good to be with you. i'm katy tur. we were going to watch a potentially dramatic situation playing out along a broad swath of the california and oregon

coastlines, with officials in both states telling residents to move away from the coastline and seek higher ground. there was a tsunami warning, which in the last 20 seconds has been lifted. it all happened because there was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of eureka, california. big enough to make officials out there super worried about the shifting of tectonic plates under the ocean and a potential tsunami hitting all of that red area right there. it was a state of alarm that lasted for about 30 minutes to an hour. so let's figure out what is happening right now. joining us now, nbc news correspondent morgan chesky in los angeles, and san diego state university professor emeritus of geology, pat abbott, the author of the mcgraw hill textbook, natural disasters. also, we have cnbc's kate rogers in san francisco for us. kate, i want to begin with you

because you were getting the evacuation orders. what was happening? >> yeah, so essentially, katy, great to see you. you mentioned 7.0 magnitude earthquake in the last half hour. the epicenter in eureka, california. that's about five or six hours north of san francisco, and the epicenter was in the ocean. the quake was felt up and down san francisco and silicon valley, even given that distance. some of us here at our bureau felt swaying, the building ceiling lights were moving. you could hear the building creaking because we are up high. the u.s. national tsunami center did issue that tsunami warning, and now as you mentioned as you were coming to air, that tsunami warning had been lifted. but there were 4.7 million people under that warning along the california coast, according to the national weather service. we should also note the governor's office, governor gavin newsom has been briefed on the earthquakes and is meeting with state officials now, tweeting earlier that officials with the california office of emergency services are actively responding to the quakes this

morning in northern california and that californians should follow guidance from their local emergency responders, and one more bit of color from the bay area. b.a.r.t., which is one of our public transit services, suspending service under the bay because the estimated start time for that tsunami warning when it was in effect was about 12:10 local time which is just a few minutes from now. as mentioned, it has been lifted as of now. >> good to know, kate. morgan, you were following this. why were officials so worried? >> reporter: because they have seen the damage with these quakes can bring in years past, and they know there's potential there for that tsunami to take place. i have had a chance to connect with multiple people in the california community of ferndale. this is about 2 1/2 hours south of the oregon border. it's a rural community, home to about 1500 people that as of right now are still very concerned. i got off the phone with a coffee shop owner, i could hear the tsunami siren in the background. she says her shop is potentially

ruined as a result of this earthquake which happened about 40 miles off the coast, almost directly west of ferndale. another shop owner told me that the shaking lasted for about 60 seconds around 10:45 this morning. and that it was the strongest quake they have felt since 1992. that was one that caused significant damage in that small community. as of right now, what we're hearing is multiple reports of things falling off, causing damage inside buildings. some cracks forming in the walls. but not significant structural damage. everyone i have talked to from ferndale says when they walked outside, and they looked down the street, they did not see the same type of damage that they saw back in 1992. that said, this shop owner told me that her business may likely be ruined as a result of what took place this morning. they're stl assessing damage right now. we know at least for part of this town, the internet has been knocked out.

fortunately, we were able to reach them on the phone. this is something that they prepare for, something that they're aware of the threat of. and yet when it does happen, there's certainly a lot of nerves in and throughout the northern california coastline, but particularly in ferndale, one of the hardest hit areas we have been able to connect with right now. >> those are not waves you want to be riding, seeing those surfers on the beach. pat, i want to ask you, this is obviously a good chance for the emergency systems to get a test run in, to see how effective the alerts were, whether people listened, what to do the next time around, if there is a next time. talk to me about the seismic activity of late in california and just the conversations about when the next big one might hit. it's been quite a while. >> yes, indeed. you covered several different topics there. here what just happened this morning, we're basically at the far northern end of the san

andreas fault. traveled all the way through california and to the offshore. a magnitude 7 gets us into the tsunami creating potential, because it turns out the movement of the fault was a horizontal strike slip movement which doesn't put as much energy into the water as a thrust with an upward motion into it, so the warning was good because there are a lot of very dangerous areas there, areas for high threat like crescent city and santa cruz harbor and such. ferndale, that whole northern area, earthquakes of this size are relatively common up there. for those of us down in southern california or farther away, southern california in particular, we have not had a major movement on the san andreas fault down there for over 300 years. so geologically speaking, we can say, it's overdo, we expect one, but mother nature isn't running on any time table. so even though it's been over 300 years, it might be 100 years or maybe it will happen next

