and find solace in it, because they were terribly, terribly hard time. but as you said at the start of the show, we got through those times. the civil war payed a ed apaid price, but sin of slavery was ended. and when you look at the great depression, when roosevelt first came in, if your program works, you'll be one of the great presidents, if it fails, you'll be the worst. he said, no, i'll be the last american president. and in the early days of world war ii when hitler spread across western europe, if hitler had succeeded, not only democracy but civilization would have been at an end. but allies won that war. and the people didn't know how it would end. like we don't know now. we're still a people and power as citizens and we can put leaders in place. that's why i love it so much. >> you have to live like you have to keep doing what you're doing. doris, great to see you.

doris is author of numerous best-selling books and "an unfinished love story" and "the leadership journey" that does it. "inside with jen psaki" begins right now. >> okay. matt gaetz is out. pat bondi is in drip of trump picks seems to be never-ending. there are few people that eid love to talk to than congressman jamie raskin and he's standing by in the studio and bob bauer who has vetted more nominees than almost anyone in washington and later, with the spotlight off of gaetz it's trained to pete hegseth as a police report reveals new details about a sexual assault allegation. i'll talk to congresswoman and former pilot mikey sheryl.

i know it might not seem like it or feel like it, but matt gaetz very short lived for attorney general, for starters it reminded us that the vetting process for cabinet members is kind of important and that should be breaking news to anyone given it's a process that presidential transitions of both parties engaged in for decades. i mean, for anyone who has been through it before, it can feel a bit like an invasive exam, call it a colonoscopy, call it a root canal, call it whatever you want to call it, but my point is it's not exactly pleasant. typically, the transition team asks you everything about your background, they ask about your clients, your financial records and personal life and you are put through an fbi background check which often involves the fbi calling your friends and family asking them more questions, then you go through hours of interviews about what they find about a team of lawyers. that's just some of what

typically happens before you were even offered one of these top jobs that require senate confirmation, and that makes sense because they are some of the most important jobs in our government. now, of course, as we now know or maybe you're not surprised by, donald trump is taking a bit of a different approach, and as we saw this week that can come with certain consequences. there are consequences for trump himself if his picks don't get confirmed, for senate republicans who can be put in an awkward spot as things pop ut in the press they weren't aware of and more importantly, for the american people, if a number of these picks managed to get through, people we know very little about. i mean, consider the new details about gaetz that were unearthed this week like this document obtained by "the new york times" showing a web of payments gaetz made including thousands of dollars to two women who testified that he hired them for sex. gaetz continues to deny the allegations, but that steady drip of highly damaging information forced him to drop his bid after just eight crazy

days. and then there is pete hegseth and the details detailing a sexual assault from 2017. hegseth was never charged and denies any wrongdoing, but this report paints a pretty vivid and horrifying scene where a woman remembers saying no a lot as hegseth took her home, physically blocked her from leaving a hotel room and sexually assaulted her. she later went to the hospital and underwent a rape kit exam. trump's transition team was reportedly completely blindsided by these new details, but again, one sure-fire way to not be blindsided by that is to put your nominees through a actual vetting process and then tulsi gabbard. this week, cnn reported that she was briefly placed on a government watch list that prompts additional security screening before flights after her overseas travel patterns and foreign connections triggered a government algorithm earlier

this year and that comes as questions continue to swirl about her meeting with syrian dictator bashar al assad and her pro-russia pro-putin rhetoric and now surprise, republican senators want access to her fbi file to find out if there's more unknown information about her including possibly other foreign contracts. again, the person i just describe side donald trump's pick for the director of national intelligence for the united states of america. trust me, these are all things that would have come up independent a typical vetting process. these are all questions that would have been asked and answered to some degree, and let's be honest that donald trump would have moved forward with the nominees regardless, we don't know that, but these are all things that the senate and most importantly the public deserve to know about the people who will serve an incredibly important high-ranking government roles and really, the only reason we know any of it right now is because of the press. trump is clearly not going to do his due diligence and he's not going to ask the intelligence or

