hi there, everyone. 4:00 in new york, that was fast. it could have been one of the

first political flashpoints of the new political era is over. and it ended not with a bang but a bit of a whimper. matt gaetz withdrawing his nomination for attorney general saying there is no time to waste on the needlessly protracted washington scuffle. it comes a day after talking with republican senators along side jd vance and a steady drip, drip, drip of seedy revelations of the investigation into matt gaetz that would turn into a flood. the latest bombshell dropping minutes after gaetz withdrew. according to a source familiar with the matter, the house ethics committee was told that a woman had two separate sexual encounters with matt gaetz at the same party in 2017 when she was just 17 years old. cnn was first to report that news. they say gaetz withdrew his nomination just 45 minutes after cnn called to say they were going to report on that 2017 incident.

last night "the new york times" out with a bombshell piece of reporting of their own. they reported on findings by the justice department, a document obtained by the times shows this. federal investigators have established a web of payments among matt gaetz and dozens of friends and associates who were said to have taken part with him in drug fuelled sex parties. among those who received money from gaetz were two women who testified that he hired them for sex. that is according to the document and a lawyer for the two women. the lawyer said payments to the women ultimately totaled around $10,000. the document does not show what the payments to the women were for. nbc news has not independently verified the document. the doj probe into gaetz ended without doj pressing charges against matt gaetz and he has denied wrong doing to

congressional and federal investigators. trump's communications director claims the document was leaked by doj to smear matt gaetz. the campaign is saying that it was classified? "the new york times" says there are no classified markings on the document and there is no reason for the documents like that to be classified. now questions are swirling about who donald trump picks next to lead the doj. questions remain about the fate of his other nominees. in a new legitimate line of questions rising up about republicans and whether they will oppose other unqualified picks. nbc news reports this. at least five senate republicans, mitch mcconnell, lisa murkowski, mark wayne mullen of oklahoma, senator elect john curtis of utah were a no on gaetz and had communicated to other senators and those close to trump that they were not likely to be swayed. matt gaetz withdrawing his nomination and questions on what

is next for the trump justice department is where we begin today with our friends, mike schmitt joins us, also criminal division deputy chief chrissy green, basal snipe, and host of the bulwark podcast, tim miller is here. i start with you because we were wrong. we said matt gaetz would be the attorney general. trump wants to see how low he can go. apparently the answer to how low he can go is whatever is above matt gaetz and i don't know, below pete hegseth. but it is interesting when you find out what a bridge too far for donald trump looks like. apparently it looks like matt gaetz. >> the gaetz eyebrows are maybe the lowmark for him. we were wrong about this but the wrongness was based on how the

senators would act. matt gaetz did not force the five names but lisa murkowski was pretty public. i think that will be the question when the rubber meets the road on that stuff. it is interesting. gaetz may have decided to withdraw for other reasons. he may not have wanted the other additional details of two encounters with 17-year-old or the payments that "the new york times" reported on. i think that remains to be seen. i think a big test of that, like if our thesis, the senators will fold to trump will be hegseth and rfk. you know for a fact that mitch mcconnell, given his past and the polio vaccine, is not interested in an anti-vaxer leading hhs and that will be a

test. and pete hegseth is not in any sense more qualified than matt gaetz. he is less qualified. he also has scandal in his private life and accusations and allegations of sexual assault. there was a police report out today detailing those allegations. so there is no difference between hegseth and gaetz. the question is which one of these nominees will trump put muscle behind. maybe none. if he stands behind the rest of them, will the senators show back bone when they have to in public? that remains to be seen. >> take us inside what the revelations that you reported last night, take us inside the picture that was emerging of matt gaetz. >> so what was significant about what we were reporting is over the past few days, a lawyer for two of the women who said they

had sex with gaetz for money had been on television saying that it happened. when we obtained documents from the federal investigation of gaetz, it showed that gaetz had sent the two women thousands and thousands of dollars in money. it was bolstering the credibility of the different witnesses. what you had at that point was a situation in which whether the house ethics committee report was going to come out or not, if gaetz's nomination moved forward, he was going to have one of three choices. he was going to be asked under oath, did you ever pay women for sex. if he said no, democrats would point to the testimony of the lawyer and other documentation like the justice department document and say look, that is not true. you could be lying under oath. if he admitted to it, it would have created a different firestorm. or the third option which would have been the most extraordinary

is that he could have taken the fifth amendment and not answered the question. and you would have had a situation in which the incoming general was taking the fifth amendment about his actions that were looked at in a justice department investigation, justice department in which he was going to be taking over. and senate republicans were going to have to determine who was telling the truth. and it would have been, you know, a time for them to say okay, matt gaetz, you are either lying or not lying. by stepping aside, he avoided that situation. and now senate republicans, you will not have to see how they would publicly deal with this. >> joel greenburg is serving 11 years in jail. one of the things he was charmged with was sex trafficking of a minor. is that the same person that

matt gaetz is laemged to have had sex with based on cnn's reporting two times? >> no. both matt gaetz and -- well, joel greenberg told federal authorities that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl and he saw gaetz have sex with a 17-year-old. during the federal investigation, authorities learned that gaetz had had sex with a 17-year-old girl two times over the span of a day in 2017. in one of the encounters, another adult woman participated in what was going on. i'm not sure how much that changed things. we already knew that gaetz had been -- that the authorities had learned that he had had sex with a 17-year-old girl. another instance of that, sort of bolsters the idea that it happened but at the end of the day, joel greenberg pled guilty to having s exx with a

17-year-old girl who was being paid for that. he was facing a mandatory minimum because of that. he received more than a 10 year sentence. gaetz was never indicted. had he been indicted on that charge and convicted, he would have faced a mandatory 10 years in prison but obviously the department never charged him. there are a lot of questions about that, questions that we don't have really good answers to about why the department didn't charge him. >> i guess what is interesting is that there is so much in the public. and it becomes, this may sound so old fashioned but it becomes about the lack of character. you have this guy some of the same crimes, a lawyer for two women describing the women as having zero political dog in the fight but who saw him have sex

with a woman who was 17 at the time and a new revelation that he had sex with a 17-year-old twice in one night. and then another senator said he said he would crush ed drugs and chase them with drinks so he could go all night long, it is an unbelievable lack of -- i don't know what the words are, character, moral. it seems he was so bad it was not even about the noncharged activity. >> i think you have a laurt of this that has been known. it has been known for yours thet women have accused matt gaetz of paying them for sex. we have more meat on the bones. we have a payment, one said for

