for the people in the israeli right of the government, this would solve part of the problem of gaza, which is a hostile population. and you have a lot fewer people there. >> do you think that there is -- there was clearly political strain on the netanyahu government about getting tens of thousands of folks to get back to their homes in northern israel. there been tons of deployments for idf soldiers. do you think there's political pressure to find some declaration of an end in gaza now that this is been debt with, has blood? >> i don't get the same kind of pressure. i think gaza is more manageable in terms of the stress of the deployment inputs on the israeli defense forces that lebanon was.it puts on the he's ra non was.it puts on the he's israeli defense forces than lebanon does. it is not about holding territory from gaza. it is basically going in, demolishing stuff and moving out again. you don't need to have that many

troops there. this is why hamas keeps coming back. you're not holding the territory. what it is ultimately achieving beyond destroying the society is questionable. but i don't think it is as much a strain on the idf. >> peter, thank you very much. "alex wagner tonight" starts right now. >> you don't have to give a preview of the a block. >> i'm sorry i went late, but i'll see you in a second. >> it is your block too. thank you, my friend. fox news is not exactly known for asking tough questions of donald trump, but when it comes to trump and his proposed tariffs, maria bartiromo actually kind of went for it. >> what about the criticism and the journal has done this as well, if you put something like a 200% tariff on a product, it is only going to mean higher prices for consumers? >> no, no. >> it has to be passed on somehow. >> it doesn't mean -- it doesn't mean what. >> for years now, trump has been

campaigning on the promise he would enact massive tariffs as part of his america first economic agenda, but he has also been trying to get away with pretending those tariffs would somehow not cost american consumers. >> a tariff is a tax on a foreign country. that's the way it is, whether you like it or not. a lot of people -- it is a tax on us. no, no. it is a tax on a foreign country. we're going to be a tariff nation. it is not going to be a cost to you. it is going to be a cost to another country. >> that line might have worked on the campaign trail, but it is now time for trump to put his money or more accurately america's money where his mouth is. yesterday trump got specific about those promised tariffs, he threatened that on day one of his second term he would enact a 25% tariff on all goods from canada and mexico and add an additional 10% tariff on all goods from china.

and you might remember that tariffs were a central part of trump's first term. he loved tariffs and trade wars, as he called them, but they did not go well for him. back then, trump put tariffs, specifically on all imported washing machines. and just as he's doing today, trump promised those tariffs on the washing machines would not be paid for by american consumers. but guess what, they were. despite the fact that the price of washing machines had been declining for years at that point, the year trump's tariff took effect, the price of washing machines in the u.s. surged an average of $86 a machine. the american consumer very much paid the price. and now this week, trump is declaring he wants to take that same concept and apply it to the vast majority of everything that america imports. now, most of america's imports come from mexico and canada and china, the three countries trump

is threatening to tariff. as an example, for years now, the u.s. has imported more crude oil from canada than it has from the rest of the world combined. so far all the trump supporters who claimed one of their biggest issues was how expensive gas got under president biden, well, buckle your seat belts, folks. because gas may get a lot more expensive. speaking of which, trump's tariffs will likely make your car itself significantly more expensive. one michigan-based auto industry consultant today told "the new york times," the prospect of tariffs is a two-alarm fire for the auto industry. there is probably not a single assembly plant in michigan, ohio, illinois and texas that would not immediately be affected by a 25% tariff. chrysler makes minivans in canada. chevy and ford make pickup trucks in mexico. economists say that all of those vehicles and many others would become significantly more

expensive if mr. trump follows through on his threat. those higher auto prices would have a significant effect on overall inflation, and higher car prices would probably lead to lower sales and layoffs at auto factories. factory layoffs. then there is the impact of trump's tariffs on the cost of groceries. mexico and canada are two of the biggest exporters of fresh fruit and vegetables to the united states. in 2022, mexico supplied 51% of fresh fruit and 69% of fresh vegetables imported into the u.s. while canada supplied 2% of fresh fruit and 20% of fresh vegetables. think about that. a combined 53% of all of our imported fresh fruits and a combined 89% of all of our imported fresh vegetables, 89% of all imported vegetables, that is a lot of vegetables. but i don't know, maybe you're someone who likes the sound of

