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threats have been going out over the last eight days and that's why i wanted to start with maria risa, nobel prize winner from the philippines who did all of the stuff under an oppressive regime that threatened and persecuted her and convicted her how do you keep going through all of that stuff and people get despondent. i'm looking forward to the discussion about, you don't have to be despondent, this is politics and this is how we move forward. >> give the people a little bit of hope. >> hope and a nice striped tie. >> you guys delivered as you always do. as i said, you are all welcome in my cabinet anytime. have a great afternoon, velshi starts now. >> good morning to you it's saturday, november 16, 65 days until donald trump's second

inauguration of this time he will enter the white house with fewer checks on his power than ever before. when he sworn into office, his party will also hold narrow majorities in both chambers of congress and the highest court in the land is stacked with a super majority that he built in his first term, one that has already handed him historic victories. he ruled that -- there's much we can learn about what to expect from the new trump term as the transition moves forward and the outlines of a new administration again to take shape, trump and his team have already announced more than two dozen people they expect to join the incoming administration, a list that includes a number of controversial cabinet pics, all of whom would traditionally be subject to a confirmation

process in the senate which could be the first true test of trump's power and influence over the incoming congress. so far, trump has tapped this man, matt gaetz for attorney general despite the fact that the ex-congressman was recently the subject of a federal criminal investigation led by the department of justice. that investigation did not lead to any charges and matt gaetz has denied wrongdoing but his inexperience and past scandals remain an obstaclehegseth is a facing opposition given his lack of experience in any sort of senior command role or managing a large organization, or a small one, for that matter as well as his vocal support of the trio of service members who had either been convicted or charged with war crimes. his other eyebrow raising pick also includes robert f kennedy jr., and anti-vaxxer is been tapped to leave the health agency and tulsi gabbard, who could be the director of national intelligence and who has been accused of echoing

kremlin propaganda. these pics have been likened to a shock and all campaign, causing them to quit, as trump and his allies vowed to make good on their promises to get the federal government of the so-called, deep state. but these controversial choices set up an early test for the incoming republican-controlled senate. but trump wants them to give up their constitutionally guaranteed right to advise and consent on his nominations. and at least some republicans are okay with that. he's called for the senate to allow him to make what are called recess appointments essentially allowing them to install anyone he wants to various positions across the government without having to subject them to the normal vetting or confirmation process. those people could stay in office until the next congress is sworn in which means they

could technically stay in the position for up to two years. since he launched his first campaign for president, he has dismantled practically every possible norm and tradition in american politics. nearly a decade later, he's continuing to employ the same tactics, chipping away at our democracy until it's no longer recognizable as the form of government that the founding fathers set off to create. as maria ressa puts it, the death of democracy is a death by 1000 cuts. it seems like a new and unique political situation to americans but trump's tactics are straight out of the same playbook used by other modern- day authoritarians including roderigo, the former president of maria ressa's home country, the philippines. he presented himself as a strong man in favor of law and order and one the administration and they threatened their critics including those in the

free press. maria ressa understands all of this, this is her in the middle and she understands it well because she and her news organization relentlessly covered the corruption within the administration and they were targeted for it. she was arrested multiple times accused of fraud and tax evasion and convicted of charges viewed as politically motivated but she has persisted through all of these challenges and in 2021 she was awarded the nobel peace prize alongside the russian journalist, and in awarding them the price, they said the pair were being recognized for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression which is the precondition for democracy and lasting peace. the award-winning journalist maria ressa joins me now, she's the president and ceo of the philippine organization, thank

you for being here, you are one of the first people i thought of when this election occurred because the threats to journalists, to lawyers, prosecutors, opposition members, it came fast, and i wanted to talk to somebody who has faced, lived through and fought back those types of challenges, so thank you for being here and thank you for all the work that you've done. >> no, thank you for having me, you know rappler was covering the election from the philippines and in our chats, we just kept saying, oh my god, we are seeing the philippine of america, one of the reasons it's important to look at our experience is because the philippines in a snapshot we spent 300 years in a convent, 300 years under spanish colonial rule and 50 years under american rule, and our constitution is patterned after the united states, so we have three branches of government, when our president in 2016 took

