dad: hey boss. you okay? son: i said i'm fine. ♪ dad: you can talk to me. son: it's been really, really hard for me. i'm katy tur. quote, i thought it was problematic from the beginning. that is what senator mike rounds of south dakota said to news that matt gaetz dropped out of contention for ag after nine days of drama, fear and outrage

that consumed capitol hill. the message to gaetz and to team trump was clear, this guy is a step too far, even for the gop. we got details on what gaetz said to some senators that made them even more uneasy, along with reporting on where he might land next. now, though, with him out, the attention is turning back to ur trump's other controversial picks. and authoritarian sympathizer with no experience in intel in washington's most powerful intelligence position, and antivaxxer to lead the country's health services, a tv doctor to oversee health insurance for 160 million plus americans, a wrestling entertainment magnate as education secretary, and a fox news host accused of sexual assault, which he denies, with no management experience to lead defense along with its more than 3 million civilian and military

employees. so let us dig in and ask how the senate is now reacting to all of them. joining us, nbc news capitol hill correspondent ali vitali. we got a lot of gaetz s, yes. but it was distracting from the other folks who are currently under consideration. what are you hearing about them? any sticking points, any one that seems like potentially they're not going to get confirmed? >> reporter: well, look, we talk about gaetz as a lightning rod l constantly. and typically we're talking about him as a lightning rod because of the controversy that the stirs and the way he generally finds himself in the middle of or concocting a lot of the news cycles up here on capitol hill. but the practical of being a lightning rod is the thing that you're hitting on here, this idea that gaetz in basically sucking all the oxygen out of the room has provided some cover for senators to either not have to talk about their concerns with the other nominees, or that they're just overshadowed, but clearly now that gaetz has taken

his name out of contention for attorney general, it does leave more spotlight for the other he nominees, and i think you bring up rfk jr., you bring up tulsi gabbard, certainly we heard those concerns aired from lawmakers in real time as those announcements were made. and then they sort of died down. in part because of the trump/vance transition team starting the charm offensive up here on capitol hill, bringing their key nominees around the building. we saw that with gaetz aw yesterday, we saw it with pete hegseth today, and for both of those men, the fact that now gaetz is out of contention means there is even more time to devote to the serious concerns and questions that remain around pete hegseth, and also from the perspective on the ongoing sexual misconduct and sexual assault allegations that we are learning more about in the form of a police report that nbc news obtained overnight. and so, now, all of that comes

more clearly into focus. but i do think as we're parsing through what might have happened with gaetz, our teams' understanding from conversations with multiple sources and senators here in the hall is he might have just lacked the votes. we had talked about this when he was first named as the attorney general pick, but even after he made the rounds here on capitol hill, it became clear that a key five names were merged as hard nos against him including big names like mitch mcconnell, but also lisa murkowski and susan collins and then in addition markwayne mullin on that list and the all of those are just the opening picture of what the problems might have been here cn capitol hill.ig but, again, this is still very much shaking out in real time.

>> markwayne mullin is interesting. he started to waffle a bit, but he is of the matt gaetz would show us videos of the girls he had sex with, pictures of them, at least, and then he would brag about how he did drugs to last all night thing. ali vitali, thank you very much. joining us now, former homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to vice president mike pence olivia troye, staff writer at the atlantic and msnbc political contributor mike leibovich, and peter baker, msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. thank you very much for joining us, guys. so, mark, i'll begin with you, actually, no, lisa, i'll begin with you on pete hegseth if you don't mind. talk to me about the allegations and what we're learning from this police report, he's denying everything, but there was also a payoff. >> there was a payoff. but i want to talk about the police report because this police report, while it adds a lot to our understanding of the

allegations, there is still so much onwe don't know, including the fact there is another wpole report out there, one created by the town in which this woman lived. monterey is the place where the crime allegedly occurred. and obviously there is a now detailed police department report. one thing that stood out to me, reading it as a lawyer, is pete hegseth himself is not interviewed much less contacted anyone in the monterey police department for 18 days after the alleged crime. and when he is contacted by the monterrey pd, it appears he's contacted by phone. you and i both know that in assessing a witness or a subject or target's credibility, talking to them over the phone might not be the best first way to get a handle of who is telling the truth here. and so i just raise to you that when i read the police report, it raises a number of questions to me, there are at least three female witnesses to the interactions between hegseth and the jane doe accuser here, two of whom were present with them at wethe sports bar at the

