good day. i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. today, we're keeping a very close watch on the behind the

scenes meetings and machinations over the secret report detailing the investigation into ag nominee matt gaetz. the house ethics committee facing growing pressure to release its findings, even some top republicans say they would rather know the details now rather than be surprised later. so what's the holdup? and will that report ever see the light of day? plus, is rfk jr. overseeing federal healthcare a prescription for disaster? senators, medical experts, even conservative editorial boards sounding the alarm after donald trump said he wants the vaccine skeptic in charge of everything from the cdc to the fda. but will a republican-led senate confirm him anyway? and help wanted. elon musk seeking a super high iq staff for his new department of government efficiency. the catch? it is tedious work, 80 plus hours a week and just wait until you hear the salary.

lots to get to on a friday. we begin with the abrupt cancellation of a meeting for the house ethics committee as a growing number of colleagues say they want to know what the investigation into matt gaetz uncovered, now that donald trump wants gaetz as his attorney general. since 2021, the panel has been looking at allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and more involving gaetz. but now there is a question of whether the findings will be made public since gaetz resigned from the house. >> well, my guess is at some point it gets out there. i mean, i don't -- i'm not sure exactly what that process is at the moment, but, you know, these confirmation hearings, they are fairly comprehensive in terms of the vetting process that nominees go through. >> i don't know what the rules are, if they want to send it, that would be fine. elections have consequences. he chose matt gaetz. matt will come before the committee. and he will be asked hard questions and we'll see how he

does. >> that's really a matter for the house. if there are real and serious issues there, there will be time for all of that. i'm sure there will be a thorough background look into all of the nominees. >> nbc's julie tsirkin is reporting on capitol hill. also with us, peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" and msnbc political analyst. sarah matthews is former trump white house deputy press secretary. welcome, all. so, julie what is the latest en this fight over the report and what obviously could be a messy confirmation fight for matt gaetz? okay, so we lost julie. we're going to get back to her with the outline of it. peter, maybe you can pick up on some of that. but there is a new article you wrote about the choice of matt gaetz for attorney general, saying it is an example of trump wasting little time taking on governmental institutions that frustrated many of his political ambitions during the first term. so, tell us more about that. >> right, exactly. if you go back to those four

years when trump was in office, the three areas of government that most frustrated him were the pentagon, justice department, and the intelligence agencies, the intelligence agencies insisted russia intervene in the 2016 election. trump wanted to deny that. the pentagon -- the president refused or resisted the idea of being used to go into the streets after george floyd, and be used against protesters, violent protesters and even talk of being used against domestic political opponents. and, of course, the justice department in the end refused to go along with trump's effort to overturn the election by saying that there were problems with the election and when there weren't. and these areas now are the focus of the president-elect as he comes in. and who does he put in place in the three areas? matt gaetz, who agrees with him on the election of 2020, agrees with him about the deep state, quote, quote, he said he wants

to abolish the fbi and the atf, the alcohol, tobacco, firearms, explosives bureau. and who does he put in the intelligence agency? tulsi gabbard who often echoes russian arguments when it comes to issues like ukraine and has been a skeptic of the intelligence agencies herself and pete hegseth, the fox news commentator who has defended a war criminal and also talked about purging generals who are not loyal to the president. >> so, that's the big picture, julie. give us the immediate picture, what is the latest on this fight over the report and what could be obviously difficult confirmation fight for matt gaetz? >> reporter: yeah, chris. it will be a very steep climb in the words of one senate republican to get that republican's vote and many others. this person predicted that there are more than 10 republicans who would vote against him at this stage. you and i both know when the rubber hits the road and when the calls come from president-elect trump, things might get a little bit different. but i did hear from house