over let me say that it took about six months to crumble the institutions of democracy. and there are many of the same harming, elements in place today, other things i think that you should look out for is, our systems of government actually favors a strong executive, especially if he appoints in duterte 's case, appoint 6000+ people in the key positions , it depends on the leader, and the leader is very clear which direction they want it taken, rule of law becomes a major problem, the department of justice, i had in 2019, i had an arrest warrant, 10 times. but okay, let me get all the negatives, the other thing that is familiar to filipinos is when the cambridge analytic a scandal broke, part of the

reason these illiberal leaders are being elected is because of the corruption of our information ecosystem, social media, that rewards lies, hate and anger and fear, right? so in the cambridge scandal, the americans had the most number of compromised accounts but the philippines had the second-most number of compromised accounts. so this is where our similarities appear, so thank you for remembering and also, look at our experience for what is coming up in the days ahead. >> that's why the philippines is important because we could talk about italy and germany and things like that but the philippines is structurally similar to the united states.

one of the things that is happening, we are hearing about in the department of justice and the cia, and amongst journalists, some people are getting ready to leave, meaning getting out of their professions, they don't want the hassle and it's not that we will all face arrest warrants but audits, harassment, that sort of thing. talk to the people out there who are watching us, as journalists, as lawyers, as bureaucrats, what do you have to say to them in this moment? >> look, again, a similar pattern, we had progressive leading -- leaving the government when duterte came into the government, this is about power and money, let's not make any mistakes, it's not about ideology, it's about power and money but what happened is that these institutions crumbled within six months, and look at what happened to us in the media, journalists should be prepared for what's coming, right? in 2016, bottom up attacks on social media, narratives like

journalists equals criminal and top-down, it came down in 2017 with legal cases, and duterte used the tax agency, you've had a threat to use the tax agency, it was a vindictive government, we had a senator who was jailed for almost 7 years , lima, the senator who went after the corruption and the killings of then president duterte and she, during that time period was unseated from the senate and jailed, she recently just got out of jail, so these are things, just the rule of law becomes important because it's done by 1000 cuts, you will normalize certain things and i think the most important part is, do not normally's -- normalize.

really, what do we have as journalists, as citizens in a democracy? values. what's important? you have to be transparent, you have to stay committed to those values, the phrase we use because we didn't want to take sides, this was the whole idea, we are not taking sides but you are on the side effects, so what we did is we used this phrase, hold the line, this is the line of the constitution, philippine constitution is patterned after the united states, so we said we are not going to voluntarily move back and the government used legal cases, tried to bulldoze us, threats, intimidation, fear, it works wonders, and power, businesses, you know, in some ways, a corrupt government becomes easier to deal with because it's transactional, everything becomes transactional. but you forget the big -- the good part of humanity and that is one of the things we didn't

forget. our communities stayed around us and helped us with crowdfunding because our legal cases brought, i mean, over $1 million in a little over a year that we had to spend on legal fees so do not lose hope, you have to build community, come out into the real world and in many ways, i find the unending discussions about how we got to where we are, we've been factionalized, you've been doing this, the technology that rules us and connects us is corrupting us, and it has led to as in many parts of the world, people electing illiberal leaders and now 70% of the world, that's as of january this year, the united states could be the tipping point, so last on this one, you

asked, what do you do, it's collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. you reach across and you stand by your values, hold the line, the other phrase i used a lot is, embrace your fear. the reason we could keep going was because we imagined the worst case scenarios, and workflow them and drilled them in the case of a potential shutdown for rappler, we did quarterly drills for our entire team because we were going to keep doing our jobs, and the worst-case scenario didn't happen. so, fingers crossed, right, but you've got to keep doing your job. >> i talked to tim last night and he said similar things like holding the line. don't let them convince you that you change. the world has changed around you. hold your values and he said collaborate, find new avenues, and find like-minded people who are prepared to defend democracy. honestly, maria, you have changed your entire -- my

entire outlook of my day. our viewers needed this conversation. it's interesting to talk about it in hindsight but i remember talking to you when you were in the middle of it. maria ressa is the president and ceo of rappler, nobel peace prize winner and the author of this very important book to read right now. how to stand up to a dictator, the fight for our future. coming up there's a fight brewing in congress over the potential release of a report on the house ethics investigation into the former congressman matt gaetz now that trump has chosen him to be the attorney general. we will get the latest on that plus misinformation prevailed in 2024. one of the most prominent spreaders was elon musk. he was named a top spreader of misinformation. and jodi picoult is the best- selling author of 28 books and short stories including the most banned book of the 2023- 2024 school year.