monterrey hyatt at which the incident took place, and another of whom is the roommate of one of those women who was at the bar. in all, we are learning much what we didn't know including the whfact that the woman went the monterrey place department or went to the hospital first and then was referred to the monterrey police department days after, but it also raises so many questions about the way in which the investigation was conducted, and who else was involved. >> yeah, all right, so, mark, on the subject of hegseth, you got those allegations, the police report that we just laid out, but you also have jonathan chate writing he read hegseth's books with the intention of getting one oquestion answered and tha is whether hegseth would follow a trump command to shoot peaceful protesters. he said after having read the books, he doesn't think hegseth would wait for the order. others came out with one big takeaway, he sees left as the enemy from within. tom nichols also read the books

and says the one big thing that comes out to him, there is a lot, but one of the major things is there is no way that he can get confirmed or at least in normal times with what he has said itabout women in these boo, specifically women serving in the military in a combat position. do you see hegseth as a rocky confirmation? is this going to keep going? donald trump's backed off on gaetz, could he back off on hegseth? >> he could. i mean, i guess i'm the only atlantic staff person who hasn't read pete hegseth's books yet. >> better get going on that. >> obviously. what's clear, i always thought that hegseth, gaetz and to some degree kennedy and gabbard were big flexes by trump. they're all problematic in their own ways. i think probably gaetz first, because his own profile coupled

with the ag job and how powerful and how big it is, but, yeah, i mean, i think all of these folks are problematic and potentially could be struck down, but i think that it does require a kind of collective action, which would be, you know, four senators, maybe more, just locking arms in some way and i don't know if there was talk of this or this was just speculation by people in the media about some kind of west wing-like resolution, meaning the tv show, to this where, you know, finally cooler heads prevail and this madness must stop. but there is no way any kind of normal administration if such thing exists inanymore, certain in the trump era. anyone like this would get anywhere near confirmed even though deference is always given to a newly elected president. but i think, you know, i think kto some degree as ali said before, gaetz, you know, it is kgoing down like this it does give a little bit of cover maybe to the others, but i also think on the merits, each will create

their own very unique headaches for what the senators are about to vote. >> let's go back to tulsi gabbard, i haven't talked about her in a little while. help me understand tulsi gabbard as a dni pick, olivia. >> i don't understand it myself and i'm concerned for my former intelligence community colleagues given she has sided with foreign adversaries and has been the mouthpiece for a lot of the propaganda that comes out of the kremlin. so, my concern is what does this look like internally for these agencies in terms of how they're going to protect americans when they realize the person sitting at the m has sided on sides that are actually hurting americans or could potentially hurt them domestically and what does that look like for haintelligence sharing. i think the problem is when you have this cast of characters that are going to be potentially nominated and then going to confirm at the hearings, you're picking the lesser of the many o

evils. and i think that is a challenge here and i think some of the other panelists refer to this. i'm someone who worked for donald rumsfeld. i'm confident he would be appalled at the fact that someone like pete is being considered for the department of defense, having stood by those troops. and so i think all of those picks are to a certain extent dangerous in my opinion, especially on the stances of the way they thhave portrayed themselves avpublicly. they don't hide who they really are. and the question is which ones are ththe ones that are going t be tested in terms of moral character who are going to do the least damage. >> yeah. when you bring up donald rumsfeld, peter, there are a lot of folks who think donald rumsfeld was bad, bad, bad and was one of the worst in history. and that it is him and the decisions that led to what happened in iraq and afghanistan, it is that -- that is part of the reason why donald trump is in a position right now

to appoint the pete hegseths to try to, to appoint the tulsi gabbards, to try to get someone like matt gaetz involved because of all the past experts, these highly experienced individuals, being put into positions of major power, and then making very big mistakes. >> yeah, i mean, that's the argument you hear from the trumpian side of the equation is that having people with credentials, having people withv experience, people who, you know, fit the traditional casting call kind of appearance of a defense secretary or attorney general, haven't led to good results, they argue. the departments have grown calcified deor corruptive or unresponsive or simply as you say in terms of policy making failed choices. that is an appeal to the trumpian base, right, blow up the system because the system worked for me. but, you know, there is a difference between somebody being brought into to reform,

