hi, everyone. welcome to tuesday. it's 4:00 in new york. the rehabilitation effort is very much under way, and as these things going, this one has been particularly painful to watch. we're of course talking about trump's nominee to run the pentagon. former fox news weekend morning show anchor pete hegseth, who was on capitol hill today meeting with republican senators in an effort to do damage control after a slew of allegations, allegations that at any other point in american political history have been disqualifying including the bombshell reporting from the new yorker's jane mayer about a trail of documents corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues indicating hegseth was forced to step down from not one but two nonprofit advocacy

groups he ran. in the face of, quote, serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety and personal misconduct. and from the sound of it, more bombshells could be coming soon. here's what jane mayer told my colleague, rachel maddow. >> it's been almost a day since the story came out and my phone has been ringing off the hook. i have been hearing from many more people who worked with pete hegseth who have come out of the woodwork to say they, too, have stories along the sam lines. >> the phone has been ringing off the hook. as rachel likes to say, watch this space. and if at this point you're sensing a theme among trump's cabinet picks, it's not you. it's them. "the new york times" analyzed more than 60 of trump's cabinet picks and potential senior members of the trump administration, and, quote, a number of patterns emerge. some are benign, albeit ironic

being his constant griping about elites, but other uniting factors were unprecedented. many of the nominees have denied or questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election. some lack the traditional qualifications shared by their predecessor. it appears that the most important qualifier in trump's mind has been fealty to him, which many of his picks have demonstrated in various ways over the past few years. 13 of donald trump's picks showed their fealty by making an appearance at trump's criminal trial here in new york. another sure fire way to show your fealty, become a fixture at mar-a-lago. 12 of trump's picks hosted or cohosted events at mar-a-lago. or you could become a fox news host or contributor, at least 11 of trump's picks went that route. when all else fails there's always project 2025. at least 17 of donald trump's picks are associated with

project 2025, or the america first policy institute. the trifecta of fealty, fox news, mar-a-lago, project 2025. and remember, none of this is normal. it's where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. retired u.s. marine corps lieutenant colonel and founder of democratic majority action pac amy mcgrath is back, plus, msnbc political analyst tim miller is here. former rnc spokesperson, now the host of the bulwark podcast. also, the president of media matters for america, angela care asewn. amy, i start with you. the hegseth nomination is important that any attempt to describe his critics as having anything to do with the left or the democratic party or the media is fact checked in a nanosecond because every one of

the calls about hegseth are coming from deep inside the right-wing house. and i mean, inside the organizations he ran, which were sort of staffed up by conservatives. the allegations of sexual assault in monterey with someone who worked with and at the conservative group he was addressing. all of the reports, all that we know about pete hegseth, we know from deep inside his right-wing circle. >> yeah, and the latest allegation was from a fellow veteran, marine who was on trump's executive campaign committee. or executive director for the campaign committee. so this is coming from republicans, from conservatives, not from democrats. but you know, this pick for senators to reject should be a no-brainer. in no planet is this guy

qualified to lead the department of defense, not only from the experience level but also from the ethical perspective. i mean, the financial mismanagement alone, he was in charge of an organization that had ten people. it had a budget of less than $10 million, and he financially mismanaged that. twice he was fired from these small organizations. and here's the thing. you want this guy to lead, how about leading an organization successfully just once without getting fired for sexual misconduct or for financial mismanagement before you put him in charge of the dod? >> let me show you some of what he is -- i don't even know the right verb to use, misauging. it's kind of gross with all of the allegations, but his position on women in combat is evolving, if you will. >> i'm straight up just saying

we should not have women in combat roles. whatever the standards, whatever the combat standards were say in 1995, let's make those the standards. >> how do you feel about women in combat? >> amazing women who serve in the military. >> do you think they should be in combat? >> i think they're already in combat. >> i'm not sure the path to nomination winds its way through nonanswers like that, but that's where we are, amy. >> well, i mean, i think he sees the writing on the wall, that this is an issue that women have been serving in combat, and lots of people see that, and it's not a winning issue for him, despite his personal beliefs. but i'll tell you, his misconduct, and this is something that everybody in america should really know. this attitude of, boys will be boys, and he's a combat vet, so you know, cut him some slack for

the rape allegations and the massive alcohol abuse. that kind of behavior, nicolle, would get him to a nonpromotion status within the military. and now, they want him to lead the department of defense? he would not even be promoted with that kind of background in the military. it's really hypocrisy and a terrible example to set for our troops. >> are you having any private conversations with senate staff or any senators who are more concerned than they're willing to air publicly? >> yes, i think that there are people that are very concerned. look, it's really hard for many people to claim that they care about sexual assault, for example, in the military, and try to hold military leaders accountable for sexual assaults,

the problems we have within the ranks, and then you turn around and, yeah, i'm going to vote for this guy to be secretary of defense. when he paid off the woman who accused him of doing the very same thing. when he has multiple allegations of personal misconduct that wouldn't even be allowed within the military. in terms of being promoted to a higher rank. i feel like there are senators who really understand the military and do get that. and i certainly hope that they're paying attention right now to what this would do to our military. >> tim miller, let me show you the current public posture on hegseth. this is jason miller on cnn. >> so when it comes to pete hegseth, there aren't any concerns. we feel very good about his positioning for being confirmed by the senate. i believe that pete hegseth is ultimately when he has a chance

to present his case, it's going to come across very clearly that he's going to be a great person to lead the dod, and that he didn't do anything wrong. >> didn't do anything wrong. that's why fox news paid out a settlement, that's why the monterey police department released a 22-page police report. that's why jane mayer has her phone ringing off the hook and a deeply sourced, meticulously reported body of reporting about his mismanagement. and frankly, the public drunkenness and the sloppiness with which his own peers and colleagues describe him is really -- is really stunning and a real departure from the kinds of folks that trump seemed to have been attracted to in his first term. >> well, he's looking for something different this time, he's looking for toadies. and i don't know, maybe he's also like a prank, just

listening to interviews with amy, is this a prank nomination? how can you be serious with this? this is such a preposterous nomination on every count. you see him completely unable to answer that substantive question about women in the military walking through the halls. how is this guy going to survive a hearing? you know, this isn't the fox and friends couch. there are going to be some tough questions at a hearing about his personal and private behavior as well as his preparedness for the job, which he doesn't have. he has none. so look, this is a person who i believe it was elizabeth warren who used the word predator in describing him. it's hard to not describe him that way. you look at the jane mayer story, and you know, amy mentioned his inability to manage money and the fact he was fired from jobs in leadership roles. that's disqualifying. but also on the personal behavior, i live in new orleans. if you want to come down to new orleans and go to the strip club and get on stage, that's

questionable behavior. for the head of the dod, but maybe you can look past that, but he's bringing his young female staff with him to this. he is lecherously creeping on women at conservative conferences. i mean, like, we went over this last time we talked about it. even in his telling of the story from monterey, he still is drunkenly screaming at a hotel staffer about how he has freedom of speech at 1:30 a.m. and pressuring this woman to have a consensual sex with him while he has a child that he had out of wedlock that had just been born. and he's in between two divorces. like, this guy is just a complete disaster class across the board. there's nothing there. like, what -- there is no case for him across his personal judgment, his professional record, his career. imagine, i was thinking today, imagine if you're a commanding

