sean casten. i'm katy tur. pete hegseth is on the hill, trying to convince republican senators he is fit to lead the department of defense and its roughly 3 million military and civilian employees.

some don't need much convincing, with cynthia loomis calling his drunkenness, sexual impropriety and financial mismanagement nothing more than a behavior of a soldier who sometimes behave as wild childs. but others seem to be on the fence or at least that's what they're signaling. shelly moore caputo saying she's reserving judgment until she's able to ask hegseth herself about the allegations including a letter written by his own mother calling him a, quote, abuser of women. she has since taken the letter back. still, it is a crucial moment for hegseth. the new yorker article which reported on a whistleblower report into his leadership at a small veterans organization, alleges a devastating picture of his competence, not to mention his personal behavior. writing, quote, hegseth had to

be restrained while drunk frahm joining the dancers on stage of a louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team. the whistleblower report also says that hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team, sexually pursued the organization's female staffers whom they divided into two groups. the, quote, party girls, and the, quote, not party girls. at another event, the new yorker reports, quote, a different employee described hegseth as being at a bar in the early morning hours of may 29th, 2015 while on an official tour through cuyahoga falls, ohio, drunkenly chanting kill all muslims. this reporting from the new yorker which hegseth's team diminishes but doesn't outright deny comes after news that he paid off a woman who accused him of assaulting her. he calls it a al encounter and was never charged

with a crime. the question, though, is are these allegations, all of it, and even if they are, how many senators are going to be willing to hand over the keys to the biggest and most deadly military on earth to a man who is facing deeply troubling accusations not just about his behavior but about his ability to manage an organization and a team. joining us now, nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles with the skinny on what's happening in washington, and nbc news national security correspondent courtney kube, who covers the pentagon for us. ryan, i want to ask you about what's happening on the hill. he's meeting with a number of senators today. what is the word on hegseth? are senators going to be okay with all of these very serious allegations? >> reporter: you do get the sense that the drip, drip, drip of accusations against pete hegseth is starting to become a problem for him. when it comes to his senate

confirmation, in particular because he can only afford to lose four votes in the senate and then fail to meet the confirmation standard. it's not so much the senators coming out in support of him. they are the most loyal members of the senate to donald trump. it's those that are kind of keeping their confirmation vote close to the vest. joni ernst, a good example, from iowa. she herself a veteran, someone who has worked diligently to try to solve the sexual assault crisis within the military. she is saying she needs more information. she is stopping short of saying that she would vote yes on his confirmation. i think that's revealing as to her thinking going forward. there's a universe of a whole group of republican senators who have already shown a willingness to stand up to donald trump and the fact they balked at the nomination of matt gaetz. one of the most revealing things that has come out in the last 30

minutes or so is roger wicker, the chair of the armed services committee, he told me before thanksgiving when hegseth was up here for his first round of interviews with senators, that he thought that he would sail through confirmation, he thought he was going to be able to be confirmed without a problem. i talked to my colleague garrett haake and revealed there are some concerns about his treatment with women and these issues with alcohol that have been raised by these various news reports. that shows that there is some skepticism within the republican ranks. whether or not it's enough to kill his nomination, i think, is still an open question. he does have a path to confirmation right now. it could happen, but you definitely are starting to see a growing tide of skepticism as to whether or not he's up to the job. >> i want to be clear. nbc news has not independently verified the new yorker reporting and an adviser told the new yorker the claims revealed from the whistleblower report were outlandish in this

person's words and came from a petty and jealous disgruntled former associate. still, these are allegations that certainly are about the way he treated women, yes, his drunkenness allegations that ryan just mentioned, but they're also very serious allegations about his ability to manage an organization. he managed two small veterans groups, and the reporting outlines his inability to keep the financial affairs in order of these two very small organizations. is there any -- talk to me about what it means to lead the department of defense. the department of defense is giant budget, not to mention its giant staff. >> i think there are three key elements we have to consider. given what we are learning, all of these allegations coming out about pete hegseth. number one is what you mentioned, the 800-plus billion dollar budget that this

