agreed to dismiss the case against sigh mond and a court held that the other defendants could not be found liable. as for that young man? he graduated to adulthood weighted with a sober reality. >> he will have to live with the fact the person he loved will be in prison for eight years. >> indeed. abigail simon served those eight years then was released on parole. love is blind sometimes, but this kind of love? not just a crime, it was a tragedy. >> announcer: that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm andrea canning. thanks for watching. andrea canng thanks for watching. good morning and welcome to this saturday edition of "morning joe" weekend. it was a busy week in politics so let's get to some of the conversations you might have

missed. >> former florida congressman matt gaetz withdrew as president-elect touch's nominee for attorney general. this puts a lot of pressure on trump because now there's not much time to find somebody worse. >> he dropped out on social media, posting, while the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the trump/vance transition. that is true. all of this attention on this sex criminal was unfairly distracting from the criminal work of all of the other sex criminals who have been nominated. >> this was a shocking announcement from the trump team, and as you can see, no one was more surprised than matt gaetz. >> donald trump has announced a new attorney general pick. the name is pam bondi. bondi served as the state attorney general in florida from 2011 to 2019. before that she spent more than 18 years as a prosecutor,

currently a partner at a lobbying firm. bondi has long ties with the president-elect. back in 2016 on the eve of the republican primary in florida, bondi endorsed trump, picking him over the candidate from her own state, senator marco rubio. the 59 year old later joined trump's legal team, defending the then-president in his first impeachment trial. when trump's first attorney general jeff sessions was ousted in 2018, bondi's name was floated then as a possible replacement. in a statement announcing his new ag pick, president-elect trump called bondi an america first fighter, saying she will, quote, refocus the doj to its intended purpose of fighting crime, and making america safe again. >> and, willie, course, right now palm beach county's state attorney, ran against pam bondi

in 2010 for state attorney general in florida. we will have him later on in the show to talk about the new ag pick. >> yeah, and we will have more on who she is and what she might bring to the job if she is confirmed in just a minute. but pam bondi's name came about very quickly yesterday because matt gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for attorney general. gaetz explained his decision, writing on social media, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the trump/vance transition. gaetz, of course, embroiled in his own scandals facing allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. the former congressman denies those claims. sources tell nbc news at least five senate republicans were planning to vote against gaetz and had communicated to other senators and those close to trump they are unlikely to be swayed on gaetz. at least 20 senators were uncomfortable with having to vote for gaetz for attorney general. the former congressman could only afford, of course, to lose the support of three republicans to be confirmed, assuming no

democrats would have voted for him. so what happened here? joining us now, congressional reporter for "the hill" michael shh kneel. nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent, ken dilanian as well. good morning to you both. michael, let me start with you and how this fell apart so quickly. we had heard privately and then publicly from some senators in the last 24 hours or so that they couldn't get the gas on matt gaetz, it was perhaps the one nominee they were able to take down. why did this happen in the end and why did he walk away? >> yeah, well, willie, we know that -- excuse me -- former congressman matt gaetz was on capitol hill two days ago, the day before he dropped out, when drew his name from consideration, and he had these meetings with senators. senators seemed to be keeping an open mind, saying that the president-elect deserved to pick who he wants in these positions and let them have their say and defend their nomination. but we were also hearing from those same senators that they wanted to see the ethics report

into matt gaetz. they wanted to see the allegations and the information that had been gathered over roughly three-and-a-half years by the house ethics committee. now, the panel had been debating and weighing whether or not to release that report. this week they declined to release the report. the vote to release the report had failed. i spoke to a source familiar with the situation who told me that members left that meeting with the understanding that the report would be, quote, ready by the time of their next meeting could potentially happen then and a vote could be successful on releasing this report. so i think with the skepticism among senators, having this real possibility of an ethics report coming out, whether it be through a formal vote of a committee, whether it be through a leak from the committee or right now there are even house democrats who are pushing to have a floor vote on forcing this ethics committee to release its report into matt gaetz. there seemed to be this concern that at the end of the day he wasn't going to be able to wrangle enough votes that his confirmation hearing would potentially be a spectacle on

the senate side. there were some senators saying it would cavanaugh on steroids, of course referring to the confirmation hearing for brett kavanaugh that grabbed headlines. at the end of the day it is clear that the trump transition team and former congressman matt gaetz decided it wouldn't be worth putting him through the next few weeks of this confirmation process, having this incessant headlines. instead, have him step aside and put somebody else up for the job. >> and now questions about what happens to matt gaetz. does he go back to his congressional seat? was he promised something by president trump to p to step as like perhaps filling the senate seat in florida that will be vacated by marco rubio? we will see in time. let's look at the new choice for donald trump, pam bondi, the first female attorney general in the state of florida, a defender of donald trump during impeachment, both as an attorney and on television. what else do we know about her and how justice is feeling about

this choice? >> well, one reaction i got from inside the justice department last night was this is matt gaetz with a better legal resume. but the legal resume is significant, willie and guys, because pam bondi was a career prosecutor down there in hillsborough county for many, many years before she was elected florida's first female attorney general. so she's prosecuted major cases, murders, death penalty cases. she understands how that works. matt gaetz had never really been much of a lawyer before he was elected to the florida legislature. that's a big difference. and, you know, she -- at the same time though she is, you know, an extreme maga activist and has tainted her legal career with very strong stands in favor of some questionable things. there was a famous incident back around ten years ago when, if you remember, trump university, that for-profit university that donald trump ran, was getting a lot of consumer complaints about being a scam, and her office was

asked to join a multi-state lawsuit and donald trump's foundation contributed $25,000 to her campaign and she opted not to join that lawsuit. his foundation was later fined for making an illegal contribution. so, look, she served her tenure, eight years at florida attorney general. she later went on to be one of donald trump's impeachment defense lawyers in the ukraine impeachment in 2020, made a speech on the house floor during the trial, arguing that there was a biden corruption scandal in ukraine and that's why that phone call was okay. she's also raised questions about fraud in the 2020 election, which people think were baseless. so it is a bit of a mixed bag, but people are breathing a little bit of a sigh of relief at the justice department that at least she is a real lawyer and that her deputies, todd blanche, donald trump's defense attorney, does have a lot of experience at the justice

department and is also well-regarded over there. so net/net, people are thinking it is a much better situation than matt gaetz, but she is certainly a donald trump loyalist who has also raised questions about weaponization at the justice department and may really cause some trouble over there from the perspective of some of the career folks. guys. >> all right. nbc's ken dilanian, thanks so much. rev, let's look at the headline. obviously yesterday, you know, we have been saying on this show it is like the old idas commercials about when the ethics report and all of the bad information came out on matt gaetz, you either pay us now or you can pay us later, and the later it is the closer it is to, you know, the more that it is actually in the middle of the new -- the new presidency. i think that's the last thing they obviously -- they didn't want to see this scandal in the senate probably in january and february. "morning joe" weekend will be right back. o.

