tv Katy Tur Reports MSNBC November 18, 2024 12:00pm-1:00pm PST
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fly don't walk to get our best deals of the year. connect to the world of wicked this holiday, only in theaters november 22nd. let me set the record straight. are people born wicked? or do they have wickedness thrust upon them? oh! -ah! [ laughter ] no need to respond. that was rhetorical. hm, hmm. good to be with you. i'm katy tur. who is going to blink first?
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donald trump is making it clear he won't back down on his cabinet wish list so will the senate but their own kearns aside and confirm trump's pick no matter who they are? if they do instead object to the matt gaetz or the tulsi gabbard or pete hegseth will gop senate and house leadership send everyone home for at least ten days so trump can have his way with appointments while congress is on recess? according to speaker mike johnson, maybe. >> i believe in the principle of a new president being able to choose his team and that used to not be a controversial notion. we're in a time of divided government, and a very partisan atmosphere in washington. i wish it were not. i wish the senate would simply do its job of advice and consent and allow the president to put the persons in his cabinet of his choosing, but if this thing bogs down, it would be a great detriment to the country, to the american people.
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we'll evaluate all that at the appropriate time and make the appropriate decision. there may be a function for that. we'll have to see how it points out. >> even senator mullen agrees. he would show everyone on the house floor videos of girls he slept with and brag about the drugs he would do to last all night is essentially saying if trump wants picks like gaetz trump should get picks like gaetz. >> would you vote to approve recess appointments? is that something you would support? >> if it became the last option. it would be the last resort, but if that's what we have to do to get confirmation through then absolutely let's do it. >> just to be clear, matt gaetz denies all the allegations. so are these confirmations a done deal? not quite yet. despite all that mounting pressure from trump world, the house ethics committee could still release its report. they're meeting wednesday amid new reporting from the attorney
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of who witnesses who said they saw gaetz having sex with a minor at a house party in 2017. by the way, gaetz denies that. new and strong backlash to pete hegseth as secretary of defense. what his lawyer is denying on his behalf today. as one of our next guests argues trump is already starting to fail. joining us now capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles, national law and intelligence correspondent tom winter, and "new york times" chief white house correspondent and msnbc political analyst peter baker. all right, ryan, a recess appointment, we've been talking every day about whether matt gaetz or tulsi gabbard or te hegseth can get confirmed. seems like trump is testing the boundaries here and seems like from the outward assurances from allies, that they're willing to go as far as he wants to go. is that the same thing you're hearing on capitol hill when people are not talking to a
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camera? >> you know, i think it depends on who you talk to. i do think we need to set the standard here for what having to go to a recess appointment would mean for the incoming trump administration. we're not talking about democrats standing in the way of a trump nomination. we're talking about republicans standing in the way of a trump nomination. there's a real possibility, of course, we're still waiting on pennsylvania to finally finish counting its votes but republicans should have a 53-seat majority that would mean that if one of these nominees were no , not to get through it would be because republicans do not approve. taking the recess appointment route would be a radical departure from how this process normally plays itself out. you've seen in past administrations when presidents have used recess appointments because they were head-butting with the opposite party. in this scenario you would be asking senate republicans and, perhaps, house republicans if they went to the point of adjourning for ten days, to buck the will of some of these republican senators who believe
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that they have the responsibility as a co-equal branch of government to keep the executive branch in check. i think there are a lot of senate republicans who behind closed doors are uncomfortable with the notion of just handing away this advise and consent rule to the trump administration to just input whoever they would like. they believe it is their solemn responsibility to help the president in this scenario and make sure that the candidates that he is putting into these places have been properly vetted and have the necessary qualifications to do the job. >> just to underscore what you're saying there. mike johnson may say calmly that it used to be just so normal and nobody would get in the way of this. the president could have who the president wants. what makes this so insane of a situation and puts republicans in this bad position, is because, peter i'll go to you on this, these choices are so extreme, they are so out of the norm, they are so not people who
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are traditionally qualified for these very large positions. >> people who believe in blowing up the very departments that they would run, right. picking somebody to be attorney general who has been a subject of a justice department investigation, who has said that the atf and fbi ought to be abolished altogether, criticized the justice department for being corrupt and politicized and wants to come in now and run it. the trump people would say it needs to be cleaned up from the biden years. it's very unusual to see a president try to put somebody in, one of these departments, who has a radical agenda and try to do it without senate confirmation. as ryan pointed out, it's not the democrats who are holding it up. it would be republicans. he's trying to get around republican opposition. the recess appointment was put in the constitution to help a president in times when congress wasn't in town and took months for them to come back and forth.
