i take very seriously my job making medical decisions for my kid, and i want to make those decisions with my kid, and with medical experts, not with politicians, but they continue to insert himself into the doctor's office with us. >> jace woodrum, aclu in south carolina, one of the states under these bans, thank you. that is all in on this wednesday night. alex roger tonight starts right now. good evening. alex. >> basically protections we were moving forward in one direction, but so much stuff should equal protection. chris, thank you as always. as today host pete hegseth's mother, penelope hegseth, went on fox to vouch for her son and why he should still be donald

trump's pick for secretary of defense. "the new york times" obtained an email miss hegseth wrote to her son while he was in the middle of a divorce. it read, "you are an abuser of women. on behalf of all the women, and i know it's many, you have abused in some way, i say get some help and take an honest look at yourself." on fox today, penelope hegseth disavowed what she wrote in that email and was direct about who she was hoping was listening. >> i am here to tell the truth. to tell the truth to the american people, and tell the truth to the senators on the hill, especially our female senators. i really hope that you will not listen to the media and that you will listen to pete. >> now donald trump only chose pete hegseth to be his nominee for secretary of defense three weeks ago.

in those three weeks, we have learned that hegseth was accused of sexual assault in 2017, an accusation he denies. we then learned that he paid that accuser an undisclosed amount of money to sign an nda. then earlier this week, the "new yorker" wrote that hegseth was forced out of multiple veterans groups for financial mismanagement, and there were allegations of sexist behavior and being repeatedly and belligerently drunk in public. last night nbc news spoke to ten current and former fox news employees who said that while he was at fox hegseth drank in ways that concerned them. and yeah, despite all of this swirl, all of this controversy, pete hegseth is not going anywhere. today he published an op-ed in the "wall street journal" titled, literally, "i faced fire before. i won't back down." hegseth also did his first on-camera interview since been nominated where he claimed he

still has donald trump's blessing. >> how's it going with trump right now? is he so far standing by you, and have you spoken to him? >> i spoke to him this morning. he's amazing. he's a fighter. he's been through this himself. pete, i got your back. it's a fight. they're coming after you. get after it. i think he'll be delighted that we're talking today. the media is driving with this ridiculous narrative, it's our turn to -- our time to stand up and tell the truth and our side. he knows that. so he supports me. we talk -- i won't betray what we talked about specifically, but he said, you meet those senators, and i've got your back. it means a lot to me. tells you who that guy is. >> that is how pete hegseth is describing donald trump's support for him right now. "the new york times," though, tells a different story. not only is the "times" reporting that trump is considering swapping out hegseth and nominating in his place florida governor ron desantis, but the "times" is reporting that trump has made clear to people close to him that he

believes hegseth should have been more forthcoming about the problems he would face getting confirmed. i mean, yeah, probably so. we might not yet even know the full extent of all of pete hegseth's issues. just today "npr" reported yet another allegation, a former colleague at fox told "npr" that hegseth got handy repeatedly while inebriated, once groping her at a manhattan bar. i don't know, maybe donald trump chalks that allegation up to whatever donald trump usually chalks up allegations of sexual impropriety to. again, there is still more hegseth baggage that appears to need to be unpacked. last night cnn unearthed this video of pete hegseth talking about donald trump himself back in 2016. >> it's typical trump. all bluster, very little substance. he talks a tough game. he's an armchair tough guy.

i hate to say it. this guy said that john mccain is not a war hero, yet he sought his own five military defer meants. >> it is -- deferments. >> it is unclear if trump is available that his potential defense secretary once called trump a draft dodger. in potentially related news, yesterday trump apes transition team finally agree -- trump's team finally agreed to do background checks on trump's nominees. i wonder why. but trump is not the only person pete hegseth has to convince here. hegseth's real battle will be in the senate. today hegseth was on the hill meeting with senators including joni ernst and incoming senate leader john thune. yesterday one senate republican told "the washington post" these are controversial appointments, and that hegseth ranks a member of congress the toughest trump nominee to make it through the senate. that senate republican is correct. these are controversial appointments. in fact, there are multiple reports now citing anonymous sources in the senate who all