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one of the most controversial pics for trump's cabinet has been matt gaetz for attorney general. there's been pushback from emma craddick's -- democrats in the house and the senate. gaetz resigned from the house thursday, the same day president-elect trump announced he would be nominating him to head the justice department. the house speaker johnson said he does not want the report to be released because gaetz is no longer a member of congress. julie, you've been covering this. a lot of developments, where do we stand? >> a lot of moving parts is right, i have brand-new

reporting overnight, privately, senate republicans, a majority of them, as many as 30 are saying matt gaetz has no path to getting confirmed. they are saying at this point they would never support him, again, we already went over how shocking this pic was to most of the people up here and it's because they know matt gaetz well and they see him as a rabble-rouser, the guy in the words of one senator, who destroyed the house when he ousted kevin mccarthy. he's also being investigated by the house ethics committee that canceled their planned meeting yesterday that they would vote on whether or not to release this report into their multiyear investigation. that said, speaker johnson made it clear that he does not want that to happen because gaetz is now a former member of congress and as of two days ago, senate

republicans said they would not move forward in this process unless they have all the facts, take a listen. >> i think there should not be any limitation on the senate judiciary committee's investigation including whatever the house ethics committee has. >> you want to see it? >> absolutely. >> it's unlikely that senate republicans will subpoena the lower chamber for this investigation. it has never happened before. everybody i'm talking to says regardless if this report from the committee comes out or not, they will have the information they need whether it's in a background check or a department of justice file or whether it's an outside background check, they will get their hands on it. >> julie, there's a middle ground. if mike johnson doesn't want to release the report to the public, it sounds like john cornyn and some republicans are suggesting is at least the senate needs to get it. is that my understanding? >> that's exactly right, these

are the individuals that will have to vote on him at the end of the day and a lot of them really don't think that he is a serious individual. one senate republican told me he had to google to see whether matt gaetz actually had a law degree, he does but he has never practiced law in a courtroom, and speaking of that, the committee in their multiyear investigation actually heard from several witnesses and an attorney for one of those witnesses who testified before the panel said that the client told the committee they actually witnessed gaetz allegedly having sex with a minor in 2017 at a house party in florida. gaetz spokesperson told us, merrick garland doj cleared matt gaetz and didn't charge him. are you alleging garland is a part of a cover-up, obviously a facetious question at the end but this is the space to watch because senate republicans are not happy with this. >> thanks for your great reporting on this. coming up, while we don't know if matt gaetz can get confirmed, we do know that he

is donald trump's picked to leave the justice department and that fact alone tells us a lot about what to expect frome the new administration, the lls campaign on retribution.

attorney general matt gaetz, are you kidding me -- >> the world is not ready, certainly senate confirmation would not be. but a boy can dream. >> that was matt gaetz in august of 2023 after suggesting an attorney general matt gaetz could really go after the biden family and their business dealings, a boy can dream, he says but actually having gaetz as the top law-enforcement official is more of a nightmare than a dream. it's not clear that he will be confirmed as attorney general as we just heard because gaetz is a firebrand conservative who has built rivalries with colleagues across both chambers of congress and across both parties. to some senate republicans, he's not a serious candidate

and according to reporting, the gaetz nomination could be a sacrificial lamb, not designed to succeed but rather to allow nominations of other underqualified cabinet nominees to secede. some said republican sources are speculating that trump's choice of gaetz may be intended to draw scrutiny and opposition away from other controversial nominations . don't worry about that, we will cover all of these nominations regardless of who they are but whether or not matt gaetz gets the nod, is a strategic distraction. he's donald trump's nominee right now and we have to treat them as such and consider what he would do as attorney general and how he would leave the justice department. to donald trump, gaetz has been nothing but oil, and election denier and a january 6th apologist. he appeared at trump's criminal trials to show support and public comments, his view that the doj was weaponized against trump and now trump has chosen

gaetz . in addition to gaetz, trump once to pack the doj with other loyalists, he's off her top doj roles to three of his personal attorneys who defended him in his various legal cases, todd blanche who led trump's defense team, that's his pick for attorney general -- deputy attorney general, emil bove worked on his team has been picked as rentable associate deputy attorney general and dean john sauer who represented trump in the immunity case has been picked as solicitor general . choice, it's great to see you. thanks for being with us. there are several theories as to why donald trump would have chosen to appoint matt gaetz,

