decide not to charge because now you are going to possibly infect the jury system, where you have people who are going to be making the decision on these cases and thinking, like either i don't -- >> it's not a big deal. >> or i don't really care that this happened in the first place. what's the big deal? not understanding again the kind of trauma that's inflicted. and for people who want to disregard the kind of impact this has on greater society, the cdc does studies where they say that literally we lose trillions of dollars a year in economic losses, literally because >> good evening. >> good evening chris. happy thanksgiving. donald trump is nearly

finished picking the people in his cabinet with two cabinet level positions still unfilled. the past 24 hours the trump transition has announced a new wave of administration picks. low cabinet level, but still requiring senate confirmation. today, trump announced he will nominate retired army lieutenant general keith kellogg to serve as special envoy for ukraine and russia. a new position. general kellogg who served as national security advise tore mike pence in the first trump administration advocated for a cease fire, a negotiate a settlement to the war. strategy paper kellogg authored suggested conditioning further u.s. military for ukraine and entering peace talks with the russians. so far, trump has filled nearly 60 spots in his administration at breakneck speed. this is not just the speed and the qualifications that are turning heads. this week, multiple news outlets reported that the trump transition is investigating

long time trump adviser boris epstheyn for trying to personally profit off trump's presidency. he asked for consulting fees in exchange for advocating them to trump. this sort of behavior is not new to trump circles. during the first trump administration, trump's then lawyer and fixer michael cohen was also accused of trying to cash in his proximity to trump. >> tonight, nbc news is learning new details about the payments including some from companies that had business pending with the new administration. cohen reached out to the company's then ceo shortly after the election. promising access to the new administration. the company says it paid him nearly $1..2 million. >> an internal investigation recommended that trump fire long time aide boris saying

that he tried to shake down trump's eventual treasury secretary pick scott bessent for $30,000 a month to promote his candidacy around mar-a- lago. he declined the offer. trump said it is a shame but it happens. but no one working for me for any capacity should be looking to make money. personally profiting unacceptable unless you are of course donald trump himself. with branded watches, bibles, sneakers, now, even guitars? when asked about the controversy this week on fox, trump's son eric issued what could only be perceived as a light warning. >> i have known boris for years. that said, i will tell you my father has been incredibly clear. you do not do this under any circumstances. and believe me there will be

repercussions. i have never seen that side of him. i have known him a very long time. and i certainly hope the reporting is false. if it is true, he will probably no long longer be around. >> the leak ofage intern report to the press signals some members of trump's circle are disturbed by his deal making and want him out. it is another reminder of the importance of guardrails. the vetting processes that the trump transition has so far sought to avoid. joining me now, tim miller and manager editor sam stein. good evening guys. good to see you. two weeks ago the new york times is writing a profile about epstein and how he had quired so much power and proximity. life comes at you fast. what do you make of all this? >> first of all, thanks for having us. no such limit to too much bull

work. this seems par for the course. this would be terribly corrupt and it is terribly corrupt but in this case, selling access is something that we have seen before. it is important to know boris and how he got here. boris was one of the early trump aides in two 15. very few people were willing to vouch for trump. boris was one of them. he had taken on a fixer role. he never actually made it into the white house. because boris also has problems dealing with other people. he wears on people. he has annoyed other people in the trump orbit. people look at him suspiciously. never made it to the white house but he did come back in 2020 to help with the recount stuff and stop the steal.

for that, he earned trump's love and appreciation. that is why boris is currently with trump. he is stuck with him and trump looks at him as a dutiful soldier. it is telling though this study was commissioned and leaked to a very trump friendly news outlet meaning they wanted it out here, boris continues to be employed by the trump team. >> so tell me what all that means. the fact there was this investigation. the fact it was leaked. what does it tell you? >> it tells me that it might be thanksgiving week but we are living ground hog day. we will relive the same thing we lived four years before. it will be open business. for these guys during the trump administration. as far as corruption, access, paying people off to get to the administration. donald trump has few random

issues he cares about. everything else he is pliable on. we saw this a lot in the first administration. his family among them as far as the amount of money they received to advocate for certain interests. but look. it will continue and they will stick around. boris is not going anywhere. and the trump world, what you have is warring factions. they claim they hate the media, but they leak to the media all the time. and a lot of these guys will be open for business and do so in ways, the most generous thing you can do is say color outside the lines. >> i hear the two of you for par for the course on ground hog day, but asking for the future secretary pick for 30k a month is pretty brazen.