that. maybe you think the u.s. should grow more of its fruits and vegetables domestically and stop importing so much. the problem there is that trump's other signature promise could destroy that option too. according to the departments of labor and agriculture, nearly half of the nation's nearly 2 million farm workers lack legal status. the same is true of the workforce that makes up our domestic dairy and meatpacking industries. now, i am no professor of economics. who am i to say that that would make american grocery prices skyrocket? luckily for me, reuters talked to a food economics and policy professor who told reuters that mass removal of farm workers would shock the food supply chain and drive consumer grocery prices higher. it is not just grocery bills that will fuel the impact of trump's agenda here. take housing costs. not only does the u.s. get the majority of its imported lumber from canada, which trump's tariffs would make 25% more

expensive, but trump wants to deport the labor force that builds a gigantic portion of america's housing. this weekend, texas' construction industry sounded the alarm about just how devastating trump's promised deportations would be for the industry's capacity to build. the ceo of the construction giant merrick told npr, it would devastate our industry. we wouldn't finish our highways, we wouldn't finish our schools, housing would disappear. they would lose half their labor. tariffs on their own could devastate our economy. mass deportation on its own could devastate our economy. and donald trump says he wants to do both on day one. joining me now is chris hayes, host of "all in," you may recall him from five minutes ago, and fahd shakir, founder and executive director of more perfect union. great to have you here. >> good to be here. >> thank you. >> yikes is what i have to say.

the cascade effect is just staggering when you talk about the most talked about policies. there weren't a lot that trump sort of heralded on the campaign trail, mass deportations and tariffs. you pointed this out on your show, he tried this once before on soybeans and it ended up with, like, subsidies the american government had to pay the farmers who were the victim of retaliatory tariffs from china. >> it was worst of all worlds. china retaliated. we export, we import a ton from china, as everyone knows, there is made in china, it is a cliche, we also export a lot of things to them, including american farmers. they said, okay, we retaliate, they put a tariff on our agricultural exports, tons of soybean for instance laying fallot and you want to have this weird situation where he took the revenue from the tariffs and used it to cut welfare checks to american farmers to make them

whole, but it is like a lose-lose. you got the tariffs and now you're paying people money to not sell the product that they grew. >> it is insane. >> it is a terrible -- and the other thing about this is, for all the bluster, it wasn't like this experiment he did with trade war resulted in some rebalancing of america's trade deficit with china or new terms. it was basically -- it was, like, it was professional wrestling acting out. >> wwe. >> the question here is, is it going to be that again, which in some ways is weirdly the best case scenario, or are they really going to drive the car off the cliff? >> right. living on the precipice is such a morbid fascination of his, maybe because he thinks it connotes strong man vibes. but if the goal of the punitive tariffs in the case of china and to some degree mexico is to stop the trafficking of drugs over the border, the reality is that

95% of fentanyl seized by u.s. law enforcement is discovered in personal vehicles driven across the border by u.s. citizens. that's according to the dhs. this is a solution in search of a -- the problem exists, fentanyl is an issue. but it won't even change this sort of root cause of why he wants to impose tariffs to begin with. >> right. well, you're right about the drug problem and we have been dealing with the fact that, you know, in the biden administration had been actually -- if you look at the actual facts and the statistics of fentanyl moving across the border had been effectively starting to curb that. there is that. and then in addition to the -- if you're talking about tariffs, one thing i'm honed in on is the idea that we have to fight for american workers. and in his best sense, donald trump is trying to at least advocate and articulate that's a claim of what he's trying to do with tariffs, that if john deere is going to move plants to mexico to build tractors, if stellantis is going to shut down, if case new holland moves

