♪♪ ♪♪ that was fast! it could have been one of the first political flashpoints of the new trump era is over, and it ended not with a bang, but a bit of a whimper. matt gaetz withdrawing his nomination for attorney general in a post saying this, quote, there is no time to waste on the needlessly protracted washington scuffle. his withdrawal comes after a day spent on capitol hill talking to republican senators alongside j.d. vance and amid a steady drip, drip, drip of seedy revelations out of the investigations into matt gaetz

that would ultimately turn into a flood. the latest bombshell dropping minutes after gaetz withdrew, according to a source familiar with the matter was told a woman had two separate sexual encounter with matt gaetz at the same party in 2017 when she was just 17 years old. cbs was the first to report that news. they said gaetz withdrew his nomination just 45 minutes after cnn called to say it was going to report on that 2017 incident and just last night "the new york times" out with a bombshell piece of reporting of their own, they reported on findings by the justice department a document obtained by the times shows this, quote, federal investigators have estaof payme drug-fueled sex parties. among those who received money from gaetz were women who have testified that he hired them for sex.

that's according to the documen. the lawyer said payments to the women ultimately totaled around $10,000. the document does not show what the payments to the women were for and nbc news has not independently verified the document. the doj probe into gaetz ended without doj pressing criminal charges against matt gaetz and gaetz has denied any wrongdoing to both congressional and federal investigators. in a statement to "the new york times, trump's communications director claims that the document was leaked by doj to smear matt gaetz. the campaign saying it was classified. there are no classified markings on the document and there's no reason for a document like that to be classified. questions remain about the fate of trump's other nominees and a new legitimate line of questioning rising up about republicans and whether they'll oppose other unqualified picks.

nbc news reports this, at least five republicans, senator mitch mcconnell of kentucky, susan collins of maine, and john curtis of utah were a no on gaetz and had communicated to other senators and those close to trump that they were not likely to be swayed. matt gaetz withdrewingawing is we begin today. new york times invest gait tor e schmight joins us and christy greenberg is back and basil smikle is here and host of the bull work podcast, tim miller is here and lucky for us they're all msnbc contributor and tim miller, i'll start with you. we were wrong. you and i said matt gaetz will be the attorney general. trump wants to see how low he can go. apparently, the answer is how low he can go is whatever is

sort of above matt gaetz and below pete hegseth. i don't know. it is interesting when you find out what a bridge too far for donald trump looks like. apparently it looks like matt gaetz. >> the gaetz eyebrows are the low watermark for him. you know, we were wrong about this though the wrongness was based on how these senators will act and matt gaetz let them off the hook by withdrawing. murkowski didn't have to force the others to not vote for him. it was interesting. gaetz may have been decided to withdraw for other reasons. he may not have wanted the additional details of the apparently two encounters with the 17-year-old or the other payments that "the new york times" reported on and that remains to be seen and the big test of that which is our thesis is that these senators will fold

to trump will be hegseth and rfk. you know for a fact that mitch mcconnell, given his past and his commitment to the polio vaccine is not at all interested in antivaxxer leading hhs. will he actually stand in the way of rfk, jr.? that will be one test and pete hegseth will be another test. pete hegseth and not in any meaningful sense more qualified man matt gaetz. he is less qualified, actually and he has allegations of sexual assault. there was a police report that was just out today about the detailing of those allegations and so, you know, there's no difference between hegseth and gaetz. the question is which one of these nominees will trump actually put muscle behind, maybe not and if he does stand behind the rest of them will these senators show like they have been in public and that remains to be seen. >> mike schmit, take us inside

what the revelations that you reported last night, take us inside the picture that was emerging of matt gaetz? >> so what was significant about what we report side that over the past few days, a lawyer for two of the women who said they had sex withgate gaetz for mon have been out saying that and that this indeed happened and when we obtained the document from the federal investigation of gaetz, it showed that gaerts had sent the two women thousands and thousands of dollars in money. so it was bolstering the credibility of these different witnesses and what you had at that point was a situation in which whether the house ethics committee report was going to come out or not, if gaetz's nomination moved forward, he was going to be in a nomination where he had one of three choices. he was going to be asked under oath did you ever pay women for sex, and if he said no the

