that number continues to grow each day. we have had some weather the last couple of days where winds were in excess, gusting over 35 miles an hour. we had some warm temperatures, humidities were dropping. >> we have had some whipping wednesday, about 20 or 30 mile an hour gusts. we do not know how much it has hindered firefighters progress today, if at all. fema offerings and federal help to keep these first responders going, some of them coming out west now to help with the firefight here. they are pledging some money to keep this operation going, which should help with first responders. but i've got to tell you, the one thing they're looking forward to most is that much- needed rain coming to really just get ahead of all of these fires. >> absolutely. thank you for that, george. that's going to do it for me on this edition of alex witt reports. i will see you tomorrow at 1 p.m. eastern. up next, the beat weekend. week.

we begin with the clash erupting between some washington republicans and the incoming trump administration which, in its personnel and its clear plans is doing exactly what it said it would do. and now, already this early, some republicans are saying, sometimes off the record, maybe this isn't what they think is actually good for the country. we are seeing people balk at donald trump's attempt to install people who have little to no experience in big posts, or are partisan loyalists in posts that are supposed to disclaim exactly that approach. as well is kind of the general shock and awe thing we've been discussing this week. actions and choices that are not just a little bit off or taking on the establishment, or the normal beltway thing, which , for, over american history, has happen from time to time. when you look at the evidence in the people and their experience, this is not that. this is quite clearly an organized and direct plan to take people who are partisan over independent, who are

provocateurs over the experienced, and who are often people who directly said they oppose the government rule of law and the agencies they would be a part of to now take them over. you have rfk, who is not a doctor, has no public health degree, has no relevant experience, to run hhs. that would be a problem, full stop. in other words, before you get to more information. the fact that rfk would be someone who does not know how to fly, and you are getting him keys to the plane, and you are saying to the passengers, the country, do you want to get on that plane? well, in that analogy, inside the united states, that would still be illegal. you cannot pilot a plane of other people without a flight license. just like you cannot drive without a drivers license. and this is higher stakes than that. so he does not have that experience, and that is before you get all his conspiracy theories, his discredited and disproven materials, things he

has said that has been rebuked by doctors and public health experts, because it has misled people. sometimes to very deleterious effects. or another pick that republicans, wall street journal and others are saying they now oppose, they say it's a bad idea, but it is exactly what trump has been promising her the last several months on the campaign trail. partisan vengeance. so, when donald trump tapped a maga partisan vengeance warrior in matt gaetz to be attorney general, that is exactly what trump campaigned on. that much is clear. or a fox news host at the pentagon, or a conspiracy theorist to oversee intelligence. these are individuals, some of them who probably would not get a security clearance if they apply for these jobs in the normal course, but they are being rented by donald trump, and he is daring republicans and the rest of the country to pushback. republican speaker mike johnson basically saying he will try to muscle gaetz through , but the house should not even release evidence, information that the house, up to this point, had

said was important. in other words, it is self canceling its own process because it is not some random external process or journalism or anything else. this is a report the house was preparing, under republican rule, about its own members ethics and alleged misconduct and drug allegations. republicans fighting each other now over this detail over trump's ag pick. >> but these confirmation hearings, they are fairly comprehensive, in terms of the vetting process that the nominees go through. >> is my understanding that is not supposed to go public. so if it is not supposed to under the rules, it should not go public. >> do you want to see it? >> absolutely. >> that is an early debate, that is, of course, entirely of donald trump's unmaking because he picked someone who had these outstanding ethics issues. again, just like rfk does not have much medical experience here, matt gaetz, who is a lawyer, has not tried cases of