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you didn't have airplanes back then. it wasn't meant to put in a cabinet full of controversial people because you decide you want controversial people who couldn't pass muster. that's what trump is trying to do here. if the republicans allow him to do it, they redefine and redrawn the balance of power. >> it wasn't controversial because generally speaking the presidents have chosen a cabinet they believed would pass a senate confirmation hearing, even if they had to have a little bit of a fight they believe the person was so qualified and upstanding and necessary for that role, that they could get that person over the line. when it occurred they could not do that, when there was pushback behind the scenes or an outcry in public as we've been hearing with gaetz or pete hegseth and tulsi gabbard usually a president would have pulled those nominees back. i don't want to waste time on this, and i'm not going to push the issue. i'm going to nominate somebody else. let me ask you, ryan, about the
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gaetz ethics committee report. they were supposed to meet on friday. it didn't happen. now we're getting word they're meeting again on wednesday. do you know what's going to be happening at that meeting? >> well, we're told that they're going to discuss the future of this report. whether or not it ever sees the light of day. as you know the ethics committee is very secretive incredibly confidential up until the last minute. this is a unique situation they find themselves in. they're dealing with an investigation that they put months and months, maybe years into and were waiting to release this report and then had kind of the rug pulled out from underneath then when matt gaetz decided to resign from congress. the reason that you would think there's a possibility they will hold off on releasing the report because of the message that's being sent by the house speaker mike johnson who claimed it would be opening pandora's box and set up a bad precedent to
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release this information even though there is precedent that has been set. they have released ethics reports after members have left office. it's not out of the realm of possibility. there's no legal prohibition on them doing it. the committee can do whatever they want if they have a simple majority of people voting. the question here in this scenario, katy, you have an equal parts republicans and democrat on this committee. this isn't a majority committee. the ethics committee is designed to be nonpartisan. it would require at least one republican to join democrats in order for the report tore released and if the speaker's putting his thumb on the scale there's a real possibility that they just vote to keep this under wrams. >> all right. what about the allegations. tom, what exactly is matt gaetz being accused of and we heard from a couple folks in the past few days regarding those allegations. give us the scoop. >> as far as the core of the allegations that hasn't changed since this came up three years ago, the idea, of course, as you pointed out earlier in the show, allegations he strongly denied over the years, that he had sex with this 17-year-old girl at
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the time and that there were these allegations again of sex parties and other things that the former congressman is alleged to have been involved in. there was a federal criminal investigation into this. there was a separate federal criminal investigation because gaetz points this out a lot that there was an attempt to shake him down basically hey, we can get a pardon from biden in exchange for money to help out on another tip that somebody was trying to do with the fbi. we can go on and on. that was really kind of separate from all of the allegations against gaetz. it was this investigation into gaetz was focused on this 17-year-old, allegations surrounding that. one person did cooperate with federal prosecutors. they were -- they pleaded guilty and they were sentenced. that was a separate case. ultimately the justice department according to gaetz' attorneys and we've confirmed that with the justice department, obviously, they never charged him. he would be charged and we wouldn't be having this conversation. we have new details that came in over the weekend, this is from joel leopard an attorney for one
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of the women he says went before the house ethics committee that ryan was referring to, saying my client testified to the house ethics committee she witnessed representative gaetz having sex with a minor at a house party in orlando in 2017. so now two questions come up here. one, what were the particular circumstances of that? could that in and of itself have been a violation of federal law? we have reported, nbc news has, that gaetz traveled to the bahamas with women. were any of them under age? was that for the purposes of sex? that could be a violation of federal law. if so why did the justice department not bring the case? ultimately were these witnesses or the victim herself not credible or did they make decisions based on other factors that came up in the course of their investigation or did they just not want to proceed with case against the congressman? that's going to be important going forward. >> the house ethics committee doesn't have a legal standard to abide by. they have an ethical standard to abide by for the house when coming out with that report. >> one asterisk for witnesses
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testifying before the house ethics committee, it's a crime to tell a lie to congress. that is one thing to keep in mind. >> that is a good point. >> and again, you had mark wayne mullen last year that matt gaetz was showing videos where he was having sex with women and then bragging about the drugs that he would do to, as markwayne mullen said, last all night. pete hegseth is facing allegations regarding women. peter, what exactly is going on with him and his attorney saying? >> yeah. this came up after the president-elect made the nomination and caught his own transition team by surprise, but he was found to have paid money to a woman who accused him of sexual assault. he says it wasn't assault, it was consensual, but paid her anyway. that was part of in his interpretation, a form of blackmail.