speaker mike johnson, who said today after his trip to mar-a-lago last night, after presumably he spoke with president-elect trump that he changed his tune perhaps. now weighing in on whether the house ethics committee should or shouldn't release that report. listen. >> i do not. no, i think it's a terrible breach of protocol and condition and the spirit of the rules. the rules of the house have always been that a former member is beyond the jurisdiction of the ethics committee, and so i don't think that's relevant. >> reporter: johnson putting his thumb on the scale there. however, as you played in your intro, chris, senate republicans want that information. i spoke to sources who believe that they will get it one way or another, there is an fbi background check that is supposed to be conducted for a nominee of this caliber to lead an agency as vast and big and as important as the department of justice, but it is very safe to say johnson putting his finger on the scale at least at this moment saying that he will communicate with the chairman of that panel not to release the

report, however there is precedent, historical precedent of two times where a former member did have an ethics report released on them, but senate republicans want more information and it will be a very uphill battle for gaetz. >> sarah, as you well know, donald trump has never been shy about throwing bombs. this one seems to have detonated. as somebody who has been inside trump world, help us to understand what the conversations might be, what the strategy might be to deal with this level of pushback. >> i think that right now all of the pushback that they're seeing from choosing matt gaetz as attorney general has probably is making donald trump even more sure that this is who he wants for this job because he doesn't want somebody who is going to please the establishment, he wants someone who is going to be a loyalist and who is going to do his bidding at the department of justice. he doesn't want an independent doj. and so that's very clear with this selection. and i do think, though, it is really telling, though, that if i were matt gaetz, i would probably want a report out there

that would absolve me from any wrongdoing, but the fact they're fighting this so hard, that you have the speaker of the house weighing in, which i would know, i would believe it is a breach of protocol, he likes to talk about that when he said that we shouldn't be releasing a report about a former member of congress, but i believe that the ethics committee and the speaker's office should be completely separate. and so, the fact that he's weighing in now after saying just a couple of days ago that he shouldn't be a part of any of those discussions is very telling. i think that he's getting those marching orders from mar-a-lago, they know that this would be damaging for their nominee and this is who donald trump wants in this position. and so i think they're going to do anything they can, whether that's trying to do a recess appointment, or trying to make sure that this report doesn't see the light of day. >> well, former house speaker kevin mccarthy, sarah, has a theory. we heard this a little bit from some other folks as well about trump's strategy and was talking about just generally trump's picks overall. let me play that.

>> what do you make of the choices so far? >> i think the choices are very good except one. look, gaetz won't get confirmed. everybody knows that. >> you said gaetz will not be confirmed. why bother with the nomination then? >> you can talk to the president, but it is a good -- >> how do you read it? >> it is a good deflection from others, but it also gives -- i'll let it stand at that. >> so, if you have multiple controversial nominees, could this be a deflection? again, based on the time you spent with donald trump and in his orbit, is that the kind of strategizing you think he might do? >> i think it is kind of hilarious all this discourse out there about donald trump is playing 40 chess, he's putting up a crazy nominee knowing that it will fail, so that means he can put up his second choice and the senate will have no choice but to confirm them. that's not what's happening. he knows that he is drunk on power right now because he feels like he was given a mandate by winning the popular vote, has

control of both chambers of congress and doesn't have to worry about running for re-election. in this term, he wants to put up the people that he wants, okay. so, it is not some game of chess he's playing of trying to put out a sacrificial lamb like matt gaetz for ag and so that way his other nominees can squeak through. i don't think that's what's happening. i think he genuinely wants matt gaetz in this role and he's going to try to do everything he can. but i think that some of the senators might not go for it. i don't think we're going to see them push back on some of the other more controversial nominees, like tulsi gabbard, odni, or rfk jr. at hhs as forcefully as i think they'll push back on matt gaetz as ag. i think that if they're going to reserve their political capital and if they're going to tank one nomination, it is probably this one for ag. >> sarah matthews, thank you. peter baker, you're going to stay with us. joining us now, maryland congressman glen ivy, democratic member of the house ethics