require the vetting or fbi background checks. so if he won't do those things journalists have to. without a free press, we wouldn't know about gaetz' venmo pages or hegseth's report or gabbard's watch list. we know a whole lot about these people that we didn't know one week ago. here's the important part, there's still a lot that we don't know and that is kind of the other takeaway for me from this week. matt gaetz dropping out does not mean trump's next choice for attorney general deserves less scrutiny, it does not mean pete hegseth and tulsi gabbard deserve less scrutiny. it doesn't mean anyone should stop the questions, stop the digging and stop the pressure. it actually means the opposite because the stakes are so high and there's still so much we don't know about these other cabinet choices. so we need to keep asking the questions and that goes for reporters, members of congress, their staff, citizens and all of you sitting at home and here's a good place to start. after gaetz dropped out, trump

announced pat bondi. there are still a lot of questions everyone should be asking about her, too. joining me is jamie raskin and a member of the house oversight committee. this is an extreme version of it. pam bondi is the new nominee to be attorney general, what should people be asking about her? >> well, you know, one of the functions of doing the background security clearances and the regular vetting process is that the basic facts can be out there and we can focus on someone's ideas and what they've actually done. in some sensual of the scandal serves them pretty well. in the case of hegseth, we're focused on the alleged sexual assault that took place with this woman. we are not focused on the fact that he says women should not be allowed in the combat role. >> and we should be. absolutely. >>a it's part of a whole gender

ideology he has. bondi, again, we are piecing together the details now, but she's somebody who has been a very uding on election denialis, so she's gone on tv to echo election denialist. she has made false allegations about cheating in the 2020 presidential election which still they adhere to even though we have 60 federal and state court decisions rejecting all of their fraudulent claims and she has played that role for trump all along. so she's a very loyal partisan, so in her case, i think we've got to be focused on what are they going to do with the department of justice? are they going to convert this institution which has been an implementer of law enforcement and has improved dramatically over time into the president's personal law firm and an

instrument of vendetta and distribution. >> i talked a lot about the qualifications piece, too. i am so glad you raised that because "the washington post," reports the trump team will fire the team and they're resign including career attorneys to protect them from political retribution. he plans to direct the o.g. resources to investigate the 2020 election. pam bondi is someone who would be leading the department of justice. obviously, i'm sure you're horrified by that, and i'd love to get your reaction. people feel very powerless out there. what can democrats do if that's where donald trump wants to move the resources of the department of justice? is there anything the democrats can do? >> well, look, trump was not elected with any kind of positive agenda for the country. i mean, his most detailed agenda was around immigration and

deportation. they are already starting to alter laws around the country to build in a political advantage, like in north carolina where the democrats swept a lot of the state constitutional offices. the outgoing republican state legislature is trying to entrench republican power, taking powers away from the governor and giving them to the state auditor, and i view what i think the department of justice in exactly the same light. they want to go back to all of the lies about 2020 which have been debunked ad nauseam. they want to install people who are going to prosecute the prosecutors as bondi has said, and it looks like a completely different kind of institution from the one that has been built up through both democratic and republican administrations in the past. so it looks to me like a recipe for non-stop political warfare. i liken the time i think we're

in very much to 1798 with the alien and sedition acts where the only program was anti-immigrant hysteria and then prosecution of political enemies and attacks on the other party in attempts to entrench the majority party. that didn't work out so well for the federalists and thomas jefferson really led the opposition there, and he said to people a little patience and we'll see the reign of which has passed over and the spells dissolved and the people restore their government to its true principles. he urged people to have patience and to persevere through a period of this. >> you are always great of remind pg reminding us of history here. there's constant reporting these days of all of the details and a new report in "the new york times" this morning about how donald trump isn't revealing of the donors funding it, and he's