tuition reimbursement, he is looking to conceal what this is for. the way they found the women was on a sugar daddies website. you have more information on the fact that they are travelling across state lines. there are a multitude of federal crimes here. there is strong evidence. we don't know why doj didn't pursue it but there is strong evidence. knowingly transporting women across state lines for the purpose of prositution is a crime. and even sex trafficking of a minor, even if he didn't know at the time that he was 17, you don't need to prove that as a prosecutor to make it stick. you need to show there is reckless disregard for her age. he had a reasonable opportunity to observe her. you start with women corroborating each other. and then you start with the documents, travel records, and

payments. matt gaetz is making the payments, not just one here and there. this is thousands of dollars, suggesting this was happening for many occasions, suggesting it was happening over years. if it is not criminal, it is hard to see how at a minimum it would not be a state crime. it is illegal to solicit prostitution in the state of florida. and his associate, joel greenberg is serve fg a sentence of 10 year ceptance in prison for trafficking of a minor. he said in his plea, i didn't know she was 17. he is still in jail for that. the judge said his cooperation, joel greenberg's cooperation against many individuals was among the most significant he had seen in 22 years on the bench. so he gave up the goods on matt gaetz. i don't know that, that is under seal but i know that. otherwise, based on what was public, it does not make sense.

so there is a lot here. and knowing how much is here and knowing how much has been public for so long and the fact that donald trump decided this would be his top cop is an absolute cop and the only reason he isn't is not because donald trump had second thoughts,o gee, it is terrible that he did these things. it is because some of the senators had a spine. >> a spine or ego. let me show you some of the things matt gaetz said about the people asked to vote for him for attorney general. >> we have murkowski and collins rejecting the duties that they have as senators and if they do that, their voters should reject them. >> our leadership is in shambles. you have mcconnell wavering. >> speaking of fools, republican senator mark wayne mullens. >> mitch mcconnell's legacy is that he was missing in action when he needed him most and put

special interest above american interest. my advice going forward is that the republican leadership doesn't need to pick one of the johns, john thune, john cornyn, john brauso. i think there will be better options. senator tillis trying to get another blank check for another corrupt country. it is disappointing. there is a certain humorous to all of it. >> i remember the speaker, the hearing or the votes when kevin mccarthy was trying to be speaker and the anger and frustration that his colleagues showed towards matt gaetz. he rolled up on them like he was in the streets. i have never seen anything like that on the floor of the house. >> i don't think i have ever said let's stay in the house republican caucus. >> there is clearly no love lost with respect to the republican senators and members of the

house for matt gaetz. to both points, donald trump has a fairly high threshold for pain and shame. that is not the case for everyone else. but there is some measure of shame and tolerance for blowback that senators and house members cannot withstand because they are regularly in front of the people. number one with respect to elections but they just like their jobs. they take -- i may have issues with this from time to time but take their jobs seriously. so it strikes me as just amazing that this person could be the head law enforcement official in our country but look at the way they talked about kamala harris during the campaign, the d.e.i. potential president. . it is so striking. but senator cornyn said they didn't want to embarrass donald trump and said it was important that the information gets out and he said it is likely that it

will come out anyway. even if they didn't want to do it for donald trump, they did this for themselves. they made sure that at least they could go back and not have to deal with the sordid details coming out. who wants to continue to talk about this as a senator? when you have other things on your plate. >> as a human as well. let me ask you about the document you reported on. what did prosecutors say a document like that would have been prepared to prove had they gone forward with criminal charges? >> we don't know what it was prepared for. if we look at the unredacted version of it, it is basically trying to make sense of how money flowed between gaetz, greenberg and other associates, and mapping out a universe of people who over several years had frequent encounters together. these women made up to $10,000, these two women combined made

$10,000 from their interactions with gaetz. one $6,000 and another for $4,000. their lawyers said they were paid anywhere from several hundred dollars an encounter up to a little less than $1,000. the fact that the numbers were so high spoke to the fact that this happened a lot of times. this was a frequent occurrence where these women, gaetz greenberg would get together and they would have parties, drugs, and the women would have sex with the men and they would be paid for that. that's what this shows. this is an investigation that started looking at a tax collector in the orlando area in florida. and in the course of looking at that, they found different payments, they learned different things and they ultimately came to look at gaetz in that. it shows that little investigations of things like a tax collector in florida that no one has ever heard of can have

massive implications. >> all right. now up next for us, democratic senator sheldon white house joins this conversation. i'm sure he is thrilled. ahead, what one lawmaker calls a shocking end toa tradition. members of absent from a hearing on a world wide threat, the reason why. and trump's pick for defense secretary, what he said about an allegation made against him in 2017. and what america's allies are doing to prepare for the trump administration to come, how they are feeling and the precautions they are taking. all those stories and much more when deadline white house continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. s after a qui. don't go anywhere.

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we are back and joining our conversation is senator sheldon whitehouse, from rhode island, member of the senate judiciary committee. i apologize for the seedyness of the lead story, the subject of matt gaetz. but i feel sort of a combination, a weird combination of relief and deep anxiety about what was in the box that matt gaetz's name came out of. there was a hat out which came names like todd blanch and people who were normal enough and then there was another hat and the name matt gaetz came out of that hat. what do you think is behind matt gaetz? >> it's very hard to tell, certainly nothing that is very sane or normal.

i think when you want to install as the chief prosecutor of the united states of america somebody whose only experience with criminal investigations is to be the suggest of one, you have really departed from the most fundamental guard rails of normalcy. i think that is one of the reasons that -- and god bless them, sufficient republican senators sent the message back to the white house that this can't fly, that they ended up withdrawing. i think a piece of this has been a challenge to the republican senators by the trump administration who are daring them. there is the legend of the foreign poteitate where everyone had to come in as a crawl. this was a crawl for republican senators to have to eat awful

nominees like gaetz and gabbard. so the crawl test continues but it is kind of reassuring that enough republican senators were willing to be part of a stand up cohort and not the crawl cohort. i hope that continues for some of those other appalling nominees. >> it is an interesting observation. in the time of trump, there is a sort of rinse and repeat dynamic. trump is appalling, they avoid our cameras for 36 hours and then it's what the people want. i wonder if you think it is worth wondering strength can be a cycle as well? whether lines being drawn could beagain more lines being drawn with people like tulsi gabbard? >> yeah, i think the trump administration took a surprisingly strong hit here .