do you have any sense, is donald trump angered by the fact that not only was he potentially trying to make money off of the access, but doing it so brazenly? >> it is brazen. it is also pretty idiotic if you think about it. how we suspect that wouldn't get back to trump is beyond me. and of course it did. our colleague reports that people internally within the orbit have long found boris to be, you know, abrasive and don't want him around. he got into a fight we elon musk. elon thinks he is an idiot. and trump, look, trump is fine if you pay trump. trump is not fine when you are taking a slice of the cash.

and so that is why, and this is what he reported as well. that is why trump is upset. it is that boris is trying to get his and trump thinks that it is totally outside the lines if you profit on his own name. that is where boris stepped out of line but it is all brazen and ridiculous. >> if you accept him which i don't want any of us to accept, that some of this is status quo and you talk about a cabinet largely filled out, is it your sense that during the confirmation hearings that you have members of the u.s. senate specifically, republicans in the u.s. senate who are willing to go out there and ask the hard questions about access, about influence peddling? >> yeah. i'll get to the republican senators but i just want to say, 30,000 might feel brazen but i think it is small potatoes. as far as the republican

senators are concerned that is just the big question. we saw a tiny bit of spine when it came to matt gaetz. will they do the same when they have to speak in public? i would hope so. bit remains to be seen. >> sam, you have the new york times reporting that mitch mcconnell is feeling liberated. ready to stand up for his chamber's independence. do you buy that sam? >> you know what? i will let myself get suckered in a little bit. yeah, i kind of do buy it a tiny bit. the gaetz thing was surpriseing. i thought the republican senate would bend over and say sure why not and trump would push for it. neither happened. mcconnell i think to a degree, he should have a problem with each one for different reasons. for rfk jr. , mcconnell is a

polio survivor. he believes in vaccines. for tulsi gabbard. mcconnell has been pro engagement with ukraine. obviously, he has problems with tulsi gabbard who has been a putin apoll gist. and for pete hegseth. this is outrageous, why would we put a fox news host, no offense to television hosts, why would we put that person in charge of the dod? that seems totally outlandish. mcconnell may be liberated but it takes three others in addition to him for anything to materially matter so yes. i do actually think there might be something to it but i don't know if it will matter. >> thank you sam for your vote of confidence that i could in fact manage a sprawling bureaucracy. >> you could control any department you want. >> tim, i feel like the one to dance you two do is sam allow it is ember of an idea to live and you come in and throw cold water on it. so yeah. so please tell me whether or

not you believe this reporting about mcconnell and for our viewers what it could mean. the importance of having republicans in the senate act independently. even if that was only an idea. >> i was thinking an ambassador ship for you. but we could talk about it. we'll see if boris can lobby on your behalf. for some extra cash. as far as sam's hope for mitch mcconnell, i just don't have it. i would love to be surprised but you know. why? what evidence would you have these guys would show some spine? i don't really see it and i think that the gaetz thing was probably a one off. trump didn't really fight for it. i thought he would fight for it more. trump will not get bullied by

these guys too long. trump doesn't like anything more than humiliating establishment republicans. he likes that more than making up nicknames for people or golfing. i don't expect he will be pushed around by mitch mcconnell. >> tim and sam, thank you for joining me on this very special bull work thanksgiving edition of alex wagner tonight. we have a lot more to get to. including a trump lawyer's attempt to persuade the new york attorney general to drop her civil case against trump. the novel argument for the good of the country. first, why donald trump's pick to lead the national institutes of health is making health experts more than a little nervous. we will talk to all about that next. l talk to all about that next. advil liqui-gels are faster and stronger than tylenol rapid release gels. ♪♪ also from advil, advil targeted relief, the only topical with 4 powerful pain fighting ingredients that start working on contact and lasts up to 8 hours.