the first president-elect to do so which makes it possible to see wealthy donors and any foreign nationals who can contribute to transitions in campaigns. i raise this because people think it's not a big deal, but i have some concerns. >> it's a very big deal. the democrats blew the whistle on this several months ago and we wrote a letter during the campaign to now president-elect trump saying you've got to participate in the federal transition process. this is something that has developed over the decades and basically they write an mou with the incumbent president, they write an, in ou with mou and ma to meet with the existing cabinet secretaries and to have a meaningful and effective

transition because millions and millions of americans are depending on everything from, you know, air traffic to trollers controllers and the social security checks and having people answer the phones and get them their refunds and it was radio silence. part of that process is when you sign it then you are governed by a little mini transition finance regime where you're limited to how much money you can accept from different sources and it's got to be disclosed, but they chose a different path of being able to take money from anybody, wild west and not disclose it, and that is a serious problem for effective, competent government in the united states and transparency. people want to know where are our political leaders getting their money from? >> and people can -- i hope they don't do this, but we'll never know. people who want exemptions from

tariffs. axios are planning that you are planning to announce tomorrow, every reporting isn't right, but that's why i want to ask you whether you will challenge jerry nadler to the ranking member seat on the house judiciary committee. is that happening tomorrow? >> geez, let me just say a word about the overside committee. i mean, the oversight committee, we've got our hands full right now because the schedule f is a plan to replace, like, 50,000 federal workers. >> yeah. sack them and replace them with party loyalists and flunkies and the judiciary committee, of course, under jerry nadler comm course, under jerry nadler is defending the constitution, the bill of rights and the rule of law. so the democratic caucus, we are going to put together a very powerful team of all of our members and leaders to navigate

the twists and turns of this turbulent period. so this is all going on now, and i'll definitely have some stuff to say this week, but i can't imagine people are interested in that level -- >> everybody is interested. >> people want to see where jamie raskin's voice is going to be. there are a lot of places for your voice to be and it sounds like you will not tell us, but i had to ask. happy thanksgiving. >> happy thanksgiving to you, too. have a wonderful one with your family. >> thank you much. coming up, new details about a sexual assault allegation again donald trump's pick from the secretary of defense and new comments about that allegation that you just have to see to believe. but first two americans traveled to syria in 2017 to meet with bashar al assad, one was tulsi gabbard and the other is my next guest. we're back after a quick break.

♪♪ okay.

here's how investigative reporter michael isikoff opens his latest speak in "spytalk." quote, in the early months of 2017, two americans traveled to syria where they met separately with that country's dictator bashar al assad. one was tulsi gabbard now trump's pick to be director ever of national intelligence. another american arriving in damascus less than two weeks later with me. that's quite an opening. that's where the parallels end and that's part of what he writes about in this piece, isikoff traveled as a journalist to interview assad and shed light on a murderous regime. gabbard traveled to syria as a sitting member of congress and her motivation was very different. isikoff writes that gabbard was unmoved by the indiscriminate russian bombing or assad's repeated use of chemical weapons against his own people. her trip privately funded by a cleveland-based arab-american group sympathetic to assad for the syrian regime.

gabbard had two meetings with assad revealing nothing then or since about what they actually said to each other. joining me is michael isikoff for "spytalk." this is such a compelling piece, and i worked for the state department for a couple of years, but everybody doesn't, and it is so important in this moment, and i want to start by a couple of things that you say in the piece which is one of gabbard's, the way she helped assad was really when she came back and she was sort of a tool of propaganda, and tell us what you mean by that and what people should understand. >> first, she's said nothing about her meetings with assad. she had them and confirmed that. what they said to each other we don't know, but what we do know, everything she said in her blog posts after that interview in her blog posts essentially echoes assad's talking points. there are no moderate rebels and all of my foes fighting me are

