that's sweet. i'm thankful for you as a colleague and thankful for you with these handovers on monday night. >> i invite you every year in case she wants some turkey and stuffing. >> we would be leaving a large swath of strays. >> they're invited too. >> we may show up in a caravan. thank you so much. thank you. have a great holiday. thank you for joining us this hour. really, really happy to have you here. all right, so it started out -- it started out as a bill about the rules for being a dentist. and said so explicitly in the title. a bill to be entitled an act making various changes to the laws of dentistry. before reading this bill today, i had never before even thought about there being laws of dentistry. but there are laws of dentistry,

apparently, and this new legislation was going to tighten up those laws, laws about, for example, letting you do your dentist exams on mannequins, spelled manikins, mannequins, instead of on real people. that seems nice for the real people, not nice for the mannequins. also laws about letting the powers that be take away your dentistry license on account of your drunkenness. lots of important ways of tightening up the laws around dentistry. that was the bill. an act making various changes to the laws of dentistry. that is how that bill started. but then it changed. it changed a lot. north carolina is one of the states where republicans did not do as well as they wanted to in this past election. yes, trump did still win the state of north carolina, which i think was the thing they most cared about, he won by about three points in the presidential race in north carolina.

but even as trump won the presidential race there, the republican candidate in north carolina for governor, he lost that race in the state of north carolina, the republican candidate lost the lieutenant governor's race in north carolina. the republican candidate lost the attorney general's race in north carolina. the republican candidate lost the secretary of state's race in north carolina. also, the republican candidate to be state schools chief, a race i was particularly keeping my eye on, the republican candidate lost that race in north carolina too. the reason i was watching that one closely is because that was the race where the republican candidate for schools chief said she wanted a pay-per-view public televised execution of former president barack obama. she also demanded the execution of president biden, hillary clinton, chuck schumer, anthony fauci, a former new york

governor, a -- the current north carolina governor, a member of congress from minnesota, also she wanted to execute bill gates. i mean, honestly, it was a lot from her, but she was the republican party's nominee for superintendent of public schools for the state of north carolina this year. and she lost that election along with almost all the republican candidates for state wide office in north carolina. so, yes, in north carolina, this year, trump won the presidential race, but republicans lost almost everything else in the state. heading into this election, north carolina republicans held a super majority in that state legislature, but in this election, they lost that super majority. democrats made enough inroads in that state legislature this year, in this election, that republicans in north carolina no longer have a super majority that allows them to, you know,

override the the veto, for exam from the governor. that's where the laws of dentistry come into the story, because republicans in north carolina, after this election, where they did not do as well as they wanted to, they know they're about to lose their super majority in the state mocrats just won almost every state wide elected office in the whole state. republicans know this is coming. and so in the face of that oncoming change, republicans took this bill, making various changes to the laws of dentistry, they took the laws of dentistry bill and they turned it into something very much not that. which is probably good news for drunken dentists. bad news for mannequins. but it is also -- it is also really big news, big audacious news for what republicans are apparently trying to do in north carolina on their way out the door. this is footage from the north carolina state legislature, people being cleared out of the gallery in the state legislature

for protesting against what the republicans are trying to do with this bill that started off a dentistry bill and that has turbed ed turned into something more radical. they took the laws of dentistry bill, gutted it, took out all the dentist stuff, they decided to call it the hurricane relief bill, you remember all the horrible storms in western north carolina right before the election, they said it would be their hurricane relief bill, but what the bill actually does is it changes the state government in north carolina. so all the state government positions that are about to be held by democrats will have their power stripped away from them. the governor of north carolina, for example, will no longer be allowed to appoint judges as he sees fit under this new bill he will literally be required in certain circumstances to appoint judges that have been approved explicitly by the state republican party. the state republican party has to approve the democratic

governor's judicial picks. the attorney general under this bill will not be allowed to oppose anything that is done by the republicans in the state legislature even if the attorney general thinks it is against the laws of the state. power over the administration of elections in north carolina would inexplicably be moved wholesale into the office of the state auditor. the state auditor be in charge of elections. why would republicans change north carolina state law so the state auditor is suddenly the person in charge of elections? oh, oh, because state auditor is the one race that republicans won this year in north carolina. >> state auditor candidate dave where is dave? anybody that would save -- dave, if you say that and -- do you mean that? if you mean that, i'm for you