overall, rethink a system, and somebody being brought in because of their personal loyalty to the president. and i think that's the seemingly the throughline for many of these appointees so far, is not necessarily that they have well thought nethrough ideas to how do, you know, government differently, but they have well thought through ideas about how to support donald trump and the things he onwants to do. and what matt gaetz wanted to do in blowing up the justice department was carry out donald trump's ideas about retribution against his adversaries including the people that trump blames for coming after him when he was indicted in the last four years. >> put these choices together, whoever comes s after matt gae why would donald trump want folks like that, those loyalists in those specific positions, what does it inimply that he was to do, peter? what could it imply? >> yeah, those positions, think about these particular departments, for a second. justice, the pentagon, and the intelligence agencies. these are the three areas of

government that most frustrated trump and his political ambitions in his first term, ir right? the justice department didn't prosecute the adversaries he asked them to, not all of them, he did prosecute some and they did prosecute him. they appoint a special counsel to come after him and prosecuted some of his friends like roger stone and paul manafort and so forth. that was frustrating to him. he wants somebody to be loyal there. mike flynn was urging president trump to call in the military to redo the election in states he lost. that would have been something the military would have stood against and the intelligence agencies are the ones that documented how russia tried to intervene in the 2016 election on trump's behalf and something he, of course, denied and said he rather believed vladimir putin's denial instead. these are the three areas that i think most frustrated him in the first term, why he wants loyalists there, seems pretty

clear. >> all right. you guys are sticking around. don't go anywhere. still ahead, what got us here, the collapse of matt gaetz's doj nomination and the rise of accused sexual abusers to positions of power. what it means for the future of the me too movement. and he said there was zero connection between his campaign and project co2025. what donald trump has now done that is raising a few more questions about project 2025. we're back in 90 seconds. projec5 we're back in 90 seconds

now from west palm beach near the president-elect's florida home, nbc news

correspondent vaughn hillyard. so, vaughn, let's talk about matt gaetz. he's now out, who does donald trump have in the waiting to take over that role? >> reporter: it is a great question. the easiest would be todd blanche who he already determined he would nominate to be his deputy attorney general, the number two position at the doj and emil bove in the number three position. does todd blanche meet the bombast donald trump is looking for and the willingness to go and purge the department of justice of career prosecutors who he has deemed are behind the investigations into him? we don't know that answer. but there is also people like mark paoletta, an attorney, who is helping the trump transition operation, not as well known to the public, but like jeffrey clark made the case that the doj is not supposed to be independent of the president, the doj is under the executive branch of the white house.

and that this is a misnomer, in the last 60 years there is supposed to be a distinction between the two. john ratcliffe and matt whitaker, they have been nominated for other positions at this time. eric schmitt, the senator from missouri, he actually, i was told, early on in this process, was the front-runner if he wanted a position, it would be his because he was trusted by donald trump and other allies close of his. but it was the senator from missouri, eric schmitt, that took himself out of the running, that he has a six-year term in missouri and, of course, we know that this is a position that could be fraught with scrutiny by donald trump himself. so there is the former ambassador to mexico who could be in the mix, mike lee is somebody who remained a close political and legal ally to donald trump. if you remove him, it makes the margin for confirmation for all of his other cabinet positions all the more smaller. so, really it is up in the air right now exactly where donald trump is going to go. >> i wonder, when we look at the

picks, i'm going to bring in lisa rubin on this, also still with us as is mark leibovich, peter baker and lisa rubin. when we look at the potential names that vaughn floated out there, mark paoletta and others he mentioned, are many of them if not in -- are they in practice like matt gaetz? >> i would say many of them are much more familiar with the apparatus of the justice department than matt gaetz is. so in that respect, it brings them closer to being someone like todd blanche. in terms of their willingness to use the justice department for the aims that matt gaetz would have been willing to go to, that brings them closer to matt gaetz. maybe someone in between is where you end up with mark paoletta. he's very close with both thomases, justice clarence thomas and ginni thomas who he represented in the january 6th investigation. he also served in the last trump