week. those are the kinds of things we don't know, but it's good that the emergency systems do go out to people so you have the warning. you dont want to send out a warning if there isn't something to back it up, but there was enough potential here that i am in favor of the tsunami warning they did send out and i'm glad it reached millions of people. >> yeah, you have a varied kline there, some low lying areas but it is california and oregon. there are some high cliffs as well, which would be protected from even a pretty big tsunami. but just looking at the images we saw down there, pat, of the line of traffic on the highway there, does that -- i mean, if you were somebody dealing with trying to get people to safety quickly, you're looking at an image like this, what are you thinking you can do better next time around? >> frankly, i'm stunned to see there's that many cars on the road. i'll tell you, it's california.

there's hardly any time of day the roads aren't crowded these days. if that crush of cars is due to the tsunami warning, it's a testimony to the effectiveness of the warning, but there is a problem. this isn't just california. this is hurricanes in florida, the same kind of a thing. how do you get the people out of naples, out of ft. myers with the hurricane warnings, even when you have more warning or a weather one, the roads jam up and all you need is someone to run out of gas or a fender bender and the whole system comes to a roaring halt. i don't know exactly where everybody is going right there, but for a tsunami warning, the main point is to get above water level, not get out of town. but to get up here on some of those high cliffs we see there. that's enough to get you out of the tsunami zone. so i would be interested to hear more about why all those cars were there at this time. >> yeah, they're going to be

doing an assessment to see how well this went. thank you very much. good to know that the tsunami warning has been lifted. still a 7.0 earthquake off the coast of eureka, california, is a very big one and caused some damage, as morgan was reporting for us. everybody, thank you very much. and we're going to go to our other big story, the story about what happened here in manhattan early yesterday morning. the nypd has released new images of the man suspected of assassinating united health care zeo brian thompson. these showing the shooter's full face were captured at an upper west side hostel. there are also new clues about a potential motive. three bullet casings found at the scene of the shooting had words written on them. a senior new york city law enforcement official tells nbc news they read defend, deny, and depose. references that closely resemble

the title of a 2010 book, delay, deny, defend, why insurance companies don't pay claims and what you can do about it. it's unclear whether they're connected. as police try to zero in on the identity of the suspect, thompson's family is offering potentially helpful background. his wife tells nbc news that thompson had been the target of some threats regarding a lack of coverage. she said she didn't know the details, only that some people had been angry with him. joining us now, nbc news national law and intelligence correspondent, tom winter. and former new york state homeland security adviser michael balboni. thank you very much. tom, give us the latest from the nypd. >> reporter: a couple different things. those images we were just looking at, the real clear images of his face, came from surveillance video. the screen grabs of that high quality from a hostel, where apparently he had been staying. that's a little bit of an insight as they continue to trace back, as important as it is to find out where he went

after the shooting, it could perhaps be even more important to know where he was before the shooting because either way, you have to get to a name. and maybe he made a mistake before the shooting that can help them get to a point of identifying this person. that's the type of information that actually has already been helpful. so we know yesterday that a number of stills of him wearing a mask were released by the nypd. that apparently came from a starbucks. we're told by senior law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation. here's an image here. in the course of looking through all this video, they find he buys a couple protein or energy bars there, a bottle of water, and he leaves the store. they start going from location to location, building to building, store to store, figuring out which route he took, and then they were able to determine at some point he discarded the items and they were able to recover the items, potentially great pieces of evidence because you never know if someone will leave behind a fingerprint or dna.

