table for families. >> you have the same -- back to back races. it's fair to say he was an extreme guy. did that matter? >> what was a kicker for a lot of people as he could not pronounce the name of the town he moved to to gain power. that matters to us. he made fun of me for talking about shop class in junior high. our values and priorities matter tosa we don't want to hear that we are silly for caring about wanting to be able to prepare fresh fruits and vegetables for our children are wanting other forms of intelligence honored in education. education. i saw fixing the car radio

of another member from virginia. right? >> yeah. north carolina, yeah. >> north carolina. i saw you fixed that up. nice work, good to have you on, thanks a lot. that's all in on this thursday night and "alex wagner tonight" starts right now. the time i fixed your carburetor. >> yes. you have done it like three, four times. >> that's me. grease monkey. thank you my friend. there's a ton of news to get to this evening but i want to start by going back to the year 2019 on the small island nation of samoa. that year, one year before the global pandemic, samoa was experiencing its own pandemic. >> this is the biggest increase in debt we've seen since records began. the figure of 32 deaths up from 25 only yesterday. >> we saw -- not designed to deal with this and i think the minute you are getting hospitals running at 200%, 300% capacity, that speaks for itself. incredibly serious. >> the outbreak was measles.

a disease for which vaccines have been available for more than 60 years blue 2019 an entirely preventable outbreak there killed 83 people. most of them children under the age of 4. why? why with you -- a preventable disease spreading like wildfire and killing so many children? well, one year prior to that outbreak, two infants in samoa died after nurses accidentally mixed the vaccine nurses with another drug. a horrible tragedy. and it was one the american anti-vaccination movement sought to exploit. the antivaccine group children's health defense jumped on the incident to stoke skepticism about vaccines in samoa. and during that time, measles vaccination rates for infants in samoa went from 92% in 2013 to just 40% by 2018. the man in charge of that anti- vaccination campaign, the leader of children's health

defense, was robert f. kennedy jr. he personally traveled to samoa. he told the local papers the samoan prime minister shared his concerns about vaccines and right around that same time the prime minister halted the country's infant measles vaccine program. all of that created the conditions for samoa's deadliest measles outweak in generations which resulted in the tests of dozens of the -- deaths of the dozens of the island's children and the man who ran that deadly anti- vaccination campaign has just been named by donald trump to be the next secretary of health and human services. where he will oversee everything from vaccine and drug approvals to children's health to the centers for disease control and prevention. president trump already promised today give rfk jr. a broad mandate with america's health. >> robert f. kennedy cares more

about human beings and health and the environment than anybody. i'm going to let him go wild on health. i'm going to let him go wilden the food and let him go wild on medicines. >> by now you have probably heard about his vaccine skepticism. over past year he's gone out of his way to try and claim that he is not antivaccine while also saying things like this. >> you have talked about that the media slanders you by calling you antivaxxer and you have said that you are not antivaccine. you are pro safe vaccine. difficult question. can you name any vaccines that you think are good? >> i think some -- antivirus vaccines are probably -- averting more problems than they're causing. there's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective. >> okay. so he's pro safe vaccines, but also there's no vaccine that is safe.

so kennedy's not just against all vaccines, he's just against the ones that currently exist. kennedy's dangerous health claims go way beyond vaccines and since 1945 local governments have added fluoride to u.s. drinking water in order to stop tooth decay especially in young children considered one of the country's greatest public health achievements. but kennedy has repeatedly expressed skepticism about putting fluoride in the water and indicated he might encourage local municipalities to do away with their water fluoridation programs. >> if on january 2025 three months away here, what would you actually do? >> i think -- fluoride -- is on its way out. i think the faster that it goes out the better i'm not going to compel anybody to take it out but i'm going to advise the water districts about their legal liability. their legal obligation to their service. >> just to be clear, there are real consequences to removing

fluoride from the water. stat news reports the city of juneau, alaska removed fluoride from drinking water in 2007 and research showed that dental procedures related to cavities increased after that. particularly among children in socioeconomically disadvantaged families. i would go as far as to say that community water fluoridation is probably our best health equity oriented public health intervention that we have. said jennifer meyer. a nurse and professor of health sciences at the university of alaska anchorage. who led that study. rfk jr. also promoted fake cures for covid like ivermectin. cures that have caused severe injury and death. kennedy has promised to dismantle our health care infrastructure through massive purges and he recently told an audience that he plans to fire 600 employees from the national institutes of health. and he's got plans to gut other