democrats were going to point to the testimony from this lawyer and other documentation like this justice department document that we had and say, look, you could be lying under oath. if he admitted to it it would have created a firestorm overall and the third which would be the most extraordinary is that he could have taken the fifth amendment and he could have taken the fifth amendment and not answered the question and you would have had a situation in which the incoming attorney general was taking the fifth amendment about his actions that it were looked at in a justice department investigation, a justice department in which he was going to be taking over, and senate republicans were going to have to basically determine who was telling the truth, and it would have been, you know, a -- a time for them to say, okay, matt gaetz, you're either lying or you're not lying and by stepping aside, he avoided that

situation into what tim is saying, now senate republicans you will not have to see how they would publicly deal with this. >> mike, joel greenberg is seven serving 11 years in jail and one of the things that he was charged with was sex trafficking of a minor. is that the same person that mta gaetz is alleged to have had sex with two times? >> no. both matt gaetz and joel -- joel greenberg told federal authorities that he had had sex with a 17-year-old girl and that he saw gaetz have sex with a 17-year-old girl. during the federal investigation authorities learned that gaetz had had sex with a 17-year-old girl two times over the span of a day in 2017. in one of those encounters, another adult woman participated in what was going on. i'm not sure how much that

changed things. weal read ed knew wealready learned that gaetz had learned that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl. another instance of that bolsters the idea that it happened, but at the end of the day, joel greenberg pled guilty to having sex with a 17-year-old girl who he knew was being paid for that. he was facing a ten-year mandatory minimum because of that. he received more than a ten-year sentence. gaetz was never indicted. had he been indicted on that same charge and had he been convicted he would have faced a mandatory ten years in prison, but obviously, the department never charged him and there's obviously a lot of questions about that, questions that we don't have a really good answers to about yet department didn't charge him. >> i guess it's interesting, christy is that there's so much in the public.

i mean, and it becomes and this may sound so old fashioned and it becomes the flagrant act of character and you have the guys d with the same crime allegedly with some of the same parties and a lawyer for two women as having several political -- i think his quote was dog in the fight, but who saw him have sex with a woman who was 17 at the time. you have this new revelation that he actually had sex with a 17-year-old twice in one night. you've got a republican senator one of the no votes saying he would crush e.d. drugs and chase them with energy drinks so he could go all night long which is just a portrait of even in the trump era, an unbelievable lack of care. i don't even know what the word is, morals, character -- it seems like he was so bad that it wasn't even about the non-charged activity. >> well, i think you have a lot of this, as you said, which is

known. it's been known for years that women have accused matt gaetz of paying them for sex and so now we have more meat on the bones where we have payments, mattgate making the payments one of them said for tuition reimbursement. showing consciousness of guilt and being looking to conceal what this was really for. the way they found these women was on a sugar daddies website. you have more information about the fact that they're travel across state lines. there are a multitude of federal crimes here that it seems like there is strong evidence, we don't know why doj didn't pursue it, but there's certainly strong evidence, just knowingly transporting adult women across state lines for the purpose of prostitution, that is a federal crime and one of the crimes that p. diddy is charged with out of sdny, even the minor, the sex trafficking of a minor, even if

he didn't know that at the time, you don't need to know that as a prosecutor in order to make that stick. just disregard that he had the reasonable opportunity to observe her. you start with the women corroborating each other and then you start with the documents and the records and the payments and when you have matt gaetz making these pages and not just been page here and there, but thousands in payments suggesting this was happening over years, i mean, this is -- if it's not criminal, it's hard to see how at a minimum it would be illegal and it's hard to see how he wasn't hit with something here and joel green% who is serving his sentence for 11 years in prison for the same conduct, trafficking of a minor, he said during his plea. i didn't know she was 17. he's still in jail for that and

the judge said that his cooperation, joel greenberg's cooperation against many individuals not just matt gaetz, but his corporation was among the most significant he'd seen in 22 years on the bench. so he gave up the goods on matt gaetz. i don't know that. that's under seal, but i know that because otherwise based on what was public it doesn't quite make sense, so there is a lot here, and knowing how much there is here, knowing how much has been public for so long, the fact that donald trump decided this was going to be his top cop is an absolute disgrace, and the only reason he isn't isn't because donald trump had second thoughts, oh, gee, it's so terrible he did these things. no, he couldn't get him confirmed because some of the senator his a spine which he wasn't counting on. >> let me show you what matt gaetz about people asked to vote for matt gaetz for attorney general. this is compiled by our friends at the beat.