department has. we are talking upwards of 3 million people, active duty, guard, reserve, and dod civilians. it is an enormous task that even the most senior and seasoned government officials and military leaders can find daunting at times. so when we look at what pete hegseth's experience is, the reality is he simply doesn't have the same level of experience we usually see a secretary of defense come in with. that's one. number two, his comments on women. don't forget many of the people in this department, again, active guard reserve and civilians are women. he has made many comments about how women should not serve in combat. how would he as secretary of defense look those women in uniform in the eye after having made these many comments saying women shoot serve in combat, they're serving on the front lines now and have been for nearly a decade. that is a serious challenge that he will face. and at a time where recruiting

continues to be a problem for all of the services, what do you do when you are alienating a large portion of the population? so that's a second thing. the third thing is just the sheer amount of pressure that comes with this job. i'll give you a couple examples. so the current secretary of defense, lloyd austin, okay, he was a retired four-star general. he went on to work in private industry for a while before he came here to the pentagon. in this job, he is frequently woken up in the middle of the night with emergencies. a couple examples, october 7th, that happened in the middle of the night in the u.s. you're awaken, you're told there's this emergency happening. you need to make a decision. here's one that's very stark. operation noble eagle. that's the mission here in the united states to secure the united states, so let's say an aircraft breaches some sort of an air space where the president is or for some reason a closed air space. well, the call could come to the secretary of defense any time,

day or night, and say we have an aircraft. you have to make the decision to shoot that down or not. that is an enormous amount of responsibility, and i think when all of these activities and these behaviors we're learning about pete hegseth all come together, that is why we are seeing now a little bit of concern on the hill about whether he simply has the character and the responsibility for such an enormous job. >> the enormity of that decision alone, there have got to be republican senators, senators asking themselves, do i want somebody who maybe might have a drinking problem, maybe might not be altogether with it at all hours, making those decisions? again, these are very serious allegations. courtney kube, ryan nobles, thank you very much, guys. joining us now, senior opposition researcher for the republican national committee during the 2016 presidential

campaign, when he himself vetted pete hegseth for a different role, justin higgins. and senior editor at the atlantic and host of radio atlantic and the new podcast, we live here now, hannah rosen. thank you very much for joining us. justin, i want to start with you. you vetted hegseth. did this stuff come up when you were looking into him? >> no, a lot of these allegations happened -- excuse me -- after we were vetting him, but also, the way we vetted was a political vet. so it was taking public information and searching through all of the public records, public statements he's made, financial records, legal statements, and it appears to me based on my vetting experience that a lot of these new allegations came from amazing investigative reporting that resulted in tips, in telling the journalists where to look in police records, and resulted in the new yorker magazine, where they received these documents about a whistleblower report. so we didn't see these issues. but we did see how uniquely

unqualified he was based on his resume alone. >> so you went through public reporting. tell me why he was uniquely unqualified, and tell me what position you were vetting him for. >> so he was being vetted for a couple undersecretary roles at the dod, but also veterans affairs secretary and a few undersecretary roles there. they would give us a list of a person to vet and potential positions they were being looked at. the reason was pretty clear, katy. he has no experience working with congress on creating and passing a large budget. he has no experience running or working in a large bureaucracy where he's in a senior position in that bureaucracy. and lastly, military policy experience, ie, how do we modernize the military in the 21st century with the rise of a.i., and also foreign policy experience. this gentleman has none of that. >> let me ask you, in the republican party, to come out

and speak against donald trump or a decision he's made, it's a hard thing to do which is why we're probably not seeing many republican senators go so public with any concerns they may have. justin, why you coming on here and telling us about your own vetting and why you thought he was not qualified even for the junior position? >> well, i'm now a democrat. and was a democratic appointed official. i don't want to subject myself to personal attacks from maga and the other folks. my father was a veteran in the armed services. and i take national security extremely personally and seriously. and quite frankly, i think that pete hegseth is the most scary nominee for a major position that this country could have. look at what's happening in the middle east, ukraine, south korea right now. we need a secretary of defense regardless of the personal allegations, misconduct potentially, we need somebody that is very serious and very