committee. good to see you again, congressman. i understand you can't get into the specifics of this report or the proceedings connected to the investigation. but we heard lindsey graham say he doesn't know what the rules are on releasing something like this. so, help us understand what are the rules. can it be done? >> well, you certainly have precedent for prior releases about reports from the ethics committee, from members who have resigned or left the congress. former congressman luke, for example, and congressman, i want to say bonner from the mid'80s where that happened as well. so, if there is precedent for that, can't really get into what is going on now, but the fact that someone has left the congress does not mean that the report can't be released for additional information for that matter. >> you say there is precedent. are there steps, specific steps that would need to be taken by the ethics committee if they were going to release this or

any other report? >> well, i believe in the previous examples that were votes for ethics committee members with respect to the decision. so, i think that's the big step. the other part here too, though, is, again, not speaking directly to what is in the gaetz matter, bit you got the senate seeking the information so they can meet their constitutional obligations. they got a mandate to provide advice and consent with respect to these kinds of nominations. and there is no nomination more important than attorney general of the united states. that's the person that controls the supreme court, the arguments before the supreme court, national security litigation, civil and criminal litigation here in the united states of america. it is a big deal, it is a big office, 110,000 employees. i think it is important for a position like that to receive the kind of scrutiny that i think the founders intended when they set this arrangement up. >> there are some republicans, not on your committee, but some

other republicans including in the senate who have suggested they would like to know what's in this report sooner rather than later. they don't want to be surprised if it does indeed get to the confirmation stage. so, again, without any details and i know you can't go into, do you believe that there is information that could be useful as the senate goes about its constitutional duty? >> well, i think the senators should be able to make that decision for themselves. so i think transparency makes sense here. and, you know, i think in not only this nomination, but all of these types of senate confirmations scenarios, they should have the chance to review whatever information they think is appropriate, and draw their own conclusions, because, you know, these are critical positions, these are the people who carry out the mission of the united states in some instances and here it would be in courts across the country, you know. i think the senators should have a chance to see what they want to see and draw their own conclusions about whether it impacts their decision and their

vote as to whether someone should be confirmed or not. >> and you are right, these are all critical positions and knowledge is power. not just for members of congress or members of the senate who will vote, but for the american people, who want to know who is going to be leading them in very particular ways. so, in that frame, can you tell us why the committee decided not to meet today when it was expected that the future of this report would be discussed? >> you know, again, i want to be careful about getting into those details. but i will say that, you know, i didn't necessarily know what was going on with respect to the postponement of that meeting or scheduling a new one or whatever. it is still not clear to me and i certainly haven't heard directly from the republicans on that. i really can't speak to it beyond that. >> you do have particular knowledge of this position. you served as an assistant u.s. attorney working under eric holder. so, big picture, congressman, what do you think a justice department run by matt gaetz

would look like for this country? >> well, you know, i'll say this, he and i both served on the judiciary committee and we certainly had hearings where he called for the abolition, for example, of the fbi, the atf, i think in some instances he even heads towards abolishing the whole department of justice. you know, it would be strange to have someone running an institution of that importance and significance that he's called for it to be abolished. and i'll say this too, from a policy standpoint, there is a lot of republicans that i served with at the department of justice or know from my private practice days who i don't necessarily agree with on a policy standpoint, but i think they certainly have the skill, the experience, and the expertise to run the department of justice. it is a surprise that the trump administration hasn't looked to bring in people of that caliber for a role this important and this significant for the american people.

>> congressman glenn ivey on a busy day. thank you for being with us. coming up in 90 seconds, the doctor is not in. how rfk jr. could fundamentally change healthcare in america if he's confirmed for donald trump's cabinet. he's confirmed trump's cabinet. ed indeed. indeed you do. sponsored jobs on indeed are two and a half times faster to first hire. visit indeed.com/hire time to press rewind with... neutrogena rapid wrinkle repair. it has derm-proven retinol... ...expertly formulated... ...to target skin cell turnover... ...and fights not one—but 5 signs of aging. with visible results... ...in just one week. neutrogena

today the backlash is growing against robert kennedy jr. donald trump's choice to lead the department of health and human services.