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♪ ♪ you're good. -very good. jonathan, let's start with you, willie. >> you sat down with former president bill clinton in an interview for the new book. in your discussion president clinton weighed in on the democrat's loss in the presidential election and the importance of the party speaking to rural voters. here is what he said. >> politics is the only business in which you can prove your authenticity by not knowing anything. you know, and i think that's a problem and we'll pay for it unless we get over it. but that's a problem for the democrats too. we have to learn to talk to people in ways that they can relate to, that explains that. that's why, you know, when i

helped, i did my best to help this time, i don't want to go to any big rallies and big television things. i just want to get in the country. just go out and talk to people, because i think that we're behind in the sense that a lot of the small town and rural people are now highly sophisticated in how they get their information, and there are zillions of new websites now, all trying to advance their sort of conservative to right-wing radical cause, and a lot of times we're not playing on the same field and we're not even being heard. so i just said, send me out there and i'll see if i can't do some good. i have no idea if i did, but i tried. so where does the democratic

party go from here? because senator bernie sanders who doesn't even belong to the democratic party says that the party wasn't progressive enough. do you see it that no. no. i mean look at me, i'm progressive enough. the infrastructure bill, they have 60,000 i thing projects underway. they soon will be up to 100,000, and the chips bill. they're all over america and, interestingly enough, both of those bills a majority of the investments have been in rural, red areas. so they've tried to do it on the basis of merit but help people who feel left out and left behind in small towns and rural areas. if you look at the inflation

reduction act, that benefits everybody, you know, the work they do in the $35 per month limit on insulin and the $2,000 a year limit on medical costs. so, no, i don't think -- i think he means by that that we should have been more against big corporations. and if you take a poll, you find people in both parties really do favor that. that's why we can always pass a vote on raising the minimum wage in a red state, because blue collar workers who distrust the government feel like those votes are something they can control, and they are skeptical of big corporations. on the other hand, the richest guy in america, maybe the world,

elon musk, is up there listening in on foreign phone calls with the president-elect and they're not too concerned about it. >> so, jonathan, you spent a lot of time with president clinton for that interview. what were your big takeaways? what does he really view as the root of the problem for democrats right now? >> in the end, and it is great to see you, willie. >> you too. >> it has been a long time. >> i know. >> you can boil down everything we just heard and also the rest of my conversation with president clinton and the democrat's problem to this. democrats need to go out there and talk to people. i think in that clip he said he told the harris/waltz campai dio big stadiums. he wanted to get out in the country, climb over barbed wire fences and you talk to people. in the book talk we did later after that interview, he said, if you scratch someone long enough eventually you will hit a real person, and in that he

means democrats have to go and talk to people, meet them where they are. excuse me. talk to them about the issues that they care about and, where possible, and as he was talking about the inflation reduction act, tell them what you have done to address the issues and address their concerns. >> so, jonathan, we know that bill clinton was in 2016 worried that the working class voter was slipping away from democrats. certainly more evidence of that now. you know, these are -- democrats took losses across the board, 49 out of 50 states. did you get a sense nse from hi that this is correctable, this is just politics, that it is cyclical? does he think there's something deeper here? what are solutions? >> he does think it is correctable, but he believes that the democrats need to get to it, that the next four years are going to be a test, not just for the party but for the country. but he views his role as being

somebody who, you know, plays the joyful warrior, if you want to use a word, a phrase from the '24 campaign, that democrats and the american people have to be vigilant and they have to talk to each other. you know, the interesting thing about the book -- and i have it here. i read the whole -- you can see my little notes. i read the whole book. you know, he does an excellent critique of the press. he does an excellent critique of media coverage of democrats versus republicans. he talks about the republican party and how it is completely different from the republican party he dealt with when he was president. the republican party he dealt with after he was president. he writes, you know, great stories about president george h.w. bush, president george w. bush, his relationships with republicans within the party. and so, you know, this book, i

really encourage people, especially people, you folks sitting there around the table to get his take on what's been happening in american politics and what needs to be done to try to turn things around. >> jonathan, bill clinton's certainly a master politician and tactician. he has been quoted in press accounts as saying that he felt democrats were too slow to respond to the anti-trans ads that were running by the trump campaign, towards the end of the campaign. did he discuss that with you? >> we did not talk about that, but he does write about it briefly in the book. but as part of the overall message, which is, one, you got to talk to -- you got to meet people where they are and you've got to talk to them and listen to them. and then when they tell you things, because he was hearing about this throughout the country and reached out to the campaign and the campaign didn't -- didn't think it was -- well, they responded -- they

didn't respond quickly enough. what he's saying to -- what he was saying to the campaign, what he is saying to the party now is when there are attacks like that, you can't -- you've got to take them seriously. basically, you've got to take them all seriously and you have to address them because in this -- and this is my interpretation. because in this fractured, unbelievably fractured media environment you can leave nothing to chance, as we know and he writes it and he said in that clip you just showed, people are getting their information and their news from all sorts of sources. so you can't just rely on one rally, one interview to get your point across. >> all right. jonathan, it is great seeing you. come back soon. thank you. congratulations on this interview. >> thanks, a lot, joe. still ahead, democratic sen at-elect ruben gallego will be our guest to talk about his win

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share more. one of the few bright spots for democrats this election came in arizona where democratic congressman ruben gallego won the state's open senate seat, despite the fact trump beat kamala harris there by 5.5 points. the combat veteran performed significantly better with latinos and particularly latino men, a group that nationwide favored trump and senator-elect gallego joins us now, the first latino to represent arizona in the upper chamber of congress. congratulations. >> thank you. >> i have so many questions. i'm curious, what about your campaign did you do differently that you think might be transferable to campaigns across the country for democrats? >> look, i think i had one advantage. number one, i started this

campaign 23 months before the election, and for a lot of reasons i had to do that but i used that time to go out and a talk to everyone. i am talking democrats, republicans, independents. in the end we ended up winning about 12% of republicans, a lot of independence, and we also targeted latino men from day one as a swing vote because coming from my background, you know, growing up, you know, working class poor, i knew, and hearing from men in my community, they were really feeling the effects of the economy, especially inflation. we decided that we had to target them from day one or else they were going to not be coming out to vote at all and/or voting against me. i had 23 months to do that. i think other campaigns maybe did not have that, but something we should always be thinking about going forward is making sure that we are talking to people, and we are talking to them about what they're hearing, what they're feeling, that we want them to feel and/or see. >> mr. senator-elect,