to mexico as well, we're going to penalize everything that comes back across. what ends up happening, to save those jobs, those jobs still go over, and now we have nothing for the american worker. and what the biden administration had been doing is investing in making the cost of starting these businesses attainable and investing from a government perspective in the communities so that both -- everything, education, housing, all of it worked together seamlessly to raise and lift all boats. but what donald trump is proposing is that we just basically lose, lose, the proposition that chris hayes was just pointing out. >> one of the things i think is worth -- his best case politically is people like -- one of donald trump's strengths is he sees everything as zero sum. i think a lot of voters see things in zero sum. we are getting screwed. someone is ing us. there is a pie and someone is taking a big slice. that's how he views everything. this kind of rhetoric is extremely useful.

the best case scenario is lots of theatrics and he's going back and forth with claudia, the new president of mexico and she wrote a letter today, and not a lot of stuff is happening, and the country he's inheriting is in very good shape. and to the extent that he, through ideological commitment or narcissism or whatever is like goes through mass deportation and huge tariffs it really will make things worse for people. actual effect. >> you have to imagine there will be some political cost. this is a man, trump who won, voters making between 30,000 and $99,000 a year, these tariffs which could raise costs on consumers' taxes $2500. >> on gas. >> on basic articulations of how you're doing, how much you have to pay at the grocery store, whether you can afford to feed your family, whether you can take the road trip, whether you can get the gas to get to your

job, that would be affected. that is the insurance policy here, it would crater trump's support among the very voters who supported him. >> let me first offer, one of the reasons he's moving in this direction, tariffs and deportation, is because it is a unique power afforded to the president. it is the cheapest and easiest way out. instead of having to negotiate with congress or the -- and figure out a tax proposal that would penalize corporations, who are wrongly offshoring jobs, that would be a hard thing to do. we get into the tax code and figure out how to best levy a penalty on a corporation that does illegal actions, then he's going to go for a tariff, which is a blunt force mechanism he has, which is really the -- an awful way to atry to address this problem. i want to be clear why he's doing it. he's not going the harder route to try to build a coalition and address this problem through a lot of different dimensions. immigration policy, tax policy, whole series of actions that you could move through congress if you wanted to be a leader on this and restructure american

economy to make sure to the point he's trying to raise penalizing bad actors, that we could agree on, but here is the democratic party trying to fight on, you name it, stock buybacks, dividends, corporate rates, loopholes in the corporate -- irs auditing people, but these are things the republicans are trying to undermine for the past couple of years. >> i guess, like, piggybacking on that, the hope is that the talk about mass deportations and tariffs ends up being more rhetoric at in nature than anything else. the mass deportations are limited in scope, but expanded in bluster if you will. >> i think he's more likely to really try to deport a ton of people than stick with a tariff regime that would start to, like, spook wall street and -- you know what i mean? he gets very spooked out when the dow goes down. >> the farm industry is complaining to trump. they're, like, you can't deport all of our workers. we won't be able to -- everything -- the whole system will start to break down if we lose half our labor force.

>> i will say this, there are more internal ideological interest group contradictions bound up in this project than i have ever seen in a winning coalition. if you win an election, you have people with different interests and different views in your coalition. this has all been subsumed under the cult of personality of trump, but not subsumed forever. farmers have interests. >> agriculture has a big have in washington, d.c. >> home builders don't want lumber to be more expensive. >> or to lose their builders. >> this is real stuff. and you can't do a rally and everyone project on to you that you agree with them when you actually have to start taking actions. >> and i think, faiz, chris raises an important point in terms of the coalition. the deportation thing during the campaign, immigrant rights activists are talking about that. now that it is on the front doorstep, you have big ag, the home construction industry, they're saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