al qaeda and isis and the united states is supporting them. how do we know assad's talking points? because in the interview that i did two weeks later it's exactly what he said almost in identical language, but more importantly, she did a video, a youtube video that was essentially a propaganda video for the assad regime depicting all of the victims of civilian victims who had been displaced as people who were victimized by the terrorists and not the assad regime when the estimates are that 90% of the civilians killed, more than 200,000 were by the syrian army and its russian and iranian allies and number two, something even more astonishing in our congressional blog post she describes syria as a terroristic-free society. this is a country that freedom house who ranks the level of

freedom in the world puts syria below north korea, below iran and below china and it is an oppressive regime marked by torture and disappearances and military show trials and it is -- that was an astounding comment by gabbard, and i can't imagine that senators won't have some pretty questions -- >> senator langford said he had questions and i would assume others do, too. you covered the civil war extensively. you were part of the caesar photos which were horrifying photos of people killed with chemical weapons. for people who forget about this time, what did assad do to his people? >> when i saw the caesar photos and there are tens of thousand of them smuggled out from a regime photographer from inside assad's prisons and you look at them and it is stomach turning

and it is rows and rows of naked, emaciated bruised, burned bodies, you know, one after another. images right out of nazi concentration camps. indeed, was there a whole accident of the caesar photos in the holocaust museum. assad had never been confronted by them, and i got pictures and i put them in my vest pocket and i was nervous and i was torn about whether to do that because i figured if i was frisked by assad's security guards in an interview, and i went through with it anyway, and i confronted him with the photos and showed them to him and what did he do? dismissed them all. fake news, they're doctored and photoshopped and i also presented him with an fbi report that showed that they had been -- the crime lab had extensively authenticated these photos saying there was no evidence of manipulation

whatsoever. >> and she took as we know a very different approach given what she said publicly. you're, of course, not a senator and a longtime journalist, an inquisitive person who knows a lot about this issue, what do you hope senators ask her during her confirmation hearing? >> i think they should drill down on this trip. what happened during this trip? how did you come to be there? it was privately funded by a group in ohio that had ties to the -- at least had sympathies for the assad regime, and what took place in those meetings with assad? what did she say to him? what did he say to her and how do you defend calling one of the most o ppressive regimes in the world a free society? >> some questions for every senator who will be a part of this hearing straight from someone who knows a lot about it, michael isikoff, thank you very much. a very interesting piece and a reminder of the horrors that took place. many few people know what it means to run a vetting process

and i talked about it a little bit during the show and bob bauer knows a lot, and he joins me next.

as we've been reporting zoey baird's embattled nomination to be attorney general has been withdrawn in the furor over her hiring as an illegal alien couple as household help. linda withdrew as secretary of labor, after illegal imgrant who lived with her. >> a personnel bombshell, the departure of two more of his nominees for big jobs, both of them are out because of back taxes. >> so just to put this moment in perspective, that was a brief look back at just some of the reasons that past nominees for top administration jobs have withdrawn their names from consideration. now, of course, the issues that derailed their appointments back then seem quaint today given the scandals that plague trump's nominees and with new

revelations on a near daily basis with reporting out there seems like there are more shoes to drop. that's why we're talking about it so much. i'm talks to someone who vetted for jobs like this bob bauer is the author of the excel book "the unraveling" which came out earlier this year. bob, very few people have been involved in these processes as you have, just as a baseline thing, if they had gone through the vetting process that typically involves hours of conversations with lawyers, an fbi background check and the trump team would have known a fair amount of this that they seem to have been blindsided by, would they not have? >> every administration undergoes a vetting process in the hopes of uncovering something they did not catch in the process, and this incoming administration doesn't regret that something was missed that has cause good problems for the

nominations in one case already and withdrawal and perhaps others to come and other issues to be raised. all administrations understand this this is a risk which is yet vetting processes, particularly for incoming administrations will have to be moved quickly are conducted with the hope that they'll be thorough and prevent problems like these from arising. . >> there are reasons beyond the political confirmation process for americans to know and this is not a political and partisan point, what is in people's backgrounds? talk to me and our audience a little bit about why that is so important as people are serving in national security roles or say as the attorney general? >> there are several components, several interests, if you will, that are served by a thorough vetting operation. one is drilling down on the fitness of the candidate, getting beyond the resume and determining whether, in fact, the candidate does, in fact, have the qualifications and the