have different takes as to who actually takes the cake as the hardest trump nominee to get past the senate. today another anonymous senate republican aide spoke to "the hill" about trump's pick of tulsi gabbard and said, quote, gabbard still head the toughest path. she is at the most risk. behind closed doors people think gabbard might be compromised. it's not hyperbole. there are members of our conference who think she is a russian asset. yeah, definitely seems like a tough call. who is the hardert nominee to get -- harder nominee that get confirmed, the abuser of alcohol and whom, or a member of your party who might be a russian agent? a tossup. trump has had to have one of his choices, matt gaetz, he's had to have him withdraw his nomination. and yesterday trump's pick to run the dea claimed he was withdrawing himself from the nomination only for trump to swoop in today to clarify, no,

it wasn't a withdrawal, trump just canned the guy. just got hid of him before he even -- rid of him before he even started the actual job. today trump announced he was replacing his pick for white house counsel. yet again. replacing someone who had not even started the job yet. maybe matt gaetz's nomination falling apart wasn't an anomaly. maybe it was simply the start of a pattern. donald trump has nominated what i think is safe to say is the most controversial group of cabinet nominees in american history. almost all of them have their own scandal or red flag or red flags that would make them the main character of the transition process, at least in any other presidency. but in trump's cabinet of nominees, they are all in good company. so as this caravan makes its way to the senate, what happens

next? joining me is someone who may have some ideas on that. senator elizabeth warren, head of the armed services committees. what a strange chapter we find ourselves living through. tell me about the outrage that pete hegseth is doing on the hill and elsewhere. he seems focused on women. his mother seems focused on female senators. do you think any of it's working? >> let's look at his problems with women. we've seen the allegations of rape, the allegations of sexual assault. but there's also the question of what he has said about women serving in the military. remember, he's been nominated to be the secretary of defense, which means the person over all of our military. 18% of active duty military right now are women. and without those women, we don't meet our recruiting

targets, we don't have the ability to field an army, a navy, an air force, marines. and what has me said? those women should not be allowed, no women should be allowed to be in combat. and that's like saying, you know, here we are, we're going to run the military, and for men it is a great deal. come on in, do every job we've got. tell us what you like. we'll get you in there. we'll let you climb that ladder. we'll let you do whatever you want. women, not really. you're going to be confined just to a different set of jobs and have no chance of ever meeting any of the top positions in the military because you won't have any combat experience. that is a problem. it's a problem for our military, and ultimately for our national defense. if we can't have the talents of those tens of thousands of women who right now sign up and join

the military voluntarily, we're going to lose them, and we're going to lose the next generation and the next generation, wave after wave, and that is a problem for our entire national defense. you can't have a secretary of defense that starts out saying to nearly one-fifth of the active duty military you're not really welcome here as a full member. good luck to you, but go somewhere else. >> i believe and the "controle alt desire" -- and the control room will correct me, pete hegseth has spoken about the work women has done in the military and he believes -- i'm paraphrasing, strong fighters. but did not, to your point, say as secretary of defense he would ensure they continue to have combat roles. i wonder -- i think what you're talking about is very significant, something that's been less covered in all of the controversies around pete

hegseth. do you see any through line between the allegations surrounding his behavior toward women and his treatment of women and his attitudes toward women in the fighting services? >> so i think those two are very closely linked. i'm glad you drew that connection. because again, i want to go back to all of the women we have in the military. we also have a problem right now, right now, and have had for a long time in the military with sexual assault, it sexual harassment in the military. 29,000 women filed active complaints last year for sexual assault in the military. and look, everyone who studies this understands that is a way under report of what's actually happening. because many women understand in the military, if you come forward and file that complaint, you can just kiss your career good-bye. and that many, many leaders have been far too protective of men

and making sure that there aren't complaints against them that make it into their file. we already have a problem, and it's a problem for recruiting women into the military, it is a problem for retaining women in the military. and now, donald trump has nominated someone who has a long history and whose own mother has called him out as a harasser of women. and the problem with that is he can say oh, i didn't dee that one, i didn't do that pick is one, now i got my mom to stand up and vouch for me. but the reality is what woman says "i want to dedicate my career to defending my country as part of active duty military when i know that the guy at the top who's going to set the tone for the entire military is somebody who himself is credibly accused of having been one of

those guys on the frontline who was one of the ones who was after women over and over and over and over including in the workplace," and he's the guy who's supposed to be in charge and make this a military that is open to both men and the women we need in service. that's not going to work. and i say this by way of saying whatever else you want to say about him, this is a problem for our national defense, and that means he is not unqualified to be the secretary of defense, he is disqualified to be the secretary of defense. >> do you think that line of argument and that reasoning and all this information that's coming out is resonating with the senators on the hill that could very well decide his nomination? i mean, i'm thinking in particular of joni ernst who he met with today, who's a woman. a senator. and said i appreciate pete hegseth's service to our country, something we both share. today as part of the confirmation process, we had a frank and thorough conversation.