those are coalitions that the republican party and donald trump would listen to. mondayed interest ed moneyed interests, a lot of lobbying power and inside washington, d.c. >> and tom homan who is running the deportation effort is filled with animus. he wants to jail people, he's suggesting jailing the denver mayor. he's ready to go after everybody and send this very tough i'm a sheriff and everyone is getting the hell out. what it is going to do is cripple the actual economy. and i believe that, you know, when you have these -- the kind of scaring and the fear-based economy that trump wants to happen, you have people exiting out of the labor force. you have people like going home and staying and hiding underground, waiting him out essentially. that's what happened. you don't actually, you know, create a vibrant economy where, you know, other people come in and take these jobs. and that is what we have to wrestle with, just a fear-based economy that is filled with animus, that doesn't even accomplish the goals that he wants, which is americans would

come in and take the jobs in springfield, ohio. in his mind, if you just kicked out a bunch of haitians from honda and dole factories, why working class people would come in and take those jobs, that's not what would happen, you would decimate the factories in america and the workers would go underground. >> fear-based economy, what could go wrong. faiz shakir, thank you. chris hayes, thank you for double duty. extra slice of pecan pie. come by anytime, my friend. the trump grift continues. new reporting that a top trump adviser was shaking down trump's treasury pick for 30 grand a month. what donald trump wants to do about that, if anything, coming up next. first, finally free from his leadership role, mitch mcconnell reportedly feels liberated and ready to stand up to donald trump, maybe. we'll discuss that next. donald trump, maybe we'll discuss that next.

let me set the record straight. are people born wicked? or do they have wickedness thrust upon them? oh! -ah! [ laughter ]

no need to respond. that was rhetorical. hm, hmm. we're not going to have the senate have the legacy of mcconnell to block president trump. it will not happen. matt gaetz has -- has withdrawn his nomination. and, look, let's be brutally frank, you can't take this any other way than a mitch mcconnell win. >> despite predicting that nothing would stop donald trump from getting his cabinet picks

confirmed, steve bannon has now conceded that something did, something named mitch mcconnell. today "the new york times" reports that senator mcconnell is feeling liberated and prepared to defend his chamber's independence from trump. but whether the man who privately mused about impeaching trump before voting to acquit him and who refused to hold a hearing for president obama's supreme court nominee in an election year and expedited president trump's pick in an election year, whether that guy is actually the resistance, well, that very much remains to be seen. joining me now is charlie sykes, msnbc contributor and columnist. charlie, thank you for being here. i'm very eager to get your assessment of all this. "the new york times" reports that mcconnell wants to concentrate on preserving the senate's institutional independence at a time when trump has made clear he means to bend the chamber to his will. what do you think about mitch mcconnell being the sort of unlikely face of, i guess we'll

call it a resistance of sorts? >> well, extremely unlikely. i think my position is skepticism because we have been through this before, over and over and over again. let's play a quick game of what if. what if, in the twilight of his career, mitch mcconnell actually does regret not disqualifying donald trump after january 6th? what if in his heart of hearts mitch mcconnell deeply does resent trump's conduct and his racist slurs against his -- what if mitch mcconnell actually does think that donald trump's foreign policy is dangerous? and what if, in fact, he is serious? this is where you really draw the line, that he is serious about protecting the integrity of the institution? because donald trump from the moment of his election made it

clear he wanted to bend the senate to his will, as you said. he wanted the senate to surrender its powers of advise and consent. mitch mcconnell at some point is going to say, look, the way this system is set up under the constitution, we're not potted plants. we're going to be zealous of our power and we're not going to let you roll over. so, the other what if that i think that we need to keep in mind and, again, i don't put a lot of stock in this, but what if at this point in his life mitch mcconnell is all out of bleeps to give. what if he decides i have nothing to lose, i am not going to be -- i am not simply going to be another spear carrier for donald trump. you put all those things together, and you have the possibility of someone saying i have nothing to lose. i'm going to do what i want to do, really for the first time in maybe 20 years in terms of not