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but once again, we're in a position where, you know, one of the people that the president of the united states has decided to put in charge of one of the most important departments in government has a cloud over him for the kind of behavior that would certainly get any member of the military court-martialed if they were able to prove it. that's a problem, obviously, in the senate as well. trump so far is sticking by hegseth. we'll see whether that continues. but, you know, there could be other revelations. you never know. once these doors are opened, you never know what comes out. >> yeah. peter baker, tom winter, ryan nobles, thank you very much. joining us "new york times" opinion columnist david french. the title of your column today, david, is "donald trump is already starting to fail." how so? >> yeah. so if you look at these picks, these cabinet picks, you know, we went through the scandals there, the scandals are considerable, but if you actually look at the cabinet picks, a number of the key picks from tulsi gabbard to pete
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hegseth to matt gaetz to rfk jr., these are not picks you make when you're planning to govern well. there are two very important communities of people here if we're talking about trump support. the 17 million, these are the people who voted for him in the primary. core maga. they love the gaetz pick. many of them. they love the hegseth pick. they see trump as a wrecking ball. there's the 76 million, the people who voted for him in the general election and in awful lot of those people didn't vote for wrecking balls. they didn't vote for chaos. they voted for less inflation or they were voting for a more controlled border. in other words they were voting for competence. now a lot of the -- a lot of viewers saying voting for competence, trump. >> they remember a period from 2017 to 2019 that was perhaps more calm and so when trump is nominating people that communicate chaos more than
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competence, or vengeance more than governance, what he's doing is he's demonstrating that he hasn't heard the 76 million. that he's still listening to the 17 million, that core part of his base. that is a recipe for failure. across the western world, developed world, when governments focus on their culture war pet issues they got tossed out and they are asking for people to come in and focus on the big stuff. this is why we see this back and forth all over the world. >> the world has changed so much in the past few years, especially with the distribution of information. we talk about this a lot. not everyone is getting accurate information, reliable information, fact-based reporting. they're getting information through a podcast host who has an opinion or they're getting information from a meme or just not getting any information at all. i wonder how the democrats take the chaos that could be to come and convey it to the public? how does the public see what's
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happening beyond their daily lives? are they even hearing about matt gaetz as a completely controversial pick? are they hearing about tulsi gabbard and her support of bashar al assad or vladimir putin? are they getting that information >> does the world that we've all come to know and the consequences we've relied on in the past still allow? >> well the short answer to your question are a lot of these people getting that information? absolutely not. if you look at the trump vote by where people got their information, he lost overwhelmingly amongst people who, for example, get their information from newspapers. he won overwhelmingly amongst people who don't consume political media at all. that's something a lot of people forget. a lot of trump voters have zero knowledge about a lot of these scandals and things that dominate twitter for days on end. what do they vote on?