frank and thorough. do you have a sense of where this is going on the hill? >> look, i don't want to speak for any other senator, but i will say this -- on the senate armed services committee we have two women who have been in combat, tammy duckworth and joni ernst. we have a lot of men and women on both the republican and democratic side who work hard to try to make sure that this is a military that can actively recruit the best and the brightest men and women. i am the chair of the subcommittee on personnel. my ranking member, senator scott from florida, a republican, both of us hear the complaints, get the complaints, and work to try to make sure that our military is responsive, and the reason for that, i just keep trying to stress this -- we're not meeting

our recruiting targets. being in the military is tough. it is a tough job. and making that your career is a really hard decision. to say to effectively one out of every five people who feels that in their heart and that that's what they want to do, you're not welcome, to be a full participant just because you're a woman cuts them off from active duty military service. and that undermines our national security. that has got to be a concern to every single member of the armed services committee. we are the ones who will hold the hearings on hegseth and ultimately do the first round of voting. >> there's a lot of concern about the future of the u.s. military, including a concern shared by you and your colleague richard blumenthal about how and whether the president-elect may try and weaponize the u.s. military or direct it to u.s.

citizens. i know out of that concern you have urged president biden and the defense secretary, lloyd austin, to issue a policy directive that prohibits the mobilization of active duty military or federalizing national guard personnel to be deployed against their fellow americans unless specifically authorized. the criticism is that trump could rip it up once he's president. but he would have to explain himself and that in and of itself is something. have you gotten a response from the president? have you heard from the secretary of defense? do you have a sense of whether this is of interest to them? >> we're still in talks, let's leave it there for now. you put your finger on it exactly. right now there's no prohibition. and that means the next president has very few curves in this area other than law generally. and so what we want to do is get something very specific in place so that if he wants to make a move, donald trump is going to have to do it out in public, in

front of the whole country, and explain himself for doing that. and sure, maybe he will do that. but it's not nothing to put curbs in place and force him to actually, if he want to do something, to have to step up and explain why he is ripping those curbs up. so that's what we're pushing the president and the secretary of defense to do now. we've got a lot of support in the senate. we don't need to vote on it, it's not a legislative matter. it's a matter of trying to get the administration to move right now to make it very clear there are curbs on the president using the military or using any part of our defense industry against citizens of the united states. >> wow. i mean, we're in the zone of pre-empive pardons against people who have not committed crimes and trying to curb the president from turning the military against american citizens. that is where we are right now. these are the guard rails that

people like yourself are trying to establish in the waning hours of president biden's administration. senator elizabeth warren, thank you so much for helping us understand the moment. appreciate your time. >> thank you. thank you. coming up, the supreme court today heard a case that may roll back decades of anti-discrimination protections. court experts join me on that later this hour. first, president biden issued one very high-profile and controversial pardon this week. but new reporting tonight reveals that might just be the beginning. that's coming up. stay with us. 's coming up stay with us ou have a life insue policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy - even a term policy - for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have $100,000 or more of life insurance, you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit coventrydirect.com to find out if your policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining

insurance.

jen b asks, "how can i get fast download speeds while out and about?" jen, we've engineered xfinity mobile with wifi speeds up to a gig, so you can download and do much more all at once. it's an idea that's quite attractive. or... another word... -fashionable? i was gonna say- "popular! you're gonna be pop-uuuu-larrr!" can you do defying gravity?! yeah, get my harness. buy one line of unlimited, get one free for a year with xfinity mobile. and see “wicked,” in theaters now.