ability to defend those qualifications during, say an advice and consent process. that's one. a second is to determine and this is related, whether there are conflicts of any kind that emerge from the vetting process that might impair the performance of their duties, for example, the national security context, are there any activities in their personal life so far unknown that could subject them to blackmail? but other cases may just involve simple conflict of interests on a financial level. a third that i should mention is trustworthiness. you interview the candidates and if it turns out that the vet produces information that is not consistent with what the candidate or the presidential nominee himself or herself disclosed that raises a question of trustworthiness and can doom a nomination right there because the president has to have full confidence in those that serve him or her in an administration, and last, but not least, i would say just fundamental vetting for

inconsistences with the administration's values or priorities and consider in the days of social media how closely the statements that people make, they don't necessarily of course of them as very public and yet, they've been left on the public record and the social mead why landscape and they simply do not reflect what the administration wants to project as its core values and priorities. >> i don't want to over emphasize this too much, but when people hear blackmail it feels like a big term that you see in the movies and what i want people to understand and i want you to explain it that if there's something in someone's personal life that is not publicly known, a foreign adversary or bad actor could potentially use it to try to blackmail that person. can you talk to me about that particular piece? not that it comes up that often, but it does come to this process. >> if there was something in the background that would significantly impair the performance of their duties. on one level they might have a financial interest that tugs at them a certain way away from the

public interest that they're exclusively focused on or it may be something significantly more personal that they want to hide, and if someone approaches them with the suggestion that they should behave in such and such a way or issue a ruling in such and such a way or that secret will be exposed to the world, well, that obviously puts them at risk in whatever levels of blackmail we're talking about and that puts them at risk of acting on their own behalf and the public that they're meant to serve and the vetting process and you're right, it may not happen all of the time, but if any process is designed to serve as anything of that nature that could impair them in the performance of their duties and put the country's interest at risk. >> one of the things you and i have talked about is how the trump administration has tested the system a fair amount even though the system is strong and fbi background checks is something that happened through so many presidential traditions

and they're not happening now. a former fbi special agent wrote that president biden should order background checks into trump's nominees, is that something he could do? should he do that or are there drawbacks in doing that? >> i've never heard it suggested in my experience and even in conversations with lawyers and other administrations including republican administrations it's never been a suggestion that the fbi background check isn't indispensable in key nominations or frankly, across the board the nominations the president's most responsible for. i should mention there is a vetting that takes place at significantly more modest levels and there's still a vetting process, but it doesn't drill down nearly as deeply and the fundamental question any administration asks is why in the world would they not take advantage of experienced, investigate of resources?

will they rely entirely on word of mouth from supporters and potential critics? are they going to rely entirely on the public record? you want investigators to help round out the picture in any way possible, and i'm not aware of any administration that has somehow resisted that notion or thought it was -- or thought there was something wanting about it. >> hence the question, it tests us all the time. bob bauer, few people know more about it than you. quite a skill set to have. thank you for making this clear. coming up next, whatever cover pete hegseth might have gotten from matt gaetz is no longer there and as the spotlight on his past gets brighter, the details are getting darker. we're back after a quick break. i'll talk all about it. reak i'll talk all about it

so with matt gaetz out of the picture much of the spotlight on capitol hill has turned to pete hegseth, donald trump's pick for secretary of defense. now, just for a moment, to his

credit, hegseth is a veteran who has served in the army national guard overseas in afghanistan and iraq. i will also say hegseth is pretty good on tv which is not a bad thing to have in your cabinet. for about a decade he's worked at x news and we know trump likes fox news hosts. on tv and pete hegseth has pushed out there ideas, even echoing the notion after often repeated by donald trump that america is filled with enemies from within. hegseth described the book he wrote in 2020 as the strategy we must employ in order to defeat america's internal enemies. now that alone should give any senator pause as they consider his confirmation, right? but it's certainly not the only thing, and the details about people who are being nominated to high level positions is so important and what we've been talking about all of the show. i want to walk you through what