what is your best theory at the moment? >> yeah, well it certainly was not qualification because gaetz is not qualified, the closest he's been to a criminal investigation is being a target of one, and an important responsibility for an attorney general is overseeing the 115,000 employees worldwide, 40+ components of the department. so i think we can take any qualification beyond loyalty to donald trump off the table. i'm sort of intrigued by what we saw happen in the house friday, this ethics report, that by all reporting that we saw was going to be deeply compromising for gaetz, and there was a strong indication it was about to be publicly released, that was shelved because the committee no longer has the authority to discipline him once he is no longer a member of congress and the fact that he would resign from congress pending confirmation is unusual, jeff

sessions didn't do that in the senate when he was nominated by trump in early 2017, so it looks like there's an effort underway to prevent the facts about gaetz and his criminal conduct from coming to light. >> i was talking to maria ressa earlier who was encouraging people to stay in the fight. i saw that barbara quaid tweeted something similar, but this does get to some of what donald trump's clearing out the deep state is about, causing people to leave their positions in the department of justice and the cia and the intelligence committee because of appointments that good people can't stomach, what is your take on that? >> yeah, i think that's absolutely right, and i was fascinated by your conversation with her because what we know about autocrats as they try and sees the legal system so they can have the appearance of legality in the conduct, by

seizing the justice department, trump would be able to engage in all sorts of inappropriate behavior over the line behavior, antidemocratic behavior and claim that it's lawful because the justice department is hearing it out. i think the gaetz nomination has been a bridge too far, for many of the line prosecutors in the justice department. people who were considering retiring, are now considering digging in, to make sure that nothing bad will happen on their watch, and look, the leadership of the department controls priorities and the direction of prosecutions. but they can't do every case themselves, lined prosecutors across the country, i hate to see them have to shoulder the burden but in many cases they will be able to stand up and say no, we don't have the evidence here and the law is not on our side and we can't engage in these prosecutions. >> even though trump has a weird view of loyalty and all

of that, presidents often appoint people who are loyal to them and have been, the issue here is qualification. judge michael wrote, he said his chief credentials is not his mastery of the law but his contempt for it, he quotes and saying we are proud of the work we did on january 6th to make legitimate arguments about election integrity and he's call for abolishing the fbi and the justice department. this is different than loyalty. you can put somebody who is loyal but qualified, this is a different story, this is a guy who really it seems that he is against the law in some cases? >> yeah, i think that is the best assessment because this is not someone who loves the justice department and wants to carry out the mission. it's not someone who wants to serve the american people and keep them safe. someone who will be on a revenge mission inside the justice department and that's what we can expect to see. >> joyce, thank you as always.

coming up, why disinformation prevailed and how elon musk helped along and what it means that he is set to play a major role in the next trump administration. trump administration rinvoq works differently and it's a once-daily pill. when symptoms tried to take control, i got rapid relief with rinvoq. check. when flares tried to slow me down, i got lasting steroid-free remission with rinvoq. check. and when my doctor saw damage, rinvoq helped visibly reduce damage of the intestinal lining. check. rapid symptom relief. lasting, steroid-free remission. and visibly reduced damage. check, check and check. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal; cancers, including lymphoma and skin; heart attack, stroke, and gi tears occurred. people 50 and older with a heart disease risk factor have an increased risk of death. serious allergic reactions can occur.

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if you are a member of the velshi banned book club.

a book has the ability to transport a reader to another world, to change a reader's perspective, to help a reader feel seen which is why access to books is so critical especially for children and young adults who are still building and shaping their own identities. the award-winning legendary author jodi picoult revealed just how much of an impact her 2008 novel, "nineteen minutes" has had on its readers. this book which we featured on the show before is about a school shooting which jodi picoult mills, is something that our kids unfortunately do not need a book to learn about. she adds, in fact hundreds of students have told me 19 minutes stop them from committing a school shooting or show them that they were not alone in feeling isolated. the book did not harm them, it gave them the tools to deal with an increasingly divided and different world.

"nineteen minutes" was the most banned book in america during the school year and according to penn america, a nonprofit dedicated to literary frame, 19 minutes was banned in 98 school district across the country. also according to penn, the latest tally, there were over 10,000 instances of book bands and challenges during the 2023- 2024 school year, that's up from 3362 bands in the year prior. later the author joins us for the velshi banned book club, she is fighting to stop book banning across the country and has a roadmap for the rest of us to join the fight. that's coming up. coming up cargo liner protects the rear. the side window deflector offers more protection. my turn! the sinkmat contains spills in cabinets. something for you too, buddy! pets eat safely with the non-toxic pet feeding system. find these american made gifts or get a gift card instantly at wt.com.

