pneumococcal meningitis die. we wiped out tetanus and polio, so first and foremost, we got to continue to have families establish trust or reinvigorate trust with their primary care providers because this could be a very long couple of years. >> i mean, i just want to follow up, i think that a lot of these conversations, actually the three of us had together, were during covid when pediatricians were giving families sound information, the same guy coming in was the president and he was irresponsible at best. not modeling social distancing

or mask wearing, having events indoors that were so dangerous, one of his own prominent backers died. and sowing enough confusion around the covid vaccine that his own supporters were confused and disincentivized from taking something that he took, his family took, most of the anchors at fox news took. yes, you should have a conversation and a direct line to your pediatrician, and but some people don't, they rely on emergency room care or clinics. and the power of the bully pulpit from the president and hhs secretary could put a lot of misgivings in their minds. what do they do? >> yeah, it is unfortunate that there is headwinds or that this is a fight or whatever the terrible verb is, and i think science has to win. we have to find champions that come on your program, that speak the truth, i think the wonderful american academy of pediatrics and the children's hospital association and all the great people, they have big jobs

baseline, and now that they have to continue to fight back against misinformation, disinformation, anything antivaxx, it just adds to the burden. i don't have great easy answers, but i know i've been in contact over the past week with dear friends that are general pediatricians and they're ready. they understand this is about saving children's lives and nothing could be more important, so we got to continue to reinvigorate the scientific community to have great advocates that stand up and tell the truth and it is unfortunate that it is a fight, but it is going to be a fight. >> should we move on to the department of education? this is from "the new york times," trump wants to use and get rid of the department of education, quote, perhaps paradoxically as trump vowed to close the department, he implied he would use the's investigative powers to peer into school's practices for gender and race. how are teachers feeling?

>> so, teachers have been feeling pretty beleaguered for a long time anyway. but at the same time, teachers are up to the task because what teachers want is what kids need and they, you know, i've heard so many conversations already this week, how do we protect our kids, what are we going to do? as i keep saying, i think the election was about the price of eggs, my members are, like, okay, yes, we have to do that, we have to actually deal with all of those things, but how do we protect our kids. and i think that the issues -- so the irony here is that al shankar in 1977 actually opposed the establishment of the department of education, wanted education to stay as hew, because if we thought about all the things of the whole child, and all family issues, they really should have stayed together. and now you have rfk and this

threat to abolish the department. this is the real issue. just like the real issue in terms of health and human services is how do we create and re-create and reinvigorate the trusting relationships between a parent and doctors or a pediatrician. we have to actually fight for the funding that stays -- that is right now meted out by the department of education. what the agency looks like is less important than making sure that the funding is there for kids with disabilities. the funding is there for kids who are poor, the funding is there for first generation kids who are going to college, the funding is there for all the career opportunities. so, the way in which we're going to focus on this is focus on first instinct, first impulse, how do we make sure that that disabled kid gets that funding? >> iep.

the department of education goes away, what happens to kids with ieps? >> that's our question. so, they're in charge now. so our question is, where is it going to go? we care about the kids. we care about making sure, like, what happens to those emergency rooms now when fewer and fewer kids get measles vaccines and get sick, what happens if they don't have their own doctor because it costs too much money. think about the irony here. think about even in gaza, when there wasone polio case detected, how much even in gaza there was this whole push to actually eradicate polio again. so, all of this, so, our -- what we're going to try to do is make sure we communicate with people about how does -- how do we help people, how do we protect people? not protect the bureaucracy. how do we help kids and food services, how do we help make

sure that people know what raw milk means, how do we make sure that kid that needs that title 1 service in a red state, since most of the department of the education goes to the red states, not the blue states, who makes sure that kid gets that service so that kid can read, that kid doesn't lose that paraprofessional. that's how we're going to fight it and just ask a lot of questions. and actually hold the congress as well as the new president accountable for what they're doing to children. >> yeah. i need you to stick around. i have to sneak in a quick break. we'll be right back. i have to sneak in a quick break. we'll be right back.

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the fact that we're considering to bring somebody on with no scientific or medical credentials, who falsely claimed for decades that vaccines cause autism, who has quite frankly said just outrageous comments about science and medicine, that this person would come in to gut the nih i think is shameful. i think it is shameful. and miss green, you can clap all you want, but it is shameful, it is dangerous. >> dr. anderson, there is what rfk has been for and has advocated against and then the rfk of it all, sort of, you know, a noun and a verb, a dead worm in his brain and a scandal.

always somewhere in the paragraph, dead cub left if central park, leaving falconry to -- he's so outside of the mainstream and in terms of relatability. how do you see him interacting with the president on these issues and what is just the personality dynamic represent in terms of a threat to the ability to this department to function? >> yeah, it is really disconcerting and putting up the nih logo or name just sparked a cup couple of thing s. we have made such advances in pediatric care, the vaccines, realize how many amazing cures we have in pediatrics and cancer. there is a gene therapy for sickle cell now. we're doing amazing things. why? because programs like the nih or

systems like the nih fund research, great people at children's hospital advance it, and to think there is any kind of headwind or gap because of leadership, because of misinformation or disinformation, that strikes incredible fear into the hearts of pediatricians and child advocates across this nation. that interaction is going to be interesting. i think the people i'm really worried about are the great scientists and the great physicians and the amazing people trying to advance pediatric care. >> you get the last word. >> the, you know, the people, i'm a teacher and i often used to teach about the gilded age and the gilded age versus the people. and right now what we have to do, think i those of us who are in civil society or are honored to represent people, we have to be cloaked in the people. government is supposed to work

for the people and by the people. and so, instead of getting crazed about all this, we have to actually make sure that people hear what is going on, and what we need to do about it, and be there for the well-being of the people of america. >> ear to the ground. >> exactly. >> all right, we're going to continue to call on both of you. thank you so much for joining us today. quick break for us. we'll be right back. today. quick break for us we'll be right back.

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there has been another

nomination made by president-elect trump since we have been on the air. he posted he has selected jay clayton, jay clayton is the former s.e.c. during his fist term for the position of u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, sdny. clayton will take the reins on the ongoing federal case involving new york city mayor eric adams, an investigation surrounding polymarket and a host of other sensitive financial and public corruption-related cases as well as a recent state of terrorism cases. if the last two days are any indication, it is going to be a very interesting transition. we're tracking all of it from the sdny to the justice department led by matt gaetz. for all the legal news and analysis, sign up for the "deadline" legal wsletter, tap the qr code on the screen and sign up and you'll have a fresh newsletter delivered to your inbox every friday. another break for us. we'll be right back. friday another break for us we'll be right back. felite.com.

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