we know about pete hegseth. we know that he faced an allegation of sexual assault. that was described in a memo that was sent to the trump transition team and obtained by "the washington post." the memo lays out that in 2017 a 30-year-old woman identified as jane doe was in a hotel in monterey, california, staying with her husband and small children as she worked as a staffer for the california federation of republican women. hegseth was there because he was the keynote speaker, at an event the group was hosting that night. hegseth raped the conservative staffer, jane doe, in his room after drinking at the hotel bar. an investigation was open and charges were never -- charges were dropped. as his lawyer told the post hegseth maintains the encounter was consensual and he made the payment because he feared any revelation of the matter would result in his termination from

fox. hegseth's lawyer even added that jane doe had been the aggressor in the encounter, that's according to hegseth's lawyer and when hegseth himself was asked about the allegations by reporters on thursday this is what he said. >> did you sexually assault a woman in monterey, california. >> as far as the media is concerned, it's very simple. the matter was fully investigated and i was completely cleared. that's where i'll leave it. >> now, to be clear, pete hegseth was not cleared, and the 22-page police report released this week shows that it's not as simple as he'd have you believe. according to that report an emergency room nurse contacted police after treating a woman who said that she may have been drugged and sexually assaulted. the woman said that during drinks after the conference she, quote, stated that she observed hegseth acting inappropriately with other women at the conference. hegseth would rub the women on their legs and she thought that his actions were inappropriate.

no kidding. she was flagged by another female conference attendee who hoped that jane doe's presence would help deter hegseth's sexual advances. she even texted someone that night that hegseth was giving off a, "creeper vibe." she argued with hegseth near the pool. the argument was about hegseth's actions with the women at the conference to which hegseth responded by saying that he was a nice guy. this confrontation at the pool was corroborated by a hotel employee who said hegseth was very intoxicated while jane doe was not. jane doe goes on to say that her next memory was in an unknown room, and that hegseth was in the room with her. she stated that she got up and tried to leave the room, but hegseth blocked the door with his body. jane doe remembered saying no a lot. the police report details the woman's recollection of being underneath hegseth which she described as a sexual assault.

the district attorney at the time recently told npr they declined to pursue the case after determining that no charges were supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. declining to bring charges is want the same thing as clearing them and that shouldn't be the standard for any senator with a role in his confirmation and yet a number of republican senators responsible for advising and consenting on this incredibly important position don't appear to have any further concerns or questions. josh hawley told reporters, listen, he denies it. jon cornyn said that's hearsay and we're not going decide on pieces of the story and mark mullen said there's a full report and you guys can read it for yourself. i don't think there's any way in the world you can say this was a sexual assault. well, i have read the report and i would strongly disagree. if anything, i definitely want to know more about what happened, everybody should, and i feel it's not a political thing to say at all. the united states department of defense is one of the largest

and most powerful gencies in the world and the secretary of defense is in charge of the most powerful military in the world including tens of thousands of women around the world. is he denied that's good enough in the face of amning circumstances. mikie sherrill is running for governor and she joins me next. how to fix things. ♪♪ fun recip... (high pitched sound) (high pitched sound) (high pitched sound)