key departments as well. >> clearing out the corruption in your terms. would that mean clearing out the top level federal service workers that are currently at the fda or cdc? >> in some categories i would say. >> what does that look like? >> their entire departments like the nutrition departments at fda. that -- that have to go. >> just to be clear, the fda's nutrition programs focus on things like preventing chronic diet based diseases and regulating what foods can call themselves healthy on their packaging. so rfk's fixations are by and large somewhat fringe and conspiratorial but also share an important feature. whether it is spreading measles in samoa or taking fluoride out of the water or ending covid-19 vaccine requirements they all reveal distinct disinterest in the public part of public health. people like robert f. kennedy

jr. prioritize the individual choices of eccentric idea logs many of them wealthy elites over the health of society at large. and the people who end up suffering are disproportionately the poor, the weak, and the marginalized. that is what is at stake with this appointment. joining me now is dr. shah, dean of the brown university school of public health and also the white house covid-19 response coordinator. dr. ja, thank you so much. eager to get your perspective on this. i know you tweeted out earlier today this is an extraordinarily bad close for the health of the american people. the hhs secretary shapes health policy in profound ways. can you expand on in nomination here? >> i can. and this is not a general criticism of trump's nominees. his previous hhs secretary was a perfectly good choice. look, rfk jr. is really outside of the mainstream and hhs secretary does a lot more than

just look at vaccines. the hhs secretary oversees medicare. the program for seniors overseas medicaid which covers almost half of all kids in america and certainly has profound influence over things like what medicines are going to be available to the american people and so in other things. the problem here is the way we have made progress in our country. we're not perfect. we have relied on evidence and analysis and the scientific approach to try to make those decisions. and when we have, and when we have done it right. it's made huge impacts on people's lives in positive ways. rfk jr. doesn't apply the same thinking and i'm deeply worried if he brings his ideas to medicare andmedicaid and vaccines. we are going to face substantial threats to our health. not just for kids, but really

for all americans. >> can you give me a sense of just what practically he can do? what powers are allotted him as the head of hhs? because hhs sits atop a pyramid that underneath it includes the cdc, the fda, and nih, i mean, can he effectively veto fda approvals as a secretary of health and human services? >> yeah, no, it's a very interesting thing. if you look at the passage sector, none of them really had much health experience. none of them had that. but they have done in the past good secretary, democrats and republicans, is they have let the scientists at the fda and nih and cdc make those decisions. agency heads know what the secretary wants. and there's always some amount of political pressure stated or unstated, not to, you know, not to upset the boss. but what i worry about with rfk is he's got such strong ideas. most of which are bad ones. he's got such strong ideas that he will shape who he picks as agency heads and who's going to

be head of fda and cdc and who's going to be head of nih and also those people in order to please him are going to shape their own decisions about which drugs are going to be approved. you know, which tests are going to be available. and what rack vaccines are available for kids. so the ways in which the hhs secretary shapes u.s. health policy, some of it is explicit and he gets to determine whether mammograms are going to be free or not and colon cancer screenings are free or not but lot of you have is much more nuanced and subtle. that's a lot of problems. >> on the sort of immediate level. let's say he manages to get past the nomination process and installed at the agency come the end of january. does that mean he can influence -- i don't know, covid-19 booster shots within the year? i tend to think that, you know, the cdc and the hhs are kind of a vast federal bureaucracy and messing around with it in like the near term is quite

difficult. but maybe you can disabuse me of that idea. >> yeah. no. look, there are some -- for instance, it's going to matter enormously who the cdc director is going to be. if they share rfk jr. 's views, absolutely. if you think about the recommendations for vaccines and why are certain ones authorized from the fda and why are they covered by insurance, those are determinations made by cdc. cdc director certainly along with the hhs secretary can have a profound impact on which vaccines are available and and are going to be free and which vaccines are going to be widely dispersed. it turns out that those are thing that are going to be shaped by -- jointly between thek cc director and hhs secretary and i worry his sitting at the top. he will be allowed to help pick who leaders of the individual agencies are going to be. and that is going to make a big difference. >> dr. jha, invaluable perspective on all of this. somewhat terrifying as well. really appreciate your time and