when president biden pardoned his son hunter earlier this week he cited fears of retribution from the incoming trump administration which prompted a number of people to raise the question what about all the other people against whom trump has vowed retribution. apparently that has also been on the minds of white house officials, as well. tonight "politico" reports that the biden administration is currently debating preemptive pardons for prominent figures who have spoken out against trump. biden's aides are deeply concerned about a range of current and former officials who could find themselves facing inquiries and even indictments. those who could face exposure include senator-elect adam schiff, former bp to representative liz cheney, and anthony fauci. white house officials are

carefuling weighing the step of handing out blanketa pardons to those who have committed no crimes because it could suggest impropriety fueling trump's criticisms, and because those offered preemptive pardons may reject them. michael steele, former republican chairman and host of "the weekend" here on msnbc, also with me is "new york times" opinion columnist the great michelle goldberg. michael steele, do you see -- i know trump is going to try and make hay out of any preemptive pardons. do you think the american public writ large would take issue with preemptive pardons of liz cheney and adam schiff and adam kinzinger? >> yeah, probably from some extent because of -- what you just said, the connotation that a pardon is somehow linked to a crime. you've been adjudicated, you know, by a court or your peers, and have been found criminally

liable and et cetera, et cetera. when you come with a presidential pardon, they either give you a pardon that, you know, takes you out of jail so you're free to go, or a pardon that clears your record. so when you have no record, it becomes a little bit more confusing for people. and i just don't -- i get what the administration is looking to do potentially, but i just think that narrative is one -- makes it more difficult to have the conversation with the american people. everybody knows trump, you know, to a certain extent, a lot of people don't believe he's going to do what he's going to do. i think he does. but i don't know if the pardon is the way to address that. you know, hunter's a different situation. he was convicted. but others, liz cheney, what's the crime? sitting -- you know, sitting on the january 6th committee? because donald trump was pissed off that they investigated his

illegible behavior? here we go. >> i mean, i think -- paul rosen, we talked about this last night, makes the point that setting even the -- you know, the non-criminality of all these actors, there's what they would face without being convicted of anything just by virtue of not being pardoned, and therefore in trump's cross hairs as a potential target. i'll read you, michelle, some of paul's writing on this. "along the way, liz cheaney would no doubt suffer the harm of indictment, the financial harm of having to defend herself and the psychic harm of having to bear the pressure of an investigation and charges. biden owes it to trump's most prominent critics to save them from that burden." how do you feel about this one? >> yeah. i mean, i agree with that argument. i disagree with michael. and i think that there's -- i shouldn't say easy, but there's a way to do this i think that would make the narrative clear cut for the american people. it's not ideal to have an

incoming potential head of the fbi, kash patel, who has published enemies lists. one advantage of that is that he wrote a book, he has an enemies list in it. so we know exactly who he has threatened to go after without cause. just pardon everyone on it. pardon everyone on it, give a speech, say you know, this is one reason i wish that the president was a better communicator. but give a speech and say, you know, i wasn't able to save the country from donald trump, but this is what they've threatened to do. i think we should take them seriously. i mean, i think it's important to do that also just to give the american people, at least those that can be reached by the president, some framework for what's coming and saying im-- i don't know what crimes -- because these people have not committed crimes, i'm giving them blanket pardons because the list of potential kind of false

-- the list of potential investigations is kind of boundless. again, i think you can just keep going back to they have published an enemies list, made it clear who they want to go after. if you look at the enemies well, the absurdity of going after fix like cassidy hutchinson should be clear. pardon all of them. >> michael, this -- i think the essence of this debate if you will that's happening largely inside the democratic party is how aggressive -- how aggressive should democrats be in both focusing on trump and trying to stop him and putting up guardrails to the extent they can as the party in the minority in all three branches of government. you know, it bears mentioning that tonight we finally -- the election is finally over, we know what the house majority is, republicans hold the house by five seats. but with matt gaetz, elise stefanik and michael walz leaving their seats it's a

two-seat majority. one republican, one rogue republican could sink their chances of doing trump's bidding. the question is like how -- you know, how do you think democrats should position themselves as a party governing in the minority, with a republican majority that is that slim? are there opportunities there, or does the sort of magnetism i guess -- the pull of trump basically kill any potential, you know, i won't even say bipartisanship, connection to reality? >> there's no bipartisanship here. let's take that off the table. can we just stop that bs conversation because it doesn't exist. it hasn't existed in washington a long time. so we need to stop pretending that that's a thing. it isn't. you certainly won't get it with the maga congress and a maga president and a maga adjacent on a good day senate. the reality of it is if democrats couldn't articulate