congratulations. i want to get your take on news this morning, perhaps particularly relevant to you representing a border state. at 4:03 a.m., yes, 4:03 a.m. president-elect donald trump posted on truth social. true! when response to someone's comments here that the administration will be preparing to declare a national emergency and will use military assets as part of its mass deportation program. can you give us your reaction to that, which would be a remarkable escalation and use of power? >> look. i don't think arizonans or americans in general want to replace chaos at the border with chaos in our communities. the idea soldiers will be carrying out these type of deportations i think, number one, is not something we in the united states are used to seeing. number two, you will actually really diminish the scope and the trust people have for our military forces when they're being used against u.s. citizens potentially, too. let's not forget we have a lot

of mixed families. i think there's proper ways for all of us to work together. i think there is a loud, clear message that people are unhappy with the security at the border. i think with due process and with, you know, actual -- actually following our american valuesborder, we can't actually make sure we get rid of some of the illegal immigrants that do have criminal background and are dangerous, but involving the military is not going to make us a stronger country. i think it is a very dangerous situation that the president potentially will be putting our military and our military readiness as well as what people believe the military is to the united states. >> senator-elect, one of the ways we've come out of the election is what data that now has been going around democratic circles thinking we should not think about latino voters just as american voters, many of whom are working class. you have been making a decision tinks talking about the role that latino men seem to have

culturally and in their families, feeling they should be the provider in their families and they're not able to do that. how do you square that circle and is it something you think is unique to latino or an issue democrats should be thinking about with all men in the united states? >> it is not unique to latino men. this is the thing all men across the country feel, it is just there happens to be a lot of them in arizona and i particularly have a viewpoint into that growing up, you know, working class, latino, as a veteran. i was able to, i would say, tap into a lot of the sentiment i heard from all of the men growing up, all of the carpenters, all of the cooks, all of the janitors, you know, the mechanics that i grew up that were just trying really to live the american dream, trying to provide for their family, trying to make sure they kept a roof over their head or even, you know, do simple things like take a vacation and live well. but this is something that is across the country, whether you

are an african american father in georgia or a white man in appalachia, you do want to provide for economic security for your family and just physical security. it doesn't diminish, i think, the role of women and mothers either because i was raised by a single mother, and thank god that she, you know, had that much strength and power. but we can't just deny that there is something out there that is pulling men away from the party that does provide economic security to someone like donald trump and the republican party that does not provide that. >> senator-elect gallego, i would love to get you to weigh in on some of the latest nominations, especially as a veteran yourself, on the ones, the picks for dod and other national security positions. >> well, look, any national security position has to begin with question number one, are you going to protect the constitution of the united states. number two, are you going to be integral and part of our national security apparatus to the point where we feel that

you're going to take care and protect us and our service members. two of the picks so far are questionable. they're going to have to answer some very hard questions. why? because we have millions of men and women that will be under the charge of the secretary of defense and potentially for dni, tulsi gabbard, will have to talk to a lot of our allies. if our allies are questioning our ability to keep, you know, top secrets or whether or not we are going to be there in the end when, you know, push comes to shove, it actually really deteriorates our own base security in general. so they both have to answer some tough questions in addition to some of the things we've heard them say and/or do in the past. >> all right. senator-elect ruben gallego of arizona, congratulations on your win. thank you very much for coming on the show. >> thank you. have a good one. >> all right. take care. up next, itzer

prize-winning author peggy newnan will join the conversation to talk about her book, "a certain idea of america." "morning joe" is coming right back with that. coming right back with that with a replacement we could trust. that's service the way we want it. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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♪♪ ♪ how many seas must a wife does see before she sleeps in his hands ♪ ♪ yes, and how many times must a

cannon balls fly before they fall ♪ ♪ the answer, my friend ♪ ♪ is blowing in the wind ♪ ♪ the answer is blowing in the wind ♪ ♪ ♪ that was the great bob dylan back in 1963, performing the classic "blowing in the wind." that song, along with dylan's life, are celebrated in the new book from pulitzer-prize-winning writer peggy noonan entitled "a certain idea of america." the wall street columnist draws on her previous writings teaching readers how to see and love the united states. peggy joins us now. peggy, it is good to see you. >> it is wonderful to see you. good morning, mika. good morning, joe. >> good morning, peggy! it is so great to have you here. you know, book is such a

wonderful read. it reminds me in part of charles krauthammer who i absolutely loved his work and writing. when charles wrote his last book, he said, this isn't going to be about the day-to-day of politics, the messy details that will not survive decades. i'm going to write about things that matter, bigger things that matter, and that's what you say here. this isn't about the day-to-day scrum of politics. it is about something bigger. talk about it and why you decided to write this book. >> well, a publisher came to me and said, let's do a direction, and i thought, i don't know about that. we looked at what i had written in the past few years and we continually saw a kind of attempt to celebrate great lives and see america in some sort of fresher way than perhaps we had been seeing it for the past ten

years, and we simply picked columns that were about great men and great women, great moments in history, great literature, geniuses like bob dylan, who is not only of course an iconic figure and a great songwriter but a winner of the nobel prize in literature. so we weren't leaning towards some sort of positivity, but we were leaning towards there are good things here, let's talk about them. >> well, and let's talk about them. first though, if you don't mind if we don't talk about the scrum of politics, the current situation. >> sure. >> because i think about you, and you have this sort of perfect arc to explain a lot about what's happened to the democratic party. if i remember your bio right, you can't -- you know, you were out as a young child with jfk

flyers, your family was democratic. >> yes, yeah. >> you came from like mike barnicle and chris matthews, you came from a catholic, irish catholic family, and we just had on a few minutes ago sherri brown who was really a champion of working families and seemed better connected to working families in ohio up until this election than i think any democrat on the scene and he got blown out. so we asked him -- he's still grappling with it. >> yeah. >> i'm curious as somebody that has seen this full arc, what do you think the disconnect between working class families and democrats, what do they need to do in your mind to reconnect? >> well, i listened to senator brown very closely and i thought his mind was very much on the

right things, but this is the way i see it. going through my life from the time i was a kid to the time i was a young woman the democratic party was seen as three things it seems to me. a, it was the party of the little guy. it was the party of the nobody. it was the party that was going to take care of people who were not protected in america. two, it was the party of generous spending. you know, they weren't too tight with the purse strings. they thought, spend the money, we will make it up at the end. three, they were the anti-war party by the '60s and '70s. joe, it seems to me they have cedes that territory to the current republican party, to the trumpian party. the trumpian party, the republican party says we are the party of the little guy, we are the party of generous spending.