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donald trump's list of leaders to take over the

country's health agencies is nearly complete and hardly conventional. take for example this newly resurfaced podcast interview with robert f. kennedy jr. >> i would proudly today be diagnosed adhd. i was bouncing off the walls. i couldn't sit still in schools. i had no idea what was happening and i was at the bottom of my class. i started doing heroin. i went to the top of my class. suddenly, i could sit still. and i could read. and i could concentrate. i was probably at some level medicating myself but you know. it worked for me and if it still worked i would still be doing it but it didn't. >> okay, so, to recap, the prominent anti-vaxxer who may soon lead the department of health and human services says heroin helped him become a

better student. in that same interview he suggests that antidepressants are some of the potential culprits behind the rise of mass shootings saying quote it couldn't be just the guns after a global pandemic killed millions across the globe, he wants to suspend funding to infectious disease research by the national institutes to health. and he picked dr. jay badacharia, a non-practicing stanford physician. he was vocal about his anti- lockdown stance. and coauthored the great baring ton declaration suggesting young people should allowed to spread the coronavirus freely at the height of covid in order to reach herd immunity. dr. anthony fauci dismissed the declaration as quote total nonsense. joining me now is cheryl gay

stolburg. what has been the medical community's response? >> sheer terror. they are in a panic. especially infectious disease. experts are nervous about all of trump's picks. the former congressman who trump has picked to run the cdc. they are all on a slate of a polite way to put it would be unorthodox. >> if you say the specific infectious disease doctors are concerned, what are they concerned about? >> as you mentioned robert f. kennedy said he wants to slash the research budget for infectious disease and let it take a rest the next eight years. experts know that a pandemic could happen at any time.

we have a bird flu outbreak in cattle and poultry. that is worrisome. if bird flu were to jump human to human, it would be far deadlier than covid. they are worried about jay. nih. he was stood during the pandemic in opposition to standard public health measures like masking and social distancing and school closures and experts say those measures saved a lot of lives. and if we have another pandemic they are worried about how this trump team will respond. >> just to illustrate the extent to which he stood in opposition to those methods. he was one of the authors of the great barrington declaration. >> so the great barington declaration was a gathering of epidemiologists and others who issued this manifesto in 2020 saying basically that we should

let covid spread unchecked throughout the population among young people and people healthy and protect the vulnerable and called this focused protection and it was dismissed as fringe and infact, dangerous. people, tony fauci as you said called it utter nonsense. francis collins said that he was a fringe epidemiologist. and i think we have to understand kind of where he is coming from. he is a medical economist. so he is not thinking in a public health frame of let's save as many lives as possible or let's stop the spread of the disease at all costs. he is thinking about balancing the economy and other factors against public health imperatives. >> so that point, as you all know, a lot of these picks come down to managing budgets.

and making decisions about how money is spent. rfk jr. wants to move funding away from infectious disease research. what does your reporting tell you about whether that would be possible? >> certainly, the hhs secretary if robert f. kennedy is confirmed has wide latitude over the budgets of the underling agencies. nih reports to the hhs secretary so it is certainly possible that funding would be cut. no question about that. >> we have new reporting tonight from nbc news. let me read you a little of that. rfk jr. has likened vaccination to sexual abuse by the catholic church and said the cdc is a

cesspool of corruption. what are their concerns about vaccinations specifically as it relate to america's young population? >> vaccination is dropping among children. more and more parents are opting out of vaccinating their kids. we are seeing measles outbreaks now. if someone like rfk gets confirmed, he will be urging states to drop their childhood vaccine mandates. these mandate haves been the foundation of the greatest public health triumph in history. the elimination of some very deadly diseases like polio and measles and mumps. so there is obviously great concern about rfk jr. 's views on vaccination. now how much he will be able to achieve, you know, government is a big battleship. it is hard to turn around. but clearly the president-elect

wants to shake things up with these nominees. >> cheryl, thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. still ahead tonight, donald trump as president-elect has already had all of his criminal cases postponed or dropped but he and his lawyers are pressing their luck with one more case. we talk to former federal prosecutor all about that next. prosecutor all about that next. my kids can't hide anything from me. i'm home! especially when they've been using toilet paper that doesn't hold up. new charmin ultra strong has a diamond-weave texture that's more durable and it cleans better* so you can use less. enjoy the go with charmin. speaker: who's coming in the driveway? speaker: dad. dad, we missed you.