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i have one. i'd be so lost without mine. we are talking about mentors, right? yes. a mentor can guide you. support you. and unlock your potential. being a mentor can be just as life-changing. and inspire the next generation. helping someone find their path can transform your own. so find a mentor. wait, can i do both? let me ask my mentor. of course, you can. bring someone along on your journey, and see where it takes you. the american electorate swung to the right in 2024 for many reasons. people who voted for trump expressed widespread dissatisfaction with the economy, fear over immigration and concerns about gender and

so-called woke culture. but voters perceptions often don't reflect the facts. trump's campaign was full of lies, lies about the economy, immigration, lies about abortion, trans people, lies concocted to exploit vulnerabilities and fire of americans feels over their own status and their future. on immigration which voters consistently ranked as a top issue, donald trump himself made the threat of the quote, border innovation central to his campaign. the best statistics available do not bear that narrative out, throughout his entire political career, he has pushed xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric, leading up to the election he repeatedly lied about haitian immigrants in springfield saying illegal immigrants have descended upon a town of 58,000 people, destroying their way of life, and he pushed lies about abortion claiming that democrats were in favor of

abortion after birth and called harris in extreme left of -- leftist and they had a lot of help in pushing the lies out of the american electorate, misinformation spread rapidly on social media with trump apparently posting ai generated images including a fake endorsement from taylor swift and a fake depiction of harris standing in front of a communist crowd and then there's elon musk, the wealthiest man on the planet who in 2022 purchased twitter, one of the largest social media companies on earth entered into x. and in the months leading up to the election, he pushed misinformation to his 200 million followers and even users who don't follow him, i don't follow him and i get his stuff all the time and promoted false claims about democrats quote importing voters and spread lies about fema disinformation the complicated the fema response to two major

hurricanes and he also push the long debunked theory about dominion voting systems. he launched grok and said who spreads the most information on x and grok's reply signaled out the retreat or, elon musk as a top contributor. elon musk has been identified as one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on x since he acquired the platform. wow. that is something, the platform you own and control identifying you as the worst offender. and now elon musk has been appointed to cohead along with the beck ramaswamy the so- called, department of government efficiency, a department which does not exist, wouldn't be a department

by the federal definition and unlike any other actual department would be run by two people which seems highly inefficient to me. in city five days trump will be inaugurated and his cabinet already said to be filled with people known to spread misinformation and lies will assume powerful roles, so as we steal ourselves for this oncoming administration as misinformation and lies are proliferated through the highest offices and the most prominent people, it's important to keep in mind that none of us are impervious to misinformation. joining me now is marianne franks, professor in interactional property, president of the cyber civil rights initiative and author of the book, fearless speech, breaking free from the first amendment. it's good to see you. thanks for joining us. >> good to see you. >> i want your global view about this. we have literally the greatest purveyors of misinformation coming together, and now the misinformation phone call will be coming from inside the

house. what is your first thought about what we need to be thinking about? >> the first thought was that this was entirely predictable, that when people used to idealize the marketplace of ideas, they didn't realize that this is exactly what it looks like. it looks like a billionaire, egotist, with partisan goals, who's mostly concerned about lining his own pockets, that's what it looks like, someone who is tweaking their own algorithm, amplifying their voice over anyone else, if someone taking sides in a democracy and saying, this is what everyone will listen to, whether they like it or not. that's what we've got and up until this point, it hasn't been technically the case that elon musk was a government agent but now it looks like he will be. so the first thing we need to recognize is we are in serious trouble and our theories about freedom of speech and the first amendment have not been adequate. they have not been adequately safeguarded for us in this moment. >> i won't ask you to summarize decades of important work that

you've done, but what is the elevator pitch to our understanding about freedom of speech or as elon musk called it, when he took over twitter, you know, the town square, what is our misunderstanding about freedom of speech and the role that it should play in our society? >> well it is a complex question and i think the summary of it is the first amendment is something that can be used by basically anyone with any kind of goals, it can be weaponized for people's tribal interests, it can be weaponized for people to take more power and we have to be on our guard about that and we can't believe that simply because someone says they are doing something on the basis of free speech or to protect freedom of speech that that is what they mean because what you've already seen for some time is ambers of congress and governors of places like florida have been saying, in order to protect free speech, we have to censor ideas and