typically, that individual would have had to have a prior run-in with law enforcement, but sometimes if you apply for certain things you have to provide fingerprints, so again, that may be an instance where they could get information. >> would that even being going and using clear at the airport, which you need to provide a fingerprint for? >> a really good question. i'm trying to remember. i know certain databases, you can subpoena inquiry, u.s. government databases. >> i was thinking what am i giving my fingerprint for? >> for instance, i have to be cleared for security for certain courts in the united states, so i provide a full fingerprints, they have them on record. they know who i am. >> interestingly, i'm curious about the level of professionalism from this guy, because initially, the fact that he was so close, michael, that he was in a three-point stance, so calm during the shooting, and if you look at the full surveillance video which is very disturbing, you can see he's calm and he obviously had a

plan, he got a bike. there are some aspects of this that seem well thought out, but there are other aspects that don't seem as well thought out, the surveillance video, the buying of food items at a starbucks, potentially leaving wrappers with fingerprints. what does this suggest to you? >> it suggests that he may have some training, but we don't know, obviously, whether it's law enforcement training, military training. the fact he has a two-handed grip on the weapon, that he gets that close, that indicates he's not going to miss. of course, if he was trained by the police, they are trained to shoot center mass. but yet, he shot him in the leg. so it indicates perhaps this is not somebody that was trained that well. and then the thing you pointed out beforehand. going to a starbucks beforehand and getting a coffee, leaving evidence of dna, most possibly, but then also, the way he set this thing up ahead of time.

he was waiting outside for 20 minutes or so by reports. that gives a lot of time for a lot of people, even though there weren't folks who were necessarily wasn't that busy a street, a lot of time for people to see him. then you look at his route. so he came through, and it's very unlikely he was wearing the mask the entire time he was walking through the park, which again, now people see, this is such an incredibly high-profile event. i bet you the tips are flying in to the nypd. and now, the thing we don't know for sure is they found a cell phone. well, is it his cell phone? if it is, how quickly can they get into it? and see who has he been talking to, what kind of messages, and get a location as to where this guy lives at the very least. and then, as i said, to the folks i work with on the show, you never let a presumption or

an assumption take you through these investigations. you always go where the evidence leads you. so what am i talking about? we assume because the victim was an insurance company, we assume because of the letters or the words written on the casings, this must have been somebody who had a problem with this individual and it's association with that, not paying claims or something like that. you don't go there. that's a starting point in terms of your getting the information you need, but it should not determine the outcome of this investigation. and i'll leave you with this. >> go ahead. >> nypd is the best in the world at doing this. i think they are going to have this guy in custody pretty quickly. >> he wasn't able to get on a plane and get out of town, though. i don't know. what about tips? >> mike brings up an interesting point on the tips. they are definitely pouring in. one of the big challenges right now is we're hearing names

because people are contacting us and saying, well, this person kind of looks like this person, and they have a tie to the insurance industry. to mike's point. and then you call and it's like, yeah, of course, they're investigating. they're investigating every tip that comes in. so it's a big challenge right now for them to sift through this. those pictures are incredibly clear, the recent ones with his face. i would imagine to mike's point they will get to the bottom soon enough. we have reporting out today, information that was derived either early this morning or late yesterday or even midday yesterday as if it is new today. same with our competitors. we're reading everybody else, tracking on top of it, so to me, just tells me how far we are actually behind in our investigation. >> they're not going to give us details minute by minute. they want to stay one step ahead and giving it to news reporters puts it out there. tom and michael, thank you very much. we'll keep watching this. still ahead, elon musk and vivek ramaswamy are on capitol hill on behalf of doge.

what one prominent democrat is saying about why other democrats should maybe get involved. we'll ask this gentleman about it, senator chris murphy. he joins us on the other side of the break. and donald trump's cabinet picks are steeped in controversies and short on experience. is this what voters really wanted? don't go anywhere. t go anywhere. for five times more cleaning power than brushing and flossing alone. get a next level clean... ahhhhh with listerine. feel the whoa!

