straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. >> that was donald trump's pick for secretary of defense earlier this month. before we go, i just want to introduce him and you to u.s. air force captain l lacey hes hester. they were the commission commanders directing fighters toward the drones. they were also actively engaged in shooting down drones themselves. on that night after they had used up all their missiles, they kept on shooting them down with a gatling gun. no women in combat roles? dually noted, but i think captain hester might like a word with you. that rachel maddow show starts right now. hi, rachel. >> thank you, my friend. much appreciated. and thanks at home for joining us this hour. happy to have you here. once upon a time, there was a

senator, and this senator was from a rich and very well- connected family. he was a real smooth talker. he was handsome-ish, kind of depends on your taste. he was very ambitious even for a senator. i should mention that he wasn't all that successful as a senator in political terms. for example, he had this leadership job in 2008. that election year under his leadership, republicans lost eight seats in the senate, which is a lot. so maybe not the best record, but still you know he had been in leadership and he thought very highly of his own prospects in politics right after preceding over that huge loss in the senate for his party. he went right to iowa, started giving speeches in iowa because he was clearly planning on a presidential run of his own. so this guy is from money. he's got a good head of hair.

he was young-ish for a senator. he was telegenic-ish. very confident, very ambitious, and he was also stooping one of his own employees. and that poor decision started a cascade of terrible and increasingly amazing decisions and ultimately consequences for him and his career. so this senator, john ensen, he is sleeping with a woman who works for him in the senate. he's married, publicly a very pious man all about family values. he has called on other people to resign when they have had affairs, but he is having an affair. he is married while having a sexual relationship with a woman who works for him. the woman he's having a relationship with is also married. because ensign was a lot of things but maybe not strategic,

this female employee, this woman's husband was also working for john ensign in the senate at the time. so he's sleeping simultaneously with this woman who is married and who works for him and he's also sleeping with the wife of somebody else who works for him. same woman but yeah. when john ensign and his employee got caught having the affair, gene you understand republican senator john ensign decided his reaction would be not only to fire the woman he was sleeping with but also to fire her husband as well. he fired them both from their jobs in the his office. and just in case that wasn't smart enough, he then took some additional steps as a sitting senator who, remember, has presidential ambitions, and that's why i sent several years talking about this a lot. particularly 2009. in the wake of this affair being exposed, john ensign arranged for his parents to

make multiple payments to the couple, payments that totaled up to nearly $100,000. he then put the teenage son of the couple on the payroll of the republican senate campaign committee. he lined up an illegal lobbying job for the husband, in which he himself the senator would be lobbied by this guy whose wife he's sleeping with who he got the illegal lobbying job for. i spent a ton of time covering that scandal when it first happened in 2009, in large part because it just kept getting worse and weirder and worse and weirder the more we learned. it was neverending. my favorite part of all of it was that this was an increasingly open secret among republican members of congress at the time. a whole bunch of them knew about it while they were all keeping it secret. an oklahoma republican senator named tom coburn was reportedly involved in negotiating payments between senator john ensign and the family of this woman he was sleeping with.

he was trying to save senator john ensign a little money as he was making these payoffs to this family. when senator coburn was ultimately confronted about his alleged role in negotiating the payoff amounts and helping keep the scandal secret, senator coburn gave this indignant response. he said, quote, that is privileged information that i will never reveal to anybody. not to the ethics committee, not to a court of law, not to anybody. privileged? why was this privileged information? senator coburn reportedly helping this other senator in his financial negotiations with his mistress? why would that be privileged and therefore secret? senator tom coburn explained it was because, quote, i was counseling him as a physician. oh, that kind of privileged. dr. -patient confidentiality. senator tom coburn was, in

fact, a doctor, but he was an obstetrician. so he was going to keep his role in the senator john ensign's scandal a secret because john ensign was his patient. he was an obstetrician. nobody ever got to the bottom of whether senator john ensign was pregnant, post-partum or actively giving birth at the time he was involved in this scandal with his obstetrician. but that was their line. doctor-patient confidentiality was their line on how and why they would keep this all secret. this line of defense did not hold. >> last year, i had an affair. i violated the vows of my marriage. it's absolutely the worse thing that i've ever done in my life. >> senator john ensign admitted publicly to the affair, and then when all the financial and