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they vote on the conditions on the ground as they perceive them. why is that a danger for trump? well if he does govern well, the conditions on the ground in their lives will not be better. you know, if he does his tariffs there will be more inflation. if he does mass deportations, there will be more inflation and a lot of chaos in their communities. the sad thing, though, the sad thing is, the fact that they were warned about that, is irrelevant for them because they didn't hear the warning and didn't pay attention. when the consequences occur, they react to the consequences. and so that's just a problem for our country because what ends up happening is, even though you warned of consequences, point out they're coming a lot of people never hear the warning and you have to experience the negativity before the change comes. you hate to say that's the way it goes. what churchhill said about democracy, the worst form of government other than every other form because sometimes democracies make big, big serious mistakes before they
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right the ship. >> it is an exhausting cycle. let's focus on matt gaetz for one more moment. do you believe that if matt gaetz becomes a.g. and the republicans hold recess appointments or most of them fall in line and say yes, do you think that he's going to be doing political prosecutions? there's reporting that doj officials, former and current, are lawyering up out of fear that donald trump's going to go after them? >> i think he 'll try. the reporting indicates one of the reasons gaetz has this job he was talking about going and cutting off heads, for example. he was not taubl talking about here's my theory of law enforcement and bring law and order to american streets more than -- i'm just going to go in and start attacking people. yeah, i think he'll try. one of the things, though, about a figure like matt gaetz, who has zero experience managing an institution of this size, i think he will be both misguided
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and incompetent at the same time, both vengeful and incompetent at the same time. you might say the incompetent part will make the vengeful less dangerous. not necessarily. so, you know, when you're talking about gaetz or hegseth or others, we have no evidence they have anything like the competence necessary to run these institutions. but we have a lot of evidence that they have a vengeful kind of ideology. combine those two things and that is not a recipe for a well-functioning government to say the least. >> and public vows of loyalty to one man alone donald trump. david french, always great to have you. what an optimistic outlook to start the week off. i appreciate it. >> thank you, katy. >> still ahead, more on the career justice department and fbi officials who i just mentioned are lawyering up ahead of an incoming trump administration. we have the reporting and what specifically they're worried
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about. plus, what the president-elect is promising to do at the border to carry out mass deportations. he's talking about it even today. what he will do on day one. plus, what president biden's latest move on ukraine is doing to upset his adversaries here and abroad. we're back in 90 seconds. secons nyquil vapocool. the vaporizing night time, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, best sleep with a cold, medicine. want a next level clean? swish with the whoa of listerine. it kills 99.9% of bad breath germs for five times more cleaning power than brushing and flossing alone. get a next level clean... ahhhhh with listerine. feel the whoa! i was out on a delivery, when i came across a snake... a rattler. fedex presents tall tales of true deliveries there we were, driver versus reptile. our battle was legendary. (♪♪)
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senior justice department and fbi officials are reaching out to lawyers worried donald trump will make good on his promise to go after his perceived enemies according to source reporting from nbc news. three people with knowledge say the officials see matt gaetz's nomination as a warning side. quote, everything we did was aboveboard said a former senior fbi official but this is a different world. joining us national security and law senior executor david rode. what are these people worried about in particular if they didn't do anything wrong, what are they worried about? >> worried about prolonged investigation. the solution would be appointing a special counsel under the trump administration to look at all of the criminal investigations of donald trump. his supporters think that these people should be prosecuted. they've been told this for months and months this is this massively corrupt doj. one detail, merrick garland was shocked at the election results.
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he's move on and following all these norms as he should, but there were doj employees who wept, not about who won or lost the race but the results showed that millions of americans, you know, do believe that the doj and fbi is a cresspool and that shocked them. >> they have to document their methods. i mean they've got paperwork. they have investigative lines. they go to a grand jury. they get that grand jury to deliver back an indictment. there are steps they have to take to get as far as they did with the investigations into donald trump. they weren't just deciding one day they wanted to prosecute him and then manifesting made-up evidence. they had to go through a process. given that they had to go through a process, what is the likelihood even if donald trump appoints a special counsel or there are congressional hearings where people are hauled up in front of congress, those investigations and those potential prosecutions would go anywhere?
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that a judge would uphold any of this stuff? >> that's the big question. they are not worried about going to jail. it is true -- there's a law, you cannot bring a prosecution without probable cause as a prosecutor and fbi agent. that's to stop the abuses. it's likely people don't go to jail. but there could be, you know, years of investigation in front of them. they're worried about their own reputations, will they have trouble finding jobs. many people see this is more legal experts see it as an effort to intimidate people. if you investigate donald trump you will be investigated. during the mar-a-lago investigation, the classified documents, they didn't want this case. i talked to multiple people separately for other stories, they just hoped that trump would give the documents back. they saw this as a lose-lose case, a career-ender, if you get one of these extremely politicized cases it's going to burn you and hurt your career.
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>> listen, even if it doesn't go anywhere you can inflict quite a bit of financial pain on a person forcing them to get a lawyer and produce, you know, endless discovery, all of your e-mails, conversations, all of your receipts, whatever that you may have used in order to pursue an investigation. david, thanks so much for joining us. appreciate it. coming up, what moscow is warning after president biden authorized ukraine to use u.s. missiles to strike deep inside of russia. and what donald trump is threatening to do in an effort to deport millions of migrants and start it quickly. it quickly so those who receive can find the joy of giving back. hi. i'm damian clark. i'm
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donald trump reposted a confirmation on his social media site saying it was true that his administration is prepared to declare a national emergency and use the military to carry out mass deportations. how exactly would that work? joining us now nbc news homeland security correspondent julie ainsley. in practice what does it mean to declare a national emergency an to use the military? >> well, katy, this is something we've been hearing about for some time, even before the election as you see trump here was responding to someone from judicial watch saying the reports are coming in that the trump administration is prepared to declare a national emergency and then it says to use military assets to reverse what they called the biden invasion.