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vivek ramaswamy and elon musk are on capitol hill today meeting with republican senators and house members about their government efficiency department. president-elect trump tasked the two with trying to clean out the bureaucracy in order to make it run smoother and cheaper. so what exactly are they proposing and is it at all something democrats might want to join in on? joining us now, democratic senator chris murphy who represented connecticut. really good to have you. >> great to be with you. >> i have a question about this doge department. and first off, jared moskowitz of florida has joined in. and rahm emanuel was on with ezra klein talking about what democrats need to do going forward. he said, if the republicans are proposing something to shake up the status quo, the democrats should get on board and offer their on opinions, offer their own ideas, their own ways to do it, get them in the soft underbelly, as rahm emanuel says. is this something you would be interested in getting involved

with? you're a guy who thinks the democrats should be running against the status quo as well? >> yeah, i'm not sure this has anything to do with breaking up the status quo. you put a billionaire who basically has made his fortune off government subsidies, in charge of deciding how the government should spend its money. this sounds like either a con job in which elon musk comes out of this with his programs protected and perhaps his competitors's programs targeted or just a tv show. i have been a part of these things in the past with donald trump, after the parkland shooting i got dragged over to the white house for a television program in which donald trump pretended he cared about guns. he didn't do anything. this may be the same thing he's trying to put on a show he cares about cutting government but we're going to end up with the same thing that happened in his first term. deficits exploding, more and more debt saddled upon the american public. so yes, i think democrats should put on the table how we think we

can cut government. let's come after the drug companies, come after the insurance companies, the big defense companies that are all reaping huge amounts of money from the government. let's come after elon musk who made his fortune off taxpayers. democrats should be involved in the conversation about government efficiency. i just don't know this group has anything to do with actual meaningful common sense cuts. it may be about protecting billionaires from those cuts or it may just be about a publicity stunt. >> so donald trump, i wonder what you learned over the past eight years with the first donald trump presidency and then biden following up and donald trump coming up. he's appointing all these inexperienced people to lead these very important agencies. arguing he has a mandate from the public to blow things up because the status quo doesn't work. how do democrats position themselves? because last time around, what they did was to say, we got to defend our institutions. we gotta make sure they can hold against somebody like this. and it turns out that enough of

the american public said i don't like the institutions. i would rather put the guy who says he wants to shake everything up, blow everything up in charge rather than go on with the same old same old. >> yeah, i think it's a really good point, katy. what essentially was the tent pole of the harris campaign? it was the preservation of democracy. that's why somebody like liz cheney campaigned with the vice president in the closing days, not because they aligned on foreign policy, not because they aligned on domestic economic policy, but because they both supported democracy. the problem is appeared as if we were in support of the existing democracy, that is like not working for anybody in this country. it's just been used to protect elites, cultural and economic elites for the past two decades. when i first got involved in politics. one of the most important things democrats stood for was government reform, getting lobbyist money out of politics, ethics reform. that's like number 9, 10, 11 on our list these days.

we have to be attacking institutions. the institutions that people hate, and one of them is the existing version of democracy. the only way to preserve democracy is reform it. we have to be loud about the ways we would change democracy to take the corporations out of control and put people in control. we have to attack the economic institutions and be very transparent about not just small changes around the edges like a different way to negotiate prescription drug prices but price regulation, price caps on drugs. something simple that people can understand. i just don't think we have done a good enough job of talking about the ways we would destroy or reform institutions and we have unfortunately become the party of the status quo. that's got to change. >> you sound a little bit like bernie sanders when you're talking about price caps. i think you're hitting on something really interesting because the sense that i get from people that i know in a variety of sectors is that they don't feel like they value, they're valued any longer within

this economy, that there are a couple of very rich people at the top who own big corporations, who employ a lot of us. and that we're all exchangeable. they can get rid of us tomorrow. we don't really matter. so much of our lives are ntrolled by a handful of people, whether it's social media or the corporations that control our food or the corporations that control what we consume, television, it's so much -- so much power concentrated in such a small number of people. how do you break that up? you're talking about going after neoliberalism, which is defined for the past 60 years. how do you change something that has become so engrained in not just our society but the global order? >> yeah, i think we have been presented with this false choice between market fundamentalism, almost no regulation of the market, the belief that everything the market does will

eventually be good for us, and socialism. there's something in between. vaguely sort of thought of as common good capitalism. capitalism where we make sure that the rules value workers, just as much as we value shareholders. in which we decide there are some parts of our economy, like maybe the health care economy that shouldn't just be subject to profit and commoditization, and i think that's the winning argument for democrats because there are a lot of folks out there who want to preserve capitalism but think that workers should matter more than shareholders do. and i think that there is a big lane that democrats can run through, especially because trump is populating his cabinet with market fundamentalists, with people who are going to deregulate the economy, who are going to pass another round of tax cuts for billionaires, millionaires and corporations.