knowledgeable about what they're doing and quite frankly, that is not pete hegseth. >> hannah, i want to ask you about some of the reaction from republican senators on the record. i ntioned up top the wyoming senator saying this is wild child behavior. soldiers are inclined to be this way sometimes. we also have -- this is about kash patel, sorry. when you're seeing these senators come out and they're saying, it's not so big of a deal. what is your reaction to advise and consent? they have to know what they're putting a guy like this in position to handle. the decisions that he is going to need to make. courtney kube just outlined that a moment ago. >> even the fact we're having a discussion about this particular nominee tells you a lot. this conversation should be about trump and his relationship to the military, bought in any other transition, this person would have been off the table as a nominee immediately. so you have to read the signs

underneath the signs, which is what signal is trump putting out there? by putting forth this person who everybody understands is not only just unqualified and has never run an agency like this, but has all of these character defects that would put him out of the running for lower positions. so why? why is the question. what message is trump sending to military that he is essentially going to disregard what their needs and requirements are. >> i guess why? what is the answer to that? >> the answer to that is that trump has had a contentious relationship with many prominent military leaders who have publicly, publicly criticized him and they have a lot of authority to do that, such as mark milley. i think he's sending a message you cannot get away with this. i will put my person in charge of this agency. i will wreak chaos on this agency and people will be answerable to me. that's the only way you can read

a nominee like this, who is just obviously not qualified for the position. >> i want to play jason miller, a senior trump adviser, who spoke about pete hegseth, tried to defend the nomination on cnn this morning. let's listen. >> when it comes to pete hegseth, the aren't any concerns. we feel very good about his positions for being confirmed by the senate. we have to take the process very seriously. this is a rare time where you're going to hear me say the process when it comes to this is very important. that's because the senate takes it so serious to go and have the one-on-one meetings, to have these confirmation hearings, to give senators the chance to kick the tires and get some questions answered on their own. pete hegseth has been shot at in combat. that's exactly the type of person that we want leading the dod before any commitment is made to put our troops in harm's way. >> there's not going to be, or at least there has not yet been an fbi vetting. we heard justin talk about the

public vetting he did, but the fbi is going to go deeper even than our friend jane mayer at the new yorker could go, even though she's an exceptional reporter. do you foresee that being an issue with any republicans in the senate? i'm sure democrats are going to raise it. if there's no fbi vetting of these including hegseth, can you imagine the republicans are all going to say okay to that? >> i mean, you have to think of levels of credibility. maybe the media is easy to dismiss. republicans can easily get away with saying that's just the left-wing media. what institution would they trust? would they trust a report from the fbi? a lot of the people criticizing pete hegseth were republicans. a lot of people from the veterans organizations. i think if there's any kind of legitimate vetting and more and more details come out, they'll be really hard to dismiss. even the defense we just heard was a defense about imagery. he's been shot at. like senator rick scott said,

he's going to scare the crap out of our enemies. it's all macho language which obscures the details of what we're talking about. >> if something went wrong and he made a decision that was not the right one or had backfired in some way, are you going to feel okay about saying yes to somebody who just didn't have the necessary qualifications and was facing a lot of very, again, serious, keep calling it serious allegations, about their personal conduct and their ability to lead an organization, even more than the personal conduct toward women, which is another story, but his ability to lead an organization, to financially manage an organization, to keep things going. these were just two small veteran groups he totally mismanaged. all right, allegedly. hahna rosen, thank you very much. justin higgins, thank you as well. still ahead, what kash patel could do to change the makeup of

the fbi as we know it. and what in the world is happening in south korea? where a martial law order was just lifted only hours after it was put in place? we're going to explain. >> plus, they cross the aisle to support joe biden. what never trumpers are now saying after the president pardoned his son. surance with liberty mutual. customize and sa— (balloon doug pops & deflates) and then i wake up. anyou have ts eam every night? yeah, every night! hmm... i see. (limu squawks) only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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all right, joining us now, nbc correspondent vaughn hillyard in west palm beach near the president-elect's florida home and former assistant secretary for threat preventional and security policy at the department of homeland security. author of kingdom of raise, the rise of christian extremism and the path back to peace, elizabeth neumann. we have been talking a lot about pete hegseth. i also want to get on the record about kash patel. these two nominees, also tulsi gabbard, are facing a whole lot of headwind, at least publicly, at least within the media and from democrats. what is the reaction from team trump internally to these nominees? do they foresee having to come up with a plan b? >> reporter: yeah, i think it's notable we haven't heard much from donald trump himself, katy. donald trump is in his social media account is largely i think the best reflection of where he is mentally in terms of his political status. and we have not seen him come to