he's a vaccine skeptic who would oversee a massive $3 trillion federal agency. it oversees the cdc, the fda, the national institutes of health, as well as medicare and medicaid. as "the new york times" puts it, in choosing mr. kennedy, mr. trump is picking someone who is at war with the very public health agencies he would oversee. but the president-elect had nothing but praise for kennedy last night. >> today i nominated him for, i guess if you like people and if you like people who live a long time, it is the most important position, rfk jr. bobby, don't get too popular, bobby. you know, you reached about the level. no. we want you to come up with things and ideas and what you've been talking about for a long time. and i think you're going to do some unbelievable things. nobody is going to be able do it like you and boy, does he feel it in his heart. >> dr. badelia is the director

of boston university center on infectious diseases and served as a senior policy adviser to the biden white house covid response team. peter baker is back, msnbc political analyst. joining me in studio is nbc's brandy zadrozny. brandy, bobby kennedy said many controversial things, particularly as it relates to covid and the vaccine. i want to play just a small sample of that. >> there is 25% of americans who believe that they know somebody who was killed by a covid vaccine. >> killed? >> killed. 25% of americans. they ask me why i wasn't wearing a mask. they said, wasn't i scared of dying of covid. and i said to them, there is a lot worse things than dying. and they said to me, like what? i said, like living like a slave. even in hitler germany you could cross the alps into switzerland, you can hide in an attic like

anne frank did. today, the mechanisms are being put in place will make it so none of us can run and none of us can hide. >> you've been following this story for a very long time. tell us more about rfk and his beliefs that would impact the job he's being asked to do. >> well, kennedy is a conspiracy theorist. so -- >> flat out? >> flat out. not just one false thing. it is not misinformation. he believes in a world in which the government, pharmaceutical companies, health officials like dr. fauci, medical journals, he said need to be investigated by the attorney general for hiding true information. he believes in a whole world where all of these people are conspireing, they're all in on it, to keep america unhealthy. and so this is the guiding principle behind so much of his false belief around covid vaccines. he believes, like you just said, that covid vaccines have killed

more people than they have helped. that is obviously untrue. and every way, shape and form. it is just not true. and he believes that so much that when i went on a hike with him, profiling him in 2023, he showed me this book that he had written the forward for, it was this big conspiracy tome about how all these young people were dying from the vaccine. i said, i know that kid, that kid's parents told us that the vaccine did not kill him and he said, well, the parents don't know. and it is just sort of -- i think of that all the time as an example of how deeply embedded this conspiracy theory is for him. >> and he was known as an environmentalist, he's done environmental law, right, but in terms of his health credentials, what are they? >> he is a lawyer. he is a lawyer. period. that is it. he's not a doctor. he is -- he often likes to say he is a professional at this and he's made it his life's work to

find sort of the wrongdoing. but that's not true. he has made it his life's work to take a position and then to deeply embed himself in that position until he wins. and that seems to me his guiding sort of world view. >> doctor, first of all, good to see you, the new york post which often backs if not 90% of the time backs donald trump, thinks this is a bad idea, calling kennedy's views a head-scratching spaghetti of what we can only call warped conspiracy theories and writing about when they interviewed him, quote, he told us with full conviction that all america's chronic health problems began in one year in the 1980s when a dozen bad things happened. in fact, we came out thinking he's nuts on a lot of fronts. i wonder what your thought is about donald trump wanting rfk jr. at the helm of hhs. >> chris, good to see you again. there are three powers that

bother me that hhs secretaries have that could have a big impact on our health as a nation. one is they have an immense amount of influence on both staffing and budgeting to the point that they can completely alter the priorities of some of the agencies through those. but the third that people may not think about is that hhs secretaries also have the power to declare public health emergencies. we just came out of one with covid-19 and they're always going to be threats, whether they be natural disasters or they be new pandemics, unfortunately, on the horizon. we need someone who has the experience, the wisdom to understand how to bring together this massive health apparatus that has kept us alive and i -- i'm concerned that the person that is being put up for this position, mr. kennedy, does not have those qualifications to be able to do that. >> i think about something you worked on, ebola, right, you went to west africa, i went to west africa, working in the -- as a correspondent for nbc in the obama white house at the