having responsibility in leadership. so, again, the full position, skepticism, but it is a really interesting question now, especially going back to your last segment, i want to underline one learning about th unilateral power of the president, all the things that trump can do without congressional approval. he can unilaterally impose billions of dollars in taxes is extraordinary. i don't think a lot of people fully realize that. the fact that he does have the power to initiate mass deportation, the fact that he can use the department of justice. so, this is a moment at which the senate, in its historic constitutional role, can be a check on donald trump. and there is no love lost between these two men. >> yeah, that's for certain. it does beg the question whether the senate led by republicans with mitch mcconnell is kind of an engine under the water if not the majority leader is really going to show some backbone. i wonder what you make of

mcconnell's silence on trump's most controversial cabinet picks other than matt gaetz who no longer is in the running. but, you know, he hasn't said anything about pete hegseth for defense secretary, he hasn't said anything about tulsi gabbard for director of national intelligence and hasn't said anything about robert f. kennedy jr. for hhs. do you read anything into that silence? and secondly to that, do you think the gaetz failure, the flameout of matt gaetz is giving republicans a sense of renewed faith in their own agency, not that they came out and did anything about matt gaetz, but that trump will relent in some cases or do you think they're more gun shy as it were about, you know, killing off one of his nominees rhetorically speaking because he's already lost one and donald trump doesn't like to lose? >> well, to be honest, we don't know. but you asked exactly the right question. i thought that the rejection of matt gaetz would make it harder

for them to reject number two and number three. in fact, however, they might possibly be, you know, getting a sense that they are, that they do have agency, that they're not potted plants, that they are able to have real influence in this. and mitch mcconnell's role, i think, is going to be a lot of this behind closed doors, where he's going to sit with others and give them, i don't know, encouragement, permission, a little bit of cover, to say, hey, why are we here, we're the united states senators, are we going to roll over, do you really think that america is safer with pete hegseth in charge of the department of defense? do you really want to put the entire western alliance at risk with tulsi gabbard in that position? do you really want to have one of your first votes to be to confirm a conspiracy theorist like rfk jr.? and so there are others that i think might be emboldened by this. one of the early tests is going

to be on the confirmations, but there is a real difference between mitch mcconnell and people like mike rounds, for example, in the senate, who have been aligned with trump, on issues like ukraine. when it comes down to it, what stand will they take against a donald trump that wants to throw nato under the bus or wants to cut off ukraine? that may be a red line for some of them. and, again, with 53 votes, you don't need more than a handful. again, we have seen this over and over again, the way they cave in, but, you know, new day, new game, new personnel. >> yeah, susan collins, lisa murkowski, thom tillis, mitch mcconnell, i can't say i'm saying those names. thank you for your time, sir, tonight. >> thank you. still to come this evening, a tale of two trump loyalists. after risking his livelihood trying to help donald trump retain power in 2020, rudy

giuliani says he is so poor right now, he cannot even afford a new york city taxicab. meanwhile, trump's inner circle is reportedly investigating his long time adviser boris epshteyn for trying to monetize epshteyn's access to trump. we'll have more on both of those stories coming up next. 'll havee stories coming up next

the reality is i have no

cash. it is all tied up. so right now if i wanted to call a taxicab, i can't do it. i don't have a credit card. i don't have a checking account. i have no place i can go take cash out except a little bit that i saved and it is getting down to almost nothing. >> donald trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani pleading poverty outside of a federal courthouse in new york city today. the reason mr. giuliani is so strapped for cash is that he has been ordered to pay nearly $150 million to georgia election workers ruby freeman and shaye moss for defaming them as part of trump's scheme to undermine the results of the 2020 election. you might be thinking to yourself, how is that rudy giuliani hasn't been able to turn his fortunes around at a time when his number one guy donald trump is about to retake the white house? well, self-proclaimed billionaire donald trump has reportedly not offered to cough up any of his own money to pay