wisdom tonight. thank you. >> thank you. turn now to michelle goldberg the opinion columnist at the "new york times." michelle, thank you for being here. you had firsthand field experience covering the rfk jr. campaign for president. i want to remind everybody of this very -- useful assessment you made of those who supported rfk and indeed what his candidacy was about. what brought all the supporters together was a peculiar combination of cynicism and incredulity. that lies to them about almost everything that matters. and they believe that with the kennedy campaign, we might be on the cusp of redemption. how complicating is it for our democracy to have someone like robert f. kennedy installed at a health agency with so much influence to have someone who has spread misinformation and disinformation, actually now in the government itself? >> i mean from foundly both in terms of sort of actual health outcomes but also in terms of

this broader destabilization of any common, you know, common sense of what reality is. and i think that the credulity part is in some ways as important as the cynicism right? don't believe anything the government telling you about the efficacy of vaccines or kennedy raised questions about whether hiv really causes aids. at the same time there's all these kind of quake remedy, ivermectin. raw milk, that they're willing to accept with very, very little evidence. you know, with only the sort of anecdotal stories -- one person to another. both for really bad health outcomes but also for again, this kind of we're entering this upside down world where the people who are atop many of these various agencies if trump

gets his way are people who are hostile to what those agencies have traditionally done. >> yeah. i mean, the cdc director dr. mandy cohen shared her concerns about the rfk jr. pick and said even without changing one regulation or one piece of guidance the sharing of misinformation from a place of power is concerning. that's it isn't it? you put him in a place of power. and it undermines settled science in many ways and undermines public health but also changes the way the american public thinks of its government. right? like -- and by the way, the long-term effects of this, even post trump, could be incredibly damaging to just the notion of public health and a government that is there to like be you know, to guard the safety and well-being of its citizens. >> right. i mean in some ways you are going to have sort of the inversion of this trust. you know, whereas i think biden voters with good reason will be quite skeptical and i mean if i

had a, you know, my kids are older now. if my kids were very small, i would not trust some sort of new vaccine schedule that came from this government. i would take my kids to another country and get them treated -- >> vaccinated in. >> established protocols. >> right. and so then you have police trust on both sides and what -- mistrust on both sides and what's the net effect of this in 2030 or 2025? the saving grace i guess is that this is donald trump. a man who is often at war with everybody he hires and fires at will. and will already there's a divergent sort of path for the two men. you see it even in trump's victory speech. praising bobby kennedy on one hand but also saying don't touch the environmental stuff bobby. this is trump on election night talking about bobby kennedy and declaring victory. i think. do we have the clip? >> great guy. and he really means it. he wants to do some things and we're going to let him go to

it. i just said but bobby, leave the oil to me. we have more liquid gold oil and gas and we have more liquid gold than any country in the world. more than saudi arabia. we have more than russia. bobby, stay away from the liquid gold. other than that, go have a good time, bobby. >> so -- so that's election night. and then tonight, just a few minutes ago, trump is having a rally of sorts at mar-a-lago and said this about bobby kennedy. play that clip. >> i just looked at the news reports, people like you, bobby. don't get too popular, bobby. you know. you have reached about the level. >> like at the edge of the day it's trump show and if bobby does exkite on his broad agenda which includes quack health -- >> also important to say also includes some at least very legitimate critiques of, you know, big agriculture. big pharma. i mean the problem with big

pharma is that they charge too much for medicines and patents. they don't invent medicines in the first place, but in the end the critiques are valid. that's going to end up trimming him up. -- tripping him up. trump has a lot of big pharma donors. >> he's been promising oil and gas he's their man. >> they might be okay with him you know, spreading distrust about vaccines and i think they will actually be a lot more upset if he tries to actually do something about, you know, ultra processed foods in schools. i mean just look what happened men michelle obama tried to tell kids to eat vegetables and exercise. >> the nanny state that donald trump is constantly railing against is -- in many ways, something that robert kennedy embraces on certain fronts where on others just unfettered go as you want. don't get vaccinated. michelle, it's been a rolling week of insanity. and it's only thursday. thank you for joining me for

one chapter of it on this thursday night. >> thank you. we have a lot more to get to this evening. like why russian state owned media outlets are loving donald trump's pick to oversee all of america's foreign intelligence services. plus, poetic justice for conspiracy theorist alex jones as the platform he used to call the sandy hook massacre a hoax is auctioned off to literally the perfect buyer. the new and very likely new owners of info wars join me live in studio coming up next.