ethical complications came to light about how he had managed and tried to cover up the affair with or without the advice of his obstetrician, senator john ensign ultimately had to resign his seat in the united states senate. he resigned from the senate with that scandal looming over him, and in fact at the time he resigned, the ethics committee was deep into a thorough investigation of what exactly he had done. but it was april 2011 when he resigned. and then the following month in may 2011, the ethics committee released their report on him. they released their ethics report on him even though he had already resigned. he was already gone from congress. that ethics committee report was not good. they said they found substantial and credible evidence that senator ensign conspired to violate lobbying laws and he lied about the money and he had obstructed justice by destroying evidence he had been told to preserve.

bottom line here, um, you know what's the take-home lesson? well, if you ever find yourself in congress, the best plan is to not be involved in any big scandal, sex scandals, ethics scandals, corruption scandals. or in ensign's case, all three wrapped up into one big scandal. but if you do find yourself in congress and you do find yourself involved in scandal and you get investigated by the ethics committee, you should know and in fact all members of congress do know that resigning from congress will not make that investigation go away. there is a known track record in the u.s. congress of releasing ethics committee reports on scandal-ridden politicians, even after those politicians resign from congress to try to escape the scrutiny. in the case of john ensign, not only did they release the ethics report on his scandal a month after he resigned, they released their recommendation

to the u.s. justice department that the senator be criminally prosecuted for what he had done. that is one thing when it is a senator stopping stooping one of his staffers. that's bad. but it's not like this bad. >> she arrived at the party. she had sex with representative gaetz within minutes of her arrival. later on when she was walking out to the pool area, she observe today the right representative gaetz having sex with her friend who was 17 at the time. >> on this question, she's absolutely sure? >> she's absolutely certain she observed seeing her friend and representative gaetz having sex against what she described as a game table of some sort. >> if the house ethics committee report were made public, what would it reveal? >> my clients want to know this happened and it's real. they did not come forward

willingly. they've never spoken to anyone without the force of a legal subpoena. the testimonies of her and the other 11 individuals that testified would show that the american people would know and they can decide if that's the person they want to be the next attorney general of the united states. >> there are lots of text messages in possession of the house ethics committee between matt gaetz and the ethics committee is possession of venmo and paypal receipts showing they paid for sex at these parties. >> that was a lawyer for witnesses who have testified to the ethics committee speaking tonight with cbs news. congressman matt gaetz has denied any wrong doing of any kind. president-elect donald trump has announced he wants matt gaetz to be his next nominee for the attorney general of

united states. when this was first announced, it was a choice so laugh out loud ridiculous even very serious people with no sense of humor speculated that the pick can't have been real. and that trump must not really want matt gaetz to be attorney general. trump must have just named him as his choice so when gaetz inevitably withdraws from consideration, the person trump names next will sound better by comparison. a lot of very sober people are inventing that sort of round- about goldberg explanation for this announced appointment. that does not at all seem to be what's going on here. trump really does appear to want matt gaetz to be the attorney general of the united states. axios is representing trump is calling republican senators and telling them one on one he expects their vote for matt gaetz to be attorney general of the united states. now, there is an ethics committee report on allegations that matt gaetz as a member of

congress paid for sex with underage girls. an alleged activity you might have heard as described as child sex trafficking. house speaker mike johnson, a very publicly pious man, is insisting that the ethics committee can't release any such report because matt gaetz after all has resigned his seat. he's no longer a member of congress. however, resigning your seat doesn't stop the ethics committee from being able to release its report on alleged misbehavior or even criminal misbehavior committed while a person was a member of congress. just ask the world's least likely obstetrics patient. the world's least likely obstetrics patient, disgraced former senator john ensign. he has left politics and has gone back to being a veterinarian in nevada. two lawyers for witnesses who gave testimony for the matt gaetz ethics committee investigation have come forward publicly to tell the public the nature of the testimony that

their clients gave in that investigation. in other words, the kinds of material that the ethics committee reviewed in making its matt gaetz report. we have news tonight that all 10 members, five republican and five democratic members of the ethics committee now have that report themselves, but the again very publicly pious republican house speaker keeps saying no, no, no, don't release it. that information can never come out. and that, i will just mention that just creates the possibility, think about this for a second. that creates a possibility that they will figure out a way to keep this ethics report on matt gaetz from being released, and they'll figure out a way to get matt gaetz confirmed as attorney general. he'll become the head of the u.s. justice department while at least 10 members of congress have this report on him. what is vetting, really, right? what is vetting? why do they do that?