>> we have murkowski and collins rejecting their duty and if they do that, their voters should reject them. >> our leadership is in shambles. >> speak of fools, republican senator mark wayne mullen, mitch mcconnell's real leggy acy is t he was missing in action when we needed him and putting special interests above american interests. my advice going forward is that the republican doesn't need to pick one of the johns, john thune, john cornyn, john barrasso. i think there are going to be better options and senator tillis trying to get another blank check for a corrupt country. it's disappointing and a certain hubris to all of it. >> i remember the speaker, the hearings or the votes when kevin mccarthy was trying to be speaker and the anger and frustration that his colleagues showed toward matt gaetz -- >> didn't they get --

>> he rolled up on him like he was on the street. i've never seen anything like that on the floor of the house, and so it's clear that -- >> i don't think i've ever said let's stay in the house republican caucus vote. >> there clearly is no love lost with respect to the republican senators and members of the house for matt gaetz, no love lost, but to both points, donald trump has a fairly high threshold for pain and shame. that's not the case for anybody else, but there is some measure of shame and tolerance for blowback that senators and house members cannot withstand because they are regularly elected or in front of the people, number one, with respect to elections, but they just like their jobs and they actually take -- i may have issues with this from time to time, but take their job seriously, right? and it strikes me as just amazing that this person could

be the head law enforcement official in our country, but look at the way they talked about kamala harris during this campaign as the dei potential president, it is just so striking. senator cornyn last week said this they didn't want to embarrass donald trump so it was important that this information get out and said recently it's likely because it's d.c. it's going to come out anyway. even if they didn't want to do it for donald trump, they did this for themselves. they made sure that they could go back and not have to deal with the sordid details and who wants to talk about this as a senator when you have other things on your late? >> up next for us, democratic senator sheldon white house joins this very conversation. i'm sure he's thrilled. so you can save your shirt and maybe even a little money. moat the... library.s right... for a better clean with less... it's got to be tide.

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he is a member of the senate judiciary committee. senator, i apologize for the seediness of today's lead story, the subject of matt gaetz, but do you -- i feel sort of a combination, a weird combination specific to the time of trum of relief and deep anxiety about what was in the box that matt gaetz's name came out of, right? there was obviously a hat that came out of todd blanche and people that were normal enough and then there was another hat and then mattgate combaets gae another hat. >> it's very hard to tell, certainly something not sane or normal. i think that when you want to install as the chief prosecutor of the united states of america somebody whose experience with criminal investigations is the

subject of one you have departed from the fundamental guard rails of normalcy, and i think that's one of the reasons why -- and god bless them, sufficient republican senators sent the message back to the white house that this can't fly, that they ended up withdrawing. i think, you know, a piece of this has been a challenge to the republican senators by the trump administration sort of daring them. there's the legend of the foreign potent who had the door to his recession chamber two feet high so everyone had to come in as a crawl. this was a crawl test for republican senators to have to eat awful nominees like gaetz and gabbard and so, you know, the crawl test continues, but it's kind of reassuring that enough republican senators were willing to be part of the stand up cohort and not the crawl cohort, and i hope that continues for some of these other appalling nominees.