general. a commander general in europe, in africa, named daryl williams. 60-something years old. went to the u.s. military career, whole career, working up the chain. you're going to report to this guy? this tv show clown that has never done anything in his life? like, how is that a serious nomination? it isn't. >> it's interesting. i want to say this, like really plainly, talking on tv is easy. and so when he fails at the talking part, i'm stunned. like, all that -- the thing he should bring to this is the ability to answer questions when a camera is pointed at him, and he seems to stink at that too. which is the amazing part of this story for me. i mean, i think -- i wonder sometimes the same thing. like, what is trump doing? what does he want us talking about this every day to do? is he taking millions of dollars in transition donations? what is he doing that he

benefits from the ludicrousness of this? but you think about all of the family members that have written books about trump and all the things he loathes. there's something about the drunkenness and look, alcoholism is a disease. i believe addiction is a disease and there should be space and grace to nod to someone's prerogative of healing or recovering. that's not the pete hegseth story they're telling. and in fact, i think jason miller in the same interview attacks the president joe biden's son for his addiction. so the idea that trump 2.0 would shove all these conflicting things down the throat of a very compliant senate republican caucus, and his own base, feels important in a way that might outlast the hegseth pick. what do you think of that, tim? >> yeah, i think it's something we're going to learn over the next six weeks. to me, there are two potential

theories about what's happening. one is trump, his brain is mush from watching fox all the time. like you showed in the intro and all of his appointments are from fox, and that's what he thinks is smart now. and he thinks a fox host would do a good job. and this is not kind of a power play. and it's just trump just -- that's just the state of trump right now and his mental state, which is an additional problem. it's possible it's that. and that pete hegseth ends up getting shut down and trump doesn't care what he checked out and he won and he wants to play golf and have people say nice things about him on fox. the other possible path is that, yeah, he's trying to bring these republican senators to heel. and it's almost like it's a humiliation ritual. like, you will support these people. you will support a blow dried weekend fox host with no qualifications to run the military to prove my power.

gaetz, i was more on the second version of that until gaetz dropped out. now i'm honestly not sure. those are the two theories i have at this point for a nomination this ridiculous. >> angelo, we talk so much about the ties between project 2025 and trump. and there was a ridiculous period of time where trump was like, what, i don't know anything about it, around the time when it was clear that the public really did not approve of or like what was in it. that time appears to have passed completely. i think there are 17 folks who have been tied to project 2025 who have been tapped to serve in his administration. i know you're the least surprised person on the planet, but tell us what you know about these folks. >> i think ultimately, i think big picture, i want to tie it in a little bit with the hegseth stuff. part of what trump is doing here is creating a cast of characters.

authoritarianism, fascism, it's mostly theater, especially in the early days. and all these people are designed to play a part. that's where the project 2025 piece comes in. i'll get to that, but hegseth plays an important part in the story. and when we think about the role that he plays, trump sort of imagines a figure like him leading the dod, in large part because of his fealty and also because of how he looks and operates. so when you have a right wing media echo chamber that has been designed to essentially also function as for the last eight years it has been optimized to be a crisis communications operation for sexual misconduct, rape, and misogyny, these kinds of attacks and these kind of stories coming out, that's what the right-wing media is designed to operate against and fits into this larger arc trump is building which is at the surface level, you present people that are going to play a role in a cast because they allow you to project a certain image, and one layer below that, you put in operators and operational

capacity so you can implement the kinds of changes that you hope to change, and also make sure, and this is the part that trump is more attuned to, less about getting toward a certain role, he's focused on the casting, but he is interesting in making sure there are no road blocks to his power. to me, the project 2025 piece allows for both of those things. it allows for the ability to operationalize maga and trumpism in a way he was not able to do the last time, to make good on a lot of the promises of policy changes and breaking up the status quo that he talked about during his campaign, and most importantly, to allow for revenge. you need operational capacity. hegseth, no one thinks he's going to do that, he's there to play a role in the story that trump is telling. but there will be operational capacity behind him just like in the rest of the administration. to me, the project 2025 piece then takes this from a media story, which has a lot of significance and something that is designed to grab attention and tell a political and media

narrative, and instead it turns it into a much more real life policy where we're not going to keep track of and that's the part that's the most significant. these figures wrote the ideas that became the project 2025 policy book, but more importantly, they prepared all the documents so they can implement them on day one that will allow them to enact this agenda. that to me is the scariest part. while we're engaging with the story that trump is telling, it's a terrible story, it is attention grabbing, there's also this part that wasn't there the last time, which is how you implement. >> of the 17 folks from project 2025, how many of them were in these transition guides and videos that you reported on during the summer months of the campaign? >> i mean, on the videos, it's hard to say. i haven't seen all the training guides, but more broadly, all of them in some way either appeared in right-wing media once or

twice or multiple times because they were so proud of the work. that's how it came on our radar screen long before anyone was talking about it. when they were in it, when it was in its infancy, one of the things we started ing were these cast of characters appearing on places like steve bannon's show and others talking about the work they were doing for this new endeavor, project 2025. they either all appeared on programming talking about the work they were doing in the early days, contributed in some meaningful way, or have a hard stamp of approval as part of the key set of personnel, and of these 17 figures, i don't think it's too early to do this reporting yet, what we shouldn't discount as well, one layer beneath the public figures, the ones that are going to get reported on, listed in the charts and reports, is that they're already hiring hundreds if not thousands of or earmarking for hiring hundreds of thousands of personnel from the project 2025 database that have been prevetted for fealty, for loyalty, so a lot of mini

pete hegseths all over there, and a lot of figures that are loyal to the trump agenda and to trump himself that are not going to be road blocks that are going to put their loyalty to trump first. they're going to be filling the lower level roles as well. that to me is the part, it's not the surface level, it goes deep. >> that's the difference between the first time where his folks got there and didn't know where the lights were. this time they're going with their re-enforcements, if you will. angelo, so important. thank you for starting us off. amy and tim, stick around. when we come back, protesters took to the streets today after the president of the democratic nation of south korea shockingly make the very undemocratic move of calling for martial law, banning all political activities and taking control of the news media there. we'll look at how the public responded and what nall it sends to other democracies watching it all play out today. plus, another day, another high profile warning about donald trump's pick to lead the

nation's health agencies. ahead, who is sounding the alarm about rfk jr.'s dangerous and reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric today. later in the broadcast, who judges the judges? there's brand-new reporting about how the united states supreme court justices decided they should set their own new rules and the split it ended up creating inside. all those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. h continues after a quick break. e. it gives you coverage for doctor office visits and hospital stays. but if you want even more benefits, you can choose a medicare advantage plan like the ones offered at humana. our plans combine original medicare with extra benefits in a single, convenient plan with $0, or low monthly plan premiums. these plans could even include prescription drug coverage with $0 copays on hundreds of prescriptions. plus, there's a cap on your out-of-pocket costs. most plans include dental, vision, even hearing coverage. there are $0 copays for in-network

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ago. after that country's parliament voted to nullify what its president suddenly and dramatically declared hours earlier, martial law. the south korean president announced la hour he would be backing down from his original order. it all started with a late night unannounced television address. south korea's president whose conservative government took also in 2022, accused his political opposition of sympathizing with north korea and controlling parliament. so he declared martial law. all political activities were banned. the media subject to government control. strikes, work slowdowns, gatherings all forbidden. for any one of those folks who resist, arrest, search and seizure, and no warrant necessary to do any of those things. as we said, south korea's lawmakers quickly voted to nullify the declaration of

martial law and now its president has evidently accepted the nullification in the face of widespread condemnation. joining our conversation, "new york times" diplomatic correspondent michael crowley, reporting on this all day. amy is still with us. michael, if you could do two things, take us back and just lay the sort of foundation for the friction, if you will, for us. and then tell us if there's any -- i know that the secretary of state blinken and joe biden have held up south korea as a model of democracy. tell me what worked in terms of checks and balances. >> yeah, nicolle, thanks for having me. the important context here is that south korea's country which for decades after the end of world war ii was essentially authoritarian, military state. and was in kind of a perpetual state of martial law.

