means casualty are worse. i am surprised there has not been more blow back already on that in the book. i am saying straight up 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 want to introduce you to u.s. air force captain, hester is the first woman to receive the silver star for her role of shooting down more than 80 drones when iran attacked in april. they went toward the drones and they were engaged in shooting down drones themselves. on that night, after they used up all of their missiles they kept on shooting them down. he says no women in combat down he says no women in combat duly noted. but i think captain hester might like a word with you. that does it for me tonight. the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> think you, my friend. much appreciated. we are happy to have you here.

so once upon a time, there was a senator, and the senator was from a rich and very well- connected family. he was a real smooth talker. he was handsome, 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 al senator and lyrical terms. for example, he had this leadership job in the 2008 election he was responsible forl all the republicans and it campaigns that year. that election year under his leadership, republicans lost 8 seats in the senate, which is a lot. so maybe not the best record, but still. you know, he had been in leadership. he got very highly of his own ly prospects in politics right after presiding over that huge loss in the senate for his party. he went right to iowa, started giving speeches in iowa, because he very clearly was planning on a presidential run

of his own. so this guy is from money. he's got a good head of hair. he was youngish for a senator. he was telegenic. very confident, very ambitious. and he was also -- 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 ensign, he is sleeping with a woman who works for him in the senate. john ensign himself is married, he's a very pious man who is 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 he is having the sexual relation with a woman that works for him. the woman is also married. and because this senator, john ensign, was a lot of things,

but stripper strategic was maybe not one of them, this employee, this female employee, he decided to have the affair with, this woman's husband was also working for john ensign in the senate at the time. so he is sleeping simultaneously with this woman, who is married, and he works for him, and he is also sleeping with the wife of somebody else who works for him. when john ensign and his employee got caught having the affair, genius republican senator john ensign decided that 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 his office. and just in case that wasn't smart enough, he then took some additional apps as a sitting senator who, remember, has presidential ambitions. that's why i spent 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 of 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 then lined up an illegal lobbying job for the husband. he set him up in a lobbying job in which he himself, the senator, would be lobbied by this guy, whose wife he is sleeping with, we got the illegal lobbying job for. i spent the time the time covering that scandal when it first happened in 2009. in large part because it just kept getting worse and weirder the more we learned. it was just never ending. my favorite part of all of it was that this was an increasingly open secret among republican members of congress of the time. a whole bunch of them knew h about it while they were all le keeping it secret. an oklahoma republican senator tom coburn was reportedly involved in negotiating a mint 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 to keep the scandal secret, senator coburn gave this indignant response. he told roll call, quote, that is privileged information that i will never reveal to anybody. to the ethics committee, not to a court of law, not to anybody. privileged? why was this privileged information? senator colborne reportedly helping this other senator in he his financial negotiations with his mistress. why would that be privileged? and therefore secret? senator tom coburn explained that it was, quote, i was counseling him as a physician. oh, that kind of privilege. doctor-patient confidentiality.

senator tom coburn was, in se fact, a doctor. but he was an obstetrician. so he was going to keep his role in senator john ensign scandal a secret, because john ensign was his patient. he was an obstetrician. nobody ever got to the bottom of whether senator john ensign f was regnant, postpartum, or actively giving birth at the time he was involved in the scandal with his obstetrician. but that was -- that was their line. doctor-patient confidentiality was our light on how and why they were going to this all a. you will be shocked to know that this line of defense did not hold. >> last year, had an affair. i violated the bows of my marriage. it is absolutely the worst thing i've ever done in my life. >> senator john ensign admitted

publicly to the affair, and then went 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 he 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, may 2011, the ethics committee was released the report on him even though he had already resigned. he was already gone from congress. that report was not good. they said they found substantial and credible evidence that senator ensign conspired to violate lobbying laws and he had obstructed

justice by destroying evidence he had been told to preserve. the bottom line here, 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 scandals. corruption scandals, or in cases like senator john ensign of nevada, all three of those rings wrapped into one big scandal. the best move is just to not get involved in that stuff. but if you do find yourself in congress and you do find yourself involved in the scandal, and you get investigated by the ethics committee, you should know -- and in fact, all members of congress too much. much.

but it is not like -- it is 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, he was 17 at the time. >> on this question, she is absolutely sure?