think of the past 48 hours with jd vance, our senator colleague and soon to be vice president, bringing people into his office with matt gaetz for come to jesus sessions to try to pressure them into signing up for completely unpalletable candidate and then immediately thereafter, he has withdrawn. >> yeah. >> so the kind of atmosphere of threat and intimidation and pressure, and inevitability has been shattered already and i suspect there is a bit of resentment brewing from those personal conversations and now that it has been shown that it didn't work, so much the better. so to all my republican colleagues who stood up and make it clear that this wasn't going

tohappen, bravo them. >> it is important to call that out when it happens, even though it is rare. it doesn't diminish the fact that at a moment when a lot of the narrative i'm not sure it is deserved is about trump's political strength, when it came to matt gaetz, they found their spines. to your point about the meetings that jd vance is orchestrating, this was the pitch for matt gaetz. this is reporting in the bulwark . this is what matt gaetz said to senators. quote, look, i'm not going to go there and indict liz cheney, have storm troopers bust through the door at msnbc and arrest anthony fauci in my first week, gaetz told some of his senators in one on one meetings. it is that last clause, in my first week sounded like an ominous disclaimer to some and it prompted a few senators to

ask what happens thereafter to which he said we're not doing that and he then said we are breaking the cycle of weaponizing doj. i guess the problem with that is men like bill barr had a hard time stopping donald trump's desire to use the irs and use the department of justice against trump's enemies. trump was relentless in this request. do you think that it is a prerequisite for whoever replaces matt gaetz that they be willing to do retrib rules replace retribution as it has been termed? >> can we start with the question of whether the doj was weaponized? and the question of of georgia

prosecutors being an a part of a weaponization thing is simply the counternarrative to the fact of the matter that trump is a criminal. and if you -- who got caught, and had to do all sorts of weaseling to get out of it and in other places was found guilty or liable. so behind all of this is an effort to scrub out the underlying fact that the guy they are supporting, the head of this cult is in fact a criminal. and when you can't admit that, you have to go after the prosecutors and then you get into the cascade of rhetorical consequence that opens the door for turning the office into the actual weapon that you are pretending it was against trump. >> it is not a lot of hops on the candyland board game to get from trump's relection to matt

gaetz as the first failed pick to head doj to the supreme court's granting of absolute immunity for official acts. where are your worst case scenario concerns these days? >> i think immediate kerp would have to do with the abuse of getting around advice and consent by adjourning the senate and using the recess appointment clause. that ought to be a slam dunk obvious violation of the constitution. but i thought presidential immunity was a slam dunk obvious violation of the constitution. the constitution provides for limited legislative immunity, no presidential immunity. so the idea that you read into that a more robust presidential

immunity makes no sense but they did it. i think the spooky thing would be if they added more people like matt gaetz to be appointed by knocking down the advice and consent process that stopped him. >> we will need you often senator to continue to remind us where the norms are and when we are blowing right through them. thank you for joining us today. >> thanks for including me. >> we will get a last word with everyone on our panel after this after a short break. don't go anywhere. after a short break. don't go anywhere. from public schools and public libraries. yes, libraries. we all have a first amendment right to read and learn different viewpoints. that's why every book belongs on the shelf. yet book banning in the u.s. is worse than i've ever seen. it's people in power who want to control everything. well, i say no to censorship. and i say yes to freedom of speech and expression.

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the panel is back. mike schmitt, i joked that there is a perhaps misplaced feeling of relief that the alleged child sex trafficking is out and it may be an incompetent attorney general for trump but it seems like trump is likely to leave people where they are. who on the list for potential picks for ag remains? >> there had been a pretty serious process in which they had talked to folks like jake clayton, a man named bob jifra who was considered a white collar lawyer. they talked to a guy named bill burke who had done work for trump officials during the first term. they were looking at people who

in the conservative legal world were respected. and then out of nowhere on the flight, trump picked gaetz. did they go back to one of those folks they were looking at before or do they, you know, look at someone like todd blanch who was to be the deputy attorney general? in any other administration, if a president nominated their personal lawyer to go to top of the department, it would be a big issue. people would raise the question and say the department is supposed to be independent and you are putting someone there who is your personal lawyer, who you have an attorney client privilege with who has defended you in criminal cases in which you have been convicted and now you are putting them in charge of the department. but with trump, when he appoints someone like gaetz, it distorts our depth perception. we end up spending a lot of time on gaetz because of his history and character, and the fact that he was under justice department

investigation. so i think trump is a real wild card here. i don't think he is playing six dimensional chess. i think he does things sort of impulsively and did that with gaetz and it has blown up and didn't work out. i'm not sure that really deteres trump on other fronts. so who knows? >> it is the conversation we were having in the break, because gaetz is so outrageous, not a lot of attention is being paid to the other folks. but you know that. >> i do. i think trump views doj as his personal law firm. that's why he put his own lawyers there. yes, they are qualified lawyers as defense attorneys and prosecutors but he is putting them there for a reason and it is not for an oath to uphold the constitution but an oath of loyalty to him. i really worry that donald trump doesn't view these people as

public servants. they are there to serve his interests, his vendettas and these people who have worked for him over a year, are they going to hold the line like jeff burgin did? are they going to say that is a bridge too far? i would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for their conversations because i highly doubt that's what they were saying to get the positions. if you were to say something like that, he's not going to pick you. that may be why we haven't seen some of these very qualified attorneys being submitted for that top role. >> where do you think we are headed next? >> there is a word in my colleague mark caputo's reporting on this that stuck in my head, when trump looked at the list of names, trump was like, these are a bunch of stiffs, stiffs was the word discussing it. he's not looking for a boring lawyer to follow the lay of the

land or the letter of the law. he is looking for someone that is going to not only be lawyer but also channel his rage and anger and style and so it is not likely to be one of those original people. i think that some of these attorneys general on his side during january 6th in the states may be a possible. mike lee, his personal lawyer maybe a better name. >> he is looking for someone to speak at a madison square garden rally, regardless of the qualifications or work they have done. if that person is able to do at the rally what the others did at the rally a few weeks ago, that's the type of person he is looking for, performative, energy, qualifications don't matter. just to focus on something that the senator said earlier, hats off to the members of the senate that raised concerns. there were republicans on the ethics xhoet that didn't allow

this to go forward. the committee is balanced between democrats and republicans to guard against partisan decisions and not one republican supported it. that is an issue of gerrymandering because they would not face conskwenss at home because of this but senators would. so just an important thought as we think about gerrymandering. >> thank you for your reporting. tim miller will be back in the next hour. we will stick around here at the table. when we come back, we will talk about fbi director cristmer wray and secretary mayorkas skipping out on the senate's threats to the homeland security, something that is landing them with bipartisan criticism for departing from long standing tradition. a quick wrak for us. don't go anywhere. a quic k wrak . don't go anywhere. old is coming! your cold is coming! thanks...revere. we really need to keep zicam in the house.