>> yeah. i mean, it's an interesting observation because in the time of trump there is a sort of rinse and repeat dynamic. trump is appalling, they avoid our cameras for 36 hours and then, you know, it's what the people want. i wonder if you think it's worth wondering whether strength can be a cycle, as well and whether drawing a line could beget more lines being drawn with people like tulsi gabbard. >> yeah. i think the trump administration took a surprisingly strong hit here. think of the past 48 hours with j.d. vance, our senator's colleague and soon to be vice president, bringing people into his office with matt gaetz for come to jesus sessions to try to

pressure them into signing up for a completely unpalatable candidate and then immediately thereafter he's withdrawn. >> yeah. >> so the kind of atmosphere of threat and intimidation and pressure and inevitably has been shattered already, and i suspect there's a bit of resentment brewing from those personal conversations and now that it's been shown that it didn't work then so much the better. so to all of my republican colleagues who stood up and made it clear to the white house that this wasn't going to happen, bravo them. >> it's important to call that out when it does happen even though it's rare, it doesn't diminish the fact that at the moment a lot of the narrative, i'm not sure if it's deserve is about trump's political strengths and when it came to

matt gaetz found their spies. to your point about the meeting that j.d. vance is orchestrating. this was the pitch for matt gaetz. this is reporting in "the bulwark" this is what matt gaetz said to senators, look, i'm not going to go in there and indict liz cheney and have stormtroopers bust through the door at msnbc and arrest anthony fauci in my first week, gaetz told some senators in his one-on-one meetings according to two people familiar with them. it's that last clause, quote, in my first week that sounded like an ominous disclaimer to some and it prompted a few senators to ask with a laugh, what happens thereafter to which he said, quote, we're not doing that. donald trump's a.g. nominee said, quote, we're breaking the cycle of weaponizing doj. i guess the problem with that is that men like bill barr had a hard time stopping donald

trump's desire to use the irs and use the department of justice against trump's enemies, that trump was relentless in this request and do you think that it is -- do you think that it is a prerequisite for whoever replaces matt gaetz atop the department of justice that they be willing to do retribution as it's been short termed? >> it would not surprise me, but can we start with the beginning big lie in all of this which is the question of whether doj was weaponized? the question of doj being weaponized and, for instance, new york prosecutors and georgia prosecutors all being part of some weaponization thing is simply the counter narrative to the fact of the matter which is that trump is a criminal, and a few -- who got caught, and had to do all sorts of weeding and

weaseling where he could and was found guilty and liable. so behind all of this is an effort to scrub out the underlying fact that the guy that they're supporting, the head of this cult is, in fact, a criminal and when you can't admit that you've got to go after the prosecutors and then you get into this cascaded of rhetorical consequence that opens up the door for turning that office into the actual weapon that you're pretending it was against trump. >> we're going to need you often, senator, to sort of continue to remind us where the norms are, and when we're blowing right through them. thank you for joining us today. >> thanks for including me.

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again, what i've seen from our women is quite incredible, and i'm not -- i'm not -- this is not hyperbole. i'm telling you what i've seen, and i think as the years have gone by our women get better and stronger. >> that is our current secretary of defense lloyd austin on the value and the strength of the brave women who serve this country and put their lives on the line every day, what they bring to the united states military, a direct contradiction from what we heard donald trump's pick to replace him say about two weeks ago. >> i'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. it hasn't made us more effective. it hasn't made us more lethal. it has made fighting more complicated. we've all served with women and they're great, it's just our institutions don't have to incentivize that in places where traditionally -- not traditionally over human history men in those positions are more

capable. >> that was, of course, fox news weekend morning show host pete hegseth, currently the choice to be donald trump's secretary of defense. he's now facing an escalating battle to be confirmed by the u.s. senate. senators from both political parties having concerns over comment like those we just played and over the fact that hegseth confirmed he paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault years ago, although he denies the assault occurred. politico reports this, quote, americans have down played and deflected when asked about hegseth arguing trump picked an outsider to shake up the bureaucracy where the process should play out. trump's team is apparently feeling the heat of this nomination that according to two republicans close to trump the transition team is quietly preparing a list of alternative candidates should trump abandon hegseth. meanwhile, nbc news finds that