the prosecutor, let alone senior prosecutor, let alone deputy attorney general or anything to that degree. now he would run the whole place with no doj experience if he gets in. so why do you want someone for that post? obviously it's not the experience. obviously it is not there representations about being independent or nonpartisan. quite the opposite. that he would do what even many hard-core loyalists, maga republican lawyers wouldn't in the past due for trump. >> the biggest bombshell is that he takes aim at his own attorney general, jeff sessions. >> the president said he never would have appointed jeff sessions attorney general if he knew he would recuse himself from the russia investigation. >> if you would've recused himself for the job, i would've said thanks, jeff, but i can't take you. >> reporter: president trump tonight has his attorney general in the process. the president is unhappy after bill barr said this week the justice department has so far not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election. >> president trump's plan

necessarily change. as you will hear today, donald trump offered mr. clark the job of acting attorney general. >> the key points there are not about left and right. they are not about blue and red, although there will be people defending trump who argue , disingenuously, that that is what it is about, or this is cleaning up doj or other misconduct. those are distractions. what this is actually about, quite clearly, is what you just heard. i will say it very simply. when people follow the rules, even though they were arch conservatives, maga supporters, politically supportive of donald trump in every possible way. but when they follow the rules, there are rules on recusal at the doj because of the powers involved the justice department prosecute cases that can result in capital punishment. if you have a conflict of interest with someone who could be executed by the government, we have very strict rules about that. that is in everyone's public interest. again, not a left or right

thing. and it was jeff sessions, who is well known as a very conservative senator who became attorney general, who followed the rule that you just saw so upset donald trump in the first term. bill barr, when he said facts, like donald trump lost the election and there was no widespread fraud that interfered with that. that was too far. that one act. it is the same version of doj of what politically and ultimately with a coup attempt happened with mike pence. that saying the words about what is true after four years of service was enough to have him more than attacked by donald trump, but his life quite physically threatened by trump's fans. so that is the history. not about policy or left and right, but just about whether you would go as far as a would be autocrat wanted. and if you do that even one time, you are out. so all those people are out. you heard trump say it. i am playing you his words. he said if he would note that session would follow the rules of fairness, he would not have given the job in the first

place. he wanted someone willing to break the rules, to be unfair, quite publicly, on trump in the half. then take it up to intelligence. the dni, tulsa gabbard. trump spent his first term feuding with intelligence officials, plenty of them nonpartisan, but who followed the same types of rules. and that dealt with the russia probe. now trump is tapping someone who does not even have the experience in those relative areas, the intelligence community, and who has, oddly and repeatedly, gone the other direction of all of the veterans and the people who studied this, to kind of seemingly caudal or side with russian interests. again, it is not about the facts for them, is just about what donald trump once, for whatever reason he thinks that is in his personal or political interest. then you go to the defense secretary. in contrast to rfk, we should note that pete hegseth is a veteran. he has that experience. he served in iraq and afghanistan, and many people, understandably, respect that. but he has not worked his way up in government in any way. so the service, respected. but the experience that is

generally needed to run something as large as the pentagon is not exactly there. and there are many other people, including, as donald trump will tell you, people who are publicly maga, who do have that kind of experience. some of them won't work for trump anymore, like john kelly, who warned about these autocratic tendencies before the election. others trump does not want for the reasons i just told you, they actually still follow rules. this individual has called liberals domestic enemies, exactly the kind of language that donald trump used on the campaign trail, which normalizes that. but this person will now be the first civilian oversight staff between, if confirmed by commander-in-chief trump, and the generals. when he says enemies and trump says enemies, that is two layers above the generals arguing for the approach that could result in the misuse of the military against what they call now american enemies. >> when you import the third world, you get a third world hierarchy values and chaos. this is what the left does. they have always been, well, i

won't say fascists, but yeah, fascists. too strong? of course not. >> i'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. we used to have the former soviet union and we were pretty proud of that. and ukraine was a part of it, and all these other countries. now i want it back. >> those are just some of the views. and when you look at this, and you understand what has been espoused here, that is what the vetting process is for. no one is saying, not that i have heard in congress, and no one in serious journalism is saying that people can't have these public views and then come in and explain how they would square some of them or whether they have evolved or grown, or whether obligations are through the senate process. what is different now and we have never seen before, and i want you to keep your eye on this in the weeks ahead, the