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appear publicly for the hearing. the chair of the committee, gary peters says it is a shocking departure from long standing tradition of transparency and oversight. and while it has not been reported yet and we can't say what the reason is or was for this break from precedent, what we do know is that the future of the fbi director is still very much in question. jd vance raised suspicion about replacing wray in a tweet earlier this week. the tweet was then deleted. joining our conversation is investigative reporter contributor carol lenic, christine basilar is still here. what do you know? >> what i know is that the fbi and department of homeland security have issued statements explaining at least the surface reason for why chris wray and mayorkas did not agree to testify publicly at the annual meeting. they said both men have testified dozens of times before congress and have offered

repeatedly and again today to provide classified information in a classified setting, that the threats discussions that they want to have is so sensitive that they can't do it in a public setting. that has not pleased democratic leaders of the committee or republicans. i would say that if they think the threat levels are so high as to be matters to be discussed in a sealed proceeding, we should probably take them at their word. >> some of what was known and has been reported ahead of the election was a heightened threat environment from iran, including a threat to president-elect trump and others. it is state specific? is it target specific? do you have a sense of what the sensitivities are? >> not in relationship to today. but i have heard in the last

week, the following from sources at the department of homeland security in interviews and in more informal conversations. one, that the threat level is higher than either of these two leaders have seen before in their history and their careers. and both of them have had their careers, mayorkas has been at dhs, senior leadership positions two times, that it is the highest they have seen. the other is i'm glad you raised the point about iran. the threats of various iranian operatives, sometimes paid for hire, mercenaries, that have has been evidence of efforts to plot how to kill donald trump, how to kill journalists, how to kill academics who have written extensively about iran. so there is a pretty, i would describe this as multifacetted elements to the way in which the

iranian state appears to be trying to get at its enemies or its critics. >> do you know if there is any concern about the lack of a transition process in terms of the handoff of who takes the portfolio of the very dire threat picture that we face right now? >> yen that there is worry about the handoff of this information. it would be constitutionally and legally responsible to pass on all information that the next government needs to act upon. and as you probably know nicole and i don't know if you have talked about it on the show but president-elect trump is receiving an intelligence briefing now. he is getting at least some summarized version about threats

and important domestic and international flare ups as we speak. >> i didn't mean reluctance, i just meant it has been reported that the memorandum of understanding that gets the general services agency to get people vetted and prepared to have full access to all of the nation's most sensitive secrets, that that process is reportedly been -- i think as early as this week, not started at all or greatly delayed. do you have any sense of whether the lack of background checks makes it harder or means a smaller group of people will be receiving the most sensitive levels of briefings? >> well, it has to mean that there is a smaller number because people have to be cleared to look into top secret or national defense information. so absolutely, a smaller group. i don't think that is going to rule out the president-elect. you may remember that chris wray faced a lot of criticism for

multiple times testifying in public settings that the most important and dramatically rising national threat to america was domestic extremism. i don't know if domestic extremism would be tops on his list now but he faced a lot of criticism that he was essentially pointing a finger at some of the people who had supported donald trump. as for background security clearances and back to your original question, it is a major problem and you're going to remember this keenly, it is a major problem if the fbi does not get to susout the background of a person. no private vetting company is going to be able it look at case files. they will not be able to look at any u.s. gathered intelligence or collection to figure out whether or not a person shows up

in worrisome case files. a case in point is obviously matt gaetz. no private firm was going to find out what the evidence was that the department of justice gathered before it decided that it was going to be too hard to prosecute him for sex trafficking and paying minors for sex. those checks are essential. you will also keenly remember back to the original point, jared kushner was a person that the government recommended not receive a top security clearance because in u.s. intelligence collection, authorities are our national security found he was having conversations with foreign leaders and foreign leaders were kind of laughing behind his back about how malleable and manipulatable he was and because of his financial needs, because he was looking for foreign investments in some of his large real estate projects, he was essentially an

easy mark. that's the last thing that the government needs in the form of a person who is receiving classified intelligence. >> it is so chilling. thank you. i will give the panel the last word on the other side. police stay with us. word on thee police stay with us. good thing metamucil gummies are an easy way to get prebiotic, plant-based fiber. with the same amount of fiber as 2 cups of broccoli. metamucil gummies the easy way to get your daily fiber.

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head the fbi and the attorney general is just an ominous place to be in light of this threat environment. >> absolutely which is all the more reason why there should bow at least some public broefing about what we are facing. understanding that the public can't know everything and it is fine if they want to do a threat briefing to senators behind closed doors to deal with classified information but the public kuzdeserve to know what is going on both domestically and at a foreign level. and hearing from the fbi director, it sounds like maybe he is concerned about keeping his job in the next administration and not saying anything under oath that could be scrutinized and used against him in a potential political prosecution down the road. and that's a bad place for our public servants to be. we want them to feel they can speak to the american people and not be worried about prosecutions for doing so, for

speaking truth to power. we are in a very ominous place to be. >> a dangerous time in the world, in the country, and yes, the public has a right to know. i wonder if part of the calculus is that it is also a dangerous time in america in the sense that you have a lot of people trying to curry favor with donald trump. they are concern about how that information will be used, weaponized to further a different kind of end. but at the end of the day, we should know what is going on. we should have an idea of how as a country to prepare. but it raises the level of scrutiny for the picks that donald trump makes. >> right, right, what they are inheriting is incredibly dire. thank you for being at the table. up next for us, it was pete hegseth's turn to go to capitol hill and meet with senators as a police report detailing a sexual assault allegation against him