you think you guys can spend, hold my beer. >> exactly. >> we are the anti-war party. >> yeah. >> so, mika, if the democratic party was resting on these three pillars, little guy, anti-war, generous spending and it is all gone and they seem the party of an academic administrator of brown university, not the little guy, and they see more activists in the world and they are only as big spending as the republicans, they've lost their pillars. that means they either have to rebuild those pillars or find new pillars. >> mike -- >> that's how it seems to me. >> yeah. >> peggy, i was skimming through the book earlier today about 5:30 in the morning. >> thank you. >> and i came to a dead halt when i got to page 188 and your portrait in 2018 of a man i know and have truly admired, and he is horribly miscast by many in the media. it is wisdom of a non-idiot

billionaire ken langone. tell america with ken langone. >> ken langone was a little kid on long island, an italian american from a plain regular family, born i thinks perhaps eight decades ago, and went on and tried -- you know, was an ambitious kid, a poor student but an ambitious guy. got through college with the help and encouragement of a lot of people. tried to get a job on wall street because he thought, i'm an american, i'm going to get rich on wall street. they said, hey, you're a tall italian american kid, you can work in the back with the irish men and the jewish guys. you know, it was a whole other world 50 or so years ago. anyway, he started pretty much his own life as an investment banker, and he went on to invest in great things and he was a

very wealthy and philanthropic person now. he wrote a book about, hey, guys, you know, you can complain about this, complain about that, but free market capitalism is the thing that allows lives to happen because it makes jobs which allow families and burgeoning and generosity. so he's just a regular american, and i thought, you know, what? give him some praise. up next, actor josh brolin will join us. we'll talk about his long run in hollywood and his revealing new memoire. "morning joe weekend" will be right back. ng joe weekend" will right back you nailed it! you did it! with centrum silver, clinically proven to support memory in older adults.

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[ screeching ] [ chuckling ] it's good medicine. [ vocalizing ] that's a choice. [ vocalizing ] think of what we could do together. john, i'm sure historians will say, gosh, i wish he could have done better, this way or that way. i'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of the press conference, but in trying

to come up with an answer it hasn't yet. you know, i hope -- i don't want to sound like i haven't made no mistakes. i'm confident i have. it is just i haven't -- you know, really put me on the spot here, john. maybe i'm not as quick on my feet as i should be in coming up with one. >> all right. >> okay. hold on. okay. that was "w", right, josh brolin as president george w. bush. >> so good. >> in the 2008 movie. he is reflecting on his past mistakes in his new memoire entitled "from under the truck." a great, uplifting book. >> it is. >> tell them about it? >> in it he takes readers through his incredible life, the most dramatic ups and downs going all the way back to his childhood in california where the seeds were planted for a successful career and a

tumultuous personal life, and josh brolin joins us now. >> thank you. >> okay. i am -- may i start? >> sure. >> yeah. >> that's why you're here. >> let's start here with -- >> first of all, thanks for being here. i heard you guys are not here all the time. >> we're not. >> we're glad to be here and glad to have you. >> very happy. >> your mom -- i want to talk about your parents. >> okay. >> your late mother was a flight attendant in her early 20s but was afraid to fly unless she was drunk. she would insult and then out drink cowboys and truckers. she slept with a loaded .9 millimeter pistol at her bedside table. she was rumored to be on someone's hit lest. my parents are like horses that maybe fell out of a trailer along a stretch of highway on the grapevine and now have gone sour. my parents have a look in their eyes that always suggests that they may bite you at some point. one has a maniacal look ready to

strike at any moment and the other has the same placid, slow stare as lennie of "mice and men." >> let me tell you mika often does audio books for you so you don't have to read your own books. >> it is important. >> you have to land at tsa, administrator. >> both are dangerous. >> right. >> tell me about living with your parents. i feel empathy to you but i feel empathy to them, and explain why. >> explain why you feel empathy for them both? >> why one might. >> i think parenting, as we said before, us being parents, me being the parent of a 36 year old, a 31 year old, a 6 year old and a 3 year old, you find yourself, especially me, looking back on what kind of a parent i was when i was 20 years old. >> right. >> what kind of parent i was at 28, 37, 45, and it changes. >> it is amazing, yeah. >> we can go through the trajectory, our normal human

absurd circus trajectory. then you are having to raise kids and your responsibility is to hopefully get them to become as self-sufficient and sure of themselves as they can be. >> yes. >> and how do you do that when you are in a life of perpetual adolescence? for me, which i bring up here, the drinking and all of that, yeah, alcoholism or whatever, but alcohol had an effect on our hole family. >> right. >> that kept us in adolescence. so how are you supposed to -- >> are you saying you were born to drink? >> i was birthed to drink. that's different. my mother birthed me to drink. so i was -- without being too creepy i was a surrogate husband of sorts because my dad wasn't a drinker, he wasn't really a wild man. you know, he would have three beers and kind of hold on to the table to make sure nobody saw him swaying whereas my mother didn't. she drove 100 miles an hour in the car and i was to her, you k. it sounds -- you know, it is very hard to promote a book like

this because it is a very emotional book. you know, hopefully it is poetic and it is like literarily viable. the truth of the ter is i was spinning for about a month when i was doing the audible for this. i go, what the hell did i do? i have to burn any evidence that exists whatsoever. am i crazy? but now that people, kind of like your response, people are reading it and every response is different. i did howard stern, which you guys mentioned yesterday morning, and he obviously had read the whole book. >> yeah. >> and he had a visceral reaction. so there was this kind of kinship that we got to share throughout that two hours that that's what you hope for when you write something. i'm not writing about just my perpetual life on a red carpet waving at people. i don't find that particularly interesting. >> when i heard you were writing of this book and i thought of mcconaughey's book "green

lights" and i turn around and he's the endorsement on the back of the book. >> yes. >> i'm curious about the decision to write the book, given what you said reading through it. my, god, what have i gone, what am i releasing in the world. why did you feel it was important to take this out of your own heart and your own soul and share it with a bunch of other people? >> i don't think it is important. i don't think any of it is important. i just felt like -- i had written books before and kind of threw them into a dark corner and they gathered dust throughout the years. gathered dust throughout the years. so i have always written, but i loved the act of doing this because it wasn't for me. there was something with the idea of putting it out there -- you know, it is like when you hit 50 you either buy a porsche if you have the money to or you go another direction. it is almost like when you get sober, you are like, okay, i did that, i got away with it and now i'm going to live this life in the way i want to live it. so i feel like it is kind of a second-life moment where i'm writing plays and i'm directing now and i wrote this memoire. i think the process for me was

instead of -- again, this word -- dd adolescently copyin other writers i love, it was becoming my mine. when i wrote the book i wrote twice this, and the process of cutting it down and clarifying was the hardest and most enlivening learning process of my life. >> that's incredible. by the way, let's talk about roles. i want to start with a role. >> i can read as "w" if you like. >> no, please. >> no, mika has already done all of the reading. >> i have more sections i want to read. >> you actually have a connection with lawrence o'donnell. you know lawrence back from "mr. sterling." >> i do, from back in the day. >> yeah. >> that show didn't happen. it didn't work. it dig it up, but our friendship lasted and i like him very much. usually there's a couple of people in your life you go to and you go, how are we?