words and concepts and books, so we need to reject that idea and we need to understand that the first amendment, if it means anything, it means keeping the government out of making these kinds of decisions for people. what we can think about, what we can read and what we can say and everything else we need to think about in terms of freedom of speech needs to think beyond legal doctrine, what it needs to be brave, fearless, to criticize power, to take history seriously at all of those things aren't going to come out of a legal doctrine, they will come out of the examples of history of people doing exactly that. >> we have spoken to maria ressa about what that looks like, we will be talking to jodi picoult what that looks about -- what that looks like with regards to book banning but it's not just that elon musk has one of the most widely used social media platforms, it's not just that he's the world's richest man and not just that he has government contracts to starling and tesla

and spacex, it's that he may be about to become a member of this government. in a normal world, the conflicts around all of this would be a five alarm fire and yet, it doesn't seem to be. >> it doesn't seem to be precisely because we've had an information environment for over a decade now that is so polluted and so toxic that people can't actually find the truth, even if they want to find it and increasingly people don't want to find the truth, they just want to find whatever information is out there that will validate their worldview, they want to find outrage bait and anecdotes that all these things where it happens to make people more profitable for people who own these platforms, it's not just elon musk, facebook, instagram, it is all of those things. it's the fact that billionaires are owning the newspapers and news stations and we've had this problem for several years now and we keep being sold this idea that if you want freedom

of expression, come to the cease -- social media platforms, get all of your information from here and we've been duped, for over, i would say two decades, into believing that what you get online is unfettered truth or accessed information when in fact, all of this time, what we've been getting is what power always wants which is to increase its hold over people. >> what is the thing that the consumer of information can employ to combat this? it'll have to be legislative, it'll have to be regulatory, it'll have to be something that we think about at all levels of business and personal life but what can my viewer do, given what you just told us? >> the first thing to think about is, think about who is benefiting from the story that you are being told and if you know the environment that you are swimming in is owned by a

billionaire or promoted by people with very specific interest, be incredibly skeptical about what you encounter, try and find space is not just online spaces but everywhere, spaces where it isn't being dominated by someone who is extremely rich or extremely powerful or extremely motivated to have you see it their way, try and find those spaces and connect with those people and talk to experts, talk to people who are knowledgeable, try and find places that are not completely commercialized or dominated by profit interests and try to remember that we do have this beautiful gift of freedom of expression and it's not limited by the law and not limited by social media. we can have a better world and we can speak truth to power and

we can do all of those things, if we remember that these are things that belong to us, not anyone else and no one can take that away from us. >> is there a role, i know there's obviously a role for government to play in figuring this out. we have discussed the fact that the american government has not been at the cutting edge of figuring this out. is there any reasonable expectation that they will be, that we can do the part that we need to do in terms of regulation over the next couple of years i'm not suggesting curtailing freedom of speech, i'm talking about regulating it to talk about the goals that you are talking about? >> what you said is the beginning step which is, to not have this knee-jerk reaction this is anytime there's anything related to expression, that is censorship and you can't allow it. we've always had regulations

around false speech and harmful speech. it's a question of whether or not we are being honest about how we are making this assessment and how transparent we are about this but we have laws against fraud and child pornography, laws against defamation. there are things we can decide as a country and they are things that are too harmful and undermine democracy itself to simply let ride anyway they would like to, so we have to be careful about this and demand more from our legislators and we have to tell them this is what we need you to do because without access to the truth, access to freedom of expression, we cannot have a democracy. >> professor, thank you for being with us. she's the author of the new book, fearless speech, breaking free from the first amendment. we will be right back. more velshi after the break. br. it's a nature inspired scent, to breathe life into your laundry.

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of "velshi", inauguration day is coming, and with it, an unmoral donald trump. ben rhodes, former national security adviser under president obama joins me to talk about how we should approach this new era and how we should prepare for a second trump administration, which will be operating with far fewer guardrails than the first term. plus, the atlantic top nichols calls the toasty gabbard nomination in national security risk, but also believes that the senate can't stop it, tom nichols joins me to discuss how the most dangerous trump cabinet pics can be rolled back. she was one of the most successful and popular authors writing today, she is also the author of the most banned book of the last school year. jodi picoult joins me to discuss her road map for the growing threat of censorship, the special edition of the book club is ahead and another hour of "velshi" begins right now.