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let me set the record straight. are people born wicked? or do they have wickedness thrust upon them? oh! -ah! [ laughter ] no need to respond. that was rhetorical. hm, hmm. ♪♪ ♪♪ did you talk about the allegations in the police report, the sexual assault allegation? >> we weren't specific, but, you know, since no charges were brought by the authorities, we have only the press reports. >> should you have gotten in the specifics? >> we will be looking to have a full -- >> we will be looking to have

full something. hi, everybody. 5:00 in new york. the chairman. armed services committee, roger whitaker, among the senators meeting with department of justice's pick to head the department of defense, pete hegseth, on the hill today. seemingly agreeing that a more full look into hegseth is what's needed, considering that last night the monterey, california, police department released the full record of the 2017 police investigation in which a woman alleged that hegseth sexually assaulted her. hegseth denied the assault occurred, saying the sexual encounter was con sen shawl and in to charges were filed, but he did confirm that the woman was paid in undisclosed amount of money in a settlement. the released 22-page police report includes some disturbing and very graphic details that says that an emergency room nurse contacted the police after a woman came in saying she had

been sexually assaulted by man days prior who she identified as pete hegseth. the woman identified only as jane doe said she met hegseth at a hotel where he was speaking at an event she attended. jane doe said that that night hegseth was acting inappropriately with women and she actually confronted him about that behavior. she acknowledged consuming much more alcohol than normal that day and said things became fuzzy, but then said she found herself in an unknown room. she told police that hegseth took her phone from her and then physically blocked her attempts to leave the room. she detailed the assault and remembered saying no a lot. the report also includes hegseth's account of what happened that night. he told police he had drank beer and that what had transpired with the woman was consensual. the lawyers said in a statement today this, quote, this police

report confirms what i have said all along. the incident was fully investigated and police found the alleges to be false which is why no charges were filed. that is not what any page of the police report says. in fact, they don't give a reason for not charging pete hegseth. the details in the new report assure this will complicate what has already been a challenging confirmation process ahead for mr. hegseth. earlier on the hill he was questioned about the allegation. >> did you sexually assault a woman in california? ult a woman in california? >> as far as the media is concerned, the matter was investigated, i was completely cleared. >> that's where we start. retired u.s. marine corps lieutenant amy mcgrath, also professor of list rate nyu ruth is here, and former rnc chairman

is with us. amy, your thoughts? >> well, the first thing is if pete hegseth what would happen if this happened while he was in the military and the military found out about it? what would nkand file person in the military, know that you basically would not be promoted. you would probably lose your command opportunities. and even if there was a settlement, why? why is that? because you can't set the example. nicolle, we have a sexual assault problem in the military already. and how are we going to have a leader whose known to have these sexual assault allegations? the military doesn't want to promote people like that. and so it's about leadership and it's about character, and i certainly hope that these members of congress on the republican side who actually

care about the military, many of them have served in the military, they understand these items are values of integrity and character, i hope they reject this nomination. >> i read the police report for a variety of reasons. some of the most graphic things, they are available. it's been released by the police department. there is some redactions, but you get a pretty clear sense of this. ruth, jane doe went to the emergency room and requested what gets shorthanded as a rape kit. it's an exam and it proves the existence of semen. she took that test and that is a known fact. the emergency room contacted the police. that is a known fact.

charges were not pressed, but again as with matt gaetz what's fascinating about trump 2.0 is that one alleged child sex trafficker, maybe it's just a guy he really, really likes. one alleged sex trafficker, one investigated for sexual assault tv host who paid money to the woman who made the allegations, and a vice president who believers women should stay in violent marriages instead of getting divorced feels like a brand that donald trump is very comfortable being associated with. what do you think? >> yeah. well, part of the, you know, the harris waltz campaign we aren't going back, and the trump/vance administering is we are going to take you back. and this reflects these appointments or nominations

reflect values of male domination, the idea that the strong man doesn't have to ask for consent either in politics or in if the bedroom, and this is the kind of lawless, you know, masculinity and misogyny. pete hegseth doesn't believe women should be in combat. that's a very important fact about him, too. you know, i see why this came out after they had nominated him, and i see, you know, why they wanted him because they are considering a very radical shift for the military's function in american life to be used domestically. this a very big deal. and so who better than a smooth talking, you know, practiced assembler, because he works for fox news, to sell this to the american people. but we also have to see what values these individuals as individuals bring to the table,

and here he fits the trump world view, which is machismo and misogyny. >> tim miller, your thoughts on any and all of this? >> yeah. i mean, i think that maybe an important perspective or one way to look at this to just show how absurd of a nomination this is let's look at this story from pete hegseth's perspective. like, here is what pete hegseth is pitching people happened in this situation. and in this situation he is drunk at a conservative conference. at 1:30 a.m. he is screaming about how he has freedom of speech and berating a hotel staffer. then he takes a woman back to his hotel room for what he says is consensual sex. at the moment that that's happening, he is in between marriages. i think actually he still

technically married to his second waive. that marriage is becoming -- they are getting divorced because he had a child with someone that works for him, who then became his third wife. and in the meantime he is drinkingly, you know, doing whatever with the woman, jane doe, who is alleged sexual assault and what he says was consensual at a hotel in california. that he is under the age of 40. i mean, i am not judging anybody divorced or whatever. this guy's life is a disaster. this guy's personal life is a total disaster. he has a love child and is in between marriages and drinkingly shouting at hotel staff and having another affair meanwhile with not one of the three women that are his wives. it's like somebody's that much of a disaster, to do you want them in one of the most important jobs in the world? i mean, maybe if they had the resume for it. and they demonstrated the judgment in their work life they haven't shown in their personal

life. he is a talk show host. he a weekend morning talk show host. like, this is a preposterous pick on every level. like, he is not qualified for the job, and the judgment that he has shown privately leaves much to be desired. the only cover that he had for this nomination was the existence of matt gaetz, which is now gone because the people on the hill, republicans on the hill hated matt gaetz. so now that this sees the light of day, i don't know what the -- i just gave you the pitch for pete hegseth. like, what is the pitch? that he has to offer that he should be in charge of the pentagon? >> yeah, i mean, amy, you know, i always feel silly talking about the standards and the norms of the past, but when you are applying to work at the white house as a commissioned officer, i think any level at the white house, you had to fill -- i think it was, what, security form 286 or 86, and you go through every time you ever were around anybody smoking pot

ever in college and the fbi investigated you if you were going to have schedules, right. it wasn't even for top secret clearance. if you were going to have access to the 18-acre white house complex you were vetted and investigated by the fbi and things like gambling or buying drugs, you were out. sometimes you could come back in a year, maybe work at dmers, but you could not be a white house staffer. we now have people being plucked for the most precious jobs and the most valued agencies in our government who probably couldn't have been staffers in a normal time. what signal does that send to the men and women of the military? >> it's a terrible signal. i mean, the department of defense itself oversees three million people. $800 billion in terms of budget. you have to have an understanding of international