the success on the infrastructure bill, the success on the inflation bill, the success on the chip act, good luck explaining this to the american people. when you can't explain it and you can't crystallize it for them, guess what -- you've lost the argument before you've made it. that's the political reality here. a party that cannot speak to the moment in a way that clarifies for the american people why they're taking such an unprecedented step. and so that's my hesitation. look, at the end of the day, i don't care because the reality of it is is donald trump's going do what donald trump's going to do, and the senate is going to play the role that they're going to play, and republicans are going to do what they're going to do. democrats have got to figure out how do we manage this, and --

and move now to seemingly stem some of that. i just -- tell me the conversation. i haven't heard it. i mean, i don't know how they communicate that when this is a complicated thing because there is no crime involved, and they get people to wrap their head around that you're pardoning them for something they didn't do. >> preemptive pardon. right. >> yeah. >> to the question, though, of like where democrats should be in this moment, dan pfeifer, to your point, michael, about the sort of political realities here. michelle, dan pfeifer has advice to democrats who i think in many ways feel as if they are in the wilderness. our messaging cannot be so trump-centric, we must discuss the republican party writ large, trump spent the last eight years attacking democrats for being out of touch ists soft on crime and immigration. we were talking about trump, he

was talking about democrats. we paid the price. what do you think of that? >> i think that's -- writ large, i think that's correct. again, what biden does in these last few months or not even few months is not going to set the agenda for the next democratic congress or the next generation of democratic leadership. so also i don't think there's a contradiction. trump is empowering this group of plutocrats who are going to loot the government and sell it off for parts. so to me that should be the criticism. they're going to pass another obscenely disproportionate tax cut geared for the rich. they are going to loosen regulations, you know, specifically to benefit elon musk and other trump donors. and so -- it's interesting because trump used to get credit among some of the kind of crossover voters for being the sort of republican who had

rejected paul ryan's slash-and-burn economics, who said we're not going to touch medicare, we're not going to touch says. now you have elon musk and vivek ramaswamy and republicans talking about cutting $2 trillion which you can't do without cutting really into the meat of government programs that are essential to a lot of people's welfare. so i think that there's a good opportunity for democrats to speak correctly about this as the party of, you know, the -- they have to come up with better words than this, but the party of politocratic plunder -- plutoaccuratic plunder. >> for the democratic party, throwing out idea, many welcome. an ideation session. michael, michelle, thank you for your time and thoughts tonight, my friend. >> all right. still ahead tonight, today

the supreme court heard arguments in yet another case that could roll back health care rights for generations. sound familiar? i'll explain next. ar i'll explain next.

♪ ♪ ♪ something has changed within me ♪

♪ it's time to try defying gravity ♪ ♪ ♪ today the supreme court heard oral arguments in a case that could change the lives for america -- lives of americans across the country. in the united states versus

scrameti, the justices are deciding whether to intervene in a tennessee law that blocks puberty blockers for minors, but only if the therapies are meant for transgender minors. arguing on behalf of the biden administration today, solicitor general elizabeth prelogar claimed the neat law is unconstitutional because it singles out and bans one particular use -- to allow a minor to identify with or live with a gender inconsistent with the minor's sex assigned at birth. the biden administration is not alone in this argument. the aclu is also challenging tennessee's law arguing that it discriminates on the basis of sex. but the court's conservative leaning justices seem inclined to leave the ban in place. >> my understanding is that the constitution leaves that question to the people's representatives rather than to nine people, none of whom is a

doctor. >> it strikes me as, you know, pretty heavy yellow light if not red light for this court to come in, the nine of us, and to constitutionalize the whole area when the rest of the world are, you know, pumping the brakes on this kind of treatment because of concerns about the risks. >> the justices are expected to release their ruling sometime this summer. if the justices do decide to uphold the ban in tennessee, it will prevent minors there from receiving gender-affirming care. it will also entrench other existing bans across the country and embolden other states to adopt similar restrictions. in her closing argument, the solicitor general outlined what it means to restrict medically necessary care for children. >> finally, i think the court should think about the real world consequences of laws like sb1. consider its effects on ryan roe. as just sotomayor noted, ryan's gender dysphoria was so severe he was throwing up before school