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since donald trump became president-elect, his litany of criminal cases has slowly disappeared. sentencing in his 34 felony count is indefinitely postponed and his cases on his attempts to overturn the 2020 elections and classified documents have ended. they claim the justice department's position that a sitting president cannot be charged and now trump's lawyer is demanding that new york attorney general tish james drop her case too. the attorney general james successfully prosecuted him for civil fraud. he knows the state of new york more than $450 million in

damages. that judgment is being appealed. but in a letter to attorney general james, trump's lawyer argues quote president trump has called for our nation's partisan strife to end. for the contending factions to join forces for the greater good of the country. this call for unity extends to the legal onslaught to him and his family that permeated the most recent election cycle. joining me now is kristi greenburg, former federal prosecutor who served for over a decade in the u.s. attorney's office for the southern district of new york. kristi, good to see you. thank you for being here for the good of the country. what do you make of that? >> it is just, it is so absurd right? the idea that this whole letter is four pages and it is a history lesson. they are citing. abraham lincoln and the thanksgiving proclamation and george washington all about this call for unity when all donald trump has called for is call for retribution against people investigating him. against the prosecutors who prosecuted the case. he called the democrats the

enemy from within and this very lawyer who drafted this letter is the one who got up before the supreme court and said donald trump has the power to order seal team 6 to assassinate his political rivals. like this is not about. it is laughable. it is not a serious legal argument. it is more political rhetoric as judge chutkin has said of trump's lawyers undefitting of defense counsel . >> what makes this case different? >> one way in which this case is different is this is a civil fraud case. this is not a criminal case. this is not federal doj where they dismissed their cases or you know, moved to dismiss their cases because there is doj policy to do that. here you have a civil case where there is supreme court law that is very clear in clinton b. jones. it was actually upheld in this most recent decision that says

if you are talking unofficial acts that happened before the president was the president, there is no immunity for that and you can still bring those claims while a president is a sitting president. but clinton b. jones doesn't show up at all in this letter. he cites a lot of case law but none of it relates to the fact it is a civil case. >> so what does james do? >> she laughs. maybe she responds to it. but it is clearly a hey, this is nonsense. we are not dropping anything. by the way, he is asking for the entire case to be dismissed so donald trump was one defendant of the case. but this was a case against other family members. against trump's businesses. not just donald trump. so the idea that james should just drop the entire case against everybody is just again laughable. >> so this request for

dismissal was sent by john saur. how unusual is that? >> the letter is a love letter to donald trump. he talks about the fact that he is the most successful developer in all of new york city. this is a historic election victory. all the flattery that is in here. that is why he was picked. this is what trump does. it is not just the law, but all of his picks, you have to be kissing the ring. you have to be somebody who flatters him and that is how you get into his orbit. and he sees i think the department of justice and the solicitor general and all of these legal positions really is people who are going to be his lawyers focused on his interests. not just the interest of the public but his own. and that is very, very dangerous and something we have never seen before. >> perhaps that appointment he said he is willing to take this case all the way up to the supreme court. what happens then? >> again i think the supreme court precedent here is pretty

clear with respect to this case we also thought there wouldn't be complete immunity for criminal prosecution. that was a very surprising decision. so i think you can never really count out the supreme court to do something that hasn't been done before. >> kristi, what a treat to have you with us. thank you so much for being wases. coming up, the latest on the showdown brewing between the leaders of major u.s. cities and incoming trump officials over their radical plans for mass deportation of immigrants. that's next. stay wases. of immigrants. that's next. stay wases. stay with us. but here i ...being me. keep being you... ...and ask your healthcare provider about the number one prescribed h-i-v treatment, biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in many people—whether you're 18 or 80. with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v