had no freedoms or civil liberties, was totally anti-democratic and it was only in the late 1980s that that changed. in the past handful of decades it has emerged as a real bulwark for democracy. and that's been great for the united states, both in terms of having a democratic ally in asia, which is a place where the u.s. is working to counter china and to limit obviously north korea's sort of rogue aggression. but also, just to set an example for the region. again, in contrast to authoritarian governments like you have in china, like you have in north korea, countries like vietnam, cambodia. so it's been a big success story. you have had free and fair elections. you have had a strong parliament. and for the biden administration, this has been really the centerpiece of the relationship. obviously, we still have nearly

30,000 u.s. troops in south korea, which is a vestige of the korean war. they're there largely to deter north korea from trying something stupid, trying an invasion of the south and largely acting as a kind of deterrence and a trip wire. but that's not really what the biden administration has talked about. under a president who has made promoting and defending democracy around the world one of his top priorities, he's really emphasized the democratic nature of south korea's government. in fact, i'll say this last thing, i went with secretary of state antony blinken to the third installment of biden's annual democracy summit that he inaugurated a few years ago. it was held in seoul. in the opening remarks to that summit, blinken talked about the strength of south korea's democracy and how it's the essential bond between the united states and south korea, and how optimistic he was about the example they were setting. so this was a very troubling and frustrating episode for the biden administration to see this kind of a setback. right now, i think they're

trying to figure out now that martial law has been lifted, what did this all mean, what is the long term damage here? >> i want to read some of the reporting you and your colleagues have done today, michael, on what was happening between his election in 2022 and this escalation. dramatic escalation of declaring martial law. the times reports, since his election, mr. yun has used lawsuits, state investigators and criminal investigations to clamp down on speech he called disinformation. efforts that were largely aimed at news organizations. police and prosecutors repeatedly raided the homes and newsrooms of journalists whom his office has accused of spreading, quote, fake news. i know that there's nothing special about us and our struggle between democratic impulses and autocratic impulses but is this no accident that he's using fake news, one of trump's favorite spears against the free press?

>> well, nicolle, as you know, we have seen the phrase fake news pop up in foreign governments all around the world in the last decade or so, ever since president trump introduced that phrase into the lexicon. i have noticed in recent months, the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has used it. i think vladimir putin has used it, don't hold me to that, but we have seen that in lots of countries on several different continents. yeah, there is a kind of you might say there's a rhyme here between some of the tactics and rhetoric that we have seen from south korea's president, who is fighting as you pointed out, a very deep unpopularity, so this move today seemed to have been an act of political desperation. it rhymes with the kind of rhetoric and in some cases tactics that former president and president-elect trump has used. obviously, donald trump has not declared martial law. he's not gone to the extremes we're seeing in south korea

right now, but i think everyone is very much on guard for signs that the norms of democracy are breaking and that their new norms of what rulers can get away with, even in democratic countries, as authoritarian becoming somehow more permissive, are these ideas and catch phrases entering the lexicon in a new and dangerous way. in this case, it didn't work because the parliament pushed back and there was a successful check on the president, but i think, again, in that larger context of president biden's worries about democracy around the world, what he calls a historical inflection point, any development like this, particularly at a moment when president trump is riding high and coming into office with that sort of rhetoric, is going to be particularly alarming to defenders of democracy around the world. >> amy, let me just bring up a chapter from trump's first term, as chronicled by the journalist michael bender, one of michael crowley's colleagues.

quote, stephen miller chimed in with an apocalyptiversion of tunnel tearing through the streets, he equated the scenes on the television to those of a third world country. quote, the cities are burning, stephen miller said, the comment infuriated general milley. miller was not only wrong but out of his lane, in milley's view. the four-star army general who had commanded troops in iraq and afghanistan spun around in his seat and pointed a finger directly at miller. shut the f up, stephen, general milley said. i share the account because i wonder from your perspective what conversations are happening inside the pentagon, what they think trump and his incoming team may be seeing in these images today. >> well, the erosion of democracy around the world is real. i think folks in the pentagon

right now are watching what's happening in south korea very closely. this is an ally of ours that is long standing. we have very strong ties from a military perspective. in fact, the largest u.s. military installation overseas in the entire world is in south korea. as was mentioned, 30,000 troops, not just the troops but their families also in south korea. so the pentagon is watching this, for sure. and you know, also, i think folks in the military are also looking at a second trump presidency, as i said, have been saying for months now, what that might mean for the military and civil military relations. it's very scary, and i think everybody is going to be watching what's happening in south korea. >> amy mcgraph, thank you for spending the better part of the hour with us.

michael crowley, incredible body of reporting in the times today on this. thank you for joining us to talk about it. ahead for us, medical malpractice on a mass scale. that is a warning delivered today to republican senators about robert f. kennedy jr., the very latest voice warning about the consequences of trump's pick to lead hhs. we'll tell you about it next. at is for all people. but here's the truth. attacks on our constitutional rights, yours and mine are greater than they've ever been. the right for all to vote. reproductive rights. the rights of immigrant families. the right to equal justice for black, brown and lgbtq+ folks. the time to act to protect our rights is now. that's why i'm hoping you'll join me today in supporting the american civil liberties union. it's easy to make a difference. just call or go online now and become an aclu guardian of liberty. all it takes is just $19 a month.

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trump or anyone else to bring unimaginable suffering to the american people. so if the president-elect doesn't reconsideration the nomination, the senate has a duty to our whole country and especially our children to vote no. with a nation facing a possible bird flu outbreak, are they really prepared to roll the dice on the lives of their constituents by placing someone in charge of public health who has made it clear he will prevent or she will prevent the approval of life-saving vaccines? >> that was just a sample of michael bloomberg's plea to united states senators today, directly asking them to reject an anti-xxer as the hhs secretary. he said the next pandemic is not a question of if but when, and putting rfk jr. in charge of vaccine policy would be, quote, medical malpractice on a

masscale, end quote. it's not just that kennedy has promoted anti-vaccine conspiracies for years or that he heads a group that specifically aims to undermine children's vaccines and the confidence people have in them, or he has no medical or public health degrees. but we actually know for a fact what vaccines do, thanks to studies and science and pediatricians. and our own experience. the covid-19 vaccines saved nearly 20 million lives globally during just the first year of vaccinations. that's according to the national institutes of health, which as part of hhs, would also fall under kennedy's control. and yet kennedy outrageously and falsely called it the deadliest vaccine ever made. here's more from michael bloomberg today. >> after all, kennedy has attacked what may be president trump's biggest first term operation, operation warp speed. it saved millions of lives,

allowed the economy to reopen, and helped americans get back to their normal routines. just imagine if rfk jr. had been in office during trump's first term. how many fewer people would have gotten the shot, how many more people would have died. >> joining our conversation, codirector of the center center vaccine development and dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine, dr. peter hotez. tim miller is back as well. dr. hotez, let me add a few more pieces of reporting into the conversation. the associated pres last year reported rfk jr. has made his opposition to vaccines clear, quote, in july, kennedy said in a podcast interview, quote, there is no vaccine, there is no vaccine that is safe and effective. rfk told fox news that he still believes in the long ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism.