all the way. he has my endorsement. thank you. >> i'm only in politics for you, sir. i'm only in politics to serve you, sir, to serve donald trump, that's the only reason i'm running for office, the only reason i'm interested in politics at all, i am here to serve you as an individual. that is the one republican that won his race in north carolina state government in a state wide race this year. but because they just got this one guy in state wide office, the auditor, republicans just rewrote the laws of the state so that that will be the guy who is in charge of the state's elections, even though the state auditor job has nothing to do with elections whatsoever. it is like putting the dog catcher in charge of the water department. there is no connection at all, but he is the one republican and so now he'll be the elections

guy. this is what they have done with the dentistry bill. they hollowed out the dentist stuff and this is what they have done since the election. the consequence of that, one of the consequences thus far is that north carolinians have been turning up at the state legislature, filling the gallery and the legislature, shouting down the republicans while they have been forcing through this last-minute after the election hijack the dentistry bill to try to make sure they can stay in power even after they have been voted out, to stay in power in the administration of state government, and the judiciary, also to control future elections, right? because relying on the votes of the people of north carolina is clearly not a winning strategy of them, so they're trying to work around that, so they can stay in power without the people's consent. north carolina also elects its state supreme court justices. in this election, one democratic supreme court justice appeared to win re-election by a slim margin, less than 700 votes, around 700 votes.

there is a recount under way in that race right now because it was such a slim margin. in that recount, republicans are trying to throw out 60,000 ballots. they're trying to have 60,000 votes not counted in that race. 60,000. that's a lot of people to take away the vote from, right? i mean, they think they can do it. these are provisional ballots that they say they don't want counted, part of the reason there's so many, 60,000 provisional ballots in this race, is because republicans in the legislature put in place aggressive new restrictions on voting rights in time for this election, and that resulted in a lot of north carolina voters having to cast provisional ballots. now republicans are fighting to not count those ballots at all as a way to try to take that seat on the state supreme court. the people casting their votes thing just has not been working

all that great for republicans in north carolina. so now republicans in north carolina are trying to make sure that, you know, votes aren't everything. that there are other ways that they can keep and expand their power. and we really don't know how this is going to work out in north carolina. this is a live issue right now there are republicans from the western part of the state who voted no on this bill. in part because they were furious that this is what republicans are calling their hurricane relief bill. it is like a quarter of what the governor asked the legislature for in terms of hurricane relief dollars. it doesn't actually move money to where the hurricane hit, it doesn't actually move money to the western part of the state, so some republicans from the hard hit western part of north carolina are balking at this so far voting no, even though they are republicans. the democrats are against this. the protesters in the gallery of the legislature are very much against it. as are groups of north carolina clergy, faith leaders, groups

like the poor people's campaign, led by the reverend william barber, the democratic governor of north carolina roy cooper, he is presumably going to veto this thing. and then, you know, wait to see whether all the public pressure against it, whether the revulsion even among some republicans about what they're trying to do here will be enough to allow his veto to stand or whether republicans might be able to override that veto in the last days of their super majority before they are pushed out. so we shall see. this is a live issue right now. and i start with this tonight, not just because this is an important story for north carolina, right. this audacious small d antidemocratic power grab by republicans there. it is not just important for an important state. it is also kind of a test, it is a character test, right, to see

if we really got the stomach right now for this kind of a fight, a fight in a very practical, very blunt sense for small d democracy, because obviously that is what is being messed with here in north carolina, right? if you win an election to take office as an elected official, you winning the election means you should also get the powers of that -- of that job, right? there is nothing about administering elections that should be handed to partisan actors, so that one party has a leg up in trying to win future elections. that's just not the way it is supposed to work. trying to force those things is an antidemocratic, antismall d democratic power grab. but that happening so bluntly and so obviously, causing revulsion in so many people in north carolina, that, of course, is happening in the larger context of what is happening in the country. and we are seeing with the republican party ascending in washington, we're seeing a