relations. you talk with world leaders. this guy has never even led a group more than, i don't know, a couple of dozen of people before in terms of managerial experience. you know, his only qualification seems to be that he, you know, served in combat, which is really great, but there is so many other things, as tim said, that you need. and it's about respect, too. this is a man who clearly does not have respect for minorities. he has called mine norty picks who are women, serving as admirals and generals diversity hires. he called generals who are black diversity hires. he doesn't have respect for the 45% of men or women who are minorities. he clearly doesn't have respect for women in the military. they are not going to have much respect for him because of that. it's really a toxic pick, and

don't even get me started on the women in combat thing because that's pretty personal to me. he is a terrible pick. >> i am going to go there with you, amy. let's do that. let me show you what general milley said on that very topic last night. >> women have been in combat and it doesn't matter if that 762 hits you in the chest, no one gives a [ bleep ] if it's a woman or guy who pulled the trigger. you are still dead. if you meet the standards, our military must be and always should be a standard-based mayor merit-based military, period, full stop. doesn't matter if you are white, black, a man, a woman, catholic, property accident. what matters are standards, readiness standards. do you meet the standard or not. if yes, pass, go, collect 200, join the infantry. >> i imagine you agree with

that? >> yeah. and you know what? many of us worked for decades to make that happen, even as a young girl i was trying to have the military, get the military to open up jobs, and all throughout my career i was trying to get the military to open up more jobs for women. and the thing that i loved about the military in my experience is that just what milley said. it is a meritocracy. they care about can you shoot, drive the tank, can you drop the bomb, can you take the $70 million aircraft and land it on the back of an aircraft carrier at night in bad weather. if you can, great. if you meet the standard, great, you're in. if can't, you can't. what guys like pete hegseth don't understand is women have been doing these jobs. he may not have served with any. but we have been doing them and we have been doing them with honor and distinction for decades. and so for anybody to say we don't belong there is just a

slap in the face to those of us, frankly, who have already been there. it's almost like, nicolle, if a local tv announcer anchor in tulsa, oklahoma, said to you i don't think there should be women in a major network doing major tv shows like you, you would laugh at that. those of us that served who have been in these combat positions laugh at guys like pete hegseth. the problem is now he could be secretary of defense. >> i feel like i might be sending that on my resume. i wouldn't laugh. i take your point. let me show more of what general milley had to say. this is about how the military is reacting to threats of court martials. >> i would imagine right now that there is probably some eyebrows raised in the pentagon or out in units. i don't think they are obsessed with it. they don't know what it means, what it consists of. no one actually laid this stuff

out. >> we will soon find out. >> bottom line, breathe deep, america's going to be okay. there is a lot of waves out there, but is a big, strong country. 380 million people. great institutions. great people. great work force. great younger cohort of people that are going to protect america. >> i think he sought to reassure there, sort of reassuring to hear him address it. amy and others said this is something trump tried to do in 1.0. this is something that hegseth -- to tim's point about the lack of qualifications, he is uniquely qualified to pursue the generals. i wonder what you think of this being sort of out there? >> well, as somebody who -- a third of my week is about military coups and what happens to military with authoritarian leaders. hegseth was a logical choice for

those who would like to see a more politicized military. again they are considering doing this groundbreaking, unprecedented thing of using the u.s. military for domestic repression, domestic operations. and it's important that hegseth has tattoos that are linked to far-right extremism and we know, of course, the military is strictly a nonpartisan institution, and we -- it's also interesting that he was making videos selling grenade soap. he was selling ammo. of course, the u.s. military uses government-issued ammo. he was selling something not a handgun someone might keep around the house to defend. he was selling something for grenades, military-level, you know, weapons. and who buys those who is not in the military? militias. you know, people like that. extremists buy those things.

military-level weapons and they are not in the military. so, you know, hegseth could be, for those who want to radicalize the military and politicize it, he could be a bridge because of his views. and that's very, very dangerous. and i am not saying the military would go along with it, but this nomination forces us to pose that question. >> all right. i want to keep pressing and bring tim in on this. i have to sneak in a break. we will have much more with all of you as donald trump's pick to head the pentagon faces new questions and growing opposition. also ahead for us, bracing for trump's second term in office. our allies in europe putting on a brave face publicly, but officials there are privately fretting over the, quote, million things that could go wrong. atlantic staff writer mckay interviewed many of them. he joins us later to talk about it. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. you could have the power to unlock benefits beyond

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every single secretary of defense has come in with the idea of reforming the pentagon. it is extraordinarily difficult. and it takes in my view, first of all it takes mature leadership and it takes an alliance should say, between th the senators and congressmen up on hill who pass the laws. if alyou are going to do is company in with a wrecking ball and just blow things apart, then what you will get is rubble. if that's what you want, that's awesome. if you want rubble. that's not going to defend the united states. so we absolutely have to transform the pentagon, and it's

going to take an effort, and industry outside, guys like elon, vivek, whoever, should can be very helpful. but it has to be done correctly. >> rubble. wow. that was former chairman of the direct chiefs mark milley in conversations with steph ruhle. back with amy, ruth and tim. tim, i'm happy to see general milley out there. and the truth is the people who love the institutions the most are the most enthusiastic about fresh eyes and reform. but i think what's stark is that what he is making clear there is that that's not what they are to go at all. it is about rubble. it is about destroying these agencies. >> yeah, i think there are two insights there worth sitting on. one is an observation about this incoming administration and what they want to do and it's plain as day. they say they ant to dismantle the administrative state. that is their plan.

it is their stated goal. and i don't think that they care about whether there will be some shrapnel organslary damage related to that. and so i think that's something that the people should be alarmed about and i think it's a clear-eyed assessment of what the incoming add administration wants to do. the second part, the democrats then get put in this box, right, and i think it's one of the things that they struggled with during the election was democrats and us and pro-democracy types are always in the position of having to defend these institutions and be the institutionalists and be, you know, someone like we should keep the administrative state. it's like, well, the administrative state is not that popular. lead institutions many of them, the military, not that popular. so finding a way to talk about what milley just talked about, but, yes, we need to reform, not destroy much that's a big challenge for the rest of us in

the coming years. >> one of the them though, tim, if i could just come back to you on this, is that when you work in the government and the government does big things, for example, after 9/11 when i worked in the government, you are putting a face on the people. there is no blob of a deep state, right. they are the men and women of the fbi who pledge to never again fail to connect the dots and keep america safe. you have the men and women of the cia who are working every single daybreak neck pace to declassify plots and it was an effort to, quote, if you see something, say something. and part of the reason they become these targets is because there is no one there defending them. and i think that is unsustainable. i think you can almost predict that in the coming weeks donald trump will target a deep state and he will target some career person, either at doj or the pentagon or maybe someplace we are not talking about yet that