president has already said, the president-elect, donald trump, that he thinks he can ram all these people and without the senate. and parts of the senate, we are going to watch this debate among republicans, are ready to go along with that. so one of the first checks against someone like that, who would be the first person talking to donald trump about using the military, or considering nuclear plans, or any number of very real things that the pentagon chief does, may not even be subject to meaningful senate vetting under oath, let alone confirmation hearings. i say that because i just told you what they are doing and trying to bury the ethics probe of a different official. they are not going forward and claiming to even do the vetting. hegseth, also the pentagon nominee, has talked about the kind of political purging of generals that the trump transition team is floating in trial balloon leaks about what they might want to take on as new unitary powers for trump and trump alone. >> you got to fire the chairman of the joint chiefs. obviously you bring in your secretary of defense. but any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever that was involved in any of the ddi woke has got to

go. >> the point here isn't whether they disagree with generals about certain things. he is talking about what his allegation, that they are to, quote, woke. the point is actually much deeper than that. this is someone who is on record publicly saying he wants to do that then, purge the generals. trump wants to do that thing, purge the generals. conservative, long-standing generals from the first term said they heard trump talk about that, that he wanted autocratic generals. this is all happening, and if there are people on wall street who think this is just about tax cuts, they are going to learn quickly that it is about a heck of a lot more than that to the people in charge. donald trump once that control of the pentagon. and again, the history is instructive. when he had a different secretary of defense, mark esper, who spoke out about how trump wanted to misuse troops. which, again, in any society the first point of abuse is usually the use of force by the military or the police forces. general millie warned that trump was the most dangerous person in this country, and

quote fascist to the core. he told bob woodward that is the kind of pre-election warning. trump's chief of staff, kelly, have been very clear about that. before you listen to this, keep in mind. this is no longer campaign rhetoric. we had an election, the people voted. hillary clinton got a larger share of the total vote, a larger margin than trump has right now. but he got about a two point margin and he won through the swing states. so he is the president-elect lawfully. so, put the politics to the side and understand that these were warnings about substance, about governance, about what the next four years could be like. and they were clear warnings of what we are seeing this week. >> it certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure. >> i saw over the summer of 2020, where president trump and those around him wanted to use the national guard in various capacities. the escalation is to use the military in these situations. >> those are military patriots,

who are loath to speak out like that. but ultimately they did, just as they backed by multiple sources, blew the whistle on what you see here. that donald trump, of sound mind and body as a public official, literally called forgetting hitler style generals. he is now president-elect of the united states. he has picked his team. his military team, his top pentagon nominee is someone who , quite clearly, wants to carry out this plan. purge the generals, get rid of the ones you disagree with, put in the loyalists. so you start there with that type of power. it is not a drill, and it is no longer something you can put in the prism of campaign politics. we are two years out plus for another campaign. these are warnings about what is actually happening, who is in place, and whether the senate and the other powers

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>> imagine the future where the president could screen applicants to the justice department with one question. are you loyal to me or to the constitution? that was in the january 6 committee hearings on exactly what we are living through right now. i am joined by two veterans we call on from government service, bill kristol and maia wiley. bill, i walked through what we are dealing with, and at the risk of being repetitive, i emphasize that for anyone who says politics, language, campaign rhetoric, we are past that now. we are now back in the news governing. so what does it mean to look at these military plans and personnel? >> the defense department, the justice department, the intelligence agencies. in

social sciences they call those the power ministries. and when you analyze authoritarian takeovers, in other countries, even dramatic ones like coos or gradual ones, those other agencies, the autocrats focus on. and that is where trump wants to use those agencies to centralize power to him, loyalty to him as advocates have said, not to the law, the constitution, or the norms of the agencies. he wants to personalize power, he wants people who will be loyal to him personally. and he wants to have the ability to abuse power. and it is exactly what some of us feared the most about a trump second term area the first term he had the pick of the people in those jobs. hegseth and the others being nominated, they are people who respected the agencies and the rule of law and often stop people from doing things. jim mattison, defense, even jeff sessions at justice. even mike pompeo, who is a loyal trump follower at cia followed by gina haskel. now we are in the second term,