how we doing in this life. >> yeah, how we doing. >> and he usually gives it to you -- or gives it to me pretty groundedly. don't go anywhere. we have a second hour of "morning joe weekend" right after this break. hour of "morning joe weekend" right after this break do your dry eyes still feel gritty, rough, or tired? with miebo, eyes can feel ♪ miebo ohh yeah ♪ miebo is the only prescription dry eye drop that forms a protective layer for the number one cause of dry eye: too much tear evaporation. for relief that's ♪ miebo ohh yeah ♪

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welcome back to the second hour of "morning joe: weekend" on this saturday morning. let's jump back in to some of the big conversations we had over the past week. >> one of the problems with matt gaetz was, the senate was actually doing its job, asking tough questions. this is what is fascinating to me as we look at this. we have people, they have spent their entire adult life focusing on strengthening the military. what happens at the dod, it means the world to them, just like you. there are also people who committed their entire adult lives to strengthening the intelligence community, the intel community. so i am just going to say, i think you can count murkowski, i am guessing lisa murkowski and

susan collins out on voting for either of these two candidates for many of those reasons. that means there are two republicans but the question is, someone at the intel committee, as we know, the intel committee is that last committee, they stand shoulder to shoulder, marco rubio and mark warner. the intel community famously works together in most cases. two republican members on that committee? no, i can't put someone who is an apologist for assad in charge of intelligence and you can't have somebody who has no managerial experience running the most complicated bureaucracy in washington, d.c. and that is the question for republican senators right now. >> 100%. it is what is in the closet. these are big, important jobs at a critical time. you've got nearly 3 million people to oversee civilian and military when you run the pentagon, when you run the department of defense.

you could be involved in multiple conflicts and multiple geographies. you don't have an adequate industrial defense base. we could go on and on. this would be the focus of the hearings, in addition to any skeletons. what is this person's background and what remotely prepares him for the critical jobs of the united states at this turning point in history? you could say the same thing about tulsi gabbard. does she have the judgment, does she have the managerial experience to kourtney, was his -- what is it, 17 million? >> even without matt gaetz's scandals, all of these questions also point to an experienced aj. pam bondi has been the attorney general for the third largest state in america for eight years. matt gaetz barely practice law. again, you've got the justice department, you have to have somebody that has experience. the same with the dod, the same

with the intel agencies. when it comes to the dod and bureaucracies, someone you know, somebody who worked for dr. brezinski, someone he considered just the best, the best in washington, bob gates. i remember one of bob gates' books and he knew how to work washington better than anybody else. he said about 75% of his time was spent trying to stay one step ahead of the bureaucracy. he was a genius. it was a constant. he goes, these people, with good intentions, they have their agenda and there are hundreds of thousands of them. even if you go in with the morning at 8:00 a.m. and say i want to change this

policy, i will change that policy, he says, it is 4:00 in the afternoon and you are still trying to keep up. by the way, you have to do, our soldiers don't get food and all of that stuff. here you have the best at this saying, i may be the most experienced person of all but this is my greatest challenge. that is why if you put someone inexperienced there, they will be running in circles for four years. >> i have one of my first jobs in 1979 under the carter administration. one point, i was pressing for something, to get oversight over civilian planning, the colonel wasn't comfortable with it. from where i sit, they are christmas help. you are here for a while. you are going to be gone after the next election. i, however, will be here. this is my career. no way am i going to let you and other civilians get involved in the intricacies of our planning. >> that is a great story. >> that is what the pentagon is like. >> let's tell everybody, we will be talking about the fact that republicans added another

seat. dave mccormick in pennsylvania -- >> oh, my gosh. >> reporter: -- >> herculean task to be casey, we will be talking to you in the next segment about that one in, how tough it was for democrats, you are out there, you ran a great campaign, it was still an uphill battle but i remember, i am much older than you, when ronald reagan's people got in. they were saying a lot of things that were very similar to what the trump people are sa completely remake the bureaucracy. we will wipe these places out. about six months into it, they are like, why do we even come here? [ laughter ] >> it is a herculean task. if you want to change a bureaucracy, you had better have someone in place who knows how, who knows how to fight the

bureaucracy. >> to state the obvious, experience matters, to have the ability to understand this. we have a chief executive who was to set up panels to fire generalists -- generals, that is where being a loyalist is incredibly dangerous. if your number one is just loyalty to an executive to do things that just >> of authoritarian instincts, that smacks of fascism. >> you know what happens when you fire a general? >> you create a legend. when you create a legend, you start lawsuits, you start about a three-year war of this general or that general. it all sounds great. everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face for the first time. all of these things people are

flexing about, i am going to go in, i am going to fire this one and that one, you do that, you create a legend, you create a political opponent that has the entire country behind them and it makes things tough. "morning joe: weekend" will be right back. be r ♪♪ ight ♪ to buy, or not to buy? that is their question. and nobody knows shoppers better than shopify. the undisputed, undefeated, checkout champion of the world. businesses that want to win, win with shopify.

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new reaction now as the results of the presidential election reverberate throughout the country. ghout the country.