>> they do want them to know that they are not lying. they did not come forward willingly, they have not spoken to anyone without the force of a legal subpoena. the testimonies of her and the other 11 individuals that testified would show that this actually did happen, and the american eagle with no and they can decide if that's the person they want to be the next attorney general of the united states. >> he also told us that there are lots of text messages in the possession of the house ethics committee between matt gaetz and his two clients and others, and that the ethics committee is in possession of m.o. and paypal receipts showing that matt gaetz and others working on his behalf paid for sex at these parties. >> i was a lawyer for witnesses that have testified in the ethics committee, became tonight with cbs news. congressman matt gaetz has denied any wrongdoing of any kind.

president-elect donald trump has announced that he wants matt gaetz to be his nominee for the next attorney general of the united states . when this was first announced, it was a choice so laugh out loud ridiculous that even very serious people with no sense of humor very soberly speculated that the pick can't have been real, and that trump must not really want matt gaetz to be attorney general. i must've just made 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 roundabout route goldberg explanation for this announced appointments. that does not at all seem to be what is going on here. trump really does appear to want matt gaetz to be the attorney general of the united states. ask theo's is reporting that he is calling republican senators and telling them one-on-one to the expect their vote for matt gaetz to be attorney general of the united states . now, there

is an ethics committee report on allegations that matt gave, as a member of congress, paid for sex with underage girls. alleged activity you might've heard 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 is no longer a member of congress. however, resigning your seat doesn't stop the ethics committee for being able to release its report on alleged misbehavior or even criminal misbehavior committed while he person was a member of congress. just ask the world's least likely of citrix patient -- the world's least likely obstetrics patient and now disgraced former senator john ensign, who was never criminally charged, but 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 report. we have news tonight that all 10 members, by republican and five democratic members of the committee, now how that report themselves. but, again, the very publicly pious republican speaker keeps saying, no, don't release it. that information can never come out. and i will just mention, that just creates the possibility -- think about this for a second. this creates the possibility that they will figure out a way to keep this ethics report on matt gaetz being released, they will figure out a way to get matt gaetz confirmed as attorney general, whereupon he will become the head of the u.s. justice department while at least 10 members of congress have this report on him.

what is bedding, really? what is vetting? the whole reason nominees for high office get checked out, the whole reason they get bedded, no reason there's supposed to be a deep dive background check, anybody potentially being appointed to 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, is this person a foreign agent, or are therefore an agent in the past? do they have criminal background of any kind, or links to criminal associates? is someone in debt to someone? are they addicted to drugs or alcohol or gambling? is anything about this lifer background that makes them potentially vulnerable to blackmail and extortion? is there 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 is therefore desperate to keep it hidden from the public? many other people involved in the progress, 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, it turns out, was close. closer than the rhetoric and the noise would make you think. donald trump only improved on his left oral votes from 2016 by 6. he got 6 electoral votes than he got in his razor thin win in 2016. he went from 306 to 312. 2016, and all the states he won, the republican candidate won as well. in this election that did not

happen, the republican senate candidate lost. so his coattails were pretty short, pretty thin. republicans and house will still have only a teeny, tiny majority. one of the smallest majorities in history. the popular vote till this day, it looks like trump will end up being below 50% of the popular vote, which means most of the people that came out and voted in this election voted for someone else, not trump. so he won. yeah. but it's a narrow win. trump secured his victory by just a cumulative 237,000 votes in three states. had gone the other way, it would've meant victory for harris. so it was a narrow win for trump, but it was a win. and in addition to holding onto their tiny majority in the house next year, republicans will also take control of the senate next year. but that is next year. and that means for democrats,

right now, right this very minute, this is an important time when they should be making the most of every second they continue to control the senate. and in the weird circumstances we are in right now, that could mean telling the fbi to hand over their file on the federal criminal investigation into matt gaetz. it could mean trying to subpoena the ethics committee report from the house that they refused to release it. it could mean that the senate gets testimony themselves from the witnesses who testified about matt gave to the house at six committee. none of these are normal to happen in a transition. but i say this -- under normal circumstances, other things i just described, those would all happen while confirmation hearings were underway for trump's appointees. or there are things that you could be assured would happen when they did fbi background checks on people for the confirmation progress or for security clearances or

