of a legal challenge or federal obstruction to their work, but perhaps anticipating the trump administration will look more favorably on companies that is towing its preferred line. walmart depends on selling cheap products to their consumers. walmart might be thinking how it would fare under a new china policy, and would trump look more favorably on a walmart that has walked back dei. this is very worrying from a political standpoint. >> that is -- feels like there needs to be a part two, three and four to this conversation. i'm planning it right now. thank you to both of you. i appreciate your time. "inside with jen psaki" begins with right now. welcome it was a saturday

night announcement that was shocking and entirely unsurprising. donald trump announces that he intends to nominate a loyalist as the director of fbi. we're going to spend a lot of time digging into kash patel. and also today, the chair of the wisconsin democratic party ben wickler just announced his run for dnc chair this morning. and beb is going to join me life in a few minutes. and later, a searing email that someone wrote to pete hegseth. it is notable because the author accused him of abusing women for years. and it is notable because the author is his own mother. ♪♪ okay. so last night, as you all were just going about your post thanksgiving saturday night recovery, maybe scrolling through twitter or x, donald

trump announced his plans to nominate kash patel to be director of the fbi. this is notable and alarming, which i will get into for a whole host of reasons all of which we'll delve into with a variety of people today. first of all, the job isn't even open christopher wray who trump appointed still has a few years left on his ten-year term which started when he fired comey. so he'll have to fire wray to get patel in. second of all, kash patel's only real qualification appears to be that he is very loyal to donald trump. and in a moment ike going to talk to elaina plot cabal row and she wrote a file of kash patel. he appeared focused on pleasing trump. even in an administration full of loyalists. he was exceptional in his devotion. so that is the guy trump wants to lead the nation's top law

enforcement agency which isn't a political agency, by the way. and after a campaign that was laser focused on revenge and retribution, i think you know why. now kash patel is a conspiracy theory thinking. he's pedalled anti-vaccine which is to reverse the effects of covid vaccine and that is not a thing at all in the scientist community. and he's praised qanon. hugh has been so right on so many things. have they been right? kash patel, i'm not sure about that. but it is important to understand how a guy like that arrived that point. and his journey to trump world began on the house intelligence committee in in ways. where he worked for devin nunes. well patel started working for him at the height of the russia investigation and that work revolved around attempting to undercut and discredit that investigation in any way that he

could. kash patel was so proud of the job that he did, that he even wrote a children's book about it. >> we living in unparalleled times of corruption in our media and government. it is our job to expose the truth no matter what the cost. my name is kash patel and i written the first ever children's russia-gate book. it is called "the plot against the king", it is a telling by me, the chief investigator of how we triumphed of truth over evil. please go to the link below and order your copy today. >> the first ever children's russia gate book. what a demand. there is still time for holiday shopping time, get out there today. and after his work on the intel committee, he reportedly hounded members of trump administration to hire patel. he writes in his own book, dech

spoke with the president and told him that i had saved his presidency. by revealing the unprecedented political hit job designed to take him down. when donald trump learned who i was, he told his chief of staff to hire me immediately into the national security council and that is a humble brag but that is not how he ended up in the white house but regardless he got highed. but he was defined by two major dynamics. the blind loyalty to trump and a mere universal alarm by his colleagues about his access to power. former administration officials told elaina that as his first days as a staffer in february of 2019, patel was fixated on trying to get facetime with trump and he had a script and it wasn't long before colleagues could cite it themselves. mr. president, the deep state is out to get you. as the long time trump adviser

paraphrased you paraphrased it and i'm going to save you from it. and it is no wonder that he tried to install kash patel in very important jobs. first he tried to make him deputy fbi director and bill barr then told chief of staff it would happen over my dead body. in his memoir he also said trump's desire to put him in that job showed a shocking detachment from reality. when that failed, he tried to move him into a top job at the cia then gina haspel threatened to resign if they went through with it. elaina writes, this is what seemed to disturb many of his colleagues the most. patel was dangerous, several of tomorrow told me, not because of a plan he would be poised to carry out if gib control of the cia or fbi, but because he appeared to have no plan at all. his priorities always subject to a president's wishes tomorrow. what wouldn't a person like that do if asked?