a totally different world, and a final quote i would make. he also wants to raid the senate. he wants to raid the power of the senate to stop him. that is why he keeps putting up one more radical nominee than another. either they will vote for that nominee or they're going to capitulate in another way along with speaker johnson and let him recess appointments. so he wants to prove the point very early, before he is sworn in, that he is in charge and there will be no dissent. >> i will pick up right where bill so importantly left off. that donald trump is actually saying that a power explicitly given the u.s. senate to confirm or refuse to confirm these nominees, he wants to bypass. that is an explicit power the constitution reserves to the senate. so, to bill's point, this is the first test of whether this,

of how the senate, including senate republicans, decide what is out there, which side thereon, whether they are on the side of the constitution and the people, or on it donald trump's personal five. we should also say, one of the things that is so important in dysfunction and this role is the people of this country should have some understanding of who is going to be making decisions about their daily lives. because let's remember, when we are talking about the secretary here, hegseth, and his white supremacist extremist tattoos on his body, he is also a person, if he is in this job, who will be having the discussion with donald trump about sending the military into communities to police u.s. citizens. this is something that donald trump has said explicitly. it is a power he has wanted to use. it is one of the warnings we heard from the joint chiefs in his administration when he was president before. and it is in project 2025.

so it is not just that position, it is also help and its implications for people's daily lives. but the united states of america is based on some transparency and accountability and checks and balances, and if we throw them out the window, to bill's point, it is not only that it offends the constitution, but we will feel that pain, that danger, and that lack of protection in our daily lives. >> by the end of the hour we have a special cultural segment, including looking at the power of protest music with phineas. we think that is worthwhile by the end of the hour. we hope you stay around for that. was that necessary? no. neither is missing your daughter's competition to do payroll. with paycom, employees do their own payroll so you don't have to miss your daughter's big day. time to shine.

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♪♪ sometimes your work shirt needs to be for more than just work. like when it needs to be a big, soft shoulder to cry on. which is why downy does more to make clothes softer, fresher, and better. downy. breathe life into your laundry. democratic house minority leader hakeem jeffries is our special guest right now. he also has a new book that was timed to come out after the election, the abcs of democracy. thanks for joining me tonight. >> at evening, grade to be with you. >> great to have you.

first, why do you think your party lost last week? >> well, listen. i think we are going to engage in a period of candid and comprehensive and clear eyed conversations as house democrats , and that is required of the moment. people are understandably, across the country, tens of millions of americans frustrated and concerned and deeply troubled by the results in terms of what happened last tuesday. and as a democratic party, we are going to have to make sure that make clear, one, that we will work with the incoming administration whenever and wherever possible, in order to solve problems for hard-working american taxpayers. but strongly disagree and push back against the extremism whenever necessary. that will be the foundation for how we move forward. we will have an after action analysis so that we can figure out collectively what happened on election day, why did it

happen, and how do we prevent that type of adverse electoral result from ever happening again , beginning, of course, with the off year elections in 2025, and the midterm elections in 2026. >> i hear you on that, and it sounds like you are looking forward and leaving time and space to do the actual analysis. so i understand that. there are a couple basic theories kicking around, and i have you here, so i want to ask. theory one, of course, is that this was an anti-incumbent economy election. there was a backlash to prices and inflation, which is as much about the macroenvironment as something great that your opponents did. the second theory that has gotten a lot of attention, including from pelosi and others, as you probably know, is that biden stayed in too long and you did not have the time to get the ideal candidate. under the party should've looked beyond the biden harrison administration. the the third theory is that there is something more out of step or wrong with the