in a 2021 podcast, he urged people to resist cdc guidelines on when kids should be vaccinated. quote, i see someone on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and i say to them, better not get them vaccinated, end quote. let me deal in facts and science since we have you and it's such a treat to get to talk to you. on the link between vaccines and autism, i know this is an area of expertise for you. what are the facts? >> yeah, the facts are, nicolle, vaccines do not cause autism. i wrote a book about my daughter because i'm a pediatrician, a vaccine scientist. we develop vaccines. we developed a covid vaccine reaching 100 million people in india and indonesia, and i also am the parent of an adult daughter with autism. i wrote a book called vaccines did not cause rachel's autism, to put that away. and the massive scientific evidence showing there is no

link, and they allege different vaccines, it started with the mmr vaccine, rubella, and then robert kennedy jr. came out in 2005. it's all nonsense. also what we know about the genetics of autism and we have a number of genes that have been identified. we have a complete story about it. that is a completely erroneous. there is no link between vaccines and autism. here is the reason why we need to care about this stuff. nicolle, we have some big picture stuff coming down the pike, starting on january 21st. mr. bloomberg mentioned h 5n1. all over wild birds in the western part of the united states. it's getting into the poultry, we're seeing sporadic human cases. it's in the cattle, in the milk. that's just the beginning.

we have another major coronavirus likely brewing in asia. we had sars in 2002. covid-19 in 2019, and these viruses are jumping from bats to people thousands of times a year. there's still more. we know that we have a big problem with mosquito transmitted viruses all along the gulf coast where i'm here in texas. we're expecting dengue and possibly zika virus coming back. maybe even yellow fever. and there's more. then we have all this sharp rise in vaccine preventable diseases going up because of in part the anti-vaccine activism that's so prominent right now. we have a five-fold rise in pertussis cases, whooping chauf, over the last year. 15 measles outbreaks, polio in the waste water in new york state. all that is going to come crashing down on january 21st on the trump administration. we need a really, really good team to be able to handle this. >> tim miller, all it takes, i

mean, rfk said i'm not going to take away anyone's vaccines. that may or may not be true, but all it takes is to say what he said on a hiking trail to a parent carrying a little baby. quote, i say to him, better not get him vaccinated. you have people sick or dying of all the diseases dr. hotez listed. it's not about what you take away or don't supply. it's about what the country does. and i think we know already what the country will do. the pipeline of scientific disinformation, the attacks on dr. hotez specifically, and doctors and scientists generally. it's a play the right has been running for years. your thoughts as we head into the final period where you might have science-based government health agencies. >> yeah, and there's a lot

concerning there. i would start since dr. hotez is here for his expertise on the science, i can bring my insight into the human condition. that is an insane person that stops on a hiking trail and says to a stranger that they should not vaccinate their child. could you imagine if i was in that situation walking down a hiking trail with my child, i would be running away as quickly as possible. please do not talk to me, sir. the idea of having a deranged person in charge of hhs leads to a lot of potential risks and problems, just as far as management, in addition to what we're talking about here specifically with regards to vaccines. i think that's number one. number two is just, the messaging element of all this. i think that you can play a nudging role within government that is different from laws and rules. like having government officials raising questions about this,

like, changes human behavior. i think that's very concerning, particularly when it comes to vaccines. and the last thing i'll say about this is having michael bloomberg as an advocate, he might be a democrat, but in a lot of ways, him and rfk have weird overlap in that make america healthy again space. bloomberg has credibility there. there are legit ways the government could come in and you could agree or disagree whether that's government's role as far as big gulps and encouraging health. for bloomberg to be the voice there is very telling, because you could imagine a different world where him and rfk would have agreement and he's sounding the alarm. >> i need both of you to stick around. tick around

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see all the types of cancer keytruda is known for at keytruda.com, and ask your doctor if keytruda could be right for you. hey, grab more delectables. if keytruda could be you know, that lickable cat treat? de-lick-able delectables? yes, just hurry. hmm. it must be delicious.

delectables lickable treat. how many americans were needlessly and tragically die from infectious diseases is anyone's guess. 100,000, 1 million, 2 million. if the federal government starts reallocating science funding to nutty conspiracy theories how many years will that set back a cure for cancer and leukemia and a.l.s. and alzheimer's and parkinson's and every other disease that needs more funding. it boggles the mind that insenate would even consider giving kennedy any power whatsoever over american health policy. >> dr. hotez, it's hard to imagine that the anti-science, lack of consensus around shared

goals of finding cures for cancer and a.l.s. and parkinson's and everything mayor bloomberg mentioned there would also be part of the sort of wasteland of partisan tribal politics in this country but it seems that moment has arrived. how are doctors thinking about this moment? >> there's no road map here, nicolle. we have never had to really deal with this. one of the wonderful things about the national institutes of health is its incredible track record of making new discoveries and the fact it's always had bipartisan support. there have been some differences of opinion, you know, maybe minor cuts, modest cuts here and there, but this is one thing that always crossed the aisle, that everyone recognized the importance of the national institutes of health. now, that's being questioned. and ere's even been talk about making specific cuts to infectious disease research, at a time, as we have just spoken

about, we need it more than ever. it's not that the health and human services secretary has to have all that subject matter expertise. we had very good health and human services secretaries who have not had that background. i think of someone like we probably both know, tommy thompson, who was governor of wisconsin and became an excellent health and human services secretary. he brought in some of the top people like former mentors of mine, like d.a. henderson, who had the eradication of the smallpox in the '70s, and major general phil russell who ran research and development command for walter reed institute of research and they created barta that led to a lot of the vaccines we have today. so that's where we really need to focus on, is that shared commitment and how we walk that back is i think going to be one of our big challenges right now. >> dr. peter hotez, great to see you. tim miller, thank you for

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quote -- it's a long shot, as many house republicans have said the report should not be published. now that matt gaetz is out of the running for attorney general. the house ethics committee is set to meet thursday to discuss what it will do next. still ahead for us, brand-new reporting on the united states supreme court and much more when the next hour starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. e next hour sa quick break. don't go anywhere. the time. yeah, it absorbs grease five times faster. even replaces multiple cleaning products. ooh, those suds got game. dawn powerwash. the better grease getter. ♪ i have type 2 diabetes, but i manage it well. ♪ ♪ it's a little pill with a big story to tell. ♪ ♪ i take once-daily jardiance... ♪ ♪ ...at each day's start. ♪ ♪ as time went on, it was easy to see. ♪ ♪ i'm lowering my a1c! ♪ and for adults with type 2 diabetes... ...and known heart disease,