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the system still think it's in charge. i'm going live right now from what probably will be the last transmission from this building. god bless you all for your support and please support our sponsors and infowars is really the detonator for the whole global movement that's happening and you are the reason it's happening and you are the resistance. god bless and good luck. >> that was alex jones earlier today lamenting the sales of his platform as part of the defamation judgment he owes to family members of victims of the sandy hook elementary school shooting. pending a bankruptcy court hearing in houston next week over whether the auction sale was correctly administered, "the onion" as in "the onion" as in the excellent and satirical news site is expected to acquire the infowars website and social media accounts among other assets and they plan the

remake it into a parody of itself one that mocks weird internet personalities who shamelessly peddle misinformation. as bonus car mick justice. they have partnered with "the onion" as the exclusive advertiser on the revamped infowars site. joining me now are ben collins the chief executive of "the onion's" parent company. and john fineblat, president of every town for gun safety. what a day gentlemen. thank you for making the time -- >> good way of putting it. yeah. what an extraordinary day. first can we start -- the court hearing that's happening in houston? are you confident that the sale is going to go through? >> yeah. look, we won the auction. we heard from the trustee last night and, you know, the biggest shock to us would have been if alex jones is like oh, yeah. absolutely. they won the auction. move right along. so like we're not surprised by this development. but we won. we're excited to take over this thing. >> i think a lot of people are

excited for you to take over. did you hear any response from alex jones' camp? do you know how it landed when he was informed that-"the onion" with the exclusive advertisements from every town for gun safety? >> what's funny is what we can tell, i'm not sure he knew what it was. >> "the onion"? >> humorless reality. >> the newspaper "the onion" and we were like yeah correct. we do have a newspaper. you should all go get it by the way but i don't think he knew exactly what it was and that was very funny to see. he also read a ceo from -- sorry, statement from our ceo bryce, who may or may not exist. >> it's a very -- very hilarious statement. >> yeah. so you know, it's nice to -- him to get his own medicine in a lot of ways today. >> can you explain john what it means for every town to be the exclusive advertiser here? >> look, some people think it's odd bedfellows for the onion

and every town to be together. it's the opposite. what they've got is the creativity to really breakthrough and in many ways, we think humor is a way to reach audiences we've never reached before. and to reach them in a way with a new medium and that is really satire and humor. >> yeah. i would imagine first of all, i think that's such an astute observation. the power of humor and i think in many ways the right uses humor often wickedly to its own advantage. the left hasn't been able to do it. this is also insanely funny right? what -- what was the reaction from the parents who had their children massacred at newtown? right. who have suffered through so much. to get this major settlement with allayment jones and now this turn of the screw. can you talk a little bit about this? >> john talked to them specifically today but they made this happen. >> the parents. >> yeah. they deferred some money to make this happen for us. within the -- within the case. and, you know, i want to -- >> some of the settlement

money. >> yeah exactly. >> was used towards this purchase. >> they thought also this would be funny. the big cruel joke about alex jones is he takes all the people and turns them into contacts in his world. the sandy hook families are characters that you know, everybody involved in the case are soulless monsters and all this stuff. they are the victims but they're also human beings and they also like a joke. they want something nice to happen. and, you know, thankfully today i think a lot of people opened their phone for the first time and saw something that didn't make them want to, you know, like run off into the woods and live in the wilderness. they saw something really good and that's the feeling they wanted to give to people i think. >> and the thing is, you have to acknowledge that courage of these families. for years standing up to alex jones. and i mean, and they know that the impact of this is bigger than just them. they know that this is going to have an impact on victims all over this country. and certainly every town is -- very concerned about those families and we came into

really being after sandy hook. but -- they know -- all over this country. >> and i think in the bigger picture, even setting aside the horror of gun violence, it's that alex jones, his infowars site ends up being a charade just like he's a charade you know? i think there's real justice in this. i have to ask in terms of like how this idea came about ben, i think it was that you replied to a joke on blue sky which is an alternative to x. saying that you were looking into buying infowars. is that -- the seed? looking into it. >> yeah. i quoted a famous guy there. when i said that. look, that's really -- we found out about it like everybody else did. we read on the news that it was for sale and everybody in the room was like wouldn't it be funny if we actually boughtinfowars? we had just bought "the onion" like nine months ago so we had