well, we might be about to find out. and kash patel has previewed his plans in his own words, many, mr. many times. >> the one thing we learned in the trump administration, is we have to put in all american patriots top to bottom. we'll find the conspirators not just in the government, but in the media. yes, we're coming after the people in the media who helped joe biden rigged presidential elections. we're going to come after you, whether it is criminally or civilly. we'll figure that out. but we'll put you on notice. and this is why we hate us and because we're dictators because we're going to use the constitution to use them for crimes they said we have been guilty of but never have. >> well that right there is kash patel in a bit of a nutshell. and in his pierce over the summer, elaina wrote this about donald trump. should he return to the white house, there will be no millie or has pell, instead there will

be patels. those whose truth faith and allegiance belong not to a nation but to one man. joining me is elaina plot calabro. people are trying to get up to speed on who this guy is and why it matters. let me start by asking you. i tried to delve into the pieces that are interesting, but is there anything from your reporting that i missed there that people should understand as they learn more about kash patel. >> so i don't think you missed anything necessarily. but i would love to expand on the piece about kind of in some ways the difference between kash patel and other people who have featured in the trump white house over the years. one person i like to compare him with often is stephen miller. who has been kind of trump's immigration top aide for his first administration, we know he will be in the second administration. the thing about stephen miller is he is frequent -- he's an

idea log. and what i found fascinating about kash patel is that he is not as traditionally understood. really what motivated him and has motivated him from the time that he became a national security council staffer in 2019 is just wanting to please trump. just wanting to kind of better his standing before donald trump. which is to say that if one day donald trump wants to do something that, you know, really taxes far right, he will be there. if for some reason the next day he wants to do the inverse, kash patel will be the biggest cheerleader for that. and when i talk to people, people in trump's orbit who are alarmed about the possibility that he could have a senior post in this administration, it was not, oh, i'm nervous about the fact that he will do x, y, z. it is we have no idea what he might want to do in this job because it is all contingent on what donald trump might decide that morning. >> which is quite something.

and important for people to understand. an you talked to so many people about this piece. have you heard from any of the people who reached out to you since the news broke last night. >> i talked to one former administration official who worked closely with kash patel and we were talking about how in the course of my reporting the story, you know, it is clear at in point that trump values kash patel's loyalty at the time there was thought to be a sober sense in that circumstance thal kash patel would never get confirmed. so the idea of appointmenting him cia director or nominating him for a position like this was seen as a little bit maybe not within the cards. but deputy fbi director, for example. but i think we've seen, too, that donald trump is not going to be shy about slotting people into an acting capacity in a lot of these positions if for whatever reason he can't get the senate to confirm them. so the person i was talking to last night was saying, you know,

even if the couldn't so many comes out and said we don't have the votes for this, you're likely to see him as acting director of the fbi. >> and what do people make and who do you make of the purpose of that? what is trump trying to get out of that 200 days, i think is the amount of time that he could serve? >> one thing i went back to a lot last night, and i went in and relistened to a podcast that donald trump jr. had done and preelection and he had said, one thing that might be great to do, is when we get into office, to place people like kash patel in an acting capacity in these major positions as a shot across the bow. to the d.c. establishment, the media establishment. and as you showed on your clip just then, he sat down with steven bannon and really laid out what he would want to do in a position like that. whether it was the fbi or acting attorney general or acting cia director. which is to say go after the people who he feels have wronged, not just trump and this

is important, but himself in the course of his work in the white house. kash patel i found is someone who is very much driven by resentment against the elites. but it also trying to balance that with an abiding desire to be seen as one. and so his feeling is that he was mercilessly and unfairly attacked for his work with devin nunes and i think that has been a fuel for him throughout his rise in his career. and we could very well see the man of the station of that in terms of what revenge he wants to exact upon which groups of people when he takes this stop. >> one of the things that was so memorable about your piece is that you really lay out this pattern of lying. and it maybe is about him trying to fit in. he lied about his background and where he grew up. he lied about his roll in the benghazi hearings. what should we make of that pattern.