democratic party's core values and pitch to voters right now. i get that you are going to go through all the evidence over time, but can you give us a peek into this? you are leader of the party. do you think this is an inflation thing, or a wrong candidate thing? or maybe there needs to be larger soul-searching. >> i think it's definitely clear that the economy, inflation, and to a lesser extent, issues connected to the border played an outsized role in how many voters made their electoral decisions, particularly as it relates to their support for the former president. i don't think there is enough evidence at the house level or at the senate level to suggest that this was an anti-incumbent thing, when 90% of our 31 battleground incumbents outran the national environment and are on their way back to the united states house of representatives. that is not an anti-incumbent wave, because the overwhelming majority of them would've been swept away. and that is a credit to our

incredible incumbent front-line house members who connected with the people that they represent, have a vision for the future, focused on the kitchen table pocketbook issues that matter, and have been re- elected. i think it is also fair to say that when you look at the battleground situation that occurred at the senate level and , far be it for me to speak for my colleagues in the united states senate, but it is clear that you have multiple battleground states where democratic incumbents, or in the case of elissa slotkin and ruben gallego, two house members, we are very proud of them, were elected to the united states senate on a very tough night. so i think we have to make sure that we are clear eyed and authentic, and unadulterated in how we assess what happened so that we can engineer a come

back on behalf of the american people and protect the things that matter, our american values. protect our institutions, protect our freedoms. and protect the way of life in terms of the middle class and all those who aspire to be part of it. but we also, i think, can't be hysterical in our assessment that this was some anti- incumbent wave that knocks down at democrats all across the country when the facts actually say something very different. >> yeah, i appreciate you engaging in the conversation, and you are certainly making a fair point, that donald trump improved his numbers. there are people who look at that and say how, with everything, how could he improve his numbers? that said, it was not some reaganesque 49 state lump, and some of your team did get back up and still have the support of the voters. i want to play some of what you're house democratic members have said. >> the goal is to win elections in the real world, where it

matters. then you have to appeal to working-class people of color who, historically, have been the base of the democratic party. >> i think they just felt there needed to be a change like other countries did. so i think it is just a matter of getting back to the core populist economic progressive message. >> i get why people are exhausted and disheartened. it is tough to lose an election. >> the cost of living, the cost of groceries. people are feeling that pain coming out of covid, so we have to do better. >> are you backing today the idea that the party needs to be even more working-class, populist, prioritized both in substance and in messaging on that, and that you lost, the party lost sight of that to some degree? >> it is clear that housing prices are too high. gas prices have been too high. and groceries have been too high. we have to bring down the high cost of living for everyday americans, and make sure that we are there for people who are struggling to live a check to pay check. that is the clear lesson in

terms of additional, decisive action, that we need to work on with the fierce urgency of now. not as democrats or republicans, but as americans. we have to deal with the fact that for far too many people, the great american middle class dream has either slipped away or is viewed as being out of reach. and we got to address that decisively. all of my colleagues, in different ways, have said exactly that. and we will drill down in that particular area. but i think there is actually unity in that regard, and that is something that we plan to work on and work on together. maybe tackle with the trump administration, if they are serious about dealing with these cost-of-living issues. we will certainly forcefully talk about it and present solutions to address it. >> we have that view from the top of the democratic party. now next we turn to someone who has been inside these battles for decades. hence carville, my special guest, the postelection debrief. ostelection