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as a lower court judge, i was subject to an ethics code that was enforceable. my view is that i haven't seen a good why the ethics code that the supreme court adopted shouldn't be enforceable. lower court judges have to abide by an enforceable ethics code. other justices have certain ways

in which it could be made enforceable but we have not yet determined or decided to do that. >> hi, everyone. it's now 5:00 in new york. the fact that u.s. supreme court justices are confirmed to lifetime appointments are then not subject to a code of ethics makes it quite a unique and singular institution and its lack of accountability has raised many eyebrows and contributed to an historic low approval rating. especially as of late. in recent months and years thanks to extraordinary journalism and reporting of such things like judge thomas accepting lavish gifts and trips from his billionaire friend or his wife's direct involvement in trying to overturn the 2020 election when there were significant cases before him on the very subject. or justice alito not recusing

himself from those cases when reporting revealed two flags associated with the insurrection were flown at his homes. those stories and more drove the court to eventually issue a code of conduct, but it is one that remains at the moment, completely unenforceable. so enter today when new report ng "the new york times" pulls the curtain back on the justices themselves. quote, as the summer of 2023 ended, the justices of the u.s. supreme court began trading even more confidential than usual memos, avoiding their standard e-mail list and instead, passing paper documents in envelopes to each chambers. faced with ethics controversies and a plunge in public trust, they were debating rules for their own conduct according to people familiar with the process. justice gorsuch was especially vocal in opposing any

enforcement mechanism beyond voluntary compliance, arguing that additional measures could undermine the court. in the private exchanges, justice thomas whose decision not to disclose decades of gifts and luxury vacations had sparked the ethics controversy. and justice alito wrote off the court's critics as politically motivated and unappeaseable. the three liberal judges insisted they needed to be more than lofty promises. "the new york times" spoke with jeremy fogle who noted an ethics code is not a blue red issue. if confidence in the supreme court tanks, then confidence in the whole system tanks. that's the direction it seems to be heading. gallup reports based on a survey they conducted in september. this, quote, at 48%, the

proportion of americans who have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the federal government's judicial branch is statistically similar to the 2022 record low. 47%. and 2023, 49% ratings. before 2022, trust in the judicial branch had never been below the majority level and typically exceeded 60%. holding the justices of our highest court to the same standards as other federal judges would likely help fix or address that crisis in confidence. and yet, and yet, a majority of those on the court seem unwilling to take that next step. that's where we start the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. "new york times" investigative reporter, jodi, is here. she's bylined on that new piece of reporting. also, executive director of fix the court, gabe roth is back. and with me at the table, msnbc legal analyst and nyu law

professor, melissa marie. so this is an incredible piece of reporting. i'm going to ask you to take us through it. >> sure. so, a year ago, almost exactly a year ago, the justices introduced a new ethics code. it was really quite a moment because unlike other federal judges as you said, they had never really had a formal one and they announced it with u themty. it was 9-0. that was seen as a step forward. however, the big question on the table was what about enforcement. you know, the rules were kind of a symbolic promise on paper so we asked the natural question, which is how did the justices come up with these rules for themselves? that alone is a fascinating question. nine people who decide rules and interpret the law for the rest of the country. go into a room alone in secret

and make parameters for the themselves. but then beyond that, you know, what happened with this concept of enforcement. that turned out to be the big split among the justices. basically, they were divided roughly along partisan lines. the three liberals really made the case that hey, you know, rules aren't fully rules. if they don't have some sort of enforcement attached to them, they have to mean something. and you know, they tried to introduce, justice kagan tried to introduce a very kind of gentle step towards enforcement. a panel of very experienced federal judges who would be able to give the justices advice in private. however, there was really strong resistance. the most vocal justice was gorsuch and he had a powerful set of concerns about the independence of the court. you know, something to keep in mind is that the supreme court

is different than other courts because it's the last word by definition and he was very concerned with the prospect of putting anybody in place to essentially judge the justices. his point was that the independents of the court is sacred. it's what, it's the foundation, really, of the whole operation and once you put somebody else in a position to judge the justices, he was very worried that it had the potential to go south, to be corrupted. essentially, there was not enough support on the court for an enforcement mechanism. you know, what our sources told us is that the idea really only got so far. and so this disagreement now has spilled into public. and two of the justices we just, i think you played some tape of justice brown jackson speaking about it on podcast.

justice kagan has been vocal as well. and some of the conservative response has been furious. part of what we see and part of what our reporting is about is about this very sensitive, almost awkward debate inside the supreme court. this very delicate question about their own conduct. turning into an enforcement debate. and then turning into a much more blistering debate in public. what's happening now is essentially that many liberals are saying why is there no enforcement mechanism. this is suspect. we had reader comments today saying from people saying this adds to my suspicions that this court is corrupt and out of touch with reality. but then you have a very strong conservative point of view saying the people pushing enforcement are undermining the rule of law. they could really put the supreme court in a lot of

trouble and there have even been accusations that say justice kagan, one activist even called her somewhat treasonous. this is feeling more like a philosophical law school debate and more like an ugly partisan shouting match. the reason that is concerning is because judicial ethics are supposed to be above politics. they're supposed to be a matter of agreement and as judge fogle said, if confidence in the supreme court tanks, confidence in the entire system tanks. >> i mean, jodi, the reporting makes clear that gorsuch thinks that enforcement of ethics is the thing that threatens the independence of the court. do any of them understand that it is the lack of compliance and very lax rules that exist? none of the reporting about clarence thomas' gifts that went unreported bore out to be

inaccurate. they were simply things that he refused to report. so amended, updated disclosures had all them on there. why does one thing threaten the court and the nondisclosure and noncompliance of disclosing gifts doesn't? >> well, i can't answer for justice gorsuch but what i can tell you is that there were many people we spoke with who really struggled with the concept of enforcement. for example, we spoke to the former chief justice of the texas state supreme court. now, state supreme courts are interesting to look at because they are, of course, the highest courts in their states. a lot of them have enforcement, i think almost all of them, senator whitehouse said yesterday, have enforcement mechanisms. but chief justice jefferson said to me, and he was elected as a republican by the way in texas. you run with a party affiliation. and he said to me, jodi, i believe in enforcement as a

concept, but i'm worried about it in this political climate. how do you get to fairness, how do you trust that the process will actually work? >> you alluded to the fact that this resembles another institution sort of ravaged by this moment in partisan politics. i wonder if you have any reporting or insight into how that has changed the dynamics? they were famous friends. is there warmth among the justices who have been appointed by presidents of t political parties? >> you know, i've heard examples that say yes. i've heard examples that say no. i'm hesitating to answer because we are really not there and the court is so secretive that i don't want to exceed the

boundaries of what i know. but i think the way i can answer your question is that boy, reporting this story, both material inside and outside the court, it had the feeling over like you know one of debates where the two sides are not even speaking the same language? >> yeah. >> the mistrust and lack of understanding in this debate is so marked and it's especially striking because if you know anything about the federal bench, you know that there's a lot of tradition of judges who were appointed by different parties actually getting along pretty well. coming to plenty of agreement about ethics. also, the, basically, lower court judges do have an enforcement system and that's a fairly healthy, quiet system that has been ticking along in the background for a really long time. then you get to this debate and

there are these outsized accusations that i think really speak to a lack of common trust. and common understanding. i want to say one more thing to give you the feel of this debate. i think it's notable that a lot of the discussion was really about one justice and his behavior and that's justice clarence thomas, of course, whose lack of disclosure of gifts really set off a lot of this debate. so, there's kind of an awkward quality to that dynamic, right, because everybody's debating what the entire supreme court should do. what it should do in the future. but really, it's not that there haven't been reports and problems about other justices. we list some of them in our article, but the lion share of this discussion is really about one justice. >> melissa, let me play some of

what what jodi's talking about. kagan's sort of gentle suggestion for how this might work. >> however hard it is that we could and should try to figure out some mechanism for doing this. i would be pretty happy with, i have a lot of trust and faith in the chief justice. you know, if the chief justice appointed some kind of committee of highly respected judges with a great deal of experience, with a reputation for fairness, that seems like a good solution to me. it would also benefit us in various kinds of ways because it would provide a sort of safe harbor. sometimes people accuse us of misconduct where we haven't engaged in misconduct.