rudy's legal bills. trump has apparently done little if anything to help his old pal giuliani beyond participating in a fund-raiser for him last year. in fact, as recently as last month, giuliani claimed the trump campaign and the rnc still owed him $2 million. what giuliani appears to have forgotten is the one rule of being in trump's orbit, nobody profits off trump but trump. unwavering loyalty to trump might earn you an endorsement or a place in his administration or even a presidential pardon after serving a few months in jail for things he did in trump's service. but money flows in one and only one direction, towards trump. and now there is another trump world figure learning that same lesson. yesterday multiple news outlets reported the trump transition is investigating long time trump aide boris epshteyn for trying to personally profit off of trump's presidency.

according to the times, several people who mr. trump trusts had alerted him that mr. epshteyn was seeking money from people looking for cabinet appointments. the trump transition team then conducted a review which found boris epshteyn had sought payment from two people, including scott bessent who mr. trump recently picked as his nominee for treasury secretary. scott bessent reportedly decided not to pay epshteyn a reported $30,000 fee for the promotion of his candidacy around mar-a-lago, according to "the washington post." in a call set up between the two men, epshteyn said he was boris effing epshteyn, bessent should have paid for his services sooner. boris epshteyn denies any wrongdoing here and so far the trump team has not actually taken any action against boris epshteyn beyond launching this investigation and apparently leaking it to multiple news outlets. as for donald trump himself, it appears his goal is not to distance himself from boris

epshteyn, but to remind him who is in charge. as trump told conservative columnist john solomon, it is a shame but it happens, but no one working for me in any capacity should be looking to make money. nobody, that is, except the man at the top. in just a second, i'll talk to congressman jim himes about the people donald trump is choosing to surround himself with in a second term and what he expects from them. that's next. term and what he e from them. that's next.

well, former congressman matt gaetz flamed out after hitting one of the very few guardrails left in trump's d.c., trump's remaining appointees may have a much easier time getting confirmed. according to reporting by hugo lowell at the guardian today, trump officials are set to receive immediate clearances and easier fbi vetting. lowell reports that trump's political appointees will only face fbi background checks after the incoming administration takes over the fbi and its own officials are installed in key positions. here to explain why that should be alarming to everybody is democratic congressman jim himes, ranking member of the house intelligence committee. congressman, i'm glad to have you here. on its face it seems disturbing you would do away with the fbi vetting process, but another layer is waiting until trump officials are actually installed and have access to, you know, classified information, and, you know, state secrets before you

actually begin to vet them. what troubles you most about this potential scenario? >> you know, not surprising, right? we saw this is a president who decided he would take very sensitive materials with him to mar-a-lago, that criminal case, of course, has been dismissed, but this is an administration and a president who has shown disregard for classified information. the reason this is so important is because we're taking a complicated world, iran, north korea, china, russia, desperate to understand our secrets, to know the capabilities that we have and you can spin any number of scenarios. one of the reasons we do background checks is to see if perhaps an individual with access to classified information maybe has friends who we suspect of being spies, who maybe has something in their background that could be used to blackmail them, you know, something not known but a chinese intelligence officer can say, hey, if you don't, you know, report back to

me on x, y, z, we're going to expose you here. look, it is a dumb risk to take. you know, especially since at the ends are used to getting this done very quickly in a way to protect national security. >> because of your expertise, i'm curious to know how you think about this, we have reporting that the trump team has been relying on private lawyers to do some of the background checks for its appointees. i am aware that they would presumably have less eyes on in terms of potential compromised, you know, positions some of these appointees may have. can you talk specifically about how much weaker a vetting by a private lawyer would be compared to a proper fbi background check? >> sure, i mean, look, a private lawyer is being paid an hourly fee. they may be reasonably good at a traditional civil investigation, but, you know, looking into somebody's background,