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>> as a matter of fact, let's do this right now. if you voted for donald trump and me, or if you voted for donald trump and voted democratic down ballot, i would really love to hear from you. >> aoc talking about some of the overlapping ways that people vote. take florida, where a sizable majority voted for abortion rights, but also for donald trump. there are many notes in the election results. we regroup, we assess, here on the beat we always follow the facts. and tonight we turn to legendary political strategist james carville, who played an outside wall this season, first loudly saying what democrats came to much later on in the year. as you early on probably said, maybe they needed to look beyond biden at the top of the ticket. and you said other things people like and don't like area and welcome back >> thank you. i say some things people don't

like again tonight, but that's just the nature of the business. glad to be back. >> here is the first question, it is very similar to the question i opened with leider jeffries, james. why did the democrats lose last week? >> i think there are number of reasons, but there was a pivotal moment in the campaign. that was on the view, with the vice president asked what would you do different. 65% went off on the wrong track. and that is the money question. and she said i can't think of anything. and of course, the trump people had it up as an add six hours later. when you're in a country that want something different. we had a whole bevy of candidates that were very articulate and were able to put a message out, but we were never allowed to choose that. it was just we were.

if you do things wrong it haunts you in politics. it's a business were some things stick harder than other things. >> yeah, and that is a point that is very much a right now point, james. what you said about biden, those numbers, her being partly arguing for change, but being tied to biden. there was a larger thing that happens, as you know, after every election, which is everybody says the party should do what they were saying anyway. meeting the liberals wanted more left, the centrists wanted more center, i wanted to play bernie sanders, who, on the one hand, has been consistent about what he thinks. on the other hand that means it is what sanders says now. >> if you're an average working person out there, do you really think that the democratic party is taking on powerful special interest in fighting for you. i think the overwhelming answer is no.

and that is what is got a change. when you have millions and millions of people working for starvation wages, you've got to speak to that reality. >> was that the problem, it was not done enough? and you are, james, if nothing else, i never like to talk about -- and if i did not know you better i would not talk about what could go on your tombstone, hopefully many decades from now. but it might be the economy is stupid, among other things. so you, as mr. is the economy stupid, was this an economy election? and if so, is sanders right that on populist working-class kitchen table issues the dems did not do enough? >> what he is not right about, democrats have done a number of thing for working people. obamacare expanded healthcare for 23 million more people than had it before. a lot of things in president biden's bill backed programs that created millions of jobs working people. but i think senator sanders has

some sort of a point here. and that is there were things we could have run on harder, that have affected. the minimum wage, it passes everywhere by 70%. i know that president biden was for it and harris was for it, but we need to put it front and center. what about taxing the incomes over $400,000 and taking that money and putting it into first- time homebuyers mortgage relief funds? i mean, there were things that senator sanders would favor, that we could've put more front and center. and you know, there were a lot of things that are just popular, that democrats were for, and they are popular with every kind of democrat in the country. they also happen to be popular with independents and even some republicans. and we should run on a popular thing. popular thing was not continuing the biden administration. that was clearly not what people wanted. i think he's a great guy, but people did not want more of that. and that's what we gave them.

>> i mean, yeah, i'm letting that sink in. you know it's funny, i am going to talk to really directly. it is like the biggest thing ever happened. you got rid of a sitting incumbent president after he had one of the primary. it has never happened before. and the reason was that everyone from loc on down had absorbed the fact that he was going to lose big, so you had to do something big. and then you land on, as you just argued, his literal replacement and a message that was still very much tied to biden. so is that almost all baked in? how would you change that, only if there was a different candidate? >> okay, so he gets out on july 21st. harris has to keep the campaign headquarters in wilmington. she keeps biden's campaign manager. she keeps the entire staff. that is a hard thing to do, because they are not going to tag biden. no more than attacking clinton.

but each thing is different, and we did not have a choice. like i said, we did not get to kick the tires. we did not get a look under the hood. we did not get to look at the trim. we were just given the keys and a full stick and honestly we had no choice. but by july 21st we probably did not have much of a choice. and the thing that i will believe till past my dying day is this. the talent level in the democratic party is utterly breathtaking. i would've given anything if we could've gotten five or six of these people out on the track, let them run around, let people look at them. and just see, when they look at us they think we are an old party that is attached to some exotic positions, which is not the case of many democrats out there in the country. they are very skilled, and would have made a great primary, and a lot of fun, and i think would've done the party

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>> billie eilish and finneas, that is the video they released urging people to support kamala harris. finneas is an upcoming star, the youngest person to ever winning the grammy for producer of the year. he is known for intimate, emotional, and sometimes political lyrics, which we discussed in our brand-new mavericks interview. >> the kids are all dying, which is earlier, not from this album. i think some themes overlap.