we have to convince folks we can preserve the free market and rein it in. a small business has a chance to succeed, and if you work for a living, you don't have to work 70 hours a week in order to provide for your family. >> i wonder what that means you do. i have a couple questions on that. one of the appointments donald trump is making and the nominations for his cabinet. he's putting a lot of people into positions like rfk jr., who doesn't have experience running a health agency, has some very dangerous ideas when it comes to vaccines. but is also seen as somebody who is saying not so inaccurate things about our food supply and big agriculture. what do you do when faced with trying to decide who to get on board with and who to push back against so that you personally don't look like somebody who is defending the status quo? >> yeah.

listen, i want icon oclasts to be involved in government, but i don't want there to be iconoclasts who are going to get my neighbors killed. i think that's the bottom line. i think rfk jr. says some things that make sense, but some of his views are so dangerous, like taking the fluoride out of our water, or not vaccinating our kids, that his cy is going to put the people i live with at risk. so yeah, i think the american people sort of understand the sort of limits here. they want folks who are going to think outside of the box, but they don't want people in government who have no idea how to run government and who are so far out of the mainstream that it ends up putting us all in danger. >> what about in terms of legislation going forward? you have tried to work with the other side. you were on the immigration bill, the democratic negotiator for it. didn't end up going anywhere. you also tried to work with senator jd vance, who is going to be the vice president.

is there legislation you anticipate being able to work with republicans on over the next two to four years? >> well, that's all dependent on the sort of upfront question of whether we have a democracy six months from now. i can't work across the aisle if democrats are being thrown in jail, if our independent media is being intimidated into submission. so i'm a little bit more red alert than some of my other colleagues are when it comes to his nominee to be attorney general, kash patel heading to the fbi. i think donald trump is getting ready to try to bludgeon his political opposition into submission, to convince companies like comcast to sell off their assets that might dare question him, to get the billionaires that own media platforms to suppress dissent. so i will be at the table as i

always have been, to try to do bipartisan deals, but you can't do that if we don't have a democracy. i just don't accept that we're going to be under normal political circumstances. the first task in january, february, march, may be making sure we have a free and open democracy for the next four years. >> you wrote a memo to your fellow democrats talking about how they need to reposition themselves going forward as going against corporations and the billionaire class. how has that memo been received? >> i mean, i think there's -- i think i'm a little bit of a skunk in the garden party because, a, there still are a lot of neoliberals in the democratic party who think that the market properly but slimly adjusted on the margins can work for people. attacking power is not easy for everybody in the democratic party because we have become a party that is dependent on high income elites.

and second, i'm arguing to make our party a bigger tent. i actually think that we should be willing to bring into our coalition people that don't agree with us on every social and cultural issue. as long as they do agree with us on that economic tent pole, breaking up concentrated power, raising the minimum wage, putting workers before shareholders. that's uncomfortable for this coalition as well because we have become used to applying a dozen different litmus tests on choice, on gay rights, on climate, on guns. we have to build a coalition. yes, i had a bunch of people come in my office in the last few weeks, democrats in the nat and house, interested in doing what i'm talking about, big tent populism, but it's still a little countercultural in a party that has gotten a little complacent and a little too judgmental. >> you have been countercultural for a few years, learning about the new right and the ideas they have to change the system. i guess what is the lesson you have learned from them that you

want to take over and convince your fellow democrats to follow? >> what the right has done and in particular some of the newer fringier right, is to really think first about the ways the people are feeling. the frustrations and the anxieties they have and craft policy to meet it. i think a mistake we made on the issue of immigration was to view republicans' focus on border security simply through a kind of racist and xenophobic lens, that they were playing on these pureiant interests people have, but actually, what republicans were speaking to was, yes, a little racist and xenophobia, but also this desire that americans have to get some control back over our national life. it seems like we're subject and at the mercy of these huge multinational forces, like increased migration. and people feel really helpless in that world. so when donald trump talks about controlling our border, yes, it's speaking to some people who just don't want folks who look