>> back in his days as a public defender, well before he came to washington. they came back to what they felt drove him was insecurity to a degree. he was working around a lot of people that went to an ivy league law school and he didn't and despite the fact that no one around him cared that or saw him as any lesser for that, i think he sort of internalized the idea that he should try to prove himself constantly. and i think the way that that has taken shape and you mentioned fact about kind of, i guess lying is the right word, about where he grew up. i learned in my reporting, he would go on podcasts and say donald trump and i are alike because we're just a guy from queens. and i have to pause, you grew up in long island. and that discrepancy, which he did not dispute in our fact

checking process, to me, was emblematic of just, you know, shaping his back ground to whatever extent might endear him to trump a bit more or just make him seem like one of the, you know, foremost opponents of the maga ideology. >> and what is so strikes is about the challenge coin. and challenge coins are something members of the military and others who seven in government have and you describe this challenge coin that had a random assortment of words on it. >> not just that. the source who sent it to me. so challenge coins, you get a bunch of them to give out to your colleagues and other people that you care about to kind of commemorate your time in whatever role you served in d.o.d. or the military or what have you. and the person said, we got our coins from kash patel and it said words like cyber, hezbollah and iran and we're looking at that and thinking, you didn't have anything to do with these

things. so the randomness of the words. but i think to me the most interesting part was the middle of it, where there appears to be a drone and there is a dollar sign for cash that is being lit up in that moment. so, i don't know if the drone is about to target the dollar sign. i can't say. but that dollar sign of course has been in his post government life where selling scarves and memorabilia or cash golf shirts for those still holiday shopping by the way. that it is k dollar sign h. is how he marketed himself there. >> quite a bit of detail. your piece is excellent. i re-x-ed it and everybody should read it if they're trying to learn more about kash patel. appreciate you spending time with us. thank you so much. >> we have to sneak in a quick break and we're going to keep this conversation going.

frank figliuzzi and -- will join me next. l join me next. oh... stuffed up again? so congested! you need sinex saline from vicks. just sinex, breathe, ahhhh! what is — wow! sinex. breathe. ahhhhhh!

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healthcare. so as i was just discussing with elaina, kash patel has made no secret of his desire to use the tools of federal law enforcement to settle political scores for his boss. he's talked about it pretty openly over and over and over again. >> any of the stuff that we're seeing right now, the word treason is thrown out. >> yeah. >> quite often. is it actual treason. >> for who? >> for fill in -- anything. any of the stuff that is going on. >> so many of the guys did. whether it is comby, brock, spar,es per, and think there is a lot of rule and law breaking

and i don't flow that if ever gets to the level of treason singly with any of them. but what you have is a buildup of so many actions by the deep state that it becomes borderline treasonous to allow those people and their activities in a collective fashion to ever be applied to the united states. >> now you may have also oticed this, but a number of the former officials that may be guilty of treason wore hand picked by donald trump himself. and frank figliuzzi is from the fbi and he knows a whole lot about who the fbi works and how it functions and this could impact. so let me start with you, frank. this guy clearly has an ax to grind. let's talk about what power he would actually have at his disposal for people out there

wondering what the fbi does and what he would be allowed to control in this job even if he's in it for 200 days? >> yeah, this axe he has to grind is really donald trump's axe and he seems quite willing to wield it in whatever direction. he has said, we could take his word for it, because he's said it. he said on his -- on day one he intended to empty out 7,000 employees at fbi headquarters. that makes for a great sound bite but it is ignorant of the role that headquarters analysts and supervisors play in the 30,000 foot level view of the world. you can't just empty out headquarters and put everybody in the field and tell them to work homicides. which is what he has said, by the way. you lose your global intelligence kpa capacity to see what is going on in transnational crime and espionage and cyber crime around the world and the alleged firing