a great defense of pete hegseth, who has been going around having these one-on-one meetings and even jason miller, his senior adviser acknowledging it is incumbent to follow this process through and it's up to pete hegseth to go and effectively convince republican senators he is worthy of confirmation. when you're talking about kash patel, he'll be next to go up to capitol hill along with tulsi gabbard. they'll have to have these meetings themselves. one takeaway from the meetings on capitol hill is the fact that some of these republican senators, they're staying quite mum themselves to the extent they are concerned much like matt gaetz, who matt gaetz took himself out of the running before republican senators audibly spoke the words they were hard noes on his confirmation. for donald trump there is a recognition here that he only has so much sway over republican senators up on capitol hill because those who are going to be the ones ultimately to determine whether kash patel and tulsi gabbard and rfk are confirmed are those who largely are going to be politically

immune from donald trump's wielding of power, people like mitch mcconnell that are already announced retiring, and others that don't see their terms ending until 2028 or even later. so i think for donald trump, and his team, there is a realization here that it is incumbent upon his nominee picks to go and make the case themselves and frankly without the fbi background checks, to front end this, there is definitely questions about other reporting that is going to come out, knowing we're 45-plus days away from the confirmation hearings beginning to proceed. >> elizabeth, with a kash patel, atop the fbi, what could he change? this is a guy who has been very public about wanting to go after people in the deep state, people he views as traitors, people who were investigating donald trump, the russia hoax as he calls it, and also go after the media.

how could he use the fbi to meet those ends? >> so, i think given that he spent some time writing an entire chapter on what he would do to the fbi if he could in his book, he's definitely put some thought to it. the question i have is whether he actually has the skills and acumen to execute, actually changing bureaucracy can be quite hard, and though he does have some time working at the department of justice and the national security division, that's a little different than actually running a large organization like the fbi. but let's suspend reality for a moment and pretend that he does have the skills and acumen to be able to execute some of his ideas, some of the things he's ed about doing is moving much of the fbi outside of washington, d.c., purportedly for the purpose of getting more fbi law enforcement agents on the streets fighting crime. there's probably parts of that that would be good, always great to have more fbi officers and agents doing the important work

of keeping our country safe. i think there's a fallacy there, though, most of the people that are at headquarters are not actually sworn law enforcement officers. they're support staff. you can't just take support staff and have them go become a law enforcement officer overnight. so even some of the ideas he has, i'm not quite sure how quickly he could execute them. but i think probably the most concerning piece is the retribution agenda which he and a number of other trump nominees have talked about. and all it would take is finding a few people on the inside who would agree to that agenda, and finding the right prosecutors who would support going after a couple key people, of course, you do have to have some facts to back you up, but you can sometimes manipulate facts, create that investigation, and wreak a lot of havoc on people's lives even if it would never stand up in court. that seems to be the purpose of the retribution agenda.

>> even if you think it will stand up in court, you realize at some point maybe you have the wrong guy. garrett graph in "the new york times" has named a couple people who had their lives upended by fbi. richard jewel of the atlantic bombing, and the anthrax investigation that turned a biodefense researcher's life upside down. hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal bills. he also goes on, garrett, to write, which i think is salient, he says this. nevertheless, a patel, and you were mentioning there is not all that much he might be able to do because of his ability to figure out how the system works. here's where garrett disagrees with that. he said a patel directorship could cause grave lasting harm to the institution. one of the key ways a director shapes the bureau is through the promotion of top agents, from section chiefs to unit chiefs to

the charge of the executive directors. mr. patel's choice of those leaders would shape the bureau for decades. he mentioned people trained by hoover have trained some of the senior agents who are still in office. that's how long these careers span, 25 years and more. elizabeth neumann, vaughn hillyard, thank you very much. ming up, what democrats are saying about president biden's decision to pardon his son. yes, democrats, what they're saying. first, what happened in south korea today that briefly paralyzed the government. what is going on there? what am i going to use on the bathtub? i don't have to think about that. with magic eraser... i use it on everyday messes. i even use it on things that i think are impossible to clean. you just add water, and then i'm good to go. i can go from the countertop, to the stove, to the microwave, and just use one magic eraser. if you're a mom, you need mr. clean magic eraser in your life.