whatever, right? with this new administration coming in, they don't want to do background checks. they reportedly are not doing background checks for their potential nominees. they don't want confirmation hearings of any kind, either. president-elect donald trump is demanding that the senate should go into recess so he can install anyone he wants in any job with no vetting by anyone. no confirmation progress. no hearings. no vote. 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. it's possible no confirmation hearings are ever coming for any of these nominees. so 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, now might be the only chance to do it while senate democrats still have the gavel i can

still use that power, including subpoena power, to do it might be the only bedding any of these nominees will ever get. senator blumenthal today saying that for the senate armed services committee, might include holding a hearing to get testimony from witnesses who say they have information about the allegation against donald trump's choice for defense secretary, pete hegseth. pete hegseth denied

>> what is maybe the less obvious point, though, is that the congress, the whole u.s. capital, both houses of congress, they are really in a fight for their existence at this moment. whether they know it or not, whichever party they are in, whichever lovely relationship they think they have on a personal level with donald trump, the project of someone who is authoritarian minded when they get into power is to

consolidate more power within themselves. and what they are keeping from everyone else. there's been a lot of talk about how trump is doing that within the executive branch, taking away the independents of any agency, any department, anything we think of as the federal government, including law enforcement. that has been discussed a lot. trump consolidating power within the executive branch. there is been less talk about how trump has tried to consolidate all the other power of the government as well, mainly and especially the power that congress has. under the constitution, the senate has the right's ability to confirm nominees to important jobs in the government. it is more than 1000 positions that are supposed to be senate confirmed. trump is publicly told the senate that for his next term, he demands that they stop doing that. he has told them explicitly that they must recess, shut themselves down, because he wants to have no say in who he

puts in office, no matter what the constitution says. that is why the democrats were in control in the senate right now, they may have the only opportunity. they may have the only chance the public is going to have. to hold hearings on and investigate and that until 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 really made by the new 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 duties. democrats should take him at his word and to 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 kibosh the other major role that congress hasn't governing the united states, which is the power of the purse. appropriating the funds that

the government spends. the washington post reports the part of the plan for trump's radical austerity program that he has outsourced to eccentric right-wing billionaire elon musk, part of the plan is that they are not going to have musk and his commission -- whatever it is -- they are 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 are just planning on cutting it all directly, having musk just tell trump what to do, and then having trump just make the cuts himself, leaving congress out of it. hitting rid of, in other words, the power of the purse. so it is just decided between elon musk and donald trump. and this isn't small stuff. this is putting the accused child sex trafficking guy wants to abolish the fbi and maybe the whole justice department in charge of the justice department without any betting 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 influential radical logger who jd vance sites as a major influence on his thinking. this guy, curtis garvin, is one who started this thing on the far right that the government needs to be, quote, delete it. and that we need to replace it with something new, something for which he says we will, quote, need to get over our dictator phobia. we need to delete the government and then get over already dictator phobia. they are not trying to abolish the fundamental functions of congress. they are not try to get rid of article one of the constitution to do small stuff. they are trying to get rid of article one of the constitution. they are trying to marginalize and disempower the whole congress in order to do the most radical things imaginable. and you know what? nobody loves congress. but you will love it a lot

compared to the alternative when it is gone. because i, for one, have plenty of dictator phobia. i think that is 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 a start, let them stop voting on nominations. weather will let trump take over the power of the purse and start directly controlling all spending. but that is what trump is trying to do. and right now, for these next few weeks before he is in power, it is actually an democrats power. it is a democrats power in the senate 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 are trying to do even before they take over. that is doable, and that is something that is doable right now. senator elizabeth warren joins

us next. us next.