really radical effort not to just, you know, advance and advocate for and plan to implement republican policies, we're seeing a really radical effort to change the american system of government, to consolidate power in one man's hands, to consolidate power within the executive branch of government, all this talk you heard about firing huge swaths of the federal government, wiping out whole departments, firing career law enforcement people, firing whole categories of civil servants, all of that is about consolidating power in the executive branch, so there is no source of authority or judgment within the federal government except for the one guy at the top, except for trump. specifically you heard talk about them firing the fbi director, firing the chairman of the federal reserve. those are jobs that don't turn over when the presidency turns over. they're specifically designed to be independent of the political cycle so that people in those jobs at the fbi and the fed,

they what's right for the country and not just what's right for any particular president. this out loud assistance that chris way and jerome powell are somehow going to be fired and replaced by trump because he's coming in as the new president, that's not how the american system of government is supposed to run. this is about him consolidating his power over the executive branch including the parts of it that are supposed to be independent from his power and control. we are also seeing even before the republicans take power efforts to consolidate power over the press. not just threatening and intimidating reporters and news organizations, but now, you know, saying they're going to use the power of the government to do it, having their presumptive appointees say that news organizations will be reviewed by the federal government according to their editorial decisions on news issues. we're finally now getting some widespread discussion about their efforts to consolidate

power also in just one man over the legislative branch of government, so over the fourth estate, the press, over the executive branch and also over the legislative branch, over congress, trump demanding the senate not confirm his nominees, threatening to force the senate to shut down, so he can install his nominees without any confirmation hearings or votes. right, that is an effort to consolidate his power in such a way and renders inert and unimportant the legislative branch of government. and in that case specifically, the senate, but it is not just the senate. with trump's austerity commission, this thing where they cut trillions of dollars out of the budget, an effort headed by eccentric right wing billionaire elon musk, in order to do that, they are reportedly planning on seizing for themselves what is usually called the power of the purse. taking it away from congress, just unilaterally cutting and reshaping the whole federal government without congress being involved at all.

so, in washington, as trump and the republicans are preparing to take power, trump is working really aggressively to consolidate all government power in trump's hands. he's looking to consolidate all the power of the executive branch in his own hands, he's looking to consolidate all power in the government over the legislative branch, supposed to be the co-equal branch of government, not going to be co-equal anymore, he's trying to neuter it, make it unimportant, tell them what to do and expect them to do it. he's trying to do the same thing over the fourth estate, the so-called fourth branch of government, the free press. there is also the judiciary, right? so far frankly i think he's been delighted how he's being treated by the third branch of government, by the courts, by the judiciary, so we don't yet see him moving to defy the courts, defy court orders. don't rest on that. it is very possible that that is

coming. i mean, honestly if we're, i think, if you take a wide view of what's happening thus far with trump taking power, preparing to take power in washington, you see the efforts to consolidate power in the executive branch, to limit the legislative branch, he's ignoring the judicial branch for now, but watch for it, obviously the efforts to intimidate the press, right, this is all about trying to make sure he's the only source of authority in the federal government. honestly, in terms of what to watch for next, i think we need to be watching for something that they call autocratic breakthrough, autocratic breakthrough when the party in power uses the power they do have in government to make sure they can never be dislodged from government. i'll give you a concrete example, you've already seen in the house of representatives now that mike johnson is back in as republican house speaker, they changed the rules in the house to make it much harder to remove him as speaker. so that's them digging in, planning to stay for the long run, now we're here, you're not

going to be able to get us out. you've seen trump joking, end quote, about expecting to stay in office for a third term once the second term is up. and that's, of course, against the constitution, but he keeps repeatedly bringing up, bringing it up, that's his expectation. trump adviser, one time campaign manager, steve bannon, saying things in public about how they're going to be ruling for 50 years. there won't be any way to dislodge them for power. autocratic breakthrough is when they use the powers they have achieved through winning elections to cement themselves in power so they can't be removed by future elections or by other democratic means. so, we are watching the efforts to consolidate power, we are watching for signs of autocratic breakthrough, trying to entrench themselves in power so they can't be removed. this is how strong men rule. these are the things they are trying.