time, and the u.s. government mobilized to take among many things mobile hospitals to help contain the outbreak, to keep it from coming to the united states. there was a tremendous amount of fear here. the logistics of that, that was the first time i had seen anything quite like that, up close and personal, are staggering. and require an incredible amount of inside knowledge, doesn't it? >> it does. and it actually requires trust. the global community trusts the cdc, the cdc is an adviser to so many other nations as they respond to diseases. and by the way, u.s. sent us, they sent -- i was one of the american physicians who was on the ground in sierra leone. that comes from long relationship and trust and when you put someone who can potentially lose the trust, make the global community lose that trust, we lose on that. the thing that i'm very concerned about more than anything else is if you put

someone in power who doesn't believe in vaccines, now vaccines critical, last five decades they have saved 154 million lives globally, chris. but that's just lives. they have reduced the number of illnesses, morbidities, they ensured we have healthy and long lives and can be part of the economy during that period of time. you just mentioned west africa. there are other countries in the world that are stuck in a poverty and disease trap. we don't want to go back to that. we want the confidence of the public and the vaccines that have been -- through all the studies that rfk jr. has asked for already and have already proven to be safe. >> before the election, howard lutnick was emphatic that kennedy would not be named to the cabinet. he told cnn flat out, he's not going to be the secretary. do we know what changed? >> well, i think, first of all, that is a reminder to us that if anybody tells you they know what donald trump is going to do, take it with a great grain of salt. even people who are in theory in

positions of influence around him, like his transition co-chair don't know what he's going to do. he likes it that way. he is a chaos agent that is where he is most comfortable. i think he just decided that kennedy had been valuable to him in the election, that he owed him. and that he was going to give him what he wanted. what he's told him, of course, is you stick to the medical lanes, don't do environmental issues which he used to do as a lawyer and had some more expertise on because they disagree on the environment. on the medical stuff, the health stuff, trump doesn't have a fixed position, doesn't have a strong ideology one way or the other and is more or less willing to say rfk jr. can, quote, go wild. >> go wild. there long have been programmed considered untouchable. the biggest is social security. if you start messing with things like medicare and medicaid, healthcare in general, right, what is widely known as obamacare, the outcry would be enormous. give us a sense of what would be

lost if you start eliminating or cutting major programs or aid under the umbrella of hhs, which is wide. >> yeah, i think the two agencies, aside from cms that have been brought forward by kennedy multiple times are nih, right, the fda, which works critically important in making sure that the food and the drugs that are on the market is safe, and altering their capacity, vetting them allows us to not -- to not be able to rely on insuring that what is on the market is safe. same with the cdc. if you're gutting that, one of the reasons we stay ahead in terms of intelligence for new diseases is the surveillance work that the cdc does, the work that they do with states. our public health infrastructure is fed rated. states work with the cdc, the decisions are made at a state level, but the cdc provides that wisdom. that's all going to be affected. same thing with cms or ensuring there is medicare, expanded

medicaid access or medicare. if you change those, you're going to leave more people vulnerable without access to healthcare, which is going to make us more vulnerable, both at an everyday basis, and if new diseases or new threats are on the horizon. >> peter, to put you in a tough position what are you hearing on the ground? what are the chances that jr. gets confirmed? >> well, i don't think it is 100% given that he does. i think republicans are reluctant to challenge trump too much at this early stage. and it may be as we talked about in the previous segment that gaetz is the one they feel comfortable voting against taking down. rfk jr. has a lot of skepticism in the senate republican caucus as well. you saw today former vice president mike pence put out a statement opposing confirmation for rfk jr., not for the reasons we have been talking about, but because kennedy is, you know, for abortion rights and pence is not. that may give some cover to some conservatives in the senate to vote against kennedy for a reason that is acceptable to the