>> i don't pretend to be the sort of first person to have all of these conflicting feelings about the state of the world, at all. it is just the period of time that i am a young adult, so it is the first decade of being in it and feeling like you have, whether it is down to literally being of voting age for the first two election cycles. i mean, first election cycle i voted in the 2016. so i think your consciousness has a lot to do with your participation and the fabric of the society you live in. >> your songs have been very clear already. and where the poison is in that difficult covid era you have these beautiful, poignant, sad lines.

once we put this all behind us, we go right back to school shootings and the climate crisis. crisis. >> that song felt very dated to me. and not as articulate as i wanted it to be. but i meant it when i said it. >> and people rock with that. >> people rocked with it, yes. i mean, in terms of our endorsement, one of the comments that i saw on that video, and again, i am not usually one for reading my comments. but it appeared was looking at my phone, like you can totally tell that they are reading a script or whatever. i am like what did you want us, to just burrow our way through this? we just wrote it down so that we could say concisely. >> that is a bit like someone saying they totally wrote this

song. >> yeah, go to any song improv show, and you will come crawling back to my show where i wrote it beforehand. it is not the same. and, i mean, i think of myself not necessarily as a single issue voter, but there are about five or six different things on the ballot that i feel like i am a single issue voter four. i am a single issue voter for climate change. i'm a single issue voter for reproductive rights. i am a single issue voter for gay rights, trans rights, gun control. those are things, i would love to live in a world that is politically nuanced enough that there is a broad consensus that those things are all important, and we seem to live in a world where there are party lines where one candidate supports those things and validates them and one doesn't. so, for me, it was a very blatant and easy endorsement to make. >> and then do you feel like your listeners can then factor

that in? they will make up their own mind, but they are really getting a worldview or some values within your work. >> listen, if we have a para- social relationship, then you know how i feel politically. i think whatever that term was the way all coined a couple years ago, doom scrolling, i think it is hard to avoid. i think it is equal parts kind of dutiful that we are all seeing this stuff happen and also the curse of knowledge, right? you are seeing things that you might not have participated in at any step of the way, but you haven't to be. so you see this terrible thing happening. >> part of our conversation aired now for the first time, finneas has this new album out now. can see, for crying out loud. we discussed how he is experimenting in this solo style, as well as his approach to lyrics and possibly timeless music. >> in the album, people have seen your work and your songwriting process in many ways. one thing that jumped out to me

is it seems like some of these lyrics, bridges, and choruses could be from a song from basically any decade. de. tell us about how you write that, and is that the result, or is there a conscious awareness of wanting to be somewhat timeless, if you will? >> yeah, i think there is kind of a desire to not date myself by virtue of some lyric that might feel extra good when you say it, and then feel extra irrelevant two years later. you know, i think the comparison that i could draw is when we see the internet in a movie now it is the thing that

makes you know when the movie is from. does that make sense? you watch someone go online, you look at their laptop or look at the phone screen, and you go oh, that is 2012. because that is how my phone looked in 2012, because everything is updating so quickly. so i think in terms of vernacular and vocabulary, musically, i am aiming to write a lyric that will sound just as good in five years. to me it is less about this sounds like 50 years ago, and more about is this going to be just as relevant 10 years from now. >> all good food for thought. we just had a few moments to air here, but the full 45 minute interview is up now at msnbc .com. for the full finneas mavericks interview. thanks for watching the beat we can. be sure to join us weekdays at 6:00 p.m. eastern for the beat on msnbc.

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good evening, and welcome to politics nation. tonight's lead, the extreme team. say what you will, but in one sense, donald trump has united the country in little over a week as president-elect. he has managed to present a perspective cabinet that has