kind of known how to buy stuff at this point. and we just started calling around. we called the families' lawyers and we were like how does this actually happen? >> why do you think of the families? just because they were so already involved in the process? >> also knew them from my previous life at the place. so i -- i called them and i was like what's the deal here? like what do you think it might take and how do we actually make this work? and yeah. and then you know, a few months later, you know, we were -- simultaneously building up this roster of like onion writer hall of famers the best comedy writers in america and what do we do? at that point we were like -- if we don't get this thing i think we're going to be pretty upset about it. because we have this like very expansive cool new world to -- to build on this -- this horrible website we're about to pave over. so we're very excited to show off to people and that's basically -- they made it happen. the families made it happen and every town made it happen. by partnering with us in this. really excited about the future.

>> what's the advertising going to look like? you have free reign here. >> going to be from banner ads to creating content together to videos. >> are you going to sell supplements? >> it's on the table. but we have not decided yet. >> speaking of that. this is from the statement thatwas released today about the supplement business. we plan the collect -- to collect. we plan to collect the entire stock of the infowars warehouses -- of supplements into a large vat and boil down the contents into a single candy bar sized omni vitamin that one executive i will not name names may eat in order to increase liz power and perhaps become immortal. can you expand on that? >> we know that we have them now and we have -- >> that's insane. >> i have no idea to do with them but we're act the find

them -- about to find out about. >> if you can melt down all of alex jones' vitamin supplements. >> one full sell element. >> you might actually have something -- something might actually happen to you. >> i think in many ways humor is the way to battle -- disinformation and disarm them. but we always have to remember the one thing that isn't funny is the pain that alex jones visited on the sandy hook families. nothing funny about that. >> nothing funny about that and that's why this is so meaningful whenever people are on this site, there's going to be a constant reminder and the advertisements and i'm sure you will get creative with them. this is the reason that this site is this way. right? and it's a constant reminder of the horror that alex jones inflicted upon these families. >> yes. >> in a moment of -- of absolute devastation. >> people shouldn't forget that. >> i think -- what's so -- it's extraordinary that with that as the predicate that you can try and find some joy and a next chapter in all of it too.

right? that's the sense of relief. >> that's what we are doing. we are turning a chapter. and we're -- turning the chapter on the strength of their talent and the courage of the sandy hook families. >> yeah, it's an extraordinary story about the families. >> yes. without a doubt. >> ben, i look forward to the documentary about all of this. [ laughter ] especially the -- the fabrication of the omni vitamin. hopefully as times square kind of event. the naked cowboy can be there. >> look it's going to be a scary time for the people we test the vitamin on but everybody else it's going to be a good time. >> one of the bright spots in an otherwise pretty dark moment for all of us. it is great to see you guys and congratulations and good luck with the road ahead and we will be reading voraciously when the time is right. ben and john, thanks for your time. >> thanks. coming up, a long-awaited house ethics report on allegations of matt gaetz's sexual misconduct looms large over his nomination as trump's next attorney general: but first new scrutiny on past claims by tulsi gabbard. trump's pick to lead u.s.

intelligence agencies claims that sound an awful lot like russian propaganda. more on that after the break. stay with us. curl definition. style your life the way you want. ♪♪ tresemme, style your way.

>> [ speaking in a non-english language ] i think what we're seeing here. >> that was state owned russian tv, russia won a network back in 2022. gleefully playing a clip of

former hawaiian congresswoman tulsi gabbard. somebody referred to affectionately on the show as our girl tulsi. the host replies, yes. she is a russian agent and now donald trump has chosen her as his director of national intelligence. which means tulsi gabbard would oversee all 18 u intelligence agencies including the nsa and the cia. i should say very clearly that we have no reason to believe that tulsi gabbard is actually some sort of russian agent. but there's a real reason why she is amplified so eagerly by people who are actually russian agents. for example, here's a version of the clip that that state owned russian tv network was playing of their girlfriend, tulsi. >> president biden just said out loud what the aims and objectives of his administration's policies are. which is regime change in russia to get putin out of

power. >> her political views closely align with russian media talking points, particularly when it comes to the war in ukraine. now we were going to put together a sort of highlight reel showing tulsi gabbard parodying different russian talking points but state run russian media company rt beat us to it. as in the state run russian media company that the state department warned the public is actually a covert russian influence operation that coordinate directly with the kremlin. here's the sizzle reel that rt put out today which is a celebration of trump's choice of tulsi gabbard to run american intelligence agencies. >> despite their lectures and their crocodile tears, it's never been about morality. it's not about the people of ukraine or protecting democracy. this is about regime change in russia and exploiting this war to strengthen nato and feed the military industrial complex.