or sound different from them in the country, but it's also speaking to people who feel like they're not in control of their lives anymore. the country doesn't seem to be able to control its national life, that they work hard and don't get ahead. these narratives of control like border control, actually speak to legitimate emotions that people are having. and democrats need to be involved in that exercise. thinking first about the ways that people are feeling, the crises they are in, and targeting policies to fit that sort of emotional zeitgeist of the country. >> also translating it so it's easily understandable for a public who doesn't speak in washington jargon. senator chris murphy, thank you so much for joining us. and still ahead, does donald trump have a mandate, and is it strong enough to absorb the fallout from all of those cabinet controversies? we have reporting coming up next. have reporting coming up next hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. customize and sa—

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pete hegseth is back on capitol hill today, still working to hang on to his nomination. and telling nbc news he still has the full backing of donald trump. >> do you feel like you're making progress in the meetings? >> great meetings. appreciate the process. senators give great advice, and this is how the process works. it's not going to be tried out here. it's going to be discussed inside the offices how we rebuild our military, put the war fighters first. that's what president trump has asked me to do.

>> are there any circumstances where you would withdraw from the process? >> i'm here with the support of president donald trump. as long as he supports me, which he told me this morning. i'll be here. >> joining us now, nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles. so pete hegseth nomination, how does it stand today? >> reporter: i don't think the ball has really moved all that much, katy, from where we were yesterday. and that's where we were reporting that his nomination was in peril. i think it remains in peril today. there are still a number of skeptical senators, more than enough skeptical republican senators that could kill his nomination if it eventually makes it to the floor. a range of six maybe more senators that are likely still no votes. now, that doesn't mean they are no votes forever. they could be flipped if hegseth is able to calm their fears about the accusations about his background, his alcohol use, his mistreatment of women, his mismanagement of funds for these

veteran organizations he worked for. that's exactly what he's attempting to dawith these one-on-one meetings. he's working the entire day, here at 9:00 in the morning and leaving at 5:00 at night, meeting with senators, trying to shore up some of those concerns. i think what's revealing is when you talk to these senators after these meetings, they're not necessarily coming out and giving him a definitive stamp of approval. senator joni ernst of iowa, for instance, doesn't want to talk to us about her meeting with him, which would indicate she probably still has concerned, and senators who are talking like kevin cramer, said he was encouraged by the meeting. he answered a lot of his questions but that doesn't necessarily mean all of the issue surrounding this confirmation have been wrapped up. hegseth still has a lot of work to do. how much longer donald trump will allow him to dangle in this space of kind of suspended animation i think remains an open question.

but the fact that he's still coming up here to the hill, he won't be here tomorrow, but his team tells us he has a full schedule next week, shows trump is at least giving him the opportunity to earn that trust of at least 51 senators which is what it would take for him to be confirmed. >> you mentioned senators kramer and earnest. here's what we were able to get from them on camera. >> the drinking thing is a pretty significant issue. whether you have a problem or don't have a problem or you think you have a problem or don't have a problem, and he said my commitment is to not touch alcohol while i have this position. i said, it's really important that we have a clear-eyed secretary of defense if the alarm goes off or the phone rings at 3:00 in the morning. he used that 3:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the afternoon, and any hour in between. >> we will continue with the vetting process. i think that is incredibly important. so again, all i'm saying is we had a very frank and productive discussion. and i know that we will continue

to have conversation in the upcoming months. >> we should mention that senator joni ernst is potentially a pick that could come up to be a replacement for hegseth. she's been floated out there. we also have new sound from pete hegseth addressing the whistleblower allegations that the new yorker first reported on regarding his tenureship, leadership of a couple of small veterans organizations. let's listen to that. >> it's very interesting what the press likes to dub a whistleblower report. which some others might clarify as an email from a disgruntled employee, one might say. >> all right, ryan, one more question for you. what about the other nominations? we haven't talked a lot about tulsi gabbard, the rfk jr. nomination, kash patel. are you getting any word on whether they're going to be smooth sailing?