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the senate armed services committee oversees the whole defense department. the trump transition team is reportedly received detailed information about an allegation that trump's announced choice for defense secretary, fox news we can host p hegseth -- a woman in a conference in monterey, california. the woman reportedly went to a hospital and received a kit examination afterwards. california police alleged incident in 2017. they did not file charges against hegseth at the time. hegseth has denied the allegations. the memo given to the transition team reportedly came for a woman who said she was a friend of the accuser. the accuser herself entered into a legal supplemental hegseth that paid her an undisclosed amount of money in

exchange for her staying quiet about her allegation . hegseth now admits that he paid her to stay quiet. but again, he still disputes or claims about the alleged rape . so if you are a member of the senate armed services committee in charge of overseeing the pentagon, one of the things you could do right now, no need to wait, is demand detailed answers about the allegation and about what appears to be a hush money payment to a woman who made the allegation. and there is no shortage of things to be aired out about various trump potential nominees for various important posts. bobby kennedy jr. for health secretary, who among other things, has said that covid was bioengineered so jews wouldn't get it, who maintains that it's entirely possible that hiv doesn't cause a.i.d.s. he says that wi-fi causes something called leaky brain. leaky brain. he's going to be in charge of healthcare for the united dates of america.

homeland security secretary. shot her puppy, cricket, to death, right this minute is banned from all tribal lands in her own state. who appears to have paid for dental work by doing infomercials for the relevant dentist while she was still the sitting governor of east date. she also appears to a made up a fantasy meeting with kim jong- un that never happened. i mean, i could go on. but even just back to the armed services committee, if you are in 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? here was senator elizabeth warren, member of the armed services committee on that tulsi gabbard intelligence domination just last week. >> you really want her to have all of the secret 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, massachusetts democratic senator elizabeth warren. she's on the senate banking committee as well. it's a real pleasure to have you here. thanks so much for making time. >> 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, your power in the senate, and you can give the democratic parties 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 something about this moment that i'm missing. >> 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 is the moment we have right now.

i am here and what is call a hideaway, a little office underneath the capital. 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 appointment that we get through. and look, i know everyone will remind me the united dates 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 feeling more of those in, and of those that take an appeal, most of those get resolved at the circuit court level.

and we just did one more of those today. so right now, we are in a battle with the republicans. they are upstairs trying every dilatory tactic to try to delay and hope we will all get tired and go home. and at this moment, the republicans -- the democrats are actually showing some metal , and standing up to the republicans and saying, no. if you are going to raise all these procedural objections, we will just stay here and we will vote on them, and we will vote on them, and we will vote on them until we get our judges through. and the reason i want to focus on that, 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. and that is why we are here today, and that is why i am on a 12 minute clock for how long i can stay here and run back upstairs. >> i got you.

let me ask you about that. do you think the democrats are capable of giving to that whole pipeline of 28 nominees? is it -- when you say democrats are sort of holding together and pushing through, you feel like you are on track to get through the entire list of nominees that are possible? >> look, if we don't, it is 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 got to have everybody here, nobody gets to say, i had other plans, and oh, this other thing came up. we 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 be back every one of the republican objections and everyone of their delaying tactics. and what i want them to hear right now on this monday night, right here -- right now 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 are 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 is room on that calendar, with everything you just said, but what you need to do with judges, is there room to do some oversight over the trump announced nominees? obviously, you won't be able to formally nominate anybody until these president elect. democrats won't have the gavel. there's a possibility of no confirmation hearings at all if he gets this recess appointment scheme through the congress. >> so i think you are doing the 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 giving them 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. and i think that is 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 -- there is value in raising these objections and raising them publicly. because even if the republicans are going to have the votes, or even if donald trump says no voting, what is 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 is important to note that he picked someone for intelligence who is in the pocket of vladimir putin. who, really, we wanted out 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 under age female across state lines for purposes of sexual activities, who has been investigated for drugs for other possible criminal violations. on and on to the system. we are not just talking about people who have different philosophies or different approaches to government. we are not talking about people who instead of being well- qualified are in the wall if i'd. we are talking about people who are aggressively, affirmatively disqualified. and we need for everybody in the united states, regardless of who they voted -- democrat, republican, voted for one of the third parties, we need for all of them to know the details about these people.