everyday. he thought about going mute because his voice caused him so much distress. ryan told the court getting these medications after a consultation process with his doctors and parents has saved his life. his parents say he's thriving. but tennessee has come in and categorically cut off access to ryan's care, and they say this is about protecting adolescent health. but this law harms ryan's health and the health of all other transgender adolescents for whom these medications are a necessity. >> the administration's argument here comes into sharp focus when you consider the suicide rates among trans and nonbinary youth. the trevor projects 2023 u.s. national survey found that about half of both trans girls and trans boys considered suicide in the previous year. that is almost twice the rate of non-trans minors. the same survey found that state laws targeting trans people caused up to a 72% increase in suicide attempts among trans

kids. on the other hand, gender-affirming care including peek uttery blockers and hormone therapies can reduce the odds of considering suicide by 73% according to a study in the "journal of the american medical association." counter to what the state of tennessee argued today in court, this care is not a risky experiment on american children. every major medical association, including the ama, the american nurses association, and the american psychiatric association, recognizes that treatments for gender dysphoria are medically necessary. and while many of these treatments including puberty blockers are reversible, most trans people do not end up seeking to reverse their treatment. a national study by the national center for transgender equality found that only 13% detransition at some point in their lives. i'm going to talk more about what is happening here at the supreme court with leah litman and mark joseph stern of "slate" magazine next. h stern of "slate" magazine next.

everyone customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. customize and sa— (balloon doug pops & deflates) and then i wake up. and you have this dream every night? yeah, every night! hmm... i see. (limu squawks) only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

(♪♪) (♪♪) voltaren... for long lasting arthritis pain relief. (♪♪) mr. chief justice and may it please the court, tennessee lawmakers enacted sb1 to protect minors from risky, unproven medical interventions. its application turns entirely on medical purpose not a patient's sex. that is not sex discrimination. we do not think that giving puberty blockers to a 6-year-old that has started precocious puberty is the same medical treatment as giving it to a minor who wants to transition.

those are not the same medical treatment. and one -- >> what you're saying is you're still depending on sex to identify who can get it and who can't. >> today tennessee's solicitor general matthew rice defended the state's anti-trans law before the supreme court arguing that the denial of gender-affirming care is not a form of sex-based discrimination. to do this rice leaned heavily on the dobbs ruling from the court which struck down federal abortion access and eroded the equal protections clause by ruling that ending abortion access at the federal level does not constitute sex discrimination, despite the fact that abortion care directly affects the health of one sex and not the other. in other words, dobbs effectively opened the floodgates for the rollback of anti-discrimination protections across the board. joining me to break town the avalanche effect this ruling might have, professor leah litman from the university of michigan and co-host of "the strict scrutiny" podcast and mark joseph stern, senior writer

at "slate" magazine. i'm so eager to have this conversation with both of you guys. leah, first just how -- how is denying gender-affirming care for a specific group of individuals base largely on sex if not entirely on sex, how is that not sex-based discrimination? >> it is sex-based discrimination. there is no way of getting around it, as justice kagan and the lawyers challenging the ban pointed out. this entire law is imbued with sex. the law's text repeatedly talks about sex and says that it its purpose is to encourage people to live in accordance with their sex. it prohibits individuals from receiving certain care depending on their sex assigned at birth. you know, a girl who is assigned female sex at birth can get some hormones that a person who was assigned male sex at birth cannot. it's just that simple, and there's no getting around it. so the tennessee lawyer and the republican appointed justices

were left with word play to insist it was about something else like age or medicine even though, of course, it's also about sex. >> and the reason they're doing that, mark, there's a very candid reason they're trying to avoid saying this is rooted in sex-based discrimination. it would be subjected to higher scrutiny, is that right? >> that's exactly right. so if this is sex-based description which as leah said it obviously is, courts have to subject to something called intermediate scrutiny which means that they have to ask whether it has an exceedingly persuasive justification, basically whether the state has a really good reason and a lot of evidence for what it did hear. for all the reasons you mentioned a moment ago, the state has no good reasons for doing this. all of the major medical associations have said that these bans are bad for children's health care, that hair bad science and bad medicine. and so tennessee is desperately trying to avoid that more surging level of scrutiny, desperately trying to avoid