that said, so far it is not clear that their efforts are going all that great. the fact that they just want these things doesn't mean that they get them. the fact that they're trying these things doesn't mean that they'll succeed. i mean, we have already seen terrible nominees like matt gaetz being laughed off of capitol hill, and having to have his nomination withdrawn. we're seeing senate republicans not yet caving and not yet agreeing to shut themselves down, so trump can have his nominees installed with no confirmation hearings. the press turning out to be, yes, weak kneed and lilly livered as you might fear in some quarters, but also defiant and professional and aggressive and creative in other quarters. the american free press, thus far, for job detailing the astonishing conflicts of interest and self-dealing and deep incompetence and lack of qualification that the salacious and even allegedly criminal past

dealings of the freak show lineup that trump has announced as his nominees for high office. we'll get to some of those this hour. so, his intentions for who he wants to install and for what he wants to do and how he wants to consolidate power so the american government is essentially just the will of one man, those are just his intentions. and it is worth being clear that those are his intentions. it is worth reporting on it, following it, being very clear-eyed about the fact that that's what he's trying to do just because those are his intentions doesn't mean those things are an inescapable fate for us as a country. politics still works, gravity still applies, the rules of nature still work. each of these things they're trying is likely to be a fight and a test. and it is not just in washington. it is everywhere there is a push against democracy. everywhere there is a push against small d democracy we are seeing there is a push for it

too. like in north carolina, right now. joining us now is north carolina state senator dan blue, the democratic leader in the senate of the great state of north carolina. senator blue, i really appreciate you making time to be here tonight. thank you. >> thank you for having me this evening, rachel. >> i know the situation in north carolina, i think as well as anybody watching from a national perspective, you obviously are watching it from inside and much closer up. what should the american people, people watching us right now, understand about what has been characterized as a power grab by republicans in your state since the election? >> well, you described it as a power grab, but it is something more than a power grab. i think it is a tantrum by the republican leadership and the general assembly not willing to accept the outcome of an election, and not willing to

accept the fact that they lost some of these elections. and now it is consolidating power. it is taking extraordinary steps to basically grab that power for themselves, taking it out of the judicial branch, taking it out of the executive branch. and in our case, it happens to be the executive branch trying to seize the power. i mean the legislative branch, rather than the executive branch. but it is the same thing that you're witnessing all over the country, just led by a different group here in north carolina. >> i was struck by the footage, it didn't get a lot of national attention, but we were able to look at north carolina media, local news organizations in north carolina, a bunch of social media stuff posted by different nonprofit and advocacy groups in north carolina and find what i found to be really interesting footage of the pushback by regular citizens, dozens of protesters seemed to interrupt the debate, a debate in which as i understand it no

republican lawmaker actually was willing to speak up to defend these changes. we have seen members of the clergy, we have seen groups like the poor people's campaign led by reverend william barber speak against it. how would you describe the attention to this in the state, and how your constituents are feeling about this and reacting to the bill? >> there is great attention to it. you described the marches led by dr. barber, those people are still around. they're watching what is happening with their government. they don't want the power seized by folks they don't elect. one of the points that is important to this is that this legislation that was passed last week also takes the power away from the attorney general so that he can't intervene or get involved in certain cases unless it suits the whims of the republican leadership in the legislature. and so people know that the

attorney general is supposed to protect their interests and intervene on their behalf and they're protesting that, protesting all the powers that are taken from the governor, all of these powers that are taken from other branchs in other places they have been for half a century or more. so the decision last week to clear the galleries really took everybody out, people who weren't protesting, but everybody who was coming to visit their government to see how it operated, the legislative branch of government, there was no effort to sort between those folk. but you can rest assured that people in north carolina, the state that started this whole revolution in the united states with the halifax resolves in 1776 will still be involved in governance. regardless of what the elected leadership in the legislature, the republican leadership, regardless of what they do, that same spirit that hit north

carolina 248 years ago will still prevail and our people aren't going to take it, we believe very deeply in democracy and we're going to fight to preserve the institutions that were created to make sure that democracy still prevailed. >> north carolina state senate democratic leader dan blue. senator blue, thank you for those closing rousing comments. thank you for making time to join us tonight. good to have you here, sir. >> thank you, rachel. it has been my pleasure. >> all right. we have much more ahead here tonight. stay with us. ave much more aheae tonight. stay with us