conservative base, that is to say that kennedy is, you know, not in keeping with the abortion politics of the republican party right now. but i don't think it is a given he gets through. i think it will be a fight for trump and we'll see where it goes. >> peter, we have breaking news and i want to bring this to you. steven chung is going to be the communications director for donald trump's second term. that's not a name a lot of people might know, but he kind of began as a communications professional with the ufc, ultimate fighting championship and then went into donald trump's orbit. he was a spokesperson for all three of the president-elect's campaigns. and was a special assistant to the president and an assistant communications director. but tell us a little more about him and i think for most people, the front facing person that they might know in the white house is the press secretary, but the communications director

is a big job. >> it is a big job, an important job, usually most white houses, one of the people in if not the inner circle, close to the inner circle because it is about planning a message for a president that goes beyond the day's news. so the press secretary has to deal with reporters in the briefing room, asking about this or that. in theory, it is the communication director's job think about what the next week, the next month, the next couple of months what is the message for the president going to be. that in this particular white house is going to be a very difficult job. this is a president who doesn't abide by schedules and plans and scripts as we just talked about. and so communication directors can draft out all sorts of thoughtful and interesting strategies, only to have them thrown out the window and the president decides to post something online. steven cheung is known among reporters as somebody who approaches political communications the way he does the ufc, a wrestling match.

he's known for his very combative statements he puts out in response to media inquiries. they're very pugilistic, very willing to punch not just reporters, but opposition figures. at one point when people asked him about rhetoric that the president -- former president at the time was using on the campaign trail about being vermin, he said we'll crush anybody who complains about our rhetoric. he plays into that. that's why, of course, he's got the favor of the president-elect. that's the kind of communication that donald trump likes. >> peter baker, dr. bhadelia, brandy zadrozny, thank you very much. the president needs help for his cost cutting mission, just not help he'll pay for. we'll tell you about it next. ont not help he'll pay for we'll tell you about it next medicare, it's a good idea to have original medicare. it gives you coverage for doctor office visits and hospital stays. but if you want even more benefits,

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insiders, washington, d.c., is bracing for the ultimate outsider and disruptor, elon musk. his new budget cutting department is looking for super high iq revolutionaries to staff it. and it comes with no salary. "the new york times" is reporting musk already met as well with the u.n. ambassador to iran, a move way outside his budget role. another example of his growing influence over donald trump. >> elon musk. elon. what a job. what a job he does. and he happens to be a really good guy. he likes this place. i can't get him out of here. he just likes this place. and you know what, i like having him here too. he's good. he's done a fantastic job, incredible mind and he's unbelievable entrepreneur, sort of everything. i'm asking him, what do you do

best? and we were not able to figure it out. but it is a lot of things. >> musk is on trump force one, his plane, he's in the meetings, a fixture at mar-a-lago. "the washington post" says he's somewhere between a co-president and first buddy. whatever you call him, he's operating with extraordinary access and unprecedented number of potential conflicts of interest as ceo of six companies. but he's promising a revolution. i want to bring in "new york times" reporter david farronhold and mark short, welcome, guys. high iq, 08-80-hour workweek, filled with as sk puts it himself, tedious work that makes lots of enemies and zero pay. who will this job attract? >> i think there will be plenty of people interested in that. i think there is a lot of conservatives who feel like the government is bloated and they

feel like this is really going to have an impact in helping to shrink the size of government and make it more efficient, they would be willing to do it. i think my bigger concern is a little bit different, chris. it is that the reality today between social security, medicare, medicaid and interest on our debt for the first time in american history, that accounts for more than 100% of our revenue. so donald trump said we're not going to touch those programs, so if we're focused on this small amount of discretionary spending, it is great if we can streamline it, great if we can get cuts. if we're taking all the other things off the table, we're not really changing the trajectory of our escalating federal debt now at $36 trillion and growing. >> so, david, your colleagues at the times are reporting that the tech elite are trying to push their own people on elon musk for top cabinet positions. you reported musk has been looking to recruit from inside his own companies. what do you know about what is happening behind the scenes? >> well, obviously as you said in the intro, elon musk has this