so i think both in terms of enforcing the rules against people who have violated them but also them. i think a system like that would make sense. >> so, i asked a imilar question of justice kagan in september and she said the same thing. i don't think it's an unreasonable fix here. there are lots of situations where you have a board or review that you can go to to ask these questions and you can get an answer and it provides a safe harbor. provides some cover. i don't know why the court is unwilling to do this. when they adopted the code of conduct last november, on our podcast, we joked it was really a code of misconduct because it actually softened some of the requirements that previously had existed and made them merely discretionary. you asked a really interesting question of jodi. is there warmth or comedy

amongst the justices today. i would turn the question over and ask like why does it matter? it mattered when scalia and ginsburg were on the court together because they suggested that their friendship relate a kind of open mindedness, that they came to questions willing to listen to the other person. what we're seeing now, and i think responding to with these poll numbers, the justices are in a kind of partisan echo chamber and their views are fixed and there's not going to be a lot of movement. the question of whether they're nice to each other, it doesn't matter if we already think for this position and this justice is in the bag for that position because if they're talking to each other because we know -- that's the questions. are decided on a traditional 6-3 fracture, seeing this court

impeach in the last few years where it's had supermajority overturn a precedent, that, it's not just the emotional support billionaire. the fact that they're doing -- and they're doing it without much respect for the rule of law and that's what the public's responding to. looks like they're fixed for some group of people who are perhaps providing them and the rest of us have to live by the rules they don't. >> and they literally made a decision that says that. but when it comes to presidents' absolute immunity for official acts is the new law of the land. i wonder, gabe, if you view this whole conversation about how they see themselves as i think melissa's saying, sort of

irrelevant at this point. because the way they decide cases makes clear that no one's listening to anyone. >> there hasn't been as much comedy in some of the big decisions as you would hope. everyone always cites the fact that brown v. board was 9-0 then you've had all these as melissa said, 6-3 decisions over the past few years. i think also jodi made a good point that this is in large part, a clarence thomas problem. i think what kagan is saying is thomas isn't always going to be on the court and we want to set a standard that whoever the nine may be, can abide by. and one that the 2300 lower court judges and thousands of judges in states across the country already abide by. or something similar to that. the jurisprudence is always going to be the headline but in a healthy democracy, you want a

supreme court that's setting the ethical standard, not living in the ethical basement. >> i mean, jodi, do they feel like they're approval rating is attached to anything they do or do they feel like their approval rating is out there sort of its own weather system a symptom of something unrelated to their conduct? >> well, i'm going to match and flip your question a little bit because if we have all nine of them here, which we don't, i would really like to go around the room and ask them do each of you think that it is your individual and collective responsibility to restore the american public's faith in this court. because there has been this extraordinary, i think it's a 25 or 30%, 30 points wide. in recent years. we see differing evidence from

different justices. i get the sense, although we can't fully tell, that some of them are very alarmed by this and do want to act to address it. others feel like no, my job is to decide the law and to worry about public approval. again, is almost like a threat to the independence that i'm supposed to have as a justice. i want to go back to what somebody said a minute ago. someone asked why wouldn't they do something as mild as what justice elena kagan suggested. really just one step towards enforcement. we did get a clue in our reporting. both from inside and outside the court. we know that justices thomas and alito wrote off these ethics controversies as kind of the product of political attacks. they felt, they told others that the court's critics were

partisan, had the wrong motivations, were not going to be appeaseable. we hear that a lot on the outside, too. i can't tell you how many conversations i had with conservatives for this story in which people said i really, really care about ethics but i as a conservative want an honest ethics debate and i don't believe that this is one because i believe that this is just an attack on the roberts court. you know, by liberals, essentially, who don't agree with those decisions. so for some people involved in this debate inside and outside the court, i think they don't view it, we get hints they don't view it as an entirely fair or legitimate ethics debate and therefore, they might not want this conversation to be the basis for major change. >> amazing.

an amazing piece. it's great when we get to talk to you, jodi. thank you for starting us off today. gabe and melissa, thank you so much for being part of this conversation. ahead for us, some breaking news. two brand-new pieces of bombshell reporting about donald trump's pick to head the united states pentagon. why pete hegseth's nomination is now reported to be in peril. we'll have those new reports, next. also, new warnings about kash patel. he's donald trump's pick to take over the fbi and very real fears that the fbi will be corrupted for decades to come if he's allowed to take control. deadline white house continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. se continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. is that tiny troy? the ingredients in head and shoulders keep the microbes that cause flakes at bay. microbes, really? they're always on your scalp... but good newe's no itc, dryness or flakes down here! i love tiny troy. and his tiny gorgeous hair. make every wash count! and for stubborn dandruff, try head & shoulders clinical strength.

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we are following a couple of breaking news stories that really move forward in advance the story we led with in the last hour. the troubled increasingly scandal plagued candidacy of the man donald trump has tapped to lead the pentagon. former fox news weekend morning anchor, pete hegseth. just in the past few minutes, we have two new headlines to tell you about. nbc news is reporting that republicans in the senate quote are growing increasingly skeptical about hegseth. three republican sources with direct knowledge of his nomination process telling nbc news that as many as six senate republicans are not comfortable supporting his bid to lead the pentagon and the seemingly daily new allegations are quote, taking a toll, putting that nomination in peril. and as if on cue, we now have

explosive new reporting from nbc's national security correspondent, quote, pete hegseth's drinking worried colleagues at fox news. quote, hegseth drank in ways that concerned his colleagues at fox news according to current and former fox news employees. ten. two of those people said that on more than a dozen occasions during hegseth's time as a weekend anchor, they quote, smelled alcohol on him before he went on the air. quote, one of the sources said they smelled alcohol on him as recently as last month, end quote. joining us now for this breaking news, nbc news capitol hill correspondent, ryan nobles, and courtney kube, both bylined on these reports. ryan, i'll start with you. >> reporter: yeah, it does seem

clear that hegseth has a hill that is getting steeper by the moment when it comes to winning confirmation by the united states senate. we are reporting that as many as six republican senators do not feel that they can cast a yes vote for him in his nomination process. remember that he can only afford to lose three republicans if every democrat votes against him and to win confirmation. and really, the issue is this what seems to be a daily dose of new reporting around hegseth's past that points to serious accusations about mistreatment of women, serious accusations about the abuse of alcohol, serious accusations about his mismanagement of the various organizations that he was in charge of. and you know, when we talk to republican senators before thanksgiving, there was some optimism that hegseth would be able to explain at least that initial round of allegations and that the loyalty to donald trump would be enough to push him over the finish line. we're getting a much different sense from republicans today.