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(husband) so how do your management fees work? (fisher investments) we have a transparent fee, structured so we do better when you do better. at fisher investments, we're clearly different. trump's new border czar tom homan said he would arrest leaders like yourself for standing in the way of these policies they want to enact. would you be willing to go to jail for these things? >> i'm not afraid of that. >> that was denver mayor mike johnston just last week saying he would be willing to personally go to jail to stop trump's planned mass deportation of immigrants. in los angeles, the city council passed a sanctuary city ordinance barring city resources from being used for federal immigration enforcement. in boston, mayor michelle wu said her city's police will not cooperate with federal

immigration agents. all around the country, city and state level officials are preparing to fight trump's mass deportations. and trump's team is preparing as well. the washington post is now reporting that advisers to president-elect trump were discussing how to unilaterally strip federal resources from cities that refuse to participate in their mass deportation agenda. so how will this show down play out? joining me now, julian castro. jewelman, as a former mayor, help us to understand the former power cities have to resist city's deportation efforts. >> thanks alicia. these mayors, mayor johnston, mayor bass. many of them are following in a long tradition of mayors who have pushed back against

getting local police involved in immigration enforcement. many cities don't participate in the programs that involve local police acting as immigration enforcement agents and cities have home rule power so they have a good amount of power themselves. now usually, the way that the federal government would try and make them comply would be to threaten to withhold funding for transportation, safety. these conflict haves gone to court before. and the courts have given a lot of latitude to cities in certain cases so it will be fascinating to watch. and i think probably disappointing for donald trump if he tries to force these cities to comply with his wishes. i'm glad to see them standing up. it's what people need. and it is also good for keeping

neighborhoods safer. police chiefs say you make people into immigration agents, local police, people will be afraid to report crime. >> that is such an important point. what donald trump is proposing will actually make u.s. citizens much less safe if their own communities. you also have him saying he wants to use the military. is that legal and can you talk us through the ways in which the aclu is preparing? >> first of all, i think that is critical. police chiefs around the country, particularly in big cities will tell you if immigrants are scared to come out of their houses, to go to the place, it makes everyone less safe. it doesn't make sense to terrorize immigrant communities and to try and enlist police

chiefs to go after them who need their cooperation. the aclu has been preparing for close to a year now for possible second term trump presidency and what he might try to do. we think it is illegal to have the military look for immigrants. mass deportations. there are many ways we will push back, but as you and i have talked about, the public need to push back. and i do think the public will push back. right now, it is just sort of this abstract notion of mass deportations. when they see it in practice. little babies left behind. u.s. citizen children being left in foster care because parents who have been working in the communities have no criminal convictions and they start going after those people, hopefully the american public will say wait, enough is

enough. just like they did with family separation the first term. >> and there's still a lot of details that have yet to emerge. we have some sense of what it is they are planning. they will have to. but we have lived through this before. we know what workplace raids look like. we know the devastation that is left in the wake of those raids. at the same time, you have project 2025 calling for rescinding ice guidance about what are referred to as sensitive places. that was the guidance that prevented immigration officials from conducting arrests in sensitive places like schools, hospitals, and places of worship. i mean, when you are showing up at someone's church pulling people from the pews, it becomes very real that this is

not targeted and it is going to affect broad swaths of american society. >> it is alicia. i agree that it is not something i think that americans are going to like. it is not something that a lot of people will support. will stomach. they think of it one way in theory on paper but to actually see it in practice, that will be something entirely different and it will very quickly come off as cruel and un-american. something we don't practice i think we don't want to engage in and it's been a while since we have seen images from family separation. kids held in detention centers. that's what we are about to see a lot of again if trump marchs down this path. and very quickly, i believe, public sentiment is going to turn against trump. against the administration. i do think, i agree also that it is important for people to

make their voice heard. it can't just be the lawyers and the politicians speaking. it needs to be the public. >> and i want to be clear, we are talking about blue cities, blue states where some of these leaders will be maybe the final line of defense. there are first lines of defense that come before them. thom tillis, senator collins. let's see whether or not they are willing to vote to fund mass deportation ins this country. can you explain to us from a legal perspective, 54 days until donald trump is sworn in. what can be done in that time? >> i think the biden administration can take certain steps to ensure the law is not violated once trump comes into power. what we are trying to do is make sure we are connecting communities and religious organizations so people know where to turn. we don't want to all of a

sudden try and put things in place once it starts. it will not just be the democratic mayors who are pushing back. majors of all stripes will be very disappointed that federal government is coming in and raiding immigrant communities because it is the republican mayors in many places recognized, forget the grand standing about immigrants. they know their communities are working better with immigrants so i hope they push back and say wait, this is not what we want. you can go after hardened criminals. national security threats but let's be clear, mass deportation is not the way to go. >> thank you both so much for being with us on this important topic. coming up, jack smith is done with donald trump as he moves to dismiss the charges in his

two federal cases. but is trump done with jack smith? we'll discuss with nbc news national security editor david road after this quick break. ro. d again and again, and again. ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ask your doctor about farxiga. black friday football on prime is back.