the whole reason nominees for high office get checked out, the whole reason they get vetted, a deep-dive background check on anyone applying for a security clearance or appointed to a high office, the whole reason to do that is to make sure there isn't going to be any leverage against them or any hidden dynamics at play while they have a sensitive position on behalf of the united states of america. so you want to know, like, is this person a foreign agent? were they a foreign agent in the past? are they linked to organized crime? do they have a criminal background of any kind? is this person on someone's payroll on in the debt to spun? are they addicted to drugs or alcohol or gambling? is there anything that makes them vulnerable to blackmail or extortion? anything that can be known about them that they really wouldn't want to get out and they might do anything to keep it from being made public? well, how about if a guy got his job only because the contents of an official government report into his

alleged child sex trafficking was politically suppressed and he's therefore desperate to keep that hidden from the public, while among many other people involved in the process at least 10 members of congress have that report that he is desperate to keep hidden. is that a good situation for the attorney general of the united states to be in? this election, uh, it turns out was close. closer than the rhetoric and the noise around it would make you think. donald trump only improved on his electoral vote showing from 2016 by six ev's. he got six more electoral votes than he got in his razor thin win in 2016. he went from 306 to 312. in 2016 in all the states he won, the republican senate candidate won as well. there were four states this time where trump won but the

republican senate candidate lost. his coat tails were short and thin. republicans in the house will have one of the smallest majorities in history. the popular vote continues to get tallied up. it looks like trump will be below 50% of the popular vote, which means most of the people who came out and voted voted for someone else, not trump. he won, yeah, but it's a narrow win. trump secured his victory by a cumulative 237,000 votes in three states that, had they gone the other way, would have meant victory for harris. so it was a narrow win for trump, but it was a win. and in addition to holding on to their tiny majority in the house next year, republicans will also take control of the senate next year. but that's next year. and that means for democrats, right now, right this very minute, this is an important

time. and they should be making the most of every second they continue to control the senate. and in the weird circumstances we're in right now, that could mean telling the fbi to hand over their file on the federal criminal investigation into matt gaetz. hand that over to the senate. it could mean trying to subpoena the ethics committee report from the house if they refuse to release it. it could mean that the senate gets testimony themselves from the witnesses who testified about matt gaetz to the house ethics committee. none of these things are normal to happen in a transition, but i say this, i mean, under normal circumstances all those things i just described, those would all happen while confirmation hearings were underway for trump's appointees. or there are things you would be assured when the fbi did checks for security clearance or whatever. with this new administration coming in, though, they don't

want to do background checks. they reportedly are not doing background checks for their potential nominees. and of course they don't want confirmation hearings of any kind either. the president-elect donald trump is demanding the senate should go into recess so he can install anyone he wants in any job with no vetting by anyone. no confirmation process. no hearings, no vote. so democrats are in a really interesting position, right? with that demand by trump on the table, demanding that there just be recess appointments only, no confirmations, with that demand on the table, there's no reason for democrats in the senate to wait, right? it's possible no confirmation hearings are ever coming for any of these nominees. if there is something the american people should know about any of these people who trump says are going to be his nominees running the government, well now might be the only chance to do it. while senate democrats still have the gavel and can still use that power, including subpoena power, to do what might be the only vetting any

of these nominees will ever get. senator blumenthal saying that might include holding a hearing from witnesses who say they have information about the rape allegation against donald trump's choice for defense secretary pete hegseth. he now admits paying a woman to stay silent about her rape allegation against him. we should note california authorities never brought charges against him when they investigated that matter, but we're going to be speaking with a member of the senate armed services committee about that possibility, about that nomination, and more coming up here live in just a moment. i do think it's worth being very clear-eyed, very realistic about what's going on here, and what options people have right now in this moment. obviously, i think it seems clear to the democrats they