they're concerned that there could be even more revelations that come out about his past that could put them in a difficult position to vote yes on his confirmation. i should point out that a lot of the reporting that i did about the future of his nomination came before this report that courtney just dropped about his connections and concerns about his alcohol use while at fox news. i think that this is not to say that his nomination is completely over with here. he still has a path to confirmation and many of the senators, at least publicly, are saying they want to give him the opportunity to explain his side of the story. that they want to be able to talk to him one-on-one. they want him to be able to sit for a public confirmation hearing where he answers some of these questions. and this might be the most important part of this process. they want him to undergo a rigorous vetting, background check, that would include an fbi background check, which we know is something that is not a guarantee right now in this

trump transition process. it feels at the very minimum, if these six senators that are right now uncomfortable, programs more, the only way they're going to be flipped around is if he goes through that vetting process and they feel comfortable that whatever issues that he has in his past, he's put behind him and he's then able to appropriately run one of the most important agencies in the federal government. the agency with the biggest budget with the most employees and of course, responsible for protecting american national security. there's no doubt that at this point right now, he has not proven up to that challenge and it's going to take quite a bit of work for him to get to that point where he can get 50 votes in the senate to be confirmed. >> courtney, your reporting blows out of the water anyone's delusion this behavior is behind him with reporting that the, at least in the category of alcohol abuse, as recently as last month. take us through what you're reporting. >> so we spoke with ten current and former fox news employees

who all talked about concerns that they had. because of pete hegseth's drinking while employed at fox. as you know, he was the host of a popular show, fox and friends, a weekend morning show. and according to these former and current colleagues, they said that there would be times where he would show up only minutes before the show was about to go on the air. sometimes talking about being hungover. at times, even still smelling of alcohol from the night before. and as you know, when the host or the anchor of a show is showing up at the last minute and not ready to hit the ground running for a show, it put a lot of stress on that show. and on those producers and on the staff at fox news. now, this was something according to these people we spoke with that occurred over the course of years. as far back as 2016 and as recently as this past year. now, pete hegseth terminated his contract with fox news on

november 12th when donald trump announced he was going to be his choice to be secretary of defense. i should say the trump transition team gave us a pretty scathing comment calling these accusations saying that they are false and saying that this is, that the selection to be secretary of defense is a deployment that pete hegseth is ready to take on. but again, we spoke with nearly a dozen people about this who all told us the same thing. that his drinking really impacted the show. and it caused lot of stress on the people on that show. now, this is one of the character issues that leads to the reporting that you and ryan were just talking about. it's why we are hearing that some republican senators who frankly some of whom would be pretty quick to support a nominee from president-elect donald trump, are having some concerns. they're worried about that now nearly daily drip of stories and accusations about pete hegseth that go to his character.

there are the drinking allegations from when he was at concerned veterans of america. there's this from his time at fox news. the allegations that have gone back about his treatment of women. allegations of sexual assault. from several years ago. when you consider all of those character concerns, that's why some of these senators, according to one of the officials i spoke with today, they are worried about it. as ryan mentioned, the pentagon, $800 plus billion budget. roughly 3 million people under this, inside this department. more importantly, it is a job where literally lives are at stake with the decisions that you make. you sign the deployment orders for people to go overseas into combat zones. it is a tremendous responsibility. the enormity of the job is even overwhelming to some people who have years and years, decades of experience in government and military. all of these character

accusations combined with hegseth's lack of experience seem to really be taking a toll on the possibility that his nomination has a path forward. >> courtney, you've talked to ten sources. they all come from inside the fox news empire. ryan, you've got six sources, i think, or six members, three sources describing six members who have pause. i just want to press both of you a little bit on the volume of people coming out from inside pete hegseth's own circle. these are not democrats who appear just a rare democratic counterargument point on the weekend show. i don't know if they do that. these are not people that served with him that went on to become democratic activists. these are not, these are not critics. this is his mother who describes him as a serial abuser of women and wrote him a letter and

apologize. this is a monterey police department who released a 22-page account of sexual assault. a woman who went and took a rape test at a hospital after what he described as consensual sex. the first time that's used to describe someone who went and took a rape kit. this is the story of someone inside of fox news, based on your reporting, courtney, be baby sat. i want to read what fox news describes as the job when you work for pete hegseth. quote, as a co-host, he needed to be at work early on weekend mornings for a show that began at 6:00 a.m. his female co-hosts would come in at 4:00. male co-hosts around 5:00 or 5:15. two former employees said they felt they needed to quote, baby sit hegseth due to his drinking. quote, we'd have to call him to make sure he didn't oversleep because we knew he would be out

partying the night before. another said quote, morning tv is stressful and more times than not, pete made it even more stressful. sometimes arrive with only 20 minutes or less before the show began according to three sources. stressing out his colleagues. they said his makeup would need to be done while onset because of his late arrival, leaving his colleagues with such a small amount of time. the sources could not say whether his lateness was caused solely by his drinking. courtney, i want to ask you to now story tell for us on the 24/7 nature of the job of secretary of defense. another piece of this report. >> yeah, so i mean, it's -- it really is genuinely a 24/7 job. think of a couple of recent events. october 7th comes to mind. that occurred about midnight even time was when the attack on israel started. secretary austin including a number of other people across washington were woken up and went into work and worked all

through the next day. the china spy balloon story. secretary austin, when he got the call from then north com commander at 3:00 in the morning while traveling in manila, he was up for the rest of the day and the next day after he got that call after he was up throughout the night, he had to go all day long meeting with the president of the philippines and work for another 12-hour day. it's a relentless job. i think this really drives home the point of the enormity of this job is operation noble eagle. the mission to defend the homeland. a lot of people probably don't know about it but it's to defend the u.s. borders. one of the responsibilities is for north com norad to defend the skies so if an aircraft is coming in that could be threatening to the capitol, to an area where the president is, whatever it is, the phone call goes from norad to the secretary of defense. it doesn't matter what time, day or night, that is. that call comes in and you may have someone on the other line

saying mr. secretary, do we need to shoot down this aircraft? it's an enormous responsibility, you know. sending people to combat. signing those deployment orders. there's a tremendous amount of responsibility. i've covered secretaries for 20 years since donald rumsfeld and even the most senior officials, they can find the job very overwhelming. when you add to that some of these concerns about hegseth's character, whether he is the right person for the job. that's what some of these senators are wrestling with despite the fact they normally would be supportive of a candidate by donald trump. >> ryan, i want to ask you in sort of a number of issues that have been surfaced by people close to pete hegseth.

what is it that these six senators find most disturbing? is it the mismanagement? is it the alleged rape? is it the drinking? is it his comments deer in the headlight, especially for a news anchor, about women in combat yesterday? what is it? >> reporter: i think it's a combination of all of the above and you know, for each one of these senators that's weighing this decision, there may be something to each one of them that is more important than another one. i think when you're dealing with a deluge of reports that are coming out about hegseth on a regular basis, it's just becoming too overwhelming for them to be able to handle running cover for donald trump and voting yes on this nomination. it's interesting, too, when you talk to a lot of these senators and you press them on this responsibility they have for advise and consent, this isn't something where they feel that it's their job to stand in the way or obstruct donald trump and his role as president. he won the election.