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but military assets can mean different things. if he means the national guard that's easier to deploy and something the president has the authority to do and call upon states to contribute their state national guards. if he uses the military to make arrests of people who come into this country, if he does that, we understand he wants to use something called the stafford act from 1789 that is supposed to be set up if the u.s. was invaded by another foreign government, something that would be hard to stand up in court because, of course, these immigrants are not coming on behalf of another government in most cases trying to escape the oppression and persecution of another government. that could be a very difficult one to stand up legally. of course there's a lot of interest in this because if he does violate long-standing constitutional provisions that keep the military from enforcing domestic law as they would be if they made the arrest, he could be in deep legal trouble. that's true if he uses the national guard to make arrests. we've seen the military go to the border, build barriers, help
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the border patrol with processing. when it comes to putting handcuffs on someone whether crossing the border or in the united states that's a difference and we think that's where the courts would draw a red sglin what tom homan, donald trump's border czar has said about this on fox news. >> we are working on a plan. i'll be going down to mar-a-lago to put the final touches on plan. we're going to take handcuffs off i.c.e. they haven't been able to arrest them because secretary mayorkas has told them to tone down the arrests. he said you can't arrest anybody unless they've been convicted of a serious crime. looking at the data the removal of criminal aliens has decreased 74%. we have targets under arrest. we're going to take the handcuffs off ice, do the job, secure the country and arrest the bad guys first. >> do we expect these to start changing the day donald trump takes office after sworn in? >> we understand these plans
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should be taking place quickly after sworn in, probably sign an executive order issuing i.c.e. to have new priorities. it's different from what whoman is saying. it's not a matter of removing limitation. the trump administration removed fewer than 1 million over four years in the first term. now trump is taking removing 1 million a year or possibly 20 million migrants. that would include -- that would mean significant ramping up of funding by congress. we understand this could be $90 billion in the first year. we understand that they would need more planes, detention space. we've reported here how they're looking at expanding detention, talking to prison companies about doing that. this is not just about removing barriers. this would be a huge overhaul of the system and he would need a lot of buy-in from courts, congress, and really from the american people to pull it off. >> let's have a further discussion about that as we go forward. julia thank you very much. with the president-elect promise to billionaires and
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working class that could be difficult to deliver at the same time. president biden makes a major policy shift on ukraine. what he's now allowing the country to do in its fight against russia with just months left in his presidency. 50 days!? and its refill reminder light means i'll never miss a day of freshness. ♪ customize and save with liberty mutual. customize and sa— (balloon doug pops & deflates) and then i wake up. is limu with you in all your dreams? oh, yeah. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. ♪ type 2 diabetes? only pay for what you need. discover the ozempic® tri-zone. i got the power of 3. i lowered my a1c, cv risk, and lost some weight. in studies, the majority of people reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. i'm under 7. ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack, or death in adults also with known heart disease. i'm lowering my risk. and adults lost up to 14 pounds.