ought to spend this time while they're still in control of the senate confirming as many federal judges as possible. they are working on that. they confirmed another federal appeals court judge just tonight, so that's something. but there are literally dozens of biden judicial nominees still pending, and there's no reason the democrats in the senate cannot work around the clock and through every second of the time they've got left to confirm every one of those pending biden judicial nominations. that seems like a very obvious point and a good way to spend their time. what is maybe the less obvious point, though, is that the congress, the whole u.s. capitol, both houses of congress, they're really in a fight for their existence at this moment. whether they know it or not, whatever lovely relationship they think they have on a personal level with donald trump, the project of someone who's authoritarian minded when they get into power is to consolidate all power in themselves, which means taking

it away from everyone else. right? and there's been a lot of talk about how trump is doing that within the executive branch, taking away the independence of any agency, any department, anything that we think of as the federal government, including law enforcement, right? that's been discussed a lot. trump consolidating power within the executive branch. there has been less talk about how trump is also trying to consolidate all the other power of the government as well. namely and especially the power that congress has. under the constitution, the senate has the right and responsibility to confirm nominees to important jobs in the government. not just the cabinet. it's more than 1,000 positions that are supposed to be senate confirmed. trump has publicly told the senate that for his next term, he demands that they stop doing that. he has told them explicitly they must recess, shut themselves down because he wants them to have no say in who he puts in office. no matter what the constitution

says. that's why the democrats who are in control in the senate right now, they may have the only opportunity there's gonna be, they may have the only chance the public's gonna have to hold hearings on and investigate and vet and tell the public what the public needs to know about these nominees. it is weird to try to do this in the transition before the nominations are formally made by the newly sworn-in president. but honestly, that will be too late. trump is the one who made it weird by making this demand that the senate not confirm any of his appointees. democrats should take him at his word and do the hearings now. but it's not just the senate. the washington post was first to report that these guys are also planning to try to kabosh the other major role, which is the power of the purpose. appropriating the funds that the government spends. washington post reports that part of a plan for trump's

radical osterity program, part of the plan is they're not going to have musk and his commission, whatever it is, they're not going to have them make a proposal to congress as to what elon musk thinks ought to be cut out of the government. they're planning on cutting it all directly. having musk tell trump what to do and having trump make the cuts himself, leaving congress out of it. getting rid of, in other words, the power of the purse. so it's just decided between elon musk and donald trump. and this isn't small stuff, right? this is putting the accused child sex trafficking guy who says he wants to abolish the fbi and maybe the whole justice department in charge of the justice department without any vetting or confirmation hearing or background check or vote. this is, according to the guy who is heading up the austerity program with elon musk, a plan to, quote, delete the government. which is the exact same

language used by the radical blogger who jd vance cites as a major influence on his thinking. this is the guy who started the thing on the far right that the government needs to be, quote, deleted. the government needs to be deleted and replaced with something new, something for which we'll need to get over our dictator-phobia. we need to delete the government and get over our dictator-phobia. they're not trying to abolish the fundamental functions of congress. they're not trying to get rid of article i of the constitution to do small stuff. they're trying to get rid of article i of the constitution. they're trying to marginalize and disempower the whole congress in order to do the most radical things imaginable. and you know what? nobody loves congress. ha, ha, ha. but you'll love it a lot compared to the alternative

when it's gone. because i for one have plenty of dictator-phobia. i think that's a healthy phobia to have, and i have no plans to get over it my whole life. nobody knows if the republicans in congress will fight to keep our structure of government, whether they will roll over and let trump say, for start, get rid of the senate's role in voting on nominations. whether they will just roll over and let trump take over the power of the purse and start directly controlling all spending. but that's what trump is trying to do. and right now for these next few weeks before he's in power, it's actually in democrats power. it is in democrats hands in the senate to show what the congress can do, to show what it's for, to do the job, and to make it as hard as possible for them to get away with the worst things they're trying to do even before they take over. that's doable, and that is something that is doable right now. senator elizabeth warren joins