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the president of south korea just lifted a moment ago his martial law declaration accepting the national assembly's vote to override the order. the country was thrown into turmoil this morning when the extremely unpopular president made the sudden decision. saying it was necessary to

declare martial law because the opposition party which is in control of the country's parliament was paralyzing his agenda. calling it, quote, an insurgency. the declaration which outlawed political activity and gave the president control of the media, set off a massive protest in front of the country's national assembly. with south koreans calling for the president himself to resign or to be impeached. joining us now, council on foreign relations president emeritus and author of the weekly substack newsletter home and away. richard haass. let's talk about away for a second before we come home. what's going on in south korea? >> katie, on my short list of strange things i didn't expect, this might be at the top of the list. clearly, you had a president who was more than a little frustrated with his parliament. out of nowhere for the first time in more than four decades, south korea, one of the world's most robust democracies, declares martial law. he did it unilaterally.

parliament then very quickly meets. they say, no way. override it. he then backs down. so the good news is the democratic institutions, the rule of law in south korea, held. the bad news, i would think, is one, this happened at all. two, it's, i think, an open question whether the president can politically recover from what looks to me a self-inflicted wound. and it's just a reminder of how american foreign policy is for all of our economic and security commitments to the internal dynamics of our allies. >> tell me if i'm missing the mark, but what i thought of when i saw this happening, is this just another example of backsliding after donald trump was re-elected? this brutish attempt at unilateralism by the south korean president. could there be any effect seeing donald trump being elected here

for him to say i don't like these guys. they're not making my life easier. they're stopping all my agenda policies. they're trying to impeach my ministers. i'm just going to say to hell with it and declare martial law? >> i haven't had a conversation with the president of south korea in the last few hours. possible. on the other hand, he has a police background. i have had quite a few meetings with him in the last few years. he's someone -- look, he's not a politician by nature. and my hunch is he may have just grown incredibly frustrated. but whatever motivated it, katy, what i like about this is, again, the institution held. democracy held. so even if what you say turns out to be partially an explanation, the good news is it didn't work. and the rule of law, the resilience of south korean democracy has demonstrated itself. that's got to be reassuring both there, but anywhere in the world

for other people who happen to be sitting on top of democracies. it's a reminder that there is pushback if they go too far. >> let me bring us closer to home. a little bit more to the west and go to france. there is some turmoil happening in the parliament there with potentially a no confidence vote for the prime minister, which is head of the parliament, a bit confusing, under president macron. but this would be a blow to macron's party further because it would see his rival, marine le pen, be much more in control of things on the, you know, the policy level, the government level. what's happening in france right now? why would there be this alliance? >> well, you're right. there's no consensus about what ought to happen with the budget and the economy. take a step back. two of the most significant countries in europe, germany and france, are going through political crises.

you have an accelerated election coming up in germany. the government has in many ways lost the confidence of the people. france has now been a slow motion crisis for how many months? and it's quite possible that whatever happens in parliament in the near term, that macron's successor could be someone like marine le pen, someone of the far right. so what we're really seeing in europe, in both germany and france, we have already seen it to some degree in italy, is what we have gotten comfortable with over the last 70, 80 years in europe. this center left democratic order for the most part, even if it was of the right, center right, suddenly the extremes are coming into play. i don't think we have the luxury of making deep assumptions about european stability and its political orientation, and also its foreign policy orientations as well. >> it is a confusing time in the western world. let me ask you something else about donald trump. this is his threat to hamas,

saying if you don't release the hostages there will be all hell to pay. what's the likelihood of anybody listening to that on the hamas side of things and saying okay, we're going to give up? >> not a whole lot. it sounds to me a little bit like a threat. it's not quite clear what the or else is. nonstate actors in a funny way, their very weakness can be a form of strength. the israelis have hammered them now for 14 months. they reduced a lot of gaza to rubble. it's not quite clear what the united states can do to them militarily that israel hasn't already done. if donald trump wants to marginalize and further weaken hamas, i suggest he works with netanyahu as soon as he becomes president to pressure the israelis to introduce a political dimension to their policy. hamas has been weakened militarily. now what we need do is weaken them politically. that's something the israelis can only accomplish by given palestinians someone else, some other group to rally around.