trump's team is looking to accelerate efforts to name a reliable deputy of secretary of defense to calm nerves and stabilize hegseth's nomination fight. that's according to two officials familiar with that planning. >> want to bring into our conversation iraq war veteran tammy duckworth, a democrat of illinois. thank you for being here with us. we are marvel, i guess is the word for it at where we are as a country and perhaps in a presidential transition where the pick in the you're 2024 to lead the department of defense is openly advocating to remove all women from combat roles in the military which, of course, is an affront to folks like yourself who served honorably and given more than the rest of us and seek to erase the con

tribiegzs contributions of women in the military. >> i have two daughters, but if i were the mom of sons i would be offended that you would think that my son's life is less precious than your daughters' lives. frankly, this is about doing the job and the women who have passed the qualifying test whether it should be an army ranger or helicopter pilot like i did, the ability to do the job and defend our nation that we love, and frankly, for mr. hegseth to say that women should not be in combat show his lack of understanding of what modern combat is like. there's no forward line that you can stay behind and say, over here on this side of the line you're in combat, but over here you're not. if you were in the green zone in baghdad you were in combat, you were a supply clerk or whether your honor an infantryman. frankly, it doesn't reflect the realities of modern warfare. >> the campaign feels like it

happened 11 days ago and, and the former chief of staff in general as believing that the men and women who died and were injured serving the country were, quote, suckers and losers. what does it mean in your view that the country elected that person? >> well, i'm disappointed, obviously. i continue to believe that donald trump is not qualified to be the commander in chief of our nation's military, and it shows in his decision for his proposed defense secretary nominee, but that said, i believe strongly in the democratic process and donald trump won the electoral college and he won the popular vote, and if i were in uniform today i would salute and carry out all lawful orders, but not the unlawful ones, and i think that we need to make sure we keep the checks and balance of

our system in place and that's why here in the senate we need to step up and do our job and provide that oversight of the executive branch that our founders entrusted upon us. >> how much would you wager that any sort of real and earnest and thorough process absent fear of political retribution from donald trump would take place when it comes to trump's nominees to a future cabinet at, say, the pentagon or the department of justice? >> well, i have to tell you that i am not optimistic that my republican colleagues, witness they take majority won't roll offer for donald trump. there are signs of the republican election of senator thune to be their lead and are someone that trump didn't want to be a leader and mib a

vertebrae on the side of the senate, but we knows what happens there. we do know that donald trump is on that's not what woo want in a president and let's hope that some of our republicans' colleagues remember their oath that was not to donald trump, but it was actually to protect the constitution of the united states. >> donald trump, in a first term according to his former secretary of defense mark esper saw to court-martial general stanley mcchrystal and admiral and he has promised the same punishment for people like general milley and others. what would that do to the military if he were to follow through on those threats? >> if he would try follow through i would hope that our officers would court-martial. you are not supposed to carry out unlawful orders, so i would

hope that the members of the military each and every one of whom have dedicate tld lives to defending this nation and the constitution would remember the all enemies foreign, but dommestic and stand up to donald trump and not allow that to happen. i think that there are enough good officers out there who would not carry out an unlawful order and i would have trust in the military that they would do so. >> would it create a standoff, though? >> what would that be like for them? >> it would probably end their career, but at a certain point you have to decide. do you -- do you owe allegiance to donald trump or allegiance to the great nation that you've sworn an oath to defend and i would hope they remember their allegiance is to the united states of america and not one individual. >> senator duckworth, it's extraordinary that we are having this conversation, but thank you for having it with us.

♪♪ ♪♪ when we come back, the election's real world impact on all of us, but especially the lives of women, many of whom are now stockpiling abortion medication and morning-after pills ahead of donald trump's inauguration. we'll explore the growing fears over access to reproductive healthcare in this country next.

one of the groups of posing you says this.

he wants a total abortion ban with no exceptions. he supported bans that would criminalize abortions but ban ivf treatments and common forms of birth control and that you voted against access to contraception. where are you on these issues? is that an accurate assessment of where you are, because that's not in step with the american people. >> no, but shannon, i'm pro life. i've said very clearly, i am a bible believing christian. i believe in the sanctity of human life. >> speaker mike johnson has let it slip since then when it comes to his views on all those issues. he's just one of the many opponents to reproductive health care and access to abortion health care who will be all the more empowered after donald trump is sworn in for a second term in office. it's no surprise that women across the country are taking him literally and preparing for the worst. "new york times" reports this --