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let me set the record straight. announcer: let's cure childhood cancer together. are people born wicked? or do they have wickedness thrust upon them? oh! -ah! [ laughter ] no need to respond. that was rhetorical. hm, hmm. as we've been discussing all hour long because it is kind of the story right now, when you don't properly vet candidates for cabinet posts, surprises happen, and that seem especially true in the case of pete hegseth. rolling stone reports that according to four sources familiar with the situation top transition officials and others close to the president-elect have been puzzled, if not

infuriated that hegseth did not preemptively inform them of the allegations against him? this is a quote, how did he not know? pete wasn't interviewing for a job at mcdonald's, this is the f-ing pentagon. joining me is congresswoman mikie sherrill. she was a u.s. navy helicopter pilot and a prosecutor and now a candidate for governor in new jersey. i have to start there just because of your background. there are so many specifics we don't know here about what happened with pete hegseth and also there are questions about his qualifications, of course. what do you want to know more about this story? >> wow. i want to know why him? why do we have a person here who has allegations of sexual assault, who thinks women shouldn't be in the military, women represent about 20% of the military and are performing certain jobs in our military in combat such as women in the

lioness squads which means we need them there on the front lines, why -- you know, someone who has not understood why we even have war crimes, why we say certain things are unacceptable in the military. why him? why does anyone think that this is the person who should be the secretary of defense of the united states? >> there's so much to get into and you as a former navy pilot is the perfect person to talk about women in combat. with the centers about to, of course, consider this nomination and again on the sexual assault allegations there's a lot we don't know. one option could be hegseth waving his non-disclosure agreement and making that public. is that something you think should happen? >> you know, this is why these ndas in situations like this are so damaging to understanding what actually happened and i think damaging to woman who want to get the truth out about

certain situations. yeah, you know, why did he pay this woman off when he comes forward and says he's been fully cleared. that is not the case. i've seen no evidence of that. as a former federal prosecutor there is a difference between not bringing charges and fully clearing someone and he has in no way been fully cleared. i think we want to understand, you know, what happened there, but again, i just would suggest that with his views on women in the military when you are trying to bring a fighting force together, and you are trying to make sure that people from across this country can come together around a mission, when you are making sure that some of the people that are best trained in some of the top positions like commanding officer of an aircraft carrier or the superintendent of the naval academy or the chief of naval operations and the highest ranking person in the navy, when these people are so needed in our military, why are you going to put somebody in charge of them because by the way, all of

those roles have been filled by women. why are you putting someone in charge that can't bring people together and instead is trying to divide, denigrate and degrade our service members. it will make us less safe. it is such an important point for you to look into. i want to play something that general milley said this week. i want to play it for the audience and talk to you about it on the other side. >> don't lecture me about women in combat. women have been in combat, and it doesn't matter if the 762 hits you in the chest. no one gives a [ bleep ] if it's a woman or a guy who pulleded the trigger. you're still dead. if you meet the standards and our military must be and always should be a standards-based, merit-based military. period. full stop. it doesn't matter if you're white, if you're black, if you're a man, if you're a woman, if you're a catholic or protestant. none of that matters. what matters are standards, readiness standards. do you meet the standard or not?

if not, pass go, infantry. >> i want to ask you on a personal note as a former navy pilot, you talked about women in the military such important roles and do you worry about the chilling effect and what other consequences do you think this could have on the ride of women in the military? >> worry about a chilling effect with all of this. i've heard members of our military who are considering retiring early. i've heard of people who have wanted to go into the military and are considering not doing so and i've encouraged them to enter our military. now is the time when we need people of such good character to stand up for the weak and vulnerable, to make sure that as they are protecting this nation they are also standing up for the people who are serving under them and making sure that they feel invested in their service and respected for their service. so it already has had that chilling effect, and i worry very much what it may do, should

he, in fact, become the next secretary of defense. >> congresswoman, you have such an extensive background which is why you're such an interesting candidate for governor and i had asked you to talk about that and now you'll have to come back and talk in more detail. i had to ask you about the national security issues because your background is so impressive. thank you for taking the time and please come back and we'll talk about the governor's race which is just beginning. >> thank you much. >> we will come become after a very quick break.

that does it for me today, but we're working on a big show for tomorrow night. senator-elect adam schiff will be my guest in studio. there's a lot to talk to him about. i'm looking for that conversation coming up tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. eastern. stay where you are because there's much more news coming up on msnbc. in moments, former congressman max rose has a lot to say about the prospe