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officials acquiescing to ukraine's request after months of holding off. only a couple months to go before president biden leaves office. how long will that permission last? joining us now, nbc news chief international correspondent keir simmons. keir, what has the reaction been to this permission from the u.s. government to the ukrainians and what is the expectation for what happens when trump takes the oath of office? >> fury from the russians, katy. straightforwardly how they responded. we haven't heard from president putin yet, but the spokesman for the kremlin saying this is pouring oil on the fire, gas on the fire, however you want to translate it. you understand the sentiment. what the russians are saying is that we've been warning you that this would escalate and mean the u.s. being more involved in the war and now we've always said there's going to be retribution. what the biden administration is doing is trying to support
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ukraine to hold on to territory in the kursk region they took in the summertime ahead of negotiations. another interesting point, though, division among the europeans. the italian leader, the polish leader, different perspectives there, while the germans are treading line in between, chancellor scholz phoning president putin and being criticized by president zelenskyy. we are moving into an unpredictable era and it is unpredictable exactly what impact this will have and makes the coming potential negotiations in many ways as well. >> keir simmons, saying it right, thank you very much. joining us now former u.s. ambassador to russia and msnbc international affairs analyst michael mcfaul. russia is clearly not happy about this. any reason to believe he would -- he would retaliate in a
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stronger way, in a more aggressive way, not just towards ukraine but outside of ukraine? >> first of all, i'm not happy about the russian attacks on ukraine. yesterday the week before, the month before, weeks before, they continue to escalate. they continue to kill ukrainians and we just forget about that part of the story. he just brought in 10,000 north korean soldiers to kill ukrainians. how is that not escalation? so when we worry about putin's feelings and what he might do, we need to remember what he's doing to ukrainians first. second, i don't think he has at love great options to escalate. he could attack a nato country. do you think he's going to do that? just weeks before president trump takes over here in the united states? i don't think so. he could use a nuclear weapon, but again, why would he risk that and risk trying to cut a
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deal with president trump just weeks before he comes into office. i'm cautiously optimistic there will not be some major escalation and i would like to remind everybody, we've been using this word escalation for literally three years. for things that we shouldn't do. and it's never happened in three years. >> yeah. and your point is taken on what vladimir putin has done and the lengths he's going within ukraine, the people he's killed, and the foreign soldiers he is using which are pretty deep inside of ukraine. the ukrainians are going to be fighting back with these long-range missiles. what will they be targeting? how much damage can they do? >> well, we don't really know how many they have of the atacms you're referring to. my guess is they don't have that many. and you rightfully what will happen when president trump comes into office in january. i wouldn't be surprised if they're out of them by the time we get to january 20th.
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secondly, i talk to ukrainians all the time they understand that there's going to be a major press for negotiations after january 20th and what they want to do is they want to hold the territory that they have both in ukraine and in russia. the kursk region. i think, therefore, you'll see these weapons being used primarily to help them hold the territory in russia that they will want to use to trade for their territory that the russians are holding in ukraine. >> how does volodymyr zelenskyy deal with donald trump when he comes into office? >> he's already started. they've already been preparing this for months. flattery as you've seen. he's praising him. second, he's very clear that he's ready to negotiate. it's not that -- we continually in the west talk about what zelenskyy needs to do to get a deal done. i think the ukrainians would love for somebody to start talking about what putin needs to do to get a deal done.
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it takes two to tango and i think he's hoping president trump, president-elect trump, and others around him, will begin to think seriously about that. the art of the deal. to quote a former author. it takes both sides to compromise, not just one. >> what if zelenskyy's worse case scenario happens and donald trump pulls all u.s. support from ukraine? what happens then? >> putin tries to march to kyiv. i'm not a military expert, but i do teach wars, i studied wars and they end in two ways. one side wins or there's a stalemate on the battlefield. right now we have neither of those conditions. so if we withdraw our aid from ukraine, putin is just going to march forward. and no phone call is going to tell him to stop doing that. if his opponent is getting weaker, he is going to try to achieve the original objectives that he set out for this invasion. he's far from that, and i predict if we allow -- if we
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disarm the ukrainians more ukrainians will be killed as putin tries to achieve his objectives including overthrowing the zelenskyy government and subsuming or at least controlling all of ukraine. >> couple months left before donald trump takes office. michael mcfaul, thank you very much. coming up next, donald trump's impossible task. s impos. singlecare is easier to use than my insurance. there are no membership fees or premiums, and it works for everyone. check singlecare to make sure you're getting the best price. visit singlecare.com and start saving today.