ultimately, the only check on trump as he goes out there is either going to be at 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. >> elizabeth warren. hard at work late at night as judicial nominations continue to course through the senate. senator warren, thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. see you later. >> more ahead later. stay with us. stay 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 all families, star rating work laces, he says i will all start on day one at noon as he is being sworn in on inauguration day, january 20th. if they are really trying to make that happen, you have to start preparing well in advance of the inauguration. so does a work that stops them from doing that. today in federal court, 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 being carried out. go time, in other words, is not the moment trump becomes president. go time is now.

in california, governor gavin newsom is called a special session of that state's legislature, asking them to appropriate more funding for california's state legal challenges to federal policies in the next trump term. the democratic governors of colorado and illinois, they are leading another group called governors safeguarding democracy. essentially, it is a network of governors who are agreeing to pool resources and work together to try to oppose the policies of trump's white house . the groups top staffer is julius spiegel. she says that when governors of different states come together, they could become, quote, essential force multipliers and firewalls. against threats to our democracy. running is now is julius spiegel. she is the founder of guv act which oversees this new initiative. ms. spiegel, it's nice to meet you. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> can you help me in our audience understand some of the practical ideas between how this would work? the idea is governors regarding

democracy, but what does a group actually plan to do? >> governors safeguarding democracy was launched by governors pritzker and polis last week, and also to your earlier point, the work is been ongoing for several weeks. with 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 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 state. that is really the central premise of what governors safeguarding democracy is doing. this is in a novel or new method. it was actually pioneered by governor due some in the aftermath of dobbs when rowe was reversed by the supreme court and governor newsom rallied other governors together and a whole host of them to work collectively for two years now to work across state lines to protect reproductive health care, including doing novel things like stockpiling abortion or location that had

been done previously. they are really building about now around safeguarding various contours of democracy. >> one of the reasons i wanted to talk to you tonight was even before this became about, you had talked about the fact that governors have power when they come together. we think about this as itemized 50 different states or the united states is one big thing, you talk about this idea that governors in smaller groups can be, as you say, both a fireball and a force multiplier. can you talk more about that, about how a dynamic between a small group or medium-sized group of governors can be more effective than any of these governors could be on their own? >> governors have these extraordinary powers, some of which are very public. they also have this other suite of tools like the budgets, signing legislation, executive with doherty, agencies that they oversee and run. that in another self, it is so much more powerful and impactful when those authorities are paired with each other across

state lines. there are lessons learned, practices that can be adopted from one state to another, and coordinated strategy that can be undertaken to make the whole so much greater and just the sum of its parts. that is really the premise of this work. across a range of offices, and are eager to work with anyone who is engaged in the work of safeguarding democracy. and i do want to know, rachel, this work is critical the matter who sits in the white house. it is really about nurturing, supporting, and protecting the additions of democracy. that work is undergoing years ago, and he should be going years from now. >> julius spiegel, founder and ceo of guv act here to talk about the safeguarding democracy of initiative. i'd love to talk with you again as things start to come together, especially before the end of the transition, julia. >> is a deal, rachel. thank you. >> we will be right back. stick with us. us. way you want.

♪♪ tresemme, style your way.

>> so here is something. last week right here on the show, you might remember we talked about a bill i was coming up for a vote in congress. this would give future president trump the ability to essentially shut down any nonprofit organization in the country by simply declaring that organization to be a supporter of terrorism. in general, if you are trying to protect a democracy from a would-be authoritarian takeover, this is the sort of thing that is a big red flag. a leader giving himself and why fake powers to shut down any organization in civil society, including media outlets. right. 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 and the house voted against it back in april when it first came up. since then, the aclu and more than 150 other group have been urging members of congress to oppose the bill and it is starting 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 president trump. so we've 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 alexandria ocasio-cortez said afterwards, quote, the activism did work and persuaded members. quote, the attention and organizing paid a roll. if you can think 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. is 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 will actually make it much easier for republicans to pass it. tonight, the opposition group indivisible is once again crawling upon 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 are 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 him to pursue his authoritarian agenda, or are they going to fight back? they are bringing this up again later this week. it will need fewer votes to pass, which makes the pressure to try to stop it all the more intentionally determinative. watch this space. space.

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