♪♪ incumbent democratic senator bob casey of pennsylvania now officially has conceded his race to republican dave mccormick. in a video posted to social media, senator casey said, quote, as the first count of ballots are completed, pennsylvanians can move forward with the knowledge their voices were heard, whether their vote was the first to be counted over the last. in response to casey's concession, mccormick released a statement that reads in part, senator bob casey dedicated his career to bettering our common well. dina, his wife, and i want to extend our sincere gratitude to senator casey, his wife and their children for the hard work

and personal sacrifice. with 99.8% of the vote in, mccormick won the race by just over 16,000 votes, a small margin of victory that triggered an automatic recount with results expected out next wednesday. there aren't any unexpected changes and republicans will hold the majority in the united states senate, 53-47 seat. joe, we can talk about the balance of power and what it means for the incoming trump administration but in these times, this is what we have to say, this is what it looks like to wait out a close race. he lost out by 16,000 votes, an automated recount, he concedes graciously, mccormick thanks him graciously for his service but this is how it is supposed to work. >> this sounds shockingly normal. this is how it appears to be. i will say, willie, we talked about it, what year are we in now, it was 2022, you know, dave mccormick, dave mccormick had, in the primary, he could have won against fetterman, a

very strong candidate but make no mistake about it. dave mccormick winning it, first of all, he is the type of republican candidate that can win a state like pennsylvania. a west point guy and ran a tough campaign. so, give dave mccormick his due, a great republican candidate, but i want to talk about what this means for the democrats because we had sharad brian on. i have to say, i knew that one of the democrats would have trouble this year and i thought sherrod wouldn't because he had such a relationship with voters and he got beat. here was the shot across the bow for democrats and working- class voters. as you know, the casey family is a legend in pennsylvania. casey would win, he only lost

by 17 points. white, working-class voters in pennsylvania love him, love his father, they stayed with the family through thick and thin. there weren't any close races. he has lost that. let's look at ohio. let's look at pennsylvania. asked, what does this mean for the democratic party. when we go on to talk about this, everyone i talk to, they say, you ran just about a "pitch perfect" race and yet, the headwinds for you, for casey for brown, just too much to get past. >> particular, you can run ahead of the ticket, there so much you can do. in the case of ohio, brown and casey, that is an alleghany region problem, a white

working-class problem that people have in the democratic party. for the headwinds, i keep thinking about one of my favorite quotes from bill clinton. people vote for strong and wrong every time. the democratic party has a strength problem on the issues that matter most, personal safety and economic security. those of the fundamentals. democrats have to get off defense. they can't be the default party of the status quo. i think that is the most dangerous place to be. i think right now they are seeing that way. people will take a chance if they seem like there are bold solutions on the other side, even if it flies in the face of facts. in blue states, you need to have a stronger, a center left standing up against the far right and the far left. you need to make sure you are dealing with things like the middle class squeeze, which is one of the biggest drivers of dissatisfaction, we have gone on for decades, the affordable crisis and civic disorder, the border, crying, you have a well-

intentioned bill that has unintended consequences, fix it. if people feel a specific decline is going on, democrats have to take that on and be the leaders of that report or they will be caught up in it. >> at the same time, john, i think you are correct. we got to see the democrats deal with those issues and go after the working-class, right? also, the black community. i think a lot of them play, a lot of democratic candidates make themselves. to the edges and the vulnerable and ignore black churches, ignore black fraternities and the investment for your solid voters, who may be more conservative and concerned about immigration, climb and things in a different way. i think they over engage some of the things that became trendy but their base was not energized. you could have won the votes in philly to make this different. >> that is a profound point, what happened in philly, what happened in milwaukee, what happened in cleveland? i make a point to go to black

churches, i think that is very important. it is also nourishing, right? you make a very important point. people have to get past the identity politics. not just the white working- class, youngstown, ohio, i think about that region but it is really just making sure folks feel like the american dream is accessible again, making sure that the middle class feels like if they work hard and play by the rules they can get ahead and right now they don't. we have been the default party and that has been unsustainable. >> sam stein here, john, good to see you, but. john and i work together. i was talking with chris murphy yesterday about this exact situation. one of the things we were talking about, i am curious what your thoughts are, how

should democrats move around this? you talked about, they are perceived as defenders of the status quo. he agreed that can be an issue. i think part of the issue here is that trump kind of forces that habit. with that, i mean, yes, you defend democracy when you feel like it is completely under attack and assault. you defend immigrants when you feel like they are being scapegoated. you defend the pharmaceutical industry when you feel like an anti-vax person is set to host hhs . it is his actions that cause the type of reactions when you become the defenders of the status quo. how do you maneuver around that, because those things are worth defending. >> that is a great point. first of all, you can't let your opponent determine the two new dance to. you need to play offense and get off defense. i do think the contrast is with the chaos and extremism donald trump represents. the contrast is, look, we will be bold and put forward common sense solutions to the everyday people. we will focus on building the

middle. we will actually take a note. look at what the ballot prompt in california passed, people pushed back on a 2-1 margin because that created a sense of civic disorder. i think it is actually pushing back against civic decline is also defending democratic building a big tent. you have to be strong on the stuff people care about. i think something hakeem jeffries says and take it as a mantra, democrats need to be reclaiming the values of freedom, which, harassed it on reproductive freedom, fairness, which cuts both ways and something the democrats don't want to deal with on the border, the flag and faith. right, reclaiming patriotism, reclaiming the social gospel, those can reanimate a new democratic party and not just responding to donald trump, that is no way to live in no way to win. up next, the new mexico governor will join us to discuss a variety of topics, including the role of democratic governors and what they should play in donald trump's second term. that is up next on "morning joe: weekend". ♪ ♪ eekend".

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♪♪ governor, thank you so much for being with us. i want help, i want to understand better new mexico and its mood. we always talk about the states that were reliably democratic that went republican. if you look at the map now, you have mexico -- new mexico and colorado, technically blue states in a sea of red from nevada to the east coast. i just did a quick check here. republicans won, of course, a senate legend from new mexico, new mexico, you have always elected republicans, he won 68, 1984, 1988, george w. bush even won in 2004. so why is new mexico now blue when it has moved blue when so much of the country has moved red?