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one of the biggest positions yet to be named is treasury secretary and now "the new york times" is reporting donald trump is having second thoughts about his top choices. so who are the men donald trump is rethinking? and who is he considering now? joining us nbc news business correspondent christina romance and josh green. author of "the rebels" and the struggle for a new american politics. christine, i'm going to start with you who could lead treasury. four names, kevin marsh, howard lutnick, scott besent. what's the difference? >> some are more traditional steward of the treasury department. the cantor fitzgerald, howard lutnick is a type a personality, more out there. really behind donald trump over the past few weeks so he's more of the cheerleader kind of figure you've seen. this position i think the most
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important -- only donald trump knows who he's going to pick. >> howard lutnick on the left. a couple of investors that you're seeing. >> howard lutnick on the left again. >> the most important thing here is this position. this is america's diplomat for the world in terms of finance. we are the biggest investment in the world so this person has to execute donald trump's strategy, but not upset the apple cart in terms of our destination for all of that investment around the world. >> donald trump has big aims here. he wants to impose sweeping new tariffs. he also wants to get rid of millions of undocumented immigrants. two things that could potentially be disruptive. >> and he told americans he was going to lower their prices, but the policies he is also saying he's going to do are almost -- by every economist seen as inflationary. so he's got -- he's got a tall
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order here, and he's got to have a treasury secretary who can be the person to execute it. >> josh, you've been writing about that tall order, you call it an impossible task, delivering for the working and billionaire class. what are the promises that donald trump has made to each of these groups and how do you do both at the same time? >> yeah. it's a great question, katy. i write in the new issue of business week the central tension is managing this coalition which on the one hand includes billionaires and wall street figures like elon musk and howard lutnick, and also this multiracial coalition that people didn't think would turn out for trump but did. as i say in the piece there are a number of auspicious signs. first of all, trump, has signaled the first thing he wants to do, mike johnson the republican house speaker, has schnalled the first thing he wants to do is extend trump's tax cuts for corporations and the rich. trump told my colleagues in july
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he would like to cut corporate tax rates further. it's probably not the kinds of things that working class folks were hoping for when they elected donald trump. on the one hand he has to keep the wall street contingent happy. on the other hand as christine said he's promised lower prices. if you push through deep tax cuts and raise tariffs, most mainstream economists, not trump, most mainstream economists think those price increases will be passed along to consumers. i think he's got a tough task ahead of him and that's not even beginning with the problem at hand he can't settle on a treasury secretary. >> he has to get buy-in from congress on the other things he wants to do, but the child tax credit he's proposed from $2,000 right now to $5,000. he's talking about eliminating taxes on social security benefits. also talking about eliminating taxes on tips. all of this stuff would cut into the baseline finances of this country. we've been so worried about the national debt.
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what do you do when donald trump comes along and starts promising everybody free money? >> that's a real problem that trump has. we did a study at bloomberg that tallied up all of his proposed tax cuts and i think it came to over 10 trillion. no way even with full republican control of washington he could deliver even a majority of that. he's got a problem ahead of him as far as figuring out how to satisfy all these pieces of his coalition. but the other thing that trump cares about, let's be honest, is the stock market. >> yeah. >> he prides himself on market record highs. and there's been some nervousness over the last week or so. we've seen stocks fall because people don't really know whether to take him at his word, investors, whether he's going to push high tax, who he's going to put at the treasury, there's a lot of worry among people i've spoken to we could wind up with a treasury secretary the equivalent of matt gaetz, somebody who is viewed as an extremist, far off the wall street map.
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so until these issues and positions start to get filled and we get some clarity on this, i think there's going to be a lot of nervousness from everyone about exactly what a second trump administration is going to look like. >> i wonder if the stock market is going to be the limiting factor tore donald trump who he chooses and what he follows through or the mass deportations if it starts to negatively impact the stock market does he pull back? >> he uses the stock market for his personal letter grade. that could be a mitigating factor for him as he gets out and putting these policies in place. and what he says about, you know, somebody who is a wall street mainstream kind of player, that -- it would be devastating for donald trump to put a flame thrower in the treasury department. i think he really wants somebody that's going to do tax reform, get the tax cuts he wants and going to be his steward on the national stage as he tries to
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explain to the world why he's putting tariffs. >> josh, it's been so long since i've seen you. the final word on the program. >> it's a tough job. everyone around trump told me he wants a treasury secretary who looks the part, rich, strong, alpha male, et cetera and beloved by wall street. on the other hand trying to do things like raise tariffs people on wall street don't want to happen, and so it's a tough job to fill and nobody has really popped up who is acceptable and willing to do the job. we're in the middle of this kind of disarray and it's something trump will have to figure out. >> it's interesting taken this long to get a treasury secretary nomination from donald trump or a pick. the other big ones quickly. it's been two weeks. joshua green, really good to see you. thanks for coming on. christine romans -- >> good to be back. >> that's going today it for me today. "deadline white house" starts after a really quick break. uickk the itch and rash of moderate to severe eczema disrupts my skin, night and day.
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