incredibly powerful role in shaping both who gets hired and what policies are going to get implemented. he is close to a co-president. so one of the things we have been tracking is how he's using the power, how could he use the power to help himself, to help his own businesses which have huge contracts with the government already and would like bigger contracts to shoot up satellites, launch rockets. and also a lot of regulation that the government does of elon musk's businesses that he doesn't like. checks on his self-driving cars, the delays in his rocket launches, things he would like -- he would like that regulation to go away. we're trying to figure out behind the scenes what is he doing to try to make the government work better for him. >> look, musk is a man known for his innovation, but even before he's officially started, he's outside the box, let's just say that. maybe way outside the box. certainly in talking about a revolution and talking with world leaders, he's co-heading this budget cutting

organization, but his job description is it, i don't know, whatever trump wants him to do or whatever trump lets him do. what exactly is this job? >> well, it seems like for now it is whatever elon musk wants to do. i haven't heard anything that trump tried to keep him out of. what i'm interested in as marc said there is a lot of hoopla about this government of efficiency, he's try iing to hire people. that's going to be harder fight than anything he had to do so far. that's harder than campaigning for trump, it is a lot harder than going around helping choose people. the cut in the budget would be a huge task and it is actually a lot of little tasks, a lot of little efforts to get congressmen to back off and move things that they like. so far i'm not that impressed with what they have done. they put out a list of things they want to cut and some are very, very tiny, small projects, the other was to stop paying the interest on the u.s. debt, which

would cause a huge amount of other consequences that president trump wouldn't like. >> so, marc, donald trump repeatedly is joking he can't seem to shake musk. some in trump's own orbit are already tired of musk. maybe that's tinged with a little competitive jealousy, so, you take those complaints for what they're worth, but i don't know, bottom line is washington big enough for both of them? >> probably not. i think it is easy to fly too close to the sun in that relationship. but i think at the end of the day, if elon musk is helping and assisting and actually streamlining and recommending places to cut and deregulate, i think there is a lot of appeal for that for a lot of americans. i still have concern about all things we're not going to touch. as david said, once you start going after these programs, there are certain people on capitol hill who have a vested interest in them who will then push back. so, that's a dynamic. if he has the ability to push forward with some of these and

get the president's buy-in, that would be great . there are a lot of times where cuts are proposed to the president and when there was pushback, he pulled back on having those cuts. i hope that musk is more effective than, say, omb was in the first administration with the president. >> time will tell. marc short, david, thank you very much, both. appreciate it. coming up, a new photo scandal where the prime suspects are police officers. how two missouri cops allegedly used traffic stops to get intimate photos of the women they pulled over. the women they pulled over she switched careers to make money for your weddings. ooh! penny stocks are blowing up. sweetie, grab your piggy bank, we're going all in. let me ask you. for your wedding, do you want a gazebo and a river? uh, i don't... what's a gazebo? something that your mother always wanted and never got. or...you could give these different investment options a shot. the right money moves aren't as aggressive as you think. i'm keeping the vest. (♪♪) if you're on medicare, remember,

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we're following a disturbing story out of missouri, where two former police officers are accused of using traffic stops to obtain nude and sexually explicit photos of dozens of the women they pulled over. nbc's shaquille brewster is following this for us. what exactly did investigators uncover, shaq? >> we're talking about two different now former officers from two different departments who are accused of doing essentially the same thing. let's start with the 29-year-old julian alcala. we expect to see him in court in a little bit in 15 minutes, where he's expected to plead not guilty. prosecutors say he took the phones of some 20 women during traffic stops under the guise of confirming insurance information and vehicle registration. and they say instead, he searched through those phones and would look for explicit

images and when he found them, would take pictures of those images from his personal device. they also say that in one instance he found an explicit video and texted that video to himself and then deleted evidence of that text message. one woman talked to the affiliate in missouri there and said she feels humiliated, saying she now has to be treated for the trauma that she is facing. i want you to see the statement from the police department that we got. they say they're completely unaware of these allegations. they say we are disgusted at this behavior, a complete betrayal of the values we uphold and in no way reflects the professionalism and integrity of our dedicated officers. there is a second officer, this time with the missouri highway patrol, his name is david mcknight, he's accused of doing essentially the same thing, but in this instance, with some nine women dating back to september