of the top 100 people in the bureau, well we still have laws and we still have a personnel protections. now i know that donald trump claims he's going to do away with civil service protections. that is going to result in a huge battle in the courts. so, it remains to be seen. but i'll tell you this, if he does want to empty out headquarters and send people to the field, and lose that global capacity and view, we're talking about making america less safe, not more safe. if you aren't plugged into the global capacity of the fbi, you're going to have people working crimes that aren't federal jurisdiction and then let's say this. all of the u.s. attorneys in all of the districts across the country are going to be replaced by donald trump. if he now somehow interferes with fbi field office operations, and management, you're looking at a total hijacking of the federal law enforcement system. that could concern everybody and as their pursuing trump's enemies, what are they not

doing? are me not working violent gang or the congressman in your state, city, county? that is a problem. >> all of that is important for people to understand. there is a huge local community impact of a lot of these choices. so andrew, i mentioned this in my intro, it is a ten-year term which crosses over administrations. it is not a political job at all for people to understand. but there are checks in the system within the government and usually there is the attorney general who would be kind of a check, a little bit on the fbi. i mean, there is congress. but pam bondi is the nominee for attorney general. will there be checks on the fbi and the fbi director in what we're looking -- as we're looking to see how the trump administration is being set up? >> yeah, well, at first, i think the ten-year term is an important thing por feel to know. because congress created a

ten-year term, that doesn't mean the president doesn't have a ability to fire the director of fbi and donald trump has done that quite famously with jim comey. but this is very unusual. and instead, the norm is what joe biden has done, which is he kept on christopher wray, who was a trump appointee. and that is because we're seeing this shift of norms where you have somebody who is not using the fbi politically, that is joe biden, and you have donald trump, who is seeking to do just that or appears to be doing just that. in terms of checks, jen, yes, the fbi director reports to the deputy attorney general and to the attorney general of the united states. of course there are people that also report to the president. and, so, you're counting on norms to sort of bring in the fbi director, because the esident can actually tell the fbi director what to do. but traditionally that is not been the case when it comes to

who to prosecute and who not to prosecute. at the at the end of the day, people saying they could go after people. you know what is required by the constitution. probable cause and proof and facts that support a violation of the law. so you -- this is what separates us so far from other countries that don't have a constitution. so that really is the ultimate check, is going to be juries and judges and the requirements that you have facts and that you prove a criminal violation before you take any sort of criminal action. >> you just talk, frank, about the impact on communities about the dismantling and what this could look like. and there is a couple of things here, i want to ask you to go further, because there is the call to eliminate the building, which may not seem like a big deal to many people out there but it is a big deal. there is this kind of effort to go after the deep state, that is something that he's talked about

a fair amount. what are the things -- i mean, how quickly could this happen and as people are sitting at home thinking i don't know if this impacts me. you talked about this in terms of law enforcement and local communities, what should people understand? >> yeah, again, number one, eliminating the hoover building, look, it is literally falling apart. in fact gsa has a contract to move the building to headquarters. i suppose that trump could say, we're going to stop that movement process, there will be no fbi headquarters building. we're going to empty out much of it and send the folks to work real crime in the field, quote/unquote. but again, i caution people, because you'll lose that big picture analysis. with regard to the deep state, a lot of people say look, i've have conversations in the last 24 hours, kash patel is not a great candidate, but you know, we -- trump -- biden did this to us. he chased us with the fbi. he used the fbi as a weapon and

when you start scratching that, jen, you get things like well the russia case as a sham. well, no, it wasn't. not at all. in fact, the doj found that it was properly predicated and it rolled into a mueller special counsel and they found the russian interference was there. so the whole premise is flawed into a house of cards. >> it is a lot to consume. we'll be talking more about this in the weeks ahead i'm certain. andrew weissmann and frank figliuzzi, thank you so much. coming up, the race for the dnc chair just blew up. ben wickler just threw his hat into the ring and he joins me next. into the ring and he joins me next vapocool drops? it's sore throat relief with a rush of vicks vapors. ♪ vapocooooool ♪ whoa. vaporize sore throat pain with vicks vapocool drops. millions have lost weight with noom. like lauren, who found the perfect companion