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an important job oversees the whole defense department. the trump transition team has received detailed information about an allegation that trump's announced choice for defense secretary, fox news weekend host, pete hegseth raped a woman in 2017 at a conference in monterrey, california. the woman reportedly went to a hospital and received a rape

kit examination afterwards. california police investigated this alleged incident in 2017. they did not file charges against hegseth at the time. hegseth has denied the allegations. the memo detailing the incident giving to the trump transition team came from a woman who said she was a friend of the accuser. the accuser hurst herself entered into an agreement with hegseth. hegseth admits he paid her to stay quiet. but again, he still disputes her claims about the alleged rape. if you're in charge of overseeing the pentagon, one of the things you could do right now, no need to wait, is demand detailed answers about that allegation and about what appears to be a hush money payment to a woman who made the allegation. and there's no shortage of things to be aired out about various trump potential nominees for various important

posts. it's not just hegseth. bobby kennedy, jr. for health secretary who has said covid was bioengineered so jews wouldn't get it. who maintains that it's entirely possible hiv doesn't cause aids. who says wi-fi causes something called leaky brain. leaky brain. he's going to be in charge of healthcare for the united states of america. kristi noem for homeland security secretary. kristi noem who shot her puppy cricket to death who is banned from all tribal lands in her home state. and paid for dental work by doing infomercials for the sitting dentist. she appears to have made up a fantasy meeting with kim jong- un that never happened. i could go on. but even just back to the armed services committee, if you're on the armed services committee, do you want to have someone overseeing the defense intelligence agency and all the

other intelligence agencies who is more famous than she is for anything else for promoting verbatim russian propaganda? i mean, here was senator elizabeth warren, member of the armed services committee on that gabbert intelligence nomination just last week. >> you really want her to have all of the secrets of the united states and our defense intelligence agencies when she has so clearly been in putin's pocket? that just has to be a hard no. >> that just has to be a hard no. joining us now, democratic senator elizabeth warren. she's on the senate banking committee. senator warren, it's a real pleasure to have you here. thank you for making time. >> thank you. it's good to be with you always. >> i feel like senate democrats have the weight of the world on your shoulders right now because right now, you have the gavel, you have power in the senate, and you can give the

democratic party's first response with the power of the senate to what this president- elect is saying he wants for his next term. i want to know if you see it that way too or if there's something about this moment that i'm missing. >> so you have the moment right, but can we make sure that we don't skip over a moment that comes before that moment? and that's the moment we have right now. i'm here in what's called a hideaway, a little office underneath the capitol right now because senate democrats are holding the floor trying to push through our judicial nominations. remember, we still have 28 people who have been nominated to be federal judges who are somewhere in this process, and that can be 28 lifetime appointments that we get through. and look, i know everyone will remind me the united states

supreme court has become an extremist court that doesn't abide by the rule of law, and that is true. but remember, the overwhelming number of decisions that get made by the courts get made at the district court level and we can be filling more of those in, and of those that take an appeal, most of those get resolved at the circuit court level. we just did one more of those today. so right now, we're in a battle with the republicans. they're upstairs trying every dillatory tactic to try to delay and hope we'll all get tired and go home. at this moment, the republicans, the democrats are actually showing some metal and standing up to the republicans and saying no. if you're going to raise all these procedural objections, we'll just stay here and we'll vote on them and we'll vote on them and we'll vote on them until we get our judges through. and the reason i want to focus

on this, rachel, this is our moment to do that. that window is closing. and we absolutely positively need to get every one of those judges confirmed that we can do. that's why we are here today, and that's why i am on a 12- minute clock for how long i can stay here and run back upstairs and vote. >> i gotcha. do you think democrats are capable of getting through that whole pipeline of 28 nominees? is it, when you say democrats are sort of holding together and pushing through, do you feel like you're on track to get through the entire list of nominees that are possible? >> look, if we don't, it's on nobody but us because right now we have the power. now, look, we all have to rely on each other, and that has always been the challenge with this particular congress. we gotta have everybody here. nobody gets to say oh, but i had other plans, and oh this