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investigated and the house needs to be cleaned out. >> former florida attorney general pam bondi has promised to investigate those who investigated donald trump. following the implosion of former congressman matt gaetz's nomination. bondi's past vow of retribution is coming into focus with jack smith having moved to abandon his investigations into trump. filing motion to drop all federal charges in the classified documents and election interference cases citing long standing justice department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. jack smith has long been a target for the now president- elect and his allies but as the special council appears to be finished with trump, the question now is whether trump and his allies are finished with jack smith. joining me is david rhodes. author of where tyranny begins. the justice department, the fbi, and the war on democracy.

all right. what steps do you think jack smith might be taking in anticipation of these investigations? >> i'm sure he is lawyering up. i know other people could be the focus of trump investigations hiring lawyers. the people i know have not spoken to jack smith. they are not, they see maybe years of investigations ahead. but they are not worried about going to jail. they are very confident they have done nothing illegal here. there was particularly in the classified documents case, there was extreme, hundred classified documents. trump was asked to return them. he said he had returned them at one point. but video footage showed people hiding a bunch of boxes on the day the fbi came down there and that is what led to the search of mar-a-lago. these were we moved by the

supreme court which said presidents are immune from prosecution and the ruling by aileen cannon. >> you sound reasonable. as you are sounding reasonable and jack smith saying i'm wrapping up these cases because of the supreme court that you have senator mike lee of utah pointing to smith's actions as a sign that these investigations were political law fair. so there will be chaos agents in the mix. >> so, i just want to say that like withdrawing the cases is exactly an example of jack smith following doj rules. this was set up with watergate. a sitting president shouldn't be criminally prosecuted. you shouldn't have a local da prosecuting a sitting president because it would lead to chaos. so the substance of these cases have not been dismissed by any court. aileen cannon's ruling, the

florida judge, it was like a technicality that jack smith wasn't properly named a special council. so the fact jack smith is doing this, obeying this norm shows the fairness of the system. he said he was doing this bauds of the need for the president to be freed from this but not because of the weakness or the case or something improper. what happened on january 6th was incredibly serious. so was the president's, sorry, president trump's handling of classified documents. >> do you have a sense of how career prosecutors are dealing with the winding down of these cases? >> the people involved in them are looking to leave the department. but most people are staying. and most people want to stay. >> staying so long as they are welcome. >> a second project the trump administration has talked about. there are only 4,000 political appointees by the president across the federal government.

there is a talk of changing that. and instead having tens of thousands of people personally appointed by the president of the united states. that would give even more power to the president. our system is a division of three powers. it is to divide powers but this is the key of this whole deep state, the theme here is there is out of control bureaucrats unfairly prosecuting the president who are wasting taxpayer dollars. i have not found evidence of that. these are generally people, there is bias. they want to support their own department they work in but i have not found any evidence that there is a secret cabal of prosecutors trying to undermine democratically elected presidents. if you want to shrink government, that's fine. if you say there's too many government employees, that is fine. this is a whole different level that again, there is some secret coup by workers at the epa and the department of the interior. i have not found evidence of

that. >> less than 30 seconds. but pam bondi comes with her own challenges. the lobbying for qatar. the trump university. do you think she sails through? >> i think she sails through. she has a lot of experience. ag two years, 16 years prosecutor. what does she do? i think there will be an investigation of jack smith. i don't think they will find crimes. jim comey committed crimes and durham didn't have any strong cases. the same thing could happen with bondi. >> thanks for coming in. that does it for our show tonight. you can catch me back here on the weekend. 8:00 a.m. saturday and sunday. the weekend. 8:00 a.m. saturday and sunday. do you cook for thanksgiving?