understanding who is connected to who, you know, the korean individual you actually spend a week with in london two weeks ago, there is no way that a lawyer, you know, in the united states who has access to the kind of information and understanding for the networks that exist out there designed to compromise these people in the same way that the fbi would. it is just a silly thing. and, you know, particularly silly given that a lot of the folks, you start with matt gaetz, who fortunately is off the scene now, but tulsi gabbard, tulsi gabbard was an elected official, a member of congress, ran for president, has never been through this process, has never had -- to my knowledge, anyway, other than perhaps because of her service in the national guard, access to, you know, strategic level secrets. so there is just a huge, huge exposure here that need not be undertaken, but the trump administration just seems to be, you know, partly just pointing a big middle finger at anything that is traditional or conventional. a lot of it which is there for a reason.

>> seems to be pointing the middle finger or actually is. tulsi gabbard, mother jones has an investigative piece looking at tulsi gabbard's numerous super pacs, there are multiple ones, and they found unidentifiable donors, suspicious spending, a lot of questions about who is bankrolling effectively some of her campaign arms. i know you're not in the senate, but if she is, in fact, you know goes through the confirmation process, what questions would you have for tulsi gabbard seeing she could be the director of national intelligence? >> well, look, the -- i've worked with a number of directors of national intelligence for a long time there is two key characteristics in that job. number one, it is a massive administrative job, coordinating 17 or 18 different intelligence agencies, it is a huge leadership, you know, management, also corporate management, like running a big corporation, number one. that is not something that tulsi gabbard has ever done. you know, she's run for elected

office pretty much her whole life. there is a question about whether she's got the basic managerial competence. and even more concerning, in the secretary second attribute of a good senior intelligence person, regardless at any cost will speak truth to power. they cannot let their own opinions, they cannot let the concern about what the boss may want to hear interfere with what they say. and, look, tulsi gabbard has been -- has been a purveyor of conspiracy theories for a long time, they were doing biomedical experiments in ukraine and maybe that's why russia invaded ukraine. the conspiracy theories go on and on and on. if i were a senator, i would say what is the deal, what is your attraction to the conspiracy theories and how you make me comfortable you will be nothing but 100% straight shooter when you provide intelligence to the president of the united states? >> what do you make of trump commissioning an investigation into boris epshteyn, his long-time lawyer who apparently was trying to shake down potential cabinet nominees? do you think it is a sign of hope that trump's vaguely

interested in, i don't know, grift? i'm saying that with, you know, the caveat that it is trump we're talking about. >> well, look, you know, the intensity of the grift is just staggering. we have seen this for a moment. it must be really confusing to be in the trump orbit, right? on the one hand, this is the guy that sells trump bibles and trump steaks, trump university, trump this, trump that, even while campaigning, trump sneakers, and it is okay for him to do that. the boss gets to do it. but no one else gets to do it. that must be a confusing thing for it to be permissioned in the top guy, but obviously potentially a firing offense if you're not the top guy. it must just be, you know, crazy town inside that operation. >> i learned it from you, i learned it from watching you. remember that ad? i'm betraying my age here. congressman jim himes, thank you for your time tonight. really, really great to have your perspective and expertise on this. >> thank you, alex.

still ahead this evening, antiabortion conservatives are waging a war of words on women's healthcare. but it is causing real deaths. propublica has the latest on another death because of a conservative abortion ban. i'll speak with michelle goldberg about that coming up next. ll speak with michelle goldberg about that coming up next

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on the go with xfinity mobile. fly don't walk to get our best deals of the year. connect to the world of wicked this holiday, in theaters now. since september, propublica reported on several women known to have died because of abortion bans.