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but, i know i've said this before as well, there are reasons to be hopeful because moments like this often present the best opportunities. and right now, one of the biggest opportunities is new leadership. and a major step in that process will be choosing the next chairman of the democratic party. in the weeks since jaime harrison announced he's not seeking re-election, we've seen several people raise their hand. including wisconsin democratic party chair ben wikler who just aflounced his run this morning and he wants to do what did he in wisconsin after full republican control of the state government, consider the success democrats are-v had in wisconsin. they flipped 14 senate seats breaking the republican supermajority and they have a democratic governor and they ron a key supreme court justice state and trump won by the slimmest margin in wisconsin. ben, you're off to the races.

so let me start by asking you something more about what you said in your statement. you said, for democrats to move forward, we must build a big tent, organize and community in every platform and find the resources and people and focus to reach voters who get their news about democrats from republicans. that sounds good. there is a lot packed in there. what does that look like in the first six months of a ben wikler chairman of the dnc term? >> jen, thanks so much for having me on. i'm running for chair of the democratic national committee to unite the party. to fight everywhere and in every state up and down the ballot and nationally and to win elections. because we're in a moment of crisis for the country. and what trump and the republicans in congress and in state governments are going to try to do to people, to rip off working people across this country, to dismantle the foundations of our democracy and freedom and sell off the public's trust to the richest

people in the world, what they'll try to do is bad for america and unpopular. so we need to be ready to fight back and win the race to contain the damage and build a country that works for everyone. what that looks like is what it looked like in wisconsin. in wisconsin republicans have total control and they rigged our state and smashed unions and they defunded public schools and they gerrymandered the living daylights out of wisconsin. to win, we had to go step by step not just through the biggest officers like governor, but in state and school board and legislative races and in rural areas and small and big towns and cities and suburbs alike and we work across race and ethnicity, across all of the different communities because we know that things that unite are the things that we need-v in common. to support our families an lead the kind of lives that we want. in the dnc we need a strategy to

bring together the resources and the communicates and the people power to win the fights and that is the goal in the democratic national committee and that is why i'm running. >> you've had a lot of coffee and i'm here for it. let me ask you about something that stuck out to me, because it is an interesting way of phrasing it and it was about reaching voters who get their news from republicans. is that going on conservative podcasts? is that doing more rural radio? is that supporting more progressive? what does that look like, exactly? >> it is all of the above. it is every place and every platform. and specifically, it means going to where the voters are. so let's take each of those pieces. one is there are a lot of people, conservative-leaning voters who never tuned into media and they are in a closed bubble and they hear a ton of things that are untrue that they

might be easier to dimest if you think that team trump are the good guys and i think we need to reach folks where they are. we won't persuade everybody, but some people makes a difference. we need to train and equip and deploy to go across the country on to more hostile terrain and it means investing in and supporting and helping democratic leaders aand elected officials connect with podcasts, with streams, of sub stacks, of posters, of all of the different types of communication vehicles where people are making an alternate case. because building an eco-system where we could get the word out, even if there is a chase the shiny object away from the things that matter most in voters lives, it could be powerful as well. we need to do that. and we need to go to places where people are not tuning in to political news at all. and those are the voter where's we lost the most in this election. among people paying attention to

politics, harris won by eight points, in those that paid no election to political news, we lost by 16 points and thinking about who has trust of voters who may hate politics and make sure we're communicating and engaging with them respectfully and making our case. we know that democrats fight for working people. it is enormously popular across this country and it is the idea, the republicans push, that democrats have their eye on some other ball other than delivering for everyone across all of our identities and communities. we need to go where the voters are and communicate in languages that doesn't feel good to say, but resonates with what voters know and belief with the values that they have. our values are america's values, we need to demonstrate that through the way we communicate and the way we communicate and through our actions. >> ben wikler, you always talk about simplifying language. i'm so a fan of that point. which people need to do more of.