>> reporter: i think the hegseth nomination right now has sucked up so much of the oxygen that these other controversial or skeptical cabinet picks have not gotten any attention at all. tulsi gabbard has not been up here to capitol hill yet for her round of meetings. those could come as soon as next week. we have want seen robert f. kennedy jr. either. he's expected to get a tight grilling as well. what we have seen so far, kash patel also in that group, when you talk to senators about these individual nominations, they are pointed to the confirmation process. and what many of them are saying is if they can make it through the committee level and get to the floor, they have my photoon the floor. that's what thom tillis has said. he wants them to go through the vetting process. he wants them to get the fbi background checks. he wants them to answer tough questions in a public hearing. if they're able to do all that and get enough votes to get out of the committee hearing, that would be enough for him to vote yes. there are a number of republican senators who feel the same way.

there are stages to these confirmation processes. like we saw with matt gaetz, the senators made it clear to donald trump, there was no universe in which him going through the confirmation process was going to improve his standings. in fact, there were some concerns it would become worse if the house ethics report came out, if he was forced to answer these tough questions, if one of these accusers came out. there wasn't a universe in which his situation got better. is that the case for pete hegseth? that's one of the questions that i think a lot of people are asking and it applies to many other nominees as well. >> especially if there's an fbi background check done as well. ryan nobles, thank you so much. joining us, staff writer at the new yorker, susan glasser, and "new york times" writer, jeremy peters. susan, let's start with ryan left off. there are serious questions and doubts that still remain about a number of these picks from donald trump. >> yeah, that's right. i thought, though, the point is well taken that there's almost a

swarm effect happening here where there's so many potential controversies and so many of these nominees with issues, it's been hard for the political world to focus on just one of them. this week has certainly been pete hegseth's time in the barrel. it has the whiff of increasing desperation about it, the nomination. it might even be a surprise at this point might be if he manages to hold on. at the same time, that definitely has meant there's less scrutiny on perhaps, i would argue, one of the most if not the most disruptive potential nominations, that of kash patel, to be fbi director. especially considering that there is a current fbi director who has nearly three years left on his ten-year term. trump would have to fire christopher wray in order to send kash patel's nomination up to capitol hill. we're not talking about that. we're not talking about so much patel's plans to enact revenge

on his own and donald trump's political enemies, including enemies within the republican party. i would imagine some republican senators might have real questions about that for him. but for now, the focus has been so much on hegseth, and i think that's part of the trump playbook, the sort of swarm of outrage and controversy that has followed him from the moment he stepped into the political arena. this has been part of the modus operandi of donald trump. >> you know what's been different, though, and i'm not following truth social, but donald trump is not as loud as he was during the transition. in 2016 and early 2017, we had all those -- everyone had to make the pilgrimage to bedminster and trump tower and he we always on twitter and talking a lot or tweeting a lot. he hasn't been so loud about these nominees. and they have been going to capitol hill or they have been just out there, and he's not coming publicly to pete

hegseth's defense. he's not coming publicly to kash patel's defense or tulsi gabbard's defense. why the change? that is a change in behavior from donald trump. >> a change in posture. i think it's a change in his mindset, because he no longer feels like he's the underdog. in 2016, of course, he wasn't supposed to win. and he came out every single day after those meetings in trump tower with perspective cabinet appointees and held a press conference in the lobby or the nominees did. we heard a lot more from him, you're exactly right. you're picking up on something that people, several people in trump world have observed about him and told me about, which is that he doesn't have the same kind of fighting spirit that he's had. and i think -- >> i noticed this when he came out and announced he was running for president. even though he kind of picked up some steam toward the end there,

the tone and tenor of donald trump this time around is different. the energy is different than it was in 2016. >> right. it's kind of ironic -- >> he's older. >> when he loses or he feels like he's lost, even when he wins like in 2016, he claims, i was cheated out of not winning the popular vote because all these illegal immigrants voted. then you have 2020 where he claims he really won when he lost. now he won unquestionably. no doubt about it, he won the popular vote. i think psychologically, that's done something to him. this is a guy who has also been shot at. he was almost killed. i think there is a change in his demeanor that you're seeing, and he's not the same guy. >> i'm not trying to suggest he's calmer in any way or he's saying less, you know, extreme things. it's just there's a difference in the way that he's carrying himself. a difference to his energy today than i remember back in the dog days of 2016.