administration and was general counsel at the office of management and budget. in so doing, he had some involvement in some of the allegations that led to the first trump impeachment. he's a trump loyalist, and yet he is much more familiar with how to use government and maybe how to navigate government than someone like matt gaetz. >> what do we know about what happened behind the scenes of matt gaetz. we know the names of those who weren't budging. do we know why? >> apparently the meetings on the hill didn't go well and people came out more concerned than reassured. gaetz told people according to my colleagues reporting that there were four hard nos against him already. he knew that. collins, murkowski and mitch mcconnell and newly elected senator from utah and he can't have those four, then there is no point in fighting to get the rest because you're not going to get confirmed. now, it is still a pretty quick thing to happen and a pretty quick surrender.

i went back and looked, as far as i can tell, this is the earliest any cabinet appointment has blown up for a newly elected president, in modern times. usually they drag on a little bit longer, try to fight a little bit harder but the writing was on the wall. >> let's bring in elaine godfrey writing for "the atlantic." let's talk about more about matt gaetz. not to bring in somebody else's reporting, but i'll get to your reporting with this, "the bulwark" is reporting that matt gaetz would go and say that to some of the senators, look, i'm not going to go there and indict liz cheney, have storm troopers bust through the doors at msnbc and arrest anthony fauci in my first. it was in first week is what worried people. what would he do in the second or third week. you have reporting about gaetz and what he might do next. what is next for gaetz? >> yeah, i think that made me

laugh, that in my first week being the operative phrase there. yeah, i mean, i think that at least from the people that i talked to, gaetz does not like being in congress. he has always had his eyes set on -- his sights set on bigger things. i think he really wants to be governor of florida. i think that he can deny it all he wants, but people i talked to say that's absolutely what he's going for. ron desantis, the current governor, will be -- is term limited, so by 2026, there will be another election for governor. this could be a really great, you know, convenient way to get out of congress and start running for governor if you're matt gaetz. i think that that's where i put my money right now. >> all right. matt gaetz as florida governor, mark, what do you think of that? >> i mean, sure, it could happen. what is interesting is that i think trump sort of wanted to -- trump loves to throw a grenade, right?

matt gaetz is the perfect grenade. to some degree what happened in the last week is entirely foreseeable, given how it ended. but i also think that trump still gets to send a message, gaetz sort of gets to be seen, you know, to some degree as the ultimate trump loyalist which could help him if he did want to run for something in florida, and wanted to sort of get the nomination. i think also i wouldn't count him out for a job that is not senate confirmable, whether in the white house or somewhere else in government, because clearly trump does value gaetz's loyalty, the spectacle of him, and the like minded sort of approach to exacting revenge, getting attention, and just essentially, you know, being the center of attention for whatever reason, not necessarily the good ones. so, i don't think we have seen the last of him. >> peter, part of what defined the last administration, trump administration, all the palace intrigue, the sources going after other people in the

administration, everybody trying to knife the other. that's why we got so much reporting about what was happening behind the scenes. the thought was that susie wild would clamle down on clamp dow we're still getting a bit of reporting on what these individuals are saying. what is it about the trump world that loves talking to a press, they also like to completely demonize and discredit. >> well, it goes from the top down. that's donald trump's modus operandi. he vilifies the press, denigrates the press, fake news, enemy of the people, that kind of thing, and still loves the attention. he loves talking. he loves, you know, having his voice out there. so he has calls from kristen welker and nbc and others in the mainstream media since his election because he does still enjoy the interaction, even as he gets angry at the coverage. so i think that flows from there.

and also flows from there in terms of chaos. he's a chaos agent. that's the way he likes to roll. he enjoys a certain degree of -- they encourage it. they encourage people to go after each other on his team, so it is not surprising that that would follow him into a second term. it has been there for his entire career. there is only so much any person like susie wiles can do about tamping that down. >> all right. thank you so much. coming up, how donald trump and his cabinet picks are defying the me too movement and what trump is staffing up with, having to do with project 2025. we're going to tell you who he wants in his administration that have a lot to do with this and what they want to do, what they said they want to do if they get involved in government. said thet involved in government nice to meet ya. my name is david. i've been a pharmacist for 44 years. when i have customers come in and ask for something for memory, i recommend prevagen. number one, because it's effective.