other thing came up. we've all got to be here and we've all got to be willing to get behind these judges and vote them on through. but if we do, we can beat back every one of the republican objections, every one of their delaying tactics. what i want them to hear right now on this monday night right here in november, we are willing to stay until we get our judges confirmed. advise and consent, this is our job to confirm these judges, and that's what we're going to do. >> senator, i won't keep you long because i know you have to go. but let me just ask you if you think there's room on that calendar with everything you just said about what you need to do with judges, is there room to do some oversight over the trump announced nominees? obviously, he won't be able to formally nominate anybody until he's president-elect. by that point, democrats won't have the gavel. there's the possibility of no

confirmation hearings at all if he gets this appointment scheme through the congress. >> so i think you're doing exactly the right thing, and that is pointing out who these people are, and how much we need to be collecting the evidence about them and getting it out to the public. you can't have a formal hearing about a nominee who isn't a nominee yet. but there are certainly things we can start doing as a matter of oversight. i think that's exactly what we should be doing. part of it is just right now is just pushing on who these people are. and i want to underline a point here for everybody who listens on this. there is value in raising these objections and raising them publicly. because even if the republicans are gonna have the votes or even if donald trump says no

voting, what's most important of all is for the american people to understand who these people are that he has picked to be on his team, to carry out the policies of his administration. that it's important to know that he picked someone for intelligence who's in the pocket of vladimir putin. who really, we want her to have the secrets? i don't think so. that he is picking someone to be our chief law enforcement person, the attorney general of the united states, who has been under investigation for bringing an underage female across state lines for purposes of sexual activities, who's been investigated for drugs, for other possible criminal violations. on and on through the system. we're not just talking about people who have different philosophies or different approaches to government.

we're not talking about people who instead of being well qualified are thinly qualified. we are talking about people who are aggressively, affirmatively disqualified. we need for everybody in the united states, regardless of who they voted for, democrat, republican, voted for one of the third parties, we need for all of them to know the details about these people. because ultimately, the only check on trump as he goes out there is either gonna be that the republicans in congress are going to be willing to stand up and push back, or the american people are going to be willing to stand up and push back. >> massachusetts democratic senator elizabeth warren hard at work late at night. senator warren, thank you. thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. see you later. more ahead here tonight. stay with us. with us.

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so donald trump has been adamant that his plan to put millions of people in camps and start deporting whole families, start raiding workplaces, he says that will all start on day one at noon as he's being sworn in on inauguration day, january 20th. if they're trying to make that happen, you'd have to start preparing well in advance of the inauguration, right? so does the work to stop him from doing that.

the aclu filed their first lawsuit seeking more information about trump's plans to deport millions of people from this country once he takes office. as far as the aclu is concerned, now is the time to sue. now is the time to try to expose those plans in order to try to stop them from being carried out. go time is not the moment trump becomes president. go time is now. in california, governor nuwsom called a special session of that state's legislature asking them to appropriate more funding for california's state legal challenges. jarrod paulis is leading another group called governors safeguarding democracy, a network of governors who are agreeing to pool resources and pull together to try to oppose the policies of trump's white house. the group's top staffer is julia spiegel. she says when governors of different states come together,

they can become essential force multipliers and firewalls against threats to our democracy. joining us is julia spiegel. it's nice to meet you. thanks very much for being here. >> great to meet you. thanks for having me. >> can you help me and our audience understand some of the practical ideas behind how this would work? the idea is governors safeguarding democracy, but what does the group plan to do? >> as you noted, this was launched last week, but also to your earlier point, the work has been ongoing for several weeks. what the governors are doing in coordination with governors across the country is working together to pool their resources, the best expertise out there, the best staff to make sure that they are prepared for all the possible contingencies, whatever may come. but also to make sure that the state institutions of democracy are delivering for the people in the states. and that's really the central

premise of what governors safeguarding democracy is doing. this isn't a novel or new method. it was pioneered by governor newsom in the aftermath of dobbs when roe was repealed by the supreme court. they have worked collectively to work across state lines to product reproductive healthcare like stockpiling abortion medication that hadn't been done previously. they're building it out now around safeguarding various contours of democracy. >> i want to talk to you tonight because even before this initiative came about, you have talked about the fact that governors have power when they come together. we think of ourselves as either itemized 50 different states or the united states as one big thing. you've talked about governors in smaller groups can be, as you say, both a firewall and a force multiplier. can you talk more about that, about how a dynamic between a small group of governors or a