won't do what he wants him to do. the reaction can't be what it was last time. see what comey or mccabe -- they are targeted because they stand for the truth. i think the conversation that should be going on with people leading the tops. agencies should be how do we defend the public servants -- you talk privately with officials leading the biden administration and theythe line. really? robert mueller didn't charge donald trump with any crimes for a variety of reasons. the jack smith investigations were never adjudicated. the democrats pro-democracy coalition didn't prevail. $130,000 a year career servant with two kids in school is going to have to defend democracy? no. all of us have to defend the people who are targeted because they stand for the rule of law or they stand for morality and ethics and character in the military or they stand for the irs not prosecuting donald trump's political enemies or

they stand up and say, i don't think this is right. i don't disagree with you that it's hard to defend the status quo, about but the only reason you can attack the status quo is because they are nameless faceless democracies when they are people like amy who defend their country instead of going and cashing out in silicon valley or wall street. >> i agree with that. it's so tough. here is the reality. it's easy to be an arsonist. it's easy to burn something down. it's hard to be an architect, build something, protect something. it's unfair, but it's our reality. so i think that's right. and we need to defend, absolutely. and put forth the public servants that are targeted and defend their dignity and honor and protect them and build institutions around them on the outside that can support them, on the legal side, the pr side. that needs to happen the next four years. at the same time, the democrats have to figure out how they can do that and have a message about how they also want to reform things and make things better.

and it's hard to do both of those. it's a lot easier to have the little flame gun from "the simpsons." but that's just our reality unfortunately. >> amy, you are sort of in both spaces on the ground doing the work and in these spaces talking about it. what are your thoughts on this? >> well, it is really hard. this didn't just happen in the last couple of years. i mean, republicans have had this anti-big government push that, you know, for decades really. and this is one of the reasons why many civil servants vote for democrats because democrats don't disparage their jobs the way that the republicans have for so many years. donald trump just took it to a new level. but in terms of the military folks who work within the department of defense and those of us who work in the military or are now out, the thing about

leadership is trust is the currency of effective leadership in the united states military. and when you look at a guy like pete hegseth, not a whole lot of people, or once they learn about him, are going to have that trust that he is going to have their backs in terms of protecting the military from donald trump using the military in unethical ways. how we trust a guy like pete hegseth? how can we trust he will do the right thing when he has lied, that he promotes conspiracy theories, when he wears a white supremacist tattoo. that is ultimately a recipe for toxic -- a toxic leadership environment all the way at the top. >> ruth, it's like deconstructing false narratives is to me, like, this proof about how the overton window has slid so far. the fact about pete hegseth is

that he doesn't protect joe biden's inauguration because there is some inside the military reporting about the significance and meaning of his various tattoos. and now he is donald trump's pick to head the department of defense. only in a politics where the narratives are so polarized and so fortified by disinformation and rage and permission structures for all sorts of things that were once unthought of in our politics and certainly in positions like secretary of defense to something like that happen, how do we get back to reality? >> well, we get back to reality by informing the public of these processes. and one of the things that happens with authoritarianism is called hollowing out the institutions where the institutions are led by people who have the exact opposite

values and goals than the institution was built to protect. and the best example is, of course, the nominee for health and human services who doesn't believe in vaccines, who wants to stop, you know, medical research and instead of keeping the population healthy would spread disease. or you have as i mentioned before, hegseth with his white extremist tattoo and his, you know, selling grenades, selling ammo, and he is supposed to be the head of the strictly non-partisan institution. or tulsi gabbard, who is, you know, considered by both russia and intelligence experts to be very sympathetic and allegiant in some ways to the kremlin. and so instead of protecting national security, our national security would be more compromised than ever. so we have to -- the first step

is, because so many people, you know, voted republican and so many people didn't oat vote at all, they were, you know, then there were people misinformed, district informed and didn't want to be informed. we have to really double down on explaining to people how this can go, what the processes are, and what the outcomes are. i have always tried to stress outcomes of authoritarian politics because they are devastating. >> ruth, stick around a little bit longer. amy, thank you for starting us off and tim miller who had to run. ahead for us, how europe is bracing for the next trump presidency. officials there trying to remain calm, but behind the scenes there is high levels of anxiety. there is some brand-new reporting from mackay coppins on all of that. we will have it for you after a short break.

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i think zelenskyy is one of the greatest salesman i ever seen. he should never have let that war start. that war is a loser. >> do you want ukraine to win this war? >> i want the war to stop. one of the presidents of a big country stood up, said, well, sir, if be don't pay and we're attacked by russia, will you protect us? no, i would not protect you will. i would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.

>> so out there, right? everything we need to know. trump didn't hesitate. he certainly didn't mince words or even seem conflicted or torn about threatening a 75-year alliance. so now our nato allies are understandably justifiably preparing publicly and privately for trump 2.0 because they have accepted as mackay coppins writes that they are, quote, just going to have to deal with trump all over again. also tackling their own unease and uncertainty about vladimir putin and perhaps doing all of tv without the united states. he writes in "the atlantic" this, quote, on the record, we are as calm can be. quote, we approach the next trump presidency with calm and focus. not wobbling in panic. then he asked if he could speak anonymously. i agreed. quote, obviously, he said, a

million things could go wrong. let's bring in staff writer for "the atlantic" and msnbc contributor mackay coppins. ruth is still here. take us through your really important piece of reporting. i feel like this is something we will turn back to again and again. >> yeah, i think it's going to be a big story over the next four years. i was on this show with you earlier this year talking about my reporting this past spring in europe. i talked to diplomats and officials, elected leaders across europe and all of them were obsessively following this presidential election, and almost all of them said that the stakes for this election were existential for europe, right. what they were saying is that if donald trump comes back to power, we don't know what will happen to nato, the 75-year alliance that's kept europe safe three quarters of a century, what will happen in ukraine. we don't know if they will give the country away to vladimir putin.