i have so much more i want to ask you, i have to let you go. but thank you so much. i appreciate it and look forward to see you talk more about your plans. coming up, pete hegseth, on behalf of the women you have abused in some way, take a look at yourself. those are not my words. those are his mothers. and i'll explain when we come back. i'll explain when we come back e power of dell ai with intel. so those who receive can find the joy of giving back. why use 10 buckets of water when you can use 1 fire extinguisher. and to fight heartburn, why take 10 antacids throughout the day when you can take 1 prilosec. for easier heartburn relief, one beats ten. prilosec otc. one pill. 24 hours. zero heartburn.

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st. jude showed us that tomorrow, there's hope for our little girl to survive. narrator: let's cure childhood cancer together. please donate now. [music playing] on friday, "the new york times" published quite a story. and to understand the story, you should know that pete hegseth, who is donald trump's pick for secretary of defense did get divorced in 2018 and it was his second marriage and he had an affair at fox news that he also impregnated. and a pattern of adultery going back to his first marriage and within that context that the times published an email they obtained that had been sent to pete hegseth at the time of his second divorce. and the emails is notable

because of who wrote the mail. his own mother. now in this email, hegseth's mother wrote have tried to keep quiet about your behavior and your character. you must speak out. your the abuser of women and that is the ugly truth and i have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. you are that man. and have been for years. and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that but it is the sad, sad truth. she goes on to say, i'm not a saint but you're abuse over the years to women, dishonestly, sleeping around, betrayal and debasing and belittling needs to be called out. on behalf of the women, and i know it is many, you have abused in some way, i say get some help and take an honest look at yourself. signed, mom. hegseth's mother also forwarded

a copy of this email to his second wife. now on friday, hegseth's mother told the times had fired off the original email in anger with remotion and she defended her son and disavowed her sentiment at the time saying about her own email that she wrote, it is not true. and it has never been true. so, given all of the dirty laundry that has been aired publicly here, some might dismiss this as little more than a internal family feud. but to them, i would say, it does appear to be part of a larger pattern. i mean, the evidence clearly suggested that pet hegseth has a big problem with women. his mother felt a need to call out years of mistreatment and abuse towards women. we already that hegseth paid for a woman's silence who alleged that he raped her in 2017. hegseth said that it was consensual and denied the allegations. but it is not just his personal

life that has cause some alarm, but views about women that he would carry into this job. he's on record saying that women should not serve in combat roles and they have not made the military for effective and made fighting for complicated. and look, if pete hegseth would be confirmed, he would be head of the defense department. one that employs 3 million people. a lot of whom are women. so when you put together his alleged pattern of abuse and his warped view of a women's role in the military along with his complete lack of experience, along with his sympathy for war crimes and disdain for the jean eva conventions, one can't wonder what more needs to be known before more senates draw a line on this cabinet pick. what more do you need to know. because some of them are capable of drawing line. we saw that for matt gaetz. but the line can't be and shouldn't be he is not as bad as

matt gaetz. that is pretty easy bar to clear. it should be. and we should expect more from those serving in a president's cabinet. so the senate is back this week. tomorrow. and every senator should be on the record explaining why pete hegseth, given his appearance and world view in general of women should lead the military. ly be watching that very closely. we'll be right back. closely. we'll be right back. th pepto fast melts. ♪ when you have nausea, heartburn, indigestion, ♪ ♪ upset stomach, diarrhea. ♪ when you overdo it... ...undo it with pepto bismol.