>> well, let's look at what kind of democracy zelenskyy is leading in ukraine, you know. he not only jailed his political opponents, very, very, very early on. he banned their entire political party. >> presidents putin and zelenskyy and biden, it's time to put geopolitics aside and embrace the spirit of aloha. >> emigration spirit of aloha. and just like putin, have ukraine. mamalo. now having political views that align with the kremlin is one thing. we're a democracy and she is welcome to believe whatever she wants to believe. but some of what she has espoused in the last few years doesn't just align with russian views. it aligns with russian disinformation. >> here are the undeniable facts. there are 25 to 30 u.s. funded biolabs in ukraine. >> at the beginning of the war in ukraine, one of the big

pieces of disinformation that russia was pushing was the idea that there were dangerous u.s. backed biolabs in ukraine. now the u.s. did help front labs in ukraine, they were labs that basically did the same work that the cdc does here in the states. to track and prevent outbreaks of various diseases. but russia pushed the idea that they were dangerous bioweapons labs and the u.s. was covering them up. there were a lot of theories why russia pushed that particular lie. some thought it was to create more pretext for the russian invasion. some thought it was cover in case russia ended up using its own biological weapons. or as justification as to why russia was attacking dense population centers in addition to military targets. whatever the reason the biolabs' narrative was russian misinformation. the idea that the u.s. was covering up some biological lab conspiracy was a lie. crafted by russia's intelligence agencies as information warfare.

and tulsi gabbard pushed it. >> instead of trying to cover this up, the biden harris administration needs to work with russia, ukraine, nato, the u. n. to immediately implement a ceasefire for all military action in the vicinity of these labs until they're secured and these pathogens are destroyed. >> while gabardine cysts she never meant to imply that ukraine has biological weapons laboratories and said that any allegations she was parodying russian disinformation or simply attempts to censor her. here's what republican senator mitt romney had to say at the time. she is parodying false russiapropaganda and her treasonous lies may well cost lives and now donald trump wants her in charge. coming up reports indicate the house ethics committee into

matt gaetz is highly damaging. what it might contain and will we will ever see its release? christy greenberg joins next to discuss all that coming up next. their money with c 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.

i want to know what's in -- the ethics committee report. it's a bipartisan investigation. of some extraordinary -- that has to be public. >> considering the job that he is being, you know, appointed to, considering that the fbi is going to do a background check

anyway, i can't imagine that the committee is not going to want the see it. >> i'm going to demand release of the ethics committee report. matt gaetz chosen to resign from the house. but he can't choose to conceal that information. >> that report -- the house of ethics report, do you want to see it before voting on it? >> i don't want there to be any limitation at all on what the senate can consider. >> pressure is mounting in washington, d.c. for the house committee to release the long- awaited report on former florida congressman matt gate z ahead of the senate confirmation hearing as attorney general. the committee has been investigating gaetz since 2021 over allegations of sexual misconduct, drug use, bribery, and obstruction. but with gaetz's resignation from congress, the report's release is now in doubt. tomorrow the house ethics committee had been expected to meet behind closed doors to discuss the report among other things. but nbc news reports tonight that that meeting has now been canceled.

joining me now is christy greenberg former federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analysis. great to see you. >> you too. >> we talk about this investigation. but i think a lot of people maybe don't remember or never knew to begin with, what exactly matt gaetz is being investigated for and what allegations the house ethics committee was looking into. >> before we get to there, d oj was investigating matt gaetz in connection with the associate of his joel greenberg, no relation. >> to be clear about that. >> yes, for sex trafficking of a minor and illicit drug use essentially sex and drug parties where there were women who, you know, may not have been of age to consent. also looking at whether or not drugs were involved at these parties affecting consent as well. so that -- investigation by doj went on for a number of years and joel greenberg was a cooperating witness. he gets sentenced and serving 11 years in prison for sex trafficking of this minor.