they're not willing to do it. that's a place for donald trump to lay in more creatively than simply threats against hamas. >> got a few more questions on this but i'm going to have to save them for another time. richard haass, thank you for joining us. appreciate it. >> any time. >> coming up next, what donald trump said about canada in a meeting with prime minister justin trudeau. it made people uncomfortable, according to the reporting. plus, what democrats are saying about president biden's reversal on pardoning his son, hunter. what democrats are saying. don't go anywhere. erything more. and you can never have enough! toodaloo. humana medicare advantage plans. carry this card and you could have the power to unlock benefits beyond original medicare. these are convenient plans that offer all of the benefits of original medicare, plus extra coverage and benefits. with a humana medicare advantage plan,

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after donald trump won the election, canadian prime minister justin trudeau flew down to mar-a-lago. that meeting did not appear to go well. fox news is reporting that trudeau warned trump that his tariff proposal would kill the canadian economy to which trump replied that canada could then become the 51st state. and that trudeau could be governor. joining us now, staff writer for the atlantic and msnbc contributor, mark leibovich. this is a strange story. from the reporting, it sounds so insulting. you could just be the 51st state. what is donald trump's relationship with one of our closest allies? why does he treat people like

justin trudeau with such apparent disdain? >> because he feels like he can. i think this is basically -- this is essentially why he has the appeal that he does from his supporters, which is a sense of bluster, a sense of incredible dismissiveness over someone he considers inferior, someone americans consider to be this sort of a neighbor to the north, and frankly, just law of the jungle. we're bigger than you, stronger than you. you rely on us more than we rely on you. therefore we can push you around. it helps trudeau is a lot younger than trump. it probably helps that trump feels like he can lord over any number of things, in part and this is reflected in how he treated him in the first term. they didn't have a great relationship the first time around. so to me, this is a continuation of that. i also think that trudeau feeling it necessary to go to mar-a-lago kind of underscores not only the reliance he feels

he has on the relationship but also on a kind of subservience he along with many other people in the world and in the country feel they owe to donald trump at this point. >> i wonder how it's going to go, take two. because the world has experienced donald trump before, justin trudeau has experienced him. many of the leaders that are around today were around when donald trump was in office the last time around. and there was an understanding that built up over time which was that you could flatter donald trump and you could get what you wanted out of him. be nice to him, say great things, say how powerful and smart he is, and then you could give him a mediocre concession and he could go around and tout it and wave it like it was a big win. is that still your understanding of the way the world is going to treat him during this second administration? should we expect any big major changes or should it just be a series of small concessions in order for donald trump to look big on the domestic stage?

>> right. i mean, here's the thing. donald trump actually is big on the domestic stage. he's president. he comes into office with incredible sense of power and whether, you can argue the mandate left and right, and he obviously, you know, feels a great superiority over trudeau, and people around the world, whether they have any power over donald trump or not, this is sort of the nature of the relationship until we are seeing otherwise. and i also think, look, if donald trump understands one thing, it's leverage. he feels like he has a great deal of leverage, domestically, internationally, and certainly with canada. >> all right, mark, i'm going to keep you around. we have to take a quick break and talk about pardons, the big presidential pardon from president biden on sunday. don't go anywhere. we'll be right back. ack. chew. fizz. feel better fast. no water needed. new alka-seltzer plus fizzychews. did you know...