>> well, i think a couple of reasons. one, new mexico is a state that is clearly not interested in extreme positions. the republican party today, it is a moderate, it is and focused on the middle, it is and focused on working-class americans, even if folks voted, assuming they would support that agenda, new mexicans know in this day and age that is not the case. democrats in new mexico, including me, are delivering in that regard. free childcare, investments in affordable housing, free college, so much investments in raising wages and opportunities that now in new mexico, because of those investments, went from 50 in child poverty to 70.

we clearly demonstrated we know how to make a difference in family stability and opportunity. that is what people want at the end of the day. they don't want extreme positions. they want to make sure we are focused there and they want to make sure we are not taking away fundamental rights and freedoms. the state is squarely is making sure women's rights, the reproductive freedoms, stay intact. >> governor, it's jen psaki. you said you will not help with donald trump's aspirations to do mass deportations. a lot of people are out there are happy to hear that. what can you specifically do to stop his efforts moving forward, once he becomes president? >> well, a couple of things. first of all, as you know, it is unlawful. you can't use the military. you can't do mass deportations. any federal administration. you should expect states, i think you should expect some bipartisan support, not just by the democratic governors. violating the constitution and the law, we are not can to do that. we ought to be working on making sure that violent

criminals and criminal activity is stopped everywhere. there isn't a state that isn't interesting, whether you are an american citizen or not. he effectively, trump, killed the bipartisan border deal, not the first time he has done that. we need more agents. we need more collective effort so we are bringing border security and holding people accountable where they are, disrupting family status and the economy, inhumane, cruel, unfair, discriminant policies that, again, are illegal on their face. we are not going to cooperate in any way in that effort. >> governor, let's get your response to what the president- elect has proposed, eliminating the department of education. if that were to happen, what sort of impact would it have on your state? >> it is devastating, devastating impacts. new mexico has a much higher per capita average of kiddos who need special education interventions and supports. this notion we are not in a

fund that and go just to vouchers, that we aren't going to make sure there is really equality inside the school system, my sister in the 1960s was one of the very first special-education students in the state of new mexico and i would argue probably anywhere in the country. we have come a long way but we need to do much better. a lot of that is related to not having enough maternal prenatal care, we have not done early interventions. we are shifting that dynamic, as i talked about earlier, not having billions of dollars and accountability metrics is devastating. that is just on the special- education side. we are a minority-majority stay, not doing investments for hispanic students, native american students is tragic. we are finally moving the needle by reintroducing the science of reading and we are seeing dramatic increases in our literacy scores. they want to abandon all

financially and with school access, including transportation, for new mexico kids. again, we will fight it. we will also put our own investments, if that occurs. we will not let kiddos fall further behind anywhere. we will do that as a collective in the southwest. >> governor, elise jordan here, excuse me, your voters on the border shifted 8 points to the right. in texas, the same thing happened with voters who live on the border moving to the right. you say you will not play or participate in donald trump's deportation policies but how can you strengthen the border in new mexico? what is the compromise? >> it is this border bill. i am really clear this is a federal issue. i want, you're right, new mexicans want, whether they live at the southern border on the northern side of the state, the northern part of the state,

i need more border patrol agents. we won more interjections on the drug trafficking and human trafficking and bringing guns across. we want all of that. i need technology and fentanyl screening. i blank hammers. i want all the smart devices and efforts. i need real personnel at the border. this notion that we are politicizing, not putting resources where we are decades behind, including you need more people at the ports of entry where these issues occur without interfering with economic efforts because mexico is our largest u.s. trading partner. you want food prices to be lower? you better figure out what you are doing at the border. we are bring in fresh produce and taking it over all of the time. we need this border bill pass and we need folks hired at the border. i will do everything i can. i don't know a democratic governor who doesn't want congress to act here. up next, the hidden truth

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♪♪ donald trump won the white house again, largely through his promises to crack down on immigration at the southern border and grow the u.s. economy. yet, a new investigation from

the "new york times" reveals that two political issues may be tied more tightly together than previously known. the paper details how major u.s. brands and major corporations are using questionable staffing companies nationwide to fill roles at warehouses not typically wanted by american workers. the investigation reads in part, quote, the broken border has been a lifeline for america's on-demand economy under both democratic and republican administrations, including mr. trump's first term. thousands of companies have exploited its poorest miss by plucking workers from the ranks of unauthorized migrants, sometimes with impunity. joining us now, one of the investigative reporters behind this piece, steve eder, joins

us on set. >> thanks for having me here. having me talk about it. this all sort of began with us looking at, you know, the issues of the broken border and that notion and kind of what is behind it, who is benefiting from it. that led us to, you know, when the border bill failed, for example, earlier this year, led us to comparing american businesses and we wanted to interrogate how that works and how is it migrants come to the country, find work at registered staffing agencies and it brought us into this whole investigation with the middleman role that staffing agencies can play in connecting migrant workers, immigrant workers, with jobs. >> these are companies we know that people, you know, often do this. >> some of the companies that are cited as having use these workers are ones we would go to frequently, such as home goods and marshals and these various

companies might have these workers that came from one of these staffing agencies. can you talk about the staffing agency you used as the case study for looking into how this crisis has gotten to where it is? >> yeah, sure. we focused in on the industry and the case study, what they call from hr right out of southern california. what we learned was hr was run by an individual within the staffing agency. in two decades they had equated a few legal troubles during that time and had grown again into this large outfit. what we found was, we talked to workers, we talked to 100 workers and many of them, what they told us about was not getting paid on time, with injuries at work sites and struggling to get any of their claims handled, they talked about discrimination, you know? that brought us from there into clients that they work with

around the country. we begin to try to map out a world that can be difficult to map out. >> steve, if donald trump is put into place and he puts into place the proposals he sent forward during his beret, what sort of impact will this have, in terms of this sosort of impa in terms of this sort of hidden part of the economy? >> i can say this, i hate to speculate, but what i can say is, this type of system, not all staffing agencies break the rules engaging in this and not, you know, a lot of companies do know this is going on under the current administration, the previous administration, donald trump's administration, it is a system that has been in place for a long time and has taken on new shape over time, particularly in the consumer demand, the consumer age. it is quite a significant

system. >> steve, if there is, over the next administration, real crackdown on the border or the deportation of some people who are here illegally, what impact does it have on some of these companies and the u.s. economy? >> it's a good question what that would look like. you can see, you know, companies are routinely turning to staffing agencies, some of the agencies are using this worker pool, you know, that could be a potential ramification that is affecting, you know, the movement of these types of goods. we are seeing, particularly common are reporting in the warehouse and factory settings, you know, the logistics and such, the movement of this. >> all right, investigative reporter for the "new york times" steve eder thank you for coming in and sharing your report with us. we appreciate it. coming up, the tsa administrator will be our guest as airlines are ♪ ♪ oliday. ♪ ♪ treating symptoms and inflammation with rescue

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record amount of air travelers over the upcoming thanksgiving holiday. the agency projects at least 18.3 million passengers and crew will pass through their checkpoints from november 26th to december 2. this represents an increase of approximately 6% from last year. joining us now is tsa administrator david pekoske. it is very good to have you on the set with us. >> it is good to be back, thanks. >> a lot of long lines, you think? >> i don't think so. >> why? >> we can't keep pace with passenger growth, that doesn't make sense to me, we have to be more efficient in the things we do. i would expect, if you are standard passenger, not pre- check, you will wait 30 minutes or less. that is pretty standard and has been that way the entire year.