yesterday the outlet published the story of a fifth woman, 35-year-old mother of two, porsche demesi who died from hemorrhaging at a hospital in texas where abortion is banned from the moment of fertilization. multiple medical experts agreed that she needed a procedure called a dnc, which is often used in abortions but is still technically allowed in the state of texas. but doctors often avoid administering the dncs because they risk a 99-year prison sentence if they're found to have performed an abortion illegally. propublica's reporting shows porsche's death was preventable, but texas law pressured her doctor to abandon the standard of care and increasingly prevalent pattern in states with abortion bans. joining me now is michelle goldberg, "new york times" opinion columnist. great to have you with me. >> thank you. >> this is the new playbook. i mean, just trying to decouple abortion care from healthcare. and you see what the results are

here when you say, when you sort of untether abortion care from just the basic survival of a patient. >> right, and i think that one thing that has happened is that these laws have such narrow exceptions and the exceptions don't end up meaning anything in practice because when you're in a chaotic environment of an emergency room, you know, when can the doctor say, you know, someone's life as opposed to their health is at stake, right? that is a very fine line. and texas changed the law to allow for emergency abortions in cases of premature rupture of membranes, where your water breaks early. it is not that you can't be investigated and prosecuted. it is what is called an affirmative defense, which means if you are taken to court, and charged with this felony, you can use this fact in your defense. so this is, like, who wants -- who, you know, very few people are willing to risk that kind of

persecution and, you know, risk seeing their life and their career go up in smoke and even i think if doctors want to do the right thing and there is some question in this case about -- >> whether the doctor -- >> but when you have that threat hanging over your shoulder, and not just yours, but kind of everybody in the process, everybody in the bureaucracy, it is just always going to kind of be a finger on the scales against doing what needs to be done. >> right. and jessica valenti, one of the great writers on abortion, writes that the effort to redefine and replace abortion in legislation has always been about laying the groundwork for one central and false argument, that abortion is never medically necessary. and that's sort of what you're seeing articulated, right? you can be basically -- you're hemorrhaging, but we're not going to give you a dnc because that's not -- the more -- it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. >> the reason why they won't put

medically necessary exemptions into the law is because then they would have to admit there is medically necessary exemptions. >> and doctors who specialize in this sort of stuff, the obgyns that are practicing in the state of texas and capable of performing a dnc are decreasing in number. 21% of obgyns in the state of texas are planning to leave the state because of the bans. you have a massive brain drain happening here. >> there is a real moral injury to doctors when they don't feel like they can treat their patients the way their professional and ethical obligation requires. you already have seen an uptick in the maternal mortality rate in texas. it is, i think, unclear how much of that was due to the immediate after effects of covid and how much due to the abortion ban, they coincided, some of it seems to be due to the abortion ban and it is only going to get

worse as this trickles down through every single aspect of maternal healthcare. >> well, the other piece of that is, in order to sort of, like, cast a shadow over that reality, just as they're doing in georgia, texas, i believe, is avoiding the collection of data on women who have died from the texas ban because they just have too many cases. >> they're avoiding the examination of data. they have maternal mortality review boards that go through and say, there is this death that could have been prevented, what were the circumstances, could it have been prevented, what should we change our policies so that deaths like this don't happen in the future. yet in georgia, after the propublica story about these two women who have died, they dissolved their maternal mortality review board and in texas they just decided that they're not going to look at cases from 2022 and 2023, which

happen to be the two years after the abortion ban. >> and then in the last piece of it is, some of these complications arise from abortion medication, mifepristone, not working because of extenuating circumstances being administered incorrectly in the case of this one woman in texas we're talking about tonight and that, the antichoice movement uses to sort of hold aloft and say this is why you can't have medication abortion. >> there is that in georgia, a woman had gotten medication in a neighboring state, gone back, had complications that were left untreated and i think what you'll see in the new trump administration is those kind of cases used as a pretext to crack down on mail order abortion providers. >> i think almost certainly that's what we're going to see. ichelle goldberg, thank you for wading through this thicket of dark news. i appreciate you, my friend. >> thank you so much. >> that's our show for this evening. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. "way t lemire is coming up next