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. there are very loud voices out there criticizing the president's decision to pardon his son. and a lot of them are democrats. joining us, politics reporter, dave weigel, and mark leibovich. dave, what is your reporting? >> a lot of democrats today have been defending the president's decision. i thought it was striking in politico that almost every democrat running to lead the dnc defended the decision, but this has split the coalition of democrats and frustrated anti-trump republicans who supported biden for a lot of

reasons, built a story line about biden that he was so ethical, he wouldn't do a thing like this, and believed biden when he said he wouldn't do it. you have seen a schism, a lot of rejection by the ex-republicans. never trumpers, who supported biden on those grounds. that he was going to defend some norms. some people, i talked to john dean, the watergate whistleblower who supported it and said biden should pardon more people. it really has splintered democrats and in these republicans' idea of what model the president should be setting with donald trump coming back into office. >> there are also those, including senator michael bennet who have said what this serves to do, understanding this is his son, understanding the republican party has made hunter biden a big target, but still, he did break the law, and by going after the justice department and saying it wasn't fair the way that he was prosecuted, the way he was targeted, it just undermines trust in an organization and an

agency that has already seen a massive decline in trust, dave. >> it has, and i haven't seen many democrats use some of the lines that people around biden i think like them to use. for example, that hunter biden suffered in ways trump is not suggesting that his allies suffer, going through these trials, being exposed around the world, quite literally, being humiliated, having his finances drained defending himself, and for relying on a benefactor to help him. also, the argument biden is making, you saw eric adams paraphrasing what biden said, that the justice department is compromised, the argument they would like to see is donald trump from the outside, republicans from the outside politicized the investigation, attacked the process, demanded merrick garland make weisz a special council. republicans intervened throughout the pros.

that's what the white house would like to be talking about. it's striking with the exception of dean and a couple other defenders of the biden position, you're not hearing that. most democrats are saying he shouldn't have done that. >> i had hunter biden's first attorney on, the one negotiating the plea deal, who said it all had been wrapped up, the investigation was done, before it blew up in their faces. he said that what happened was obvious that there was some sort of pressure on david weisz, that the deal had been made, and then he faced outside pressure, and everything changed. he reneged on the compromise they had made. mark, this isn't totally a completely clean parallel, but at the same time that this news came out, we were hearing from donald trump about his appointments for ambassadorships, and he appointed charles kushner, jared kushner's father, to be ambassador of france. he was convicted, spent time in prison, a felon until donald trump pardoned him at the end of

his first term. why doesn't trump face -- why do you think the scrutiny on donald trump for breaking the norms as he consistently does isn't as loud from the republican party as democrats are willing to go and scrutinize and criticize their own? >> well, i mean, that's the price of the moral high ground. this obviously does not exactly come at a time of high morale among democrats and doesn't exactly put a capstone on the great victory lap that joe biden was envisioning for himself. i think, look, donald trump unfortunately, i mean, if you're a democrat, has gotten away with it over and over and over again. he has built up a permission structure, certainly within his party, where he can do whatever he wants, and democrats politically and i think also at their core, believe they had a moral high ground, and you know, obviously, president biden forfeited away a lot of that. it also comes at a time where

democrats are already really laying quite low. this news come in, you're getting all these give money to kamala texts that keep coming. it's just really unfortunately, i mean, there is this kind of inconvenient debate, which is do democrats play by more of the rule of the jungle that republicans have accustomed themselves for and should we not give ourselves a disadvantage. it's kind of depressing no matter what you think about it. >> dave, what do you think about it? should they get down and get dirty or, as michelle obama kept saying, go high and everyone else goes low? >> michelle obama said that in 2016, and a lot of what mark is talking about happened after 2016. more quietly, when democrats don't want to be quoted by name, there is a sense of agreement with what mark is saying. what was the point of playing by the rules? what was the point of being the norms party? people did not reward --

>> people don't like the norms. they don't think norms are working. >> right, and they believed, as most republicans believe, a sliver of voters believe, that every politician is crooked in the same way. there's a lot of who deserves the blame for the lack of faith people have in their institutions going around. but history didn't start with donald trump. what the biden argument, that memo that accompanied the pardon sounded like a lot of what bill clinton's defenders sounded like. they indulged a partisan investigation. and that people should realize there are times, there are people being hurt only because of their connection to the president. that's what this sounded like, not just the return to the idea of democrats need to fight personal destruction in lawfare, like what republicans were saying over the past year. >> all right. dave weigel, mark leibovich, a conversation that will be ongoing, no doubt. thank you very much. that's going to do it for me

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