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so here's one of the complaints, filed with the better business bureau. quote, after filling out an online form to get health insurance information, within three seconds i began getting bombarded by phone calls. when i asked the representative to stop, she said the auto dialer would not stop until i provided my information. quote, i don't know how to get them to stop after 18 calls in an hour and a half. i'm 64 years old and this is causing me unnecessary stress. here's another. insurance agents repeatedly called my 86-year-old father who is deaf, has dementia, and lives in an assisted living facility. this person says this insurance agent somehow convinced his deaf elderly father with dementia to

dump his health insurance plan that he had for more than 20 years in exchange for a plan that the person on the phone was hard selling him on in these repeated phone calls. the complaint says, quote, clearly this company is conducting fraud and financial elder abuse. the company that the subject of these complaints is essentially a telemarketer that gets people with medicare. it calls people up and tries to convince them they should dump their medicare plan and switch to a private alternative. if the telemarketer is successful in convincing or tricking or berating the old person on the phone into doing that, into agreeing, well, then the telemarketer collects a hand some fee from the new insurance company that they just got this signup for. new york magazine has great reporting on this out today. the company told the magazine they do not engage in this,

quote, kind of behavior, excuse me, kind of conduct. nevertheless, this telemarketing firm has had dozens of individual complaints waged against it with the better business bureau. tells you something about how they operate. that said, big picture, who cares about a litany of heart breaking elder abuse complaints like that, when the company also has a powerful and charismatic celebrity endorser. >> hey, everybody. i'm here today at the medicare advantage.com helpline center in charlotte, north carolina, here to meet the team helping folks just like you with their coverage options. >> folks just like you. that, of course, is the tv doctor, dr. mehmet oz, and his enthusiasm for this particular company might conceivably have something to do with the fact that he personally holds hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in some of the companies that provide this private insurance that you might switch people on to if you can

convince them to give up their medicare in repeated, repeated, repeated phone calls. his financial stake in this matter came to light a few years ago back when dr. oz was running as the trump endorsed candidate for senate in pennsylvania, campaigning on a platform to privatize all of medicare. and, you know, that would have all been a lot of baggage to carry into the united states senate, had he won that senate seat, right? campaigning to privatize medicare, while he was financially benefiting from such a policy change with his own personal stock holdings, promotion of medicare, privatization schemes. i mean, perhaps that is what motivated pennsylvania voters to not elect mehmet oz as their united states senator. it would be quite something to drag all that with you into the senate. it is another thing entirely to drag all that into the federal government because dr. oz is now going to be the person in charge

of medicare for the federal government. but that, of course, is what donald trump has just announced, he's name ing dr. mehmet oz for the next administrator of medicare and medicaid, yes, with that guy's record on medicare. dr. oz is the tv doctor who once claimed that red onions can prevent ovarian cancer. green coffee beans are a miracle weight loss cure. he has pushed the false claim that dodgy malaria medicines can treat covid a mountain of stocks in related companies including the makers of the malaria drug he was hawking for covid. and he's about to be a major decisionmaker about healthcare in this country, in charge of the federal government program he was campaigning to privatize and planning to personally profit from if and when that happened. on the heels of donald trump picking him to run medicare and medicaid in this country, we also got news on other healthcare picks to run the cdc, donald trump picked a former

republican congressman who for years crusaded on the false claim that vaccines must be the cause of autism, to lead the national institutes of health. trump's top candidate endorsed herd immunity as the best way to address the covid pandemic, just a fancy way of saying let's get everybody sick and see what happens. cull the weak. cull the elderly. then there is trump's pick for surgeon general, the nation's top doctor, she is a tv personality herself. she went to a for profit medical school in the caribbean. she has no public health experience whatsoever but she does appear regularly on the fox. that's nothing to say of the guy who is the leading antivaccine crank and quack in the united states, who is considered to be responsible for a totally preventable -- considered to be