pre-check passengers 10 minutes or less. the thing with pre-check is, we have a little over one third of all passengers on any given day are pre-check travelers, which is great. we are trying to increase that number, we had a high of 37% two days ago which is a good sign. we will open more pre-check lanes to people. as the population grows, my going to start to lose the time advantage i have been the answer is, no. it is coming closer to more standard. >> and then you get that line so much quicker. i'm just reading here 10, the 10 heaviest travel days in tsa history all happened this year, which is astonishing. a lot of people are traveling more post covid, we know all that, but what do you attribute this huge amount of travelers to? >> you are right, since the 24th of may, since the memorial day holiday, we have had the 10 busiest day so far. what we

have attributed to is the rapid growth in the u.s. system. the economy is good and people want to travel. nowadays, the airlines are poll. airports a poll. we are all doing our best between airlines, airports and tsa to make sure we move people through and those are the standards we have had in the past, which is been pretty successful, i think. >> how are you on staffing levels right now and are there concerns during budget talks? >> yeah, staffing is in fantastic shape, we have more staffing than we ever had. a year and half ago congress passed a bill for tsa which made our pay the same as every

other federal agency. we are just trying to get parity with every other federal agency. what happened as a result, attrition rates went down by 50%. you can imagine how much better that is, think of the efficiency having experienced people at these checkpoints and not leaving and staying with the agency. attrition now is about 7.1%, not much different than the rest of the federal government. it was north of 20%. >> it seems like the system was in the breaking point post covid because they're just want enough people there, not just with tsa, but air traffic controllers, pilots, et cetera, et cetera. that has all come back. as you are saying, more passengers but more efficiency. the question is, how does that carryover from this administration to the next? >> it continues. you know, we have made significant investments in technology. basically, every single step you go in our tsa screening process has new technology attached to it. we need to accelerate some of that technology, for example, the new x-ray machines, the topography x-ray scans, we won't get done with that position of the current pace of investment until 2042. that is a very long way off and really, not a smart way to buy technology. >> right. >> you should buy it as it occurs. our pitch will be, we have been doing this, accelerating

technology. >> and i share a tsa pet peeve? maybe it will help. i try really hard for the rules, did you guys get kind of nervous, you want to have the bag in the tray, they are telling you, right? so can i give you a piece of advice, no water. they say you don't have to take your shoes off. i go but, and they say, you don't have to take your shoes off and i walked through and it beats and then they tell me to take my shoes off. [ laughter ] >> instead of saying what a lot of guests are thinking, is there a question here? >> do you understand what i am saying? >> thanks for the feedback. [ laughter ] it is good feedback. >> it is about the process. >> we are testing. that is the prototype on how we reduce the number of passengers that remove their shoes in standard. it is not easy. >> i am trying to explain, i get caught up and it beeps and

then i have to take my shoes off and i am in the line. okay. i am nervous because i want to do it right. >> thank you for your feedback. [ laughter ] >> we really appreciate it. >> thank you administrator david pekoske. coming up, we will speak with the star and director of the new broadway musical maybe happy ending, which follows two humanlike robot to develop a unique connection. "morning joe: weekend" will be right back. ♪ ♪ . ♪ ♪ now with vitamin d for the dark days of winter. switch to shopify and sell smarter at every stage of your business. take full control of your brand with your own custom store. scale faster with tools that let you manage every sale from every channel.

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>> that is a look at the new broadway musical "maybe happy ending", the futuristic, the show is receiving true critical acclaim and the "new york times" is naming the show one of its critics' picks, calling it, quote, supersmart musical about making a connection that arrives on broadway in a tory -- joyful production. joining us now is darren criss and the show's tony award- winning director, michael arden. thank you, guys, for both being here. michael, i will start with you. where did this come from? >> i got questions. i got sent the script a few years ago in 2017. the headline said this is the story about two robots. i thought, what a terrible idea. and then i listened to the score, i read the script and

was completely devastated. the tears ran down my face. it felt like one of the most human stories i had ever encountered. i think we sometimes go to the theater and go to films to kind of find out who we are, as humans. sometimes, we can look at something that is quite different from us on stage or on screen and allow ourselves to view ourselves with a little more freedom. >> and to understand ourselves more. politically, i always say, if you want to understand some of the trends going on in america, twilight, we can look at other countries and spot that and spot that. you set this in the future and yet, i love, visually, how there is this retro look to it. it reminds me of disney plus and

loki, an avatar series. it is enough of a retro feel to connect you to think, wait a second, this is a timeless issue, whether you're talking about 1954 or 2054. >> it is about these two people, let's call them robots, who are dealing with her own obsolescence, we all have a battery life. >> we are all obsolete. we wanted to look backwards and we knew the trap of designing for the future is to try to design the future. it certainly has a retro feel. darren's character is obsessed with midcentury jazz and vinyl. >> that is the cornerstone of american modern music so there

is a familiarity, nostalgia and accessibility. when you say something observed like it is a robot musical, that is what it will feel like, but there is a deep, again, nostalgia about the aesthetic and the way the show is presented. it is a very rare feeling, ay m a new show not based on a popular book or film. that is an extraordinary thing to be part of and present to audiences at this juncture. >> darren, the stories about love in the digital age. talk about your character and the love affair that happens. >> i asked michael something, there is a thing that is focused on the show i don't want to give away but essentially, michael said something to me , this is a show about living things and the way we take care of those living things and how love itself makes things alive. these are very lofty things i am talking about, but the show is about how love can make in a mandated -- inanimate things seem alive, plant, you know, many people in our lives, maybe you guys can relate to this, we keep our obsolete iphones in a draw, even though they are past their prime, for me, it is the

eight track player. >> you describe these feelings to these nonaligned things because you are experiencing these things and you take care of them so this show is really about that kind of love that is obviously the humans there is the romantic love but the love, what it is to care for something and really put your own aliveness into something else. >> there is also something here, too, we struggle with every day when we read articles and talk about it, that is loneliness, isolation, in the digital age, you all speak to that here, as well, don't you? >> yeah, it really starts in a very cold, sterile, digital world. it is not until these two people come into contact with each other and decide to go on an adventure where they begin

to let go more of that so the play becomes more of a naturalized thing as they leave their appointments -- apartments and go on this adventure. they cross an ocean together. i think it's about how the human need to, one, connect with nature and two, how there is an inner responsibility to take care of each other. >> all this to say, this is a musical comedy, by the way. we are talking about what ♪ ♪ good morning. it is saturday, november 23rd. i'm elisa menendez with symone sanders thompson and michael steel.