of 2023. in this instance, the highway patrol essentially got wind of these allegations, they investigated , themselves and he was arrested in august. they then turned over those files to the fbi. he was appearing in court yesterday. he also pleads not guilty. but is facing that $10,000 bond. so, two different officers, two different departments, but some really weird allegations here. >> shaquille brewster, thank you. up next, inside the republican false flag effort to turn off kamala harris voters and how it may signal big changes to campaigns moving forward. one of the "washington post" reporters behind that will join us. "washington post" reporters behind that will join us seei ng something from schwab. (uh-oh) producer : yeah, schwab lets you invest and trade on your own. and if you want they can even manage it for you. not to mention, schwab has a team of specialists for taxes, insurance, and estate planning. both producers: all with low fees. carl: we're experiencing technical difficulties... uh, carl...

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my mom, my dad, and me someday. today we're learning new details about a dark mo effort that provides a warning and could change political campaigns going forward. it is "the washington post" reporting, $45 million spent by adviser to elon musk for ads that targeted liberals, jews, muslims, black voters with ads that did not seem like they seemed. here are a few other ads. >> kamala harris and d.c. democrats are coming after your menthol cigarettes. >> the worst part is, kamala harris talks out of both sides of her mouth. she said she would give us free

healthcare and then gave up. >> so disappointing. >> total 180 from when she ran in 2020. i thought she would be like bernie. >> joining me now, one of the reporters behind the story, michael sheerer of "the washington post." this is a window, i think, into what can be done now, what is being done and what might happen in the future. tell us more about these ads and how they were designed to work. >> yeah, these ads come out of research that started at the beginning of the year that basically concluded on the republican side what democrats had been seeing, which there weren't a lot of persuadable voters in this election. the persuasion targets were progressives or conservatives, trump or harris voters, who weren't sure whether or not they would vote. most of the ads focused on trying to influence whether or not someone voted. and they did it by concealing why they were advertising or doing a shuck and jive to

deceive people into know what they're advertising. muslims in deerborn, michigan, were getting ads that looked like they were targeted toward zionist, to make them think that kamala harris was totally in the pocket of the israeli government, had no sympathy for the palestinian cause. on the flip side, the same group was advertising to jews in pennsylvania saying she doesn't want to give arms to israel. you just showed one of the ads there, a whole series of ads targeted to bernie sanders supporters and the message there was she should be more left, further left. another set of ads from a group that was called progress 2028 that misled people about what her positions were, made her team far more liberal than she was and targeted at conservative voters. >> you reported that the goal here was to make up in a way for being outspent by democrats in the digital space. what does this portend for the

future for campaigns? >> yeah, i think, campaigns have been deceptive for as long as there has been campaigns. that he's not new. what is new is the ability to target ads so specifically. digital ads, a lot of this was direct mail and digital. it has become incredibly good over the last three or four cycles. and so you really know what motivates an individual voter and you can serve those individuals or those neighborhoods or those communities directly on google, on facebook, with direct mail. and so i think that's what's going on here. this is one group spending $45 million through five or six different brands and, you know, a dozen different messages. i haven't mentioned that there were ads that sort of looked like progressive ads running at black voters in north carolina,

complaining about biden and harris efforts to ban menthol cigarettes. there were also, you know, other ads run at white voters in the midwest, young working class white voters who basically made the claim that if harris is elected, your nicotine pouches will be taken away. all of this was done at the microlevel and the other innovation here this has been true for a few cycles now, we don't know who paid for this. this was a dark money group, paid for with 501c4 group and there is no way of knowing who was behind it. >> or how effective they might have been. i recommend this article to people who are interested in politics. i thank you for coming on the show. >> thank you. coming up, how former president trump plans to use his criminal defense lawyers in his new administration. stay close. more "chris jansing reports" right after this. stay close more "chris jansing reports" right after this encouraging news that you'll definitely want to hear. depending on the

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