and, you know, as far as we know, he was giving information about other men that he introduced this minor to. that he said is part of his plea, he also, you know, witnessed this -- the minor having sex with other men. doesn't say who. but that he was a witness to that and that these acts were happening. and so the judge in that sentencing of joel greenberg said this was cooperation that was beyond anything he'd see seen in his 22 years. and that's under seal most of it. the only parts that we know that are public are the four people that he ended up giving information on that were charged. four people you know, charging based on a cooperator and four other people. that's not oh, wow. this is extraordinary. what's under seal? i imagine at least what's under seal is part of what now the house ethics committee took up because doj decided not to charge matt gaetz with anything. but the house ethics committee wanted to investigate further but even if -- maybe there's not a federal crime here, maybe there's something else.

some -- so they were really looking at these sexual misconduct allegations and the illicit drug use in particular among other things. and so i think joel greenberg's testimony. he apparently provided written information to the house ethics committee i think would be at the heart of this, along with other witnesses. the minor, other witnesses to the conduct. >> gaetz's girlfriend i think is in an affidavit as well? >> yes. >> so it's interesting because the house is like okay, doj didn't charge him with the crimes but it's of interest to us an ethical matter and now the sort of rub is -- the house is saying yesterday, you know, if gaetz is no longer in congress, then the ethics committee doesn't have purview over him except that, it's not like he's just leaving to go sell real estate in florida. >> right. right. he -- he's actually leaving to go get a higher position. he's looking to be part of the president's cabinet. so those rules where i mean, the reason you wouldn't make a report like that public is because hey, if the guy is leaving with his tail between

his legs you don't want to just dirty him up. let him go. you got what you wanted. here here's resigning before the report is being released so he can conceal it from the public. that's absurd. we need to know what is in that report. >> we play that sound of senators suggesting that they want to see what in house ethics committee came up with in its report but it's an open question about whether it's going to actually be made public and you have senator josh hawley saying today, even@report is not released there will be an fbi investigation. now here's where i have to ask because i remember the fbi investigation into brett kavanaugh and i remember the reporting in the "washington post" on how surface that investigation was. i'll just remind everybody. the trump administration, this is according to the -- the "washington post," the trump administration protected kavanaugh from facing a full fbi investigation in the wake of serious allegations that he sexually assaulted two women. at least eight senators cited

the fbi's findings when they voted to confirm the justice. it effectively provided them cover to vote for this notion of an fbi investigation. >> it was a total farce. they set up a hotline and they never even pursued most of the leads that were coming to the hotline and then you had actual woman in the kavanaugh investigation who were contacting members of congress and saying we have information and nobody was following up on it. the idea you can say that we can rely at this point on the fact that there's going to be an investigation, i mean, give me a break. i think what you'd want to see is, let's see the underlying information to this report. let's see the interviews and let's see what the written testimony was from these witnesses. and let's hear from witnesses to the extent that we can. i mean, don't just say we're going to rely on what the fbi has done. we deserve to hear it directly from the -- >> someone who's going to be the attorney general. >> exactly. >> we now know there's three more appointments over at doj. trappings lawyers all doing quite well. john sawer, a person who argued on behalf of the -- sort of the

trump side at the supreme court, john is going to be the solicitor general and todd blanche deputy attorney general. that's like -- i mean, first of all i assume they got paid but this is a big boon to representing -- putting up with trump i guess for all the days of trial. what's your reaction to these choices? >> yeah. i mean, well, that was part of why you do it. right? you are doing it because -- you can get a job as the attorney general? >> trump's world. >> you can get some kind of higher level job that maybe wouldn't have been available to you otherwise. but i mean, look, john sawer was -- my classmate in harvard law school. we were in the same section and he was always very bright. i didn't necessarily agree with him on, you know, his political views. but he was a smart guy. todd blanche and emil bovey. they have been prosecutors before. again the bar is low here. and you know, matt gaetz is somebody who's barely even a lauer at any point. so these are people who at

least have some basic level of competency to do the job. >> therefore they are the most normal picks of them all. yeah. saying it all with the hands. thank you for making time my friend. we will be right back.

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. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. ♪ ♪ ♪ another one who is another great mind