he gets to pick his cabinet, but they view the responsibility of advise and consent as protecting the president. it's part of the vetting process to make sure that when you pick someone to be in your cabinet, that that person has the requisite kre credentials, character, to do the job. the senate is the last line of defense in making that assessment about these individuals. when you talk to some of these senators privately and they may just express a degree of skepticism or doubt that the person can do the job, it's not because they don't support donald trump. it's because they feel this person is not the best person for the job and they want to help donald trump find someone better. i think that's part of the deliberation process here from these senators. the other point about this is that you know, during the matt

gaetz confirmation process, i was extremely skeptical about all the reporting we were doing about these senators talking about voting no on a matt gaetz confirmation behind closed doors because it's one thing to talk behind closed doors. i've been covering congress now throughout the full breath of the trump era and have been on many stories, i'm going to buck donald trump, push back on what he's doing in this regard then when they have to cast a vote, they cave. it's happened for more than eight years. and so when you saw them actually forcefully stand up to matt gaetz to the point where he was willing to pull back his confirmation, it leads you to look at this situation in a different light than before. the fact that they were able to privately push donald trump to push matt gaetz to pull out, it gives you the sense that perhaps this is something that could happen again with the hegseth nomination. and it also shows a willingness by donald trump to perhaps not

go through a nasty confirmation battle when he doesn't have to. if there's another perhaps more qualified and capable person in the job. so i think that's part of the reason why you have to look upon our reporting as not, as something that could actually be, that could actually manifest itself here. that his nomination is definitely in peril and unless he can come up with some level of explanation for this constant deluge of reporting then he's going to have a hard time losing more or less than the three republican votes that he can lose and still win confirmation. >> ryan, i'm a student of that phenomenon as well and i wonder if i could ask you to offer some analysis as to why. is it that gaetz and hegseth are so sort of flawed and unqualified or is it that the senators have found signs? >> reporter: i do think it is

fair to say they are uniquely, these are candidates that are unique in what they brought to the table in terms of their credentials. and so you look at both hegseth and matt gaetz. gaetz was never a prosecuting attorney. hardly spent any time in a courtroom and you're asking him to take on the most important prosecuting job in the country. he just didn't have the credentials to do the job. the same can be said for hegseth. this is a guy that while he is a decorated combat veteran, his service is to be commended, he has just not had the level of management experience that would be necessary to run an agency the size of the pentagon. when you start from the baseline resume and then add on all of the accusations and claims that have been made against them, i think that is where you find republican senators in a place where donald trump, we can do as

much we can for you, but this is a bridge too far and we believe you need to find somebody else to do these jobs. now, the big difference i would say just from my own reporting about matt gaetz and pete hegseth is that when you talk to senators, most of them like pete hegseth as a human being. he is a charming individual. they like talking to him. they find him to be a good advocate for the veterans community and along those lines. matt gaetz was disliked by many republican members of congress both in the senate and the house. so it's one thing to ask a senator to go out on a limb and support someone they don't like at all versus someone they actually, there's part of them that feel as though they'd be willing at least open to giving him the opportunity to try and explain why he deserves the job. those are two pretty big differences between the two of them. so i do think these nominees are in a different world. i mean, in my time covering

congress, i can't think of two nominees who have, you know, less of a resume for the jobs that they've been put up for than matt gaetz and pete hegseth. i think that's part of the reason you're seeing republican senators be very, very skeptical of casting a yes vote for both of them. >> what is on pete hegseth's resume is that he used his weekend morning post to advocate for members of the military going around the military justice system. there is on the resume, determination by someone inside the military that pete hegseth wasn't suited to protect joe biden's inauguration. i wonder if the actual things in his military resume come up at all. >> it's so funny you should say that because while you guys were just talking, i was thinking ability how the conversation on hegseth from the time his name first came out about three weeks ago to today has really shifted. initially, we were talking about

concerns about policies that he had spoken very openly about. the one that has gotten the most attention is about his feeling that women should no longer serve in combat positions and that's gotten pushback from the highest levels. lloyd austin told us that he, when he was in the army, was serving on the front lines right next to women and that women make the military better. so but as you were talking, i was just reflecting on how we're not even talking about that anymore because of all of these concerns about pete hegseth's behaviors that have now really taken over the conversation. i will say if in fact he does become secretary of defense, i think the issue of him being dismissive of women serving in combat positions and serving in some of these more elite units, will be a very difficult hill for him to surpass. that is because number one, there's been a problem with recruiting in the military for the past several years. it's getting better but it's

still a challenge for all of the services. so how is it that he will look the women in the eye in uniform and say i need you to stay in uniform. i need you to keep serving when he has made it clear he doesn't think they should be eligible for some jobs. that's going to be a big, a big issue for him to surpass if this nomination goes forward. >> you two with some unbelievable reporting. i thank the news gods it broke in my hours. thank you so much. when we come back, the very real dangers of another trump pick. kash patel. should he ascend to be the director of the fbi and why is patel even more than hegseth or rfk or tulsi gabbard who's being called the most alarming or troubling of all of trump's picks. g of all of trump's picks.

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this is i think october 2020 when we were trying to rescue an american in west africa who had been captured by we believe terrorists and whose life was in danger. we sent our special operators abroad to rescue that person. i launched into the clarence we had air space in that country. it was information given allegedly by kash patel to tony tada, who has worked for me in osd policy, and we found out hours later as we were about to cross into that territory that it was not true. that state department had not

gotten clearance. for a moment in time there, at least an hour, it jeopardized the mission. >> you heard that correctly. kash patel and the telling of donald trump's former secretary of defense almost botched a hostage rescue mission. almost blew up the whole thing. patel could be one of the most dangerous of trump's choices for his next administration according to garrett graph. he writes quote, to understand the full scope of the damage patel could inflict, you have to understand how unique, powerful, and dangerous the fbi can be. and why a patel directorship would likely corrupt and bend the institution for decades even if he only served a few years. trump has been clear in what he has trying to do with a nominee like patel. he wants to bend and break the bureau and weaponize it against his enemies and domestic critics. we should take such threat

seriously. joining us now, garrett graph, also the author of the book, the threat matrix, the fbi at war. and with me at the table, former top official at the department of justice and msnbc legal analyst, andrew weissman. garrett, we planned to spend more time on this and i'm sorry we got squeezed with the other breaking news, but take us through your rather ominous warning for the whole country, really. >> i think the challenge donald trump is making clear, he very much wants to weaponize the fbi. history tells us we know what that looks like. it looks like what hoover perfected in his later years. it abused the civil liberties and civil rights of ordinary americans. it punished political enemies. it persecuted political opponents and it helped friends of hoover and friends of friends of hoover.

we have spent the 50 years since hoover left the bureau, dying in 1972, trying to build safeguards and guardrails to prevent the fbi from ever being weaponized like that again. congress recoiled from that weaponized fbi. the american people did and the presidents who served with hoover and after hoover did as well. and what worries me is we now have another uniquely unqualified and dangerous individual being nominated to head the bureau at a time when donald trump is being very explicit about how he wants to use the bureau to do exactly the things that hoover did in its darkest chapters. >> i mean, the public nature of the threats from trump and patel to target the enemies within is

the peace that you can tell they feel they have a mandate the carry out. what does that look like inside the fbi? >> so the fbi is a place where i remember when i got there and this is somebody who's worked in washington will strike you, it's so palpable how apolitical is. to garrett's point, congress in 1976, passed a bill that said that the fbi director, the only presidential appointee in that entire building, which is unusual for washington, one presidential appointee, not more, has a ten-year term. that was to prevent the repeat of the hoover abuse and to make it clear that it's apolitical because a ten-year term, even with an eight-year presidency, spans to the next president. the idea was that congress was stepping in saying this should

be apolitical, which is something felt within the bureau. i think it gives congress and republican senators an out. because they can say you know what, we're not dealing with kash patel. maybe he's fine. he's not, but maybe he could do the job. this is about a different issue. about a systemic check that we put in place and chris wray has not done anything wrong and we should stick to the idea of having a ten-year term. >> trump isn't suggesting his last appointee. >> it's his own appointee. >> garrett, the piece is so important. we'll continue to cover it and turn to you. this coverage continues at 7:00 with joy reid. thank you both for joining us. another break. we'll be right back. joining us. another break. we'll be right back. they even t my nostrils right. it's just nice to know that years after i'm gone this guy will be standing the test of ti... he's melting! oh jeez... nooo... oh gaa...

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