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elon musk and vivek ramaswamy are on the hill today proposing their ideas to make the government more efficient. ideas like mass firings, eliminating government agencies and getting rid of daylight savings time. still with us, susan glasser and

jeremy peters. i'm smiling as i say it because the ideas are so out there. but at the same time, they are reacting to something that is in the firment of the american public, which is government doesn't work. it's not working for us. it's very big, very bloated. it's slow to get things done. and there are democrats out there who are making this argument that things do need to change, and there are even some democrats, one as of now, that is willing to get on to this committee, jared moskowitz of florida. i was listening to rahm emanuel talk to ezra klein and he was saying why not get involved? get involved, open up your book with your own ideas and prove they don't actually have good ideas. come and show the public that the democrats have some ideas that are willing to change things instead of just staying on the sidelines. chris murphy thought it was a bad idea when i asked him a moment ago. susan, what do you think? >> look, let's remember, what is this elon musk project. it's not an actual government

department. it doesn't have any congressional authorization. they're not -- vivek ramaswamy and elon musk are not entering the trump cabinet. what they're doing essentially is they have a gigantic bully pulpit that the incoming president-elect has given them to talk about their ideas for cutting the government and the like. we'll see what if anything gets done. we could talk all day about the history of government reform commissions, which you know go back years -- >> blue ribbon commissions where nothing happens. >> they land in the circular file, right? >> yeah. i was agreeing with you. i think it's hard to interrupt on zoom. jeremy, let me ask you about that. i mean, there is clearly a distaste out there for the status quo. it's real. you have people like chris murphy who are coming out and saying we have to address it. but he says he's kind of being treated like the skunk at the

garden party in the democratic party. why is that? >> i think democrats have not been able to articulate in any kind of cohesive way why they lost this election, why they think they didn't -- they forgot how to talk to voters, which is exactly what happened. they weren't speaking the language of discontent, of anger, of this belief that the system, whatever that means to you, is rigged against you. the reason why people haven't gotten pay raises, the reason why they can't afford mortgages or their rent. and people are really upset about that, and the campaign that was based in large part, at least at the beginning, on a sense of joy, wasn't hitting that nerve. so i think, you know, we'll see what happens with doge. it is definitely zeroing in on this sense that government is broken, society is broken. it's not working to make people

comfortable like it should. and the social safety net is breaking down. the very fabric of society is breaking down in a lot of big american cities, with crime and homelessness. then on top of that, you have a migrant crisis, all of which the democrats initially denies were problems. they had a very hard time acknowledging there was a problem with crime in big cities like san francisco, problems dealing with homelessness. and then the biden administration, which was loathe to admit there was a crisis at the border. they really do need to learn how to talk the language of the voters, and to understand why and how they got there. >> violent crime is down, but there is a difference between the stats saying it's down and politicians coming out and not addressing that they need to go down further. that people still don't feel totally safe, that there's a discomfort out there post-covid, an anger, a worry, there's a sense of helplessness that a lot of americans feel up and down

the spectrum. all right, jeremy peters, thank you so much. susan glasser, thank you as well. that is going to do it for me today. "deadline: white house" starts after this quick break. don't go anywhere. this quick brk don't go anywhere. feel better fast. no water needed. new alka-seltzer plus fizzychews. dexcom g7 is one of the easiest ways to take better control of your diabetes. this small wearable replaces fingersticks, lowers a1c, and it's covered by medicare. not managing your diabetes really affects your health for the future. the older you get, the more complications you're gonna see. i knew i couldn't ignore my diabetes anymore because it was causing my eyesight to go bad. for my patients, getting on dexcom g7 is the biggest eye opener they've ever had. i couldn't believe how easy it was. this small wearable sends my glucose numbers right to my phone or my receiver. with just a glance i can see if i'm going high, low, or steady. so, i can make quick decisions in the moment. now, i'm a superstar.

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