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trump has made repeatedly is to fire and replace thousands of civil seven ants. individuals who have played critical roles in democratic and republican administrations for decades and what you hear him make those threats and see stories, you might wonder why it matters and who these people are anyway. well sometimes it is easier to answer those questions with very specific examples and i was reminded of the importance of the role they play when i was watching jacob soboroff's documentary separated. it highlights a lot of people, but one man stuck out, jonathan white, captain of the office of refugee re-settlement during the first trump administration and when the separation policy was put into place, jonathan white tried to stop it. and then played a critical role in reuniting migrant children with their families. >> parns would be removed from the united states. through deportation, so the families that made the journey together but the children would remain in the united states

while the parents would return to home country. >> these are state created orphans. >> these are families separated by action of the federal government. as a tool of immigration policy. >> now the question is, in the new trump administration, will people like jonathan white survive the purge of civil servants and if they don't, what does that mean for the fupging of the federal government. joining me now is jacob soboroff, the new msnbc film "separated", based on his best-selling book. you could watch it next saturday. so jacob, this is a really, i had the honor and the pleasure of moderating the conversation after your premiere here in d.c. and we talked about civil servants and jonathan white was in the audience and it struck me, for someone who had worked in government, about how he kind

of exemplifies the role for people who don't understand it of civil servants. but through your reporting, tell us about jonathan and what he taught you and what people should understand about the role of people like him in government. >> jen, i want to thank you for moderating that conversation after the d.c. screening, but for highlighting this and spotlighting these career civil servants who through my six plus years of coverage this family separation crisis, i realized are as important as any first responders on any front line. they have life-saving roles, especially for the care and custody of children within the department of health and human services, the office of refugee resettlement during the family separation crisis which as we have talked about was government sanctioned child abuse in the words of american academy of pediatrics and torture in the words for physicians for human rights and were it not for

captain white and jalen sullog who people will meet in the film and you met there in washington, d.c. as we all sat together, this could have been so much worse. we're talking about 5500 children who will have a lifetime of trauma because of what the trump administration did to them. but it could have been 25 or 30,000 were it up to stephen miller and they would have executed the plans in the way that they wanted to. now as we approach this mass deportation policy which is family separation by another name, who are the jonathan whites and the jaylen sullog and a could name a dozen people who not tooth and nail inside of the government in order to protect children and did everything they could in the face of this trump administration policy. >> one of the other things that your film does well is it explains the different roles in government and there is another character in your film, his name is scott lloyd, who the trump administration -- he was a trump appointee in charge of the

office of refugee resettlement, a political appointee. why isn't he in charge? wasn't he in charge? how could he not have been able to stop it? what does your reporting tell you and what you have learned about the power that people like that could have in organizations to override the people like jonathan white and others who you mentioned who are civil servants? >> what errol morris, who took the book that i did turned it into this film that will premiere on saturday on msnbc, is he dives deep into these characters and one the people that you meet is, as you mentioned, scott lloyd. he was the political appointee in charge of the office of refugee resettlement. becomes the boss of all of the career civil servants who have spent a lifetime looking out for the best interests of children and what you see in the movie is that people like scott lloyd were contacted or contacting steen miller in the white house

and it is very unusual to have nonsenate confirmed political appointees in direct communication with the white house. but nevertheless, as he pointed out in "separated" that is what was going on in the first trump term. and you have this influence who want to carry out the policies and they're directing in essence career officials what to do even though the career officials are the ones with the lifetime of not only service but expertise and schooling and management lessons and literally accountability here who know what they're doing is the most basic way to put it and they're being influenced by people with political perspectives and goals. >> it is really -- it is so important for people to understand what you just laid out. this is what the film does so effectively, is help people out there who haven't worked in government, what the structure is and how these things can

possibly happen. jacob soboroff, thank you as always. i'll watch the film for the fourth time. catch the premiere here on saturday, december 7th. and grab tickets for a special screening this tuesday at the isc center. mike barber is moderating the talk with jacob at the screening and we'll be right back. talk with jacob at the screening and we'll be right back.

that does it for me today. but we're already working on a very packed show for tomorrow night. alex padilla, a member of the judiciary committee, will be one much my guests. now if kash patel makes it to a confirmation hearing, we'll see, senator padilla will be one of the lawmakers who will be able to question him. that's coming up at 8:00 p.m. eastern. stay with you are because there's much more news coming up on msnbc. ♪♪