europe is so reliant on the u.s., and so talking to them after this election, i called some of these same people back, and, you know, they said that again when i allowed them to kind of go on background and speak candidly, all said, look, the difference this time compared to 2016 is we are in a much more precarious place than we were at that time. also we are now coming to terms with the reality that trump wasn't kind of some historical accident, right. a lot of them wanted to believe when he won in 2016 it was a fluke, a black swan event. now they realize they can't ride out this trump term and hope for a snap back to normalcy. they are going to have to realize that at least half the country seems to support this kind of america first hard-edged isolationism that trump represents. >> one of the things that i

think hung over the relationship and the dynamic was sort of a question mark about russia. i think for trump as well, right, the spector of a criminal investigation into his campaign's ties with russia. and so when he went on his first foreign trip i remember h.r. mcmaster powell signaling to the press he will confirmed article 5 and take this and he didn't do it. i think something like the second or third or fourth address. maybe later than that that he finally does it. feels like the mask is off the j.d. vance is his running mate. tucker carlson is his confidant, elon musk, tulsi gabbard is the dni. how do they make practical decisions about intelligence sharing? >> it's a good question. that's something that came up in several conversations. one long serving diplomat i spoke to said in 2016 we were

worried that trump would get across from putin at the negotiating table and be conned or tricked or manipulated by putin because trump seemed like a basically unserious figure with somewhat uninformed ideas of foreign policy. the fear now is that he is not -- not that he is not savvy. we realize what he actually believes about foreign policy and about russia and nato in particular, and now we're worried he will make good on what he publicly said, right. so what does that mean for intelligence sharing? that's one of several questions. tulsi gabbard, i mean, you know, i talked to an official in one european country who said that tulsi gabbard, we don't know the extent of her connection to russia. we know that she has frequently parroted, you know, russian talking points, kremlin talking points in public. she has expressed a little bit too much admiration for and comfort with the russian position in the current war in ukraine, and that's enough to

kind of alarm our european allies let alone allegations of kind of what ties she may have in the country. >> there is so much more. i have to sneak in a break. we'll be right back. back. o give a little ♪] [♪ take a little ♪] giving without expecting something in return. ♪ giving that's possible through the power of dell ai with intel. so those who receive can find the joy of giving back. ♪ [♪ that's the glory of love. ♪] we all need fiber for our digestive health, but less than 10% of us get enough each day. good thing metamucil gummies are an easy way to get prebiotic, plant-based fiber. with the same amount of fiber as 2 cups of broccoli. metamucil gummies the easy way to get your daily fiber. we are living with afib. and over 400,000 of us have left blood thinners behind...

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we will overcome hate and injustice. so please call or go online to helpfighthate.org today. (luke) alright, let's settle down, everybody. so please call or go now that we have a completely new homes-dot-com with a beautiful new design— and the most in-depth info— all we need now is a new name. (marci) do we? (luke) so, we're gonna lock the doors and stay late until we find that name that's synonymous with shopping for homes. (marci) here's a wild idea: homes-dot-com? (luke) we're gonna go with homes-dot-com. we're gonna keep it. i love it. fresh. innovative. this has been fun. (vo) homes-dot-com. we've done your home work. leader of hungary, said when asked what happened with the world it's falling to pieces, there are wars all over, he said bring back trump to the

presidency. he gets along with kim jong-un, north korea. a lot of nuclear weapons. i got along with him great. they said, is president xi of cheney a smart man? no, he is a brilliant man. imagine president xi, putin, all of them, they are all smart, tough. they love their country or want to do well with their country, all ideology. >> back with mckay and ruth. taking that in, the first time i watched that mash post-election. we are doing this again where the only people on the world stage who are flattered and praised are the world's autocrats. how do our allies hear that and process to build on mckay's reporting? >> i mean, with great concern because trump is very clear where his sympathies lie. and there is two, you know, he

has a double purpose in constantly praising these autocrats. one is to condition the american public, which he did successfully enough to get elected, that strong man rule is better than kind of democracy and delegitimized all the democratic leaders. but he also is indicating his sympathies on the international stage. those are the people he praises. and i really see a lot of this sympathy towards this autocratic axis is that is forming. we are in a very die nan i can period among these countries. they are moving closer together to the extent that north korea has soldiers fighting, you know are for putin in ukraine. and everything that everything that donald trump says is really, i see this as trying to help a new international order come into being that helps autocrats, that helps putin in

particular. the initial clip you played where he said zelenskyy should never have let that war start, referring to ukraine, this is an old putin partner line, either nato made a war start or it's never putin's fault. it's always the other person. and it's the same with actually reorienting in part the duties of the u.s. military, which if you are an autocrat and you're an enemy of america, the powerful and professional u.s. military is a huge problem. and so what do you do? you reorient them to domestic duties. get out of nato. this is how i see this frame. it's not really isolationism as much as creating circumstances that help autocrats have hoe o /- homogeny. >> you have done reporting on

mitt romney and i lived through john mccain's defiance of a president of his party. is there anyone who will stand up for democratic allies in the united states senate today? >> there are a lot of democrats who will, i imagine. what's interesting is that i think that a lot of the republicans serving in the senate secretly still have these kinds of pro-nato, pro-alliance views. the question is just what it's always been throughout this entire trump era, how much are they willing to stick their necks out to defy donald trump politically to say what they actually believe. i will say that some of the europeans i spoke to expressed some sense of relief that marco rubio is the one trump chose to be his secretary of state. you know, some of the foreign policy appointments, they say these are republicans who whatever kind of posturing they have done in recent years to cozy up to trump do seem to hold

relatively traditional views of the alliance. but again the question is just will they be able to act on those views. will they be able to advance that more traditional american agenda abroad, or will they be, you know, toadies to donald trump and whatever whims he is following. >> i want to ask you, ruth, what you think the first flashpoint will be in terms of the first test and what the autocratic axis will be watching fortunately. >> you know, trump has -- trump and trumpers have been, including his friends like orban, have been circulating it this halg peace. autocrats are not for peace. they pretend they are for peace and unity. in this narrative, every time orban goes to see putin or xi, meats with xi, he posts peace,

the hashtag. donald trump is the peacemaker. donald trump is the only thing standing in the way of preventing world war iii. this is a big talking point. so ukraine, you know, forcing some kind of -- posing as the negotiator, the peacemaker and forcing some kind of terms that are terrible for ukraine, selling out ukraine because he is sympathetic to putin would be one first conflict that he wants to say that he has resolved as the peacemaker of the world. >> we will be watching. mckay coppins and ruth, thank you for spending time with us. it's so disturbing that eyes wide open. thank you. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. us we'll be right back. yes, just hurry. hmm. it must be delicious. delectables lickable treat.

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we are so grateful you are here. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. >> hi, nicolle. i thought we would be living through many developments today but today is earlier than expected. i know you have been covering it, but i really feel like everyone was reminded that facts can matter, reporting matters, materials that have been developed by investigative process, some of which haven't come out, maybe should, matter, and that there are limits still. >> yeah. i hope that's right, that there is limits and a line. i remember in 2017 saying the bottom is calling, wants to know if we are there yet. i don't know if that's it. i think what is true is