>> for their part, anti-abortion groups are preparing wish lists of restrictive policies they believe that trump administration fulfill for them. the guardian reports this -- for them the guardian reports this --

>> she said that earlier this week. joining our conversation, president and ceo of planned parenthood federation of america, alexis johnson. alexis, when you look at the states where the voters said they want abortion to be legal in my state, and i want donald trump for president, how have you sort of, over the two weeks of having that information available to you, how have you made sense of that? >> well, look, i think that the only mandate that donald trump got on election night was to keep a national abortion ban off of our bodies, right? he knows, the president-elect knows that abortion won on election night in all of those states that you mentioned, whether it was arizona,

colorado, maryland, missouri, montana, new york, across the spectrum, even in florida abortion was more popular than the president-elect. and i think what that means to us, right, is that people voted to ensure their own bodily autonomy in those states, and we always knew that, you know, abortion rights are popular and nonpartisan across the board. you don't vote to overturn a ban in missouri just by winning on democratic votes. you don't win constitutional amendments in kentucky, montana, and ohio without, you know, without ensuring that republican and independents come across the board. those are many of the same people that planned parenthood also sees, the millions of people that come to planned parenthood centers every day, they are also, you know, bipartisan. they are also people who come from all walks of life, seeking

basic access to health care. >> i mean, alexis, i mean, abortion access is more popular than donald trump is a nondeniable reality based statement. i wonder if it makes anybody on the abortion health care access side contemplate a meeting with donald trump. i think the right understands he's totally untethered without any principle and policy, and the right seems to pump that for the most extreme and insane things they want. fetal personhood is so radical, that jeopardizes idf and infertility. but do you think there's any hail mary effort to go and talk about his promises not to do the most extreme things in some of his utterances on the campaign trail. >> look, donald trump gave his prom toys the american people. he said he reversed his record

and said he would not ban abortion. and planned parenthood is going to hold him accountable to that every single day for the next four years. i grew up, your word is your bond. we're going to interpret any attempt to block access to mifepristone, any attempt to block abortion through executive orders or any attacks on planned parenthood with failing to keep a prom toys the american people. we feel as though we need to ensure he understands we are taking him at the current word that he has, which is that hi will not be looking for a national abortion ban, and that is our job to hold him to that. >> michelle, oh f all of the so of disappointment that the democrats and pro-democracy coalition felt on election night, the bright spot is the abortion access measures in arizona, missouri, new york,

even florida where it garnered 57% of the electorate in florida, it is undeniable that access to abortion health care has the support of the majority of the american people that's not where the supreme court is, that's not where jd vance is. do you think this is, at least as we head into the administration, a friction point, or do you believe that trump will be overrun by the extremists in his own administration? >> i believe it is a friction point, and it's in part because alexis said she heard a promise, people on the other side, who are against abortion, feel like they heard a promise, too. they feel like their promissory check is coming back with insufficient funds, that they are not getting what they thought they would get from donald trump. so they are going to absolutely reward, continue to fight for this. in the same way they tried to regulate clinics out of existence under roe, they will try to regulate access to

abortion pills out of existence in a post roe world. there are several ways to do this. they'll try to do this in the legislature, in the courts, they'll try to withhold funding from universities that are prescribing anti-abortion pills. they'll try to make it difficult for people to access them through telehealth. so yes, it is a friction point and will continue to be. the other bright spot that democrats may find in the -- in the sort of dichotomy of people voting to support abortion rights and voting for donald trump, and some of the polling to gauge where people were at, specifically in some of these states that had referendums on the ballot, one of the things that people said is they trusted democrats more to handle health care issues. and going forward, that is something that will help the democratic party as this fight continues. this has been primetime weekend. i'm nicolle wallace. tune in to "deadline: white

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good evening, and welcome to "politics nation." tonight's lead, toxic transition.