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in the early days of the first trump administration, the me too movement swept the country, launching a reckoning over sexual harassment abuse and power. seven years later, donald trump's picks for his cabinet and his senior staff stand in direct defiance of that movement as peter baker writes in "the new york times," the kind of accusations that took down titans of hollywood, wall street, silicon valley, washington, the news media, sports and states capitals have

proved no obstacle in mr. trump's election process, rather than being deterred, mr. trump seems determined to force a fight over them. joining us now, msnbc political analyst juanita tolliver, peter baker and lisa rubin still with us. peter, let's talk about that. you write about the defiance of the me too movement. i wonder, is it intentional, given that the donald trump ran directly at men in his last campaign, the rnc, how machismo it was, going on bro-y podcasts, anger over the role that men felt they were in this country, is it intentional for donald trump to choose these folks who have spotty histories or when their spotty histories have come out, he's standing by them more firmly? >> certainly not a dark mark against them as far as president-elect trump is concerned. he might not have known about pete hegseth's allegation when

he made that choice. but, of course, that speaks to the lack of vetting here. but he knew about matt gaetz's allegations. that's been pretty public now for the last few years and he decided to go with him anyway. he knew rfk jr. had been accused by a former family baby-sitter of groping her, that was in a magazine this last -- a simple google search would have indicated that. he certainly knew there was a lawsuit against elon musk's company for creating a hostile workplace environment or should have known that because it is a public document, written about it. so i think he -- whether he's intentionally picking people because of this or simply not disqualifying them because of it obviously that's getting into his head. remember, of course, he's the first president ever to come in to office having been found liable himself for sexual abuse. he was found liable in a civil court last year of sexually abusing e. jean carroll in the 1990s. that's never happened before for an incoming president.

so certainly from his point of view, since he denies that still to this day, he is much more willing to accept denials from the people like pete hegseth and matt gaetz and in fact to view them perhaps as he views himself, someone who is persecuted, treated unfairly, somebody who has been a victim in his view of the me too movement. i think he wants to force that fight because it is -- it is part of that male oriented campaign. >> what does this mean for the me too movement? >> i think it shows yet another spike in the uphill battle of cultural conversations about what it means to be accused of sexual assault. and the conversation around believing survivors and creating environments to stop this. i say that with the underlying -- understanding that donald trump is bringing these individuals in as peter noted. he may not have known about some of their history, but he knew about a lot of it and he's bringing them in because this is the environment he's looking to foster in his next administration.

under the guys of ise of what ad to his voters, which were men shouldn't be targeted for this type of behavior, right? this goes back to 2016, right, this is his trend and his behavior and view of how women should be treated from his own mouth. and i think one of the things we talked about in the past is how his administration is kind of bringing in an edit undo button in terms of what is culturally accepted and cultural norms and while the me too movement has been behind creating safer environments or taking down individuals who have been found liable of sexual assault and sexual violence toward women, donald trump is saying, hey, they shouldn't be canceled out, they should be welcomed in. and he continuously says he's bringing in the most brilliant individuals, sadly this is a representation of that. the other point i do want to make, katy, a lot of the conversation around matt gaetz dropping out of his consideration for becoming the

next attorney general, some people are saying, maybe this is a stress test for what republican senators are willing to accept. i counter that with looking at these other nominees and looking at who may replace matt gaetz because i think those republican senators may have looked at matt gaetz as the target where they could say, okay, this is a step too far, especially with the latest reports. but the reality is they still will have to take votes on these other individuals who have sexual assault or sexual abuse allegations against them. and that is something that i don't have confidence in. >> well, i want to get to more of the allegation against pete hegseth with lisa in a minute. i want to ask you another question about the me too movement. agree or not, there are those out there and does include women who felt like maybe the movement went a little too far, the pendulum swung a little bit too far in one direction. i wonder how does the democratic party fight this now, fight this, you know, these allegations that are facing these cabinet picks, fight the