medium-sized group of governors can be more effective than any of these governors could be on their own? >> governors have extraordinary powers like the bully pulpit, the budget, signing legislation, executive authority, agencies they oversee and run. that in and of itself is this wealth of authorities. it's so much more powerful and impactful when the authorities are paired with each across state lines. there are lessons learned and a coordinated strategy that can be undertaken to make the whole so much greater than the sum of its parts. across a range of offices are eager to work with anyone who is engaged in the work of safeguarding democracy, and i do want to note, rachel, this work is critical no matter who sits in the white house. it's about nurturing, supporting, and protectioning the institutions of democracy.

>> founder and ceo of gov act to talk about the new initiative. we're going to be watching this closely. i'd love to talk with you again as things start to come together, especially before the end of the transition, julia. thanks for being here tonight. >> it's a deal, rachel. thank you. we'll be right back. stay with us. with us. with wifi backup to help keep you up and running. wifi's up. let's power on! let's power on! let's power on! -let's power on! it's from the company with 99.9% network reliability. plus advanced security. let's power on! power on with the leader in connectivity. powering possibilities. comcast business. power's out. shop the app, november 18th and 19th to access etsy's cyber spectacular deals two days early. you can get up to 60% off all kinds of gifts made by small businesses. for early access to cyber spectacular deals,

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all it takes is just $19 a month. only $0.63 a day. your monthly support will make you part of the movement to protect the rights of all people, including the fundamental right to vote. states are passing laws that would suppress the right to vote. we are going backwards. but the aclu can't do this important work without the support of people like you. you can help ensure liberty and justice for all and make sure that every vote is counted. so please call the aclu now or go to my aclu.org and join us. when you use your credit card, you'll receive this special we the people t-shirt and much more. to show you're a part of the movement to protect the rights guaranteed to all of us by the us constitution. we protect everyone's rights, the freedom of religion, the freedom of expression, racial justice, lgbtq rights, the rights of the disabled. we are here

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coming up for a vote in congress. this was a bill that would give a future president trump the ability to essentially shut down any non-profit organization in the country by simply declaring that organization to be a supporter of terrorism. in general, if you're trying to protect a democracy from a would-be authoritarian take over, this is the sort of thing that's like a big red flag, right? a leader giving himself big, wide, vague powers to shut down any organization in civil society, including media outlets. right. well, this bill that would give the white house this new power, it first came up for a vote several months ago, and it passed really easily. only 11 members of congress in the house voted against it back in april when it first came up. since then, the aclu and more than 150 other groups have been urging members of congress to oppose the bill. it has started to get some press attention. regular people started calling their members of congress telling them they don't want this kind of power in the hands

of a president trump. so we reported on that on our show a week ago tonight, last monday. then the next day, tuesday last week, this bill came up again in the house, and this time the number of votes against it went from 11, 11 votes against it, which is what happened before, to 145 votes against it. which was enough to block it from passing. and so the bill failed when it was brought up last week. democratic congresswoman ocasio- cortez said quote the activism did work and persuaded members. the attention and organizing played a role. if the you can thank your member of congress for voting no, please do so. it matters. in other words, pressure works, but pressure is also not a one- time event. as of tonight, republicans are trying to revive the bill yet again. it's expected to come to the floor again later this week under different rules that will make it much easier for

republicans to pass it. tonight, the opposition group indivisible is calling on regular people, calling on regular voters to contact their lawmaker in the house, to urge even more democrats and all republicans to vote no. they're saying, quote, this bill is a litmus test for democrats as we prepare for the incoming trump administration. are democrats going to make it easier for trump to pursue his authoritarian agenda, or are they going to fight back? they're bringing this bill up again later this week. it will need fewer votes to pass, which makes the pressure to try to stop it all the more potentially determinative. watch this space. this space. this thrill seeker down. lost her card, not the vibe. the soul searcher, is finding his identity, and helping to protect it. hey! oh yeah, the explorer! she's looking to dive deeper... all while chase looks out for her.

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