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this is the biggest increase we have seen since records began, the figure of 32 dead up from 25 only yesterday. >> i think the minute you get hospitals running at 200% capacity, i think that speaks for itself. it is incredibly serious. >> that was an australian news station reporting from the island nation of samoa in 2019. if it seems familiar, it may look and sound like the kind of news reports we saw from all over the world in 2020, during the global covid pandemic. but this was not about covid. and this all happened before covid. this was 2019, this outbreak in samoa, that killed more than 80 people, many of them young kids. the government had to order lockdowns to try to save people's lives. charities from around the world had to ship children's coffins to samoa to deal with a shortage of could have coffins there f little kids and babies that were dying. what samoa was experiencing was an epidemic of measles. a preventable epidemic, and i say that because measles is a disease for which there has been an effective vaccine available for more than 60 years.

that preventable disease outbreak in samoa in 2019 is now newly relevant because one of the factors that contributed to that outbreak was a sudden onset of hostility to vaccination on the island. and that hostility was stoked in large part by robert f. kennedy jr., who donald trump just tapped to lead the department of health and human services. kennedy's antivaccine organization children's health defense, very aggressively spread antivaccine propaganda, not only in the united states, but around the world. and in samoa, they claimed the measles vaccine itself was the cause of the outbreak and not the solution to it. rfk jr. personally lobbied the governor of samoa, telling the governor that vaccination was what caused the spread of measles, not what needed to be done to stop the spread of it. and that's insane.

as journalist brian dear writes in a new op-ed for "the new york times" today, quote, i was in samoa during that outbreak as part of my more than 16 years of reporting on the antivaccine movement. the cause of the outbreak was not the vaccine, but most likely an infected traveler who brought the virus from new zealand, which that year had the biggest measles outbreak in decades, especially among that country's indigenous and pacific islander communities. migration and poverty were likely factors in a sudden spread of measles in samoa and new zealand. but as an editorial in the new zealand medical journal reported, so too was the factor that robert f. kennedy jr. specializes in, quote, increasing circulation of misinformation, leading to distrust and reduced vaccination uptake. joining us now is brian dear, a journalist and the author of the book "the doctor who fooled the world" about the antivaccine movement. i appreciate you taking time to join us today. thank you. >> pleasure, rachel. nice to be here. >> i think that since robert f.

kennedy jr. associated himself with this presidential election, first as an independent candidate and then secondly with donald trump, now especially since he's been put forward for this very powerful health post, i think americans have started to hear about his very troubling role in this deadly outbreak in samoa. but i still think the concept of it, the idea of it is fuzzy to a lot of people. can you describe to us the nature of the outbreak, how severe it was, and why he's associated with it and thought to be potentially partially responsible for the death toll? >> well, the plot thickens from what you were saying a moment ago, in that it is almost certain that the virus got into samoa by flight from auckland. and just a little while before that, friends of kennedy had been in auckland, in new zealand, with a film, which had

been promoted in the united states by robert de niro and got a lot of attention in the united states, which was suggesting that there was fraud at the cdc in atlanta. there actually wasn't. but so they have been touring in auckland, south auckland, where a lot of pacific islander communities there, which became very, very susceptible, it was there that new zealand saw the biggest outbreak of measles in decades. so, it was no surprise really that that virus did get on to an aircraft and got its way out to samoa. mr. kennedy really has questions to answer about his relationship with the people who made that film. it was called vaxx, and mr. kennedy became the executive producer of a sequel, vaxx 2, a close colleague of the people who were -- went out to new zealand and also to australia to promote fear of vaccines.