movement away from believing women and taking this stuff seriously. how do they do that without looking to the ones that lost faith in it, that they are being reactionary. >> i think some of the behaviors, especially in response to susan wild after that committee vote yesterday is important. because what she emphasized when she came on and said, no, the committee did not agree to not release this report. we are still split in this decision, that's why we have a december date to come back and meet again, she called out the truth because transparency is the key here. i think democrats have a role, like shining a light on the internal machinations s behind these nominees, emphasizing what is at stake here and what it would mean in a trump administration if these individuals do ascend to their positions. that is important for the american public to keep front of mind as donald trump supports and continues to support these

nominees. >> we got into the hegseth allegations a little bit at the top of the show. there is more to what the accuser said happened to her and when she said she realized that something was wrong. can you just lay out a little more of what we learned from this police report? >> sure. the accuser for pete hegseth was attending a conference in monterrey, california, for the california federation of republican women. she was 30 years old at the time. she was there with her husband. and her two small children who attended with her because as her husband told police, they were very close and they didn't want to be apart. she continued to text her husband all throughout that evening, we know that because there are screen shots of their text exchanges in this police report. and as late in the evening as 12:30, they're still texting back and forth about her activities, telling one another, they love you, joking around back and forth as husband and wife will. sometime later that evening, around 1:15, that's when the accuser's memory is not perfect. and she says, she remembers being out at the hotel pool with

pete hegseth and having a little bit of an argument about how he was treating other women that evening. and the next memory she has is being in a hotel room that was unknown to her, where she continues to say no as pete hegseth is forcing himself upon her. she then has her next memory of him and i apologize, this is a family program, of having sexual intercourse with him and him ing on her stomach and then going back to her hotel room and falling to sleep with her husband. she believes she was drugged, while she had something to drink, she doesn't think it was the effect of intoxication and she maintains she did not willingly have sex with pete hegseth and one other difference between pete hegseth and matt gaetz and the other folks that donald trump has been associated with including donald trump himself, pete hegseth never denied he was engaged in a sexual encounter with his accuser. he told the monterrey police department that they had consensual sex, she led him back to his hotel room and that she immediately regretted the act and showed signs of regret,

though he didn't elaborate on that. this is a woman happily married with two small children, on a different floor of the hotel, there is something here that doesn't add up with respect to pete hegseth and his accuser. the matt gaetz situation was more fraught, his accusers, while young women, were engaged in sex work at the time. if the matt gaetz story was a bridge too far for many republican senators, i wonder how they're going to receive this woman if and when they have to confront the reality of her story. >> and i would imagine this would come out in the confirmation hearings at the very least this police report. >> absolutely. >> lisa rubin, juanita tolliver, peter baker, thank you very much. what was behind the decision by two of the nation's top security officials to break protocol and not testify before congress today on worldwide threats? and for months, donald trump distanced himself from project 2025. what he's doing now that is raising questions. doing now tha raising questions. i've seen it. trust me, after 15 walks,

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for all the talk about how he had nothing to do with and had no idea who was involved with project 2025, donald trump's pick for his new administration, well it suggests otherwise. six of trump's nominees or appointees have ties to project 2025. that number is also likely to rise. trump has reportedly leaning

toward appointing russ vogt to lead the white house budget office for a second time, with a sharper intention. he wrote on the executive office, he focused on the expansion of presidential powers, and a more aggressive wielding of executive authority. and nbc's vaughn hillyard is on this story for us and olivia troye is back as well. vaughn, explain the now closer and closer ties donald trump has to something that he disavowed during the campaign. >> reporter: exactly. he repeatedly denied having anything to do with project 2025, despite him speaking at the launch dinner of project 2025 and noting that these people were his friends, they carried out his first administration and they were going to be the masterminds of what his second administration and transition would look like. you're seeing some of these figures come into his incoming administration, people like russ vogt, let's be very clear, if he were to take over omb, he was a key writer in project 2025,

writing in part about the executive branch's use of power. and making the case that departments and agencies have taken on a mind of their own as he wrote, and that the executive branch should fall under the direction of the president of the united states. and that it is not up to the department and agencies to interpret regulations, but the courts or strict language that is written thereof that is passed by the congress. and so, i think for donald trump, when you're looking at project 2025, we knew that they had ties and now we are seeing this beginning to play out, based off the individuals who he is bringing back into the fold, because it was these folks who wrote that 900 page book on how the departments and agencies could more effectively run. >> yeah, and this was seen as a blueprint for what donald trump can do if he were to win again. donald trump obviously disavowed it, but he's appointing people who have ties to it, as we keep talking about. olivia, when you walked through project 2025, a very long