triggering the equal protection clause by using this kind of blizzard of word play to pretend as though this doesn't differentiate on the basis of sex. it so clearly does that i think that the supreme court is going to do a lot of damage to the doctrine of gender equality in order to get around this very basic fact. >> you know, i mean, putting this in a broader perspective, leah, chase strangio, who argued the case and happens to be the first openly trans person to argue before the supreme court, in an interview in -- the "slate" magazine with the grate dahlia lithick, chase said, and i think this is worth unpacking, if we take a step back and look at this moment we're in and the obsession with trans people during the 2024 elections, it wasn't really about trans people. they are using these attacks on trans people to reentrench old notions of what is the proper role of men and women in society. and indeed, leah, you could see that extending to the arguments

around abortion and contraception access and no-fault divorce. all of this comes back to sort of traditionalism versus the vanguard of what the civil rights movement is headed, does it not? >> yes. i think it is all very much related to trying to enforce traditional notions of sex and gender. i mean, the -- the gist of the tennessee law is basically the state saying we want boys to be boys and girls to be girls, here's what we think boys are, and here's what we think girls are. look at abortion restrictions and these are about, well, we think the proper role of women is to be mother and to bear children -- mothers and to bear children. this is related to no-fault divorce laws, the proper role of women is to be wives and for them to stay in marriages with husbands. you know, you saw the long arm and long shadow of dobbs and the court's rollback of civil rights throughout the argument in the trans health care case, as well. you know, you had justice alito involcanoing his decision -- invoking his decision saying basically we enheld a law that restricted health care for women

and jeopardized their lives, so why couldn't we do that here? the court facilitating states enforcing traditional notions of gender at great cost to people is definitely a through line in all of this. and it's really concerning because we have now seen the consequences of these abortion restrictions playing out. and we are likely to see really tragic consequences from states rolling back health care for transgender individuals, as well. >> yeah. mark, to that point, this is coming as the court is really seeing in the media thanks largely to "propublica" the result of dobbs overturning roe, the cost, the deathly cost, the motorial cost of that decision. and you are -- they have been armed courtesy of the biden administration and the aclu, stats on what this does to trans minors who contemplate and execute suicidal thoughts at a vastly greater rate than non-trans minors, especially if they're denied gender- ing medication. i wonder if you think any of

that is crossing the radar in a meaningful way for these conservative justices. what's your expectation here? >> unfortunately i don't really think it is. you know, justice cavanaugh kept bringing up -- kavanaugh kept bringing up de-transitioners which are rare, saying we have to protect them, we have to protect children who think they want this treatment but they don't really want it and they'll regret it later on. he is setting up this paradigm where the bans are doing good for people by protecting them from getting this allegedly experimental treatment. but you know, as always, i think it's fascinating to look at who this court has empathy for. you know, this is a court with boundless empathy for people who want to own and carry guns, with corporations that want to pollute or scam people and get off scot-free. and with states and state legislatures that want to outlaw abortion and subject women to, you know, having to develop sepsis or hemorrhage before they can get emergency care. you know, those people who tend

to mostly be men, they get so much sympathy and empathy from these conservative justices. but when it comes to children who are just coming, pleading for basic equality, a basic application of equal protection from this court, they get turned away. i think it's pretty clear they're going to be turned -- given a cold shoulder. that is not a fair and equal application of the law by any means. >> leah, mark, really there are two no better people -- well, i mean, i love you guys. i shouldn't say that because everyone's so brilliant that we incity in-- invite on. thank you so much for your time and zin sight. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. >> thank you >> we'll be right back

craig here pays too much for verizon wireless. so he sublet half his real estate office... [ bird squawks loudly ] to a pet shop. meg's moving company uses t-mobile. so she scaled down her fleet to save money.

and don's paying so much for at&t, he's been waiting to update his equipment! there's a smarter way to save. comcast business mobile. you could save up to an incredible 70% on your wireless bill. so you don't have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities.

i want to point everyone's attention to this -- a truly joyous thing that just happened right outside of our studio here in new york city. and that is the lighting of the rockefeller center christmas tree in all of its holiday glory. even with a light dusting of snow because sometimes you need to end the show on a high note. "way too early with jonathan lemire" is next. the manhunt continues this morning for the suspect who shot and killed the