so, that's where it came from. and the catastrophic consequences that i witnessed on the island, i spent much of a week of the time i was there just simply talking to mothers about the loss of their children. and it was really awful to listen to them and i found myself at the end of it all just sitting in a cathedral and crying and crying. couldn't stop crying as the accumulation of pain from these mothers really consumed me. it was awful. >> why would somebody like rfk jr. have influence in a place like samoa as to whether or not people vaccinated their kids? why would his influence in particular be something that sort of perniciously accelerated the risk there? >> well, his name opened doors, he's always known that. he's really not more than his name, is he? he's not a particularly good lawyer. he pays himself the last time i

looked $500,000, half a million dollars a year, to run children's health defense, which he set up himself, but he's not a particularly distinguished man in his own right. but he got out to samoa, he went to visit them, he went to see the prime minister, and as you say, tried to convince the prime minister that it was in fact the vaccine that was causing the deaths and not the measles virus. extraordinary thing to do, but, you know, he's been making this kind of mischief for many years now. >> journalist and author brian deer, author of "the doctor who fooled the world," i appreciate you being with us for this. i would love to have you talk a few more about this in the future if you don't mind. thank you very much for your time tonight. we'll be right back. much for yr time tonight we'll be right back. do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy - even a term policy - for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had

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about ten days ago, "new york times" published a profile of an adviser to president-elect donald trump, a guy by the name of boris epshteyn. they titled it the trump lawyer who wields outsize influence on the next white house. quote, there is nobody in the president-elect's orbit who at this point would doubt the level of mr. epshteyn's influence, he's one of the most powerful figures in the early days of the trump transition, he's become a significant gatekeeper for trump, including shaping some of the information he receives about personnel and cabinet selections. epshteyn was reportedly pivotal in securing the ultimately

doomed nomination of matt gaetz to be attorney general of the united states, also the nomination of trump's chosen white house counsel. now, we have been through one trump transition and one trump administration before. so, what comes next is as obvious to you as it is to me, right, in the snake pick of jockeying egos that trump cultivates around himself, you know, if this guy boris is seen as ascendant right now in terms of his influence, then, of course, all of the other snakes are activated, all the other people in trump's orbit will soon come for boris, right? it is inevitable, like the sunrising in the east. somebody is important, not for long! cue today's headlines, cnn first to report on allegations flying inside the trump transition that old boris has been trying to cash in on his proximity to trump. imagine what is described as quote an internal investigation

by trump lawyers reportedly found that boris epshteyn asked potential trump cabinet nominees to pay him for his help getting them nominated, to pay him as much as nth. among the people epshteyn supposedly tried to shake down was trump's ultimate nominee for treasury, scott bessent, who according to this trump legal review, reportedly did not cough up the cash. he reportedly did not pay boris epshteyn before being selected for the job. there is even a report published in a super trump friendly right wing outlet that bessent possibly in consultation with vice president elect jd vance's office, he participated in an amateur sting operation against boris epshteyn in which he tried to get epstein shteyn on tape a him for money in exchange for the nomination. i should say msnbc and nbc news

have not confirmed any of this reporting. boris epshteyn, however, tells us, quote, i am honored to work for president trump and with his team. these fake claims are false and defamatory and will not distract us from making america great again. but, of course it was going to be like this, right? of course the trump transition and presumably the next trump term will be a cornucopia of infighting and back biting and trump's allies all trying to sabotage each other, not only in the press, but any other under-handed way they can. of course it was going to be like this. more seriously, though, these allegations that boris was collecting cash or trying to collect cash in exchange for getting people put in the cabinet, it raises the prospect that trump cabinet offices are for sale, right? the possibilities that people would think there is a possibility of buying one, because there at least has now been a published price for what it takes to get one.

the internal review by trump lawyers found that epshteyn didn't get money from anyone, he wasn't able to collect his price, for anybody he installed in the cabinet. we asked if we can see the supposed review. think they'll ever make it public? think they'll ever give it to us? watch this space. it to us watch this space with liberty mutual. customize and sa— (balloon doug pops & deflates) and then i wake up. and you have this dream every night? yeah, every night! hmm... i see. (limu squawks) only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

regina king is in our studio looking radiant as ever. don't cover up your glow. ♪♪ flawless. all eyes on you. skin esteem is a beautiful thing. ♪♪

we have a best new thing in the world today. her name is flynn mary donovan. she has just arrived in the lives of our dear colleague jen moreny donovan and her family. you are perfect, not just because your mom says so, you are plain perfectihospital hat. flynn mary donovan, welcome to the world. best new thing in the world today. god bless you. "way too early" is up next. d bl. "way too early" is up next we will go out