booklet, and you're looking at who he's putting into these positions of power, what is your expectation of how that manifest s -- manifesto will end up affecting decisions made while donald trump is back in the white house? >> i have no doubt that this agenda will be implemented. this started during the first trump administration. i think some of the policies were tested. and they were met with resistance from people who were adhering to the rule of law and what government is really meant to do, for the people, by the people, and serving them. but i think there are -- there is a group with a very extreme agenda here and you'll see a lot of these people get appointed into the roles. russ vogt is one person i'm watching closely. that role in the office of management and budget is critical. because it really oversees the coordination of policy across the federal government, and all of these players that are involved, stephen miller, tom homan, all the people mentioned

were all part of the first time around where they tried to push some extreme integration measures or, for example, when omb got involved, sometimes they wouldn't even allow policies that told hospitals how to wash hospital gowns during the pandemic, during the crisis. it was held up by people working at omb who weren't doctors who shouldn't be involved in these processes. and it is important to really study that 900 page plan. i read it front to back and i know a lot of these things in there when people are, like, it was hyperbole, no, these are the policy agendas and that is what we're up against going forward. >> they believe in a powerful executive, there was talk about what you could do at the fda, with plan b, what you can do with the comstock act to make it so abortion materials, equipment, can't be sent state to state. that got a lot of attention during the campaign. there is so much more in there. you have tom homan who is associated with project 2025 as

is john ratcliffe for cia, and brendan carr, his selection for fcc, pete hoekstra, his ambassador to canada and vogt. there is a lot of people here. vaughn hillyard, thank you very much. olivia troye, thank you for sticking with us for most of the hour as well. appreciate it. coming up next, for the first time in 15 years, the homeland security secretary and fbi director were no-shows at an annual hearing on threats to the homeland. what we know about why they didn't show up. e know about why didn't show up hi, my name is damian clark. if you have both medicare and medicaid, i have some really encouraging news that you'll definitely want to hear. depending on the plans available in your area, you may be eligible to get extra benefits with a humana medicare advantage dual-eligible special needs plan. most

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fbi director christopher wray and homeland security secretary alejandro may orkas were to provide an update on the national security threat level. it is a routine hearing that has been happening regularly for the last 15 years. it has been planned for months. but then suddenly today both these guys backed out from senator peters, quote, in a shocking departure from the homeland security and government affairs committee's long-standing tradition of transparency and oversight of the threats facing our nation for the first time in more than 15 years, the homeland security secretary and the fbi drektser have refused to appear before the committee to provide public testimony at our annual hearing on threats to the homeland. the question is why.

joining us now, justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian. why didn't they show up? >> i can tell you what they are saying publicly and then what committee sources think is going on. they are saying that the threat picture right now is so sensitive, they feel they can home talk about the big issues in a closed hearing, in a classified closed session. one of the issues they don't want to talk about publicly is the fact that china has successfully hacked a bunch of telecom companies and may have gotten access to classified information. that's very sensitive. so, that's understandable. but there nothing that would prevent them from having an open hearing and closed hearing and they feel like here are two top officials who are not long in their jobs, mayorkas obviously leaving as a political appointee and chris wray reporting donald trump wants to replace him, he may leave as well, and the feeling is they decided they didn't want to sit for another grilling on the hill.

the hearings are not pleasant they get yelled at, get asked tough questions, some people view it as a circus, but it is an important function where taxpayers get to see these top officials answering hard questions and sometimes there are good questions and we learn things. we won't have that opportunity and it is not clear at all that these open hearings will be rescheduled before these two men leave their jobs, katy. >> could they possibly be rescheduled to earlier next year when there is a new cia director or new fbi director and new homeland security head? >> absolutely. i don't think this is the end of worldwide threat hearhearings. these two gentlemen decided they don't need to do this anymore and they're leaving and the taxpayers lose out on this opportunity. >> ken dilanian, thank you very much. that's going to do it for me today. "deadline: white house" starts after a quick break. "deadline: white house" starts after a quick break. we've got you.

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