hi, everyone. happy thursday. it's 4:00 in new york. we are once again in a fluid situation covering what is day four of the former fox news weekend morning show anchor's attempt to win over skeptical senate republicans, at least six of them, according to nbc news, is reporting are, quote, not comfortable supporting his bid to lead the pentagon. putting hegseth's candidacy, quote, in peril. senator joni ernst, who is viewed as central to all of this, today confirmed that she is, as of today, not a yes on his confirmation. >> will you support his nomination? >> well, i did have a very long,

lengthy discussion with pete yesterday and appreciate his service to the nation. i am a combat veteran. we talked about a number of those issues and we willen to with the investigate process. i think that that is incredibly important. 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. >> okay. doesn't sound in your answer you've gotten to a yes. if i'm wrong about that, correct me. if that is the case, it sounds to me as if the hearing will be critical for his nomination? am i right about that? >> i think you are right. >> in fact, the nomination is so much in peril we are monitoring this closely. we will be for the next two hours for any sign that hegseth's status as trump's first choice to run the pentagon could change or has been widely reported that donald trump has

changed his mind and tapped one of his alternates like florida governor ron desantis according to four sources trump is already in, quote, advanced talks with about taking the job. so far hegseth's attempt to win over key senate republicans is not going very well. case in point as we showed you joni ernst, who is the first female combat veteran elected to the senate and a vocal advocate for survivors of military sexual trauma. here's more of what she had to say after meeting with hegseth yesterday. >> it was a very frank and thorough discussion. >> will you support mr. hegseth's nomination? >> it was a frank and thorough conversation. >> did he ask for your vote specifically? >> keep walking. >> thank you. >> when you met you said he brought up some of the allegations against him. did pete hegseth -- >> it was a very thorough conversation. >> and also frank. >> any concerns? >> keep walking.

>> guys, need a pathway. >> frank and thorough conversation. as politico reports a no from senator joni ernst may be enough to end hegseth's bid altogether. we'll keep watching her. quote, when it comes to pete hegseth's bid to be the next pentagon chief each senator gets a vote. one vote matters more than the others. hegseth can afford to lose only three republican votes in the senate before his nomination would fall apart. assuming democrats remain unanimously opposed. it is unclear how many others would take her cue but her status as the senate's first female combat veteran and track record on the issue of military sexual assault gives her added influence and credibility. you have to hand it to hegseth. he says he's still going for it full steam ahead. >> do you feel like you're making progress in these meetings? >> great meetings.

appreciate the process. senators have 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 donald trump -- president trump has asked me sgloods is there any circumstance you would withdraw from this 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. >> we know donald trump supports people like pete hegseth in these situations 100% of the time right up until he does not at all. shortly before we came on the air pete hegseth emerged from his meetings with senate republicans on capitol hill and here is more of what he had to say. >> i'm a different man than i was years ago. that's a redemption story that i think a lot of americans appreciate. i will answer all of these senators' questions. this will not be a process tried in the media. i don't answer to any one of in

this group not to that camera at all. i answer to president trump who received 76 million votes on behalf and a mandate for change. >> pete hegseth in his own words on a redemption tour. that's where we start today with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. at the table nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard and strategist and professor at columbia university, basil michael here, former republican congressman david jolly is here. vaughn hillyard, there are a lot of things about pete hegseth that trump likes. the tv persona being one of them. i'm guessing the toxic male aura another one of them. there is many things he doesn't like. the accounts as recently as one month ago from our nbc news colleagues reporting from ten sources, current and former employees at fox news about him

being drunk and smelling of alcohol until moments before he went on the air. >> that's something donald trump doesn't like, and i think that this is a conversation that should be around donald trump's judgment. let's be clear. this isn't about pete hegseth to a degree. this is about donald trump making decisions from his gut in hayes without consultation and fbi background checks. donald trump feels like he won this election and the american people told him he should proceed with the band of brothers who he believes he can best run this administration through. that's exactly what donald trump did in those first two weeks filling out the cabinet with pete hegseth, with very little outside counsel and frankly it was in that 48 leading up to the decision to nominate pete hegseth that i was having conversations with sources, colleagues of ours here at nbc news, were as well, and pete hegseth's name was nowhere to be seen. it was a surprise announcement when he turned to him, because

nobody had anticipated that, and now donald trump is the one bearing the consequences of his judgment and his hayes in which he made that decision. >> what's interesting is that donald trump described his -- to the degree he had a guiding philosophy in 2016 for picking a cabinet as choosing, quote, all the best people. that's not anything he's said about any of these people. and he does seem to be for this, in your words, band of brothers until he's not. we haven't heard matt gaetz -- i mean his only job today is as a cameo offering. he's for people until he isn't. i wonder what you sense as sort of someone who knows trump and the push and pull is, if you have any sense of what trajectory this nomination is on? >> this is also to kind of answer your question, nicole, is oftentimes i've been having

conversations around who comes next and who comes in year three and four of the trump administration. because as you said, this is not 2017. donald trump, the pool of people he has to choose from is very, very small because he is looking for people that are loyal, that he has full faith and confidence, will do whatever he says that he wants them to do. in the case of pete hegseth, what he wants to see the military do. and then you also are looking for people that he respects. that's also a small pool of people. and people that is sort of you could justify to a certain extent qualified. not looking for experts. nothing against matt whitaker, but no experience to be the am dor to nato and brooke rollins to be the secretary of agriculture, linda mcmahon to be the secretary of education, that's even low on the list. for him, people that are loyal, and he respects is a very small pool of people. when you look at the backup

alternatives to pete hegseth those are people, ron desantis, joni ernst, bill haggerty that don't necessarily fit that mold. that's my question if he doesn't get pete hegseth who does he turn to and turn to in year three and four because we've seen a history of secretaries through his first administration leave within a year or two. >> i mean, david jolly, there is something fascinating about the depth of pete hegseth's sort of scandal and the scandal-driven coverage has blotted out the extremism coverage and courtney kube was on the air a couple days ago when the two nbc news stories broke one with ten sources talking about his drunkenness and drinking at fox news. the other was about the six senators being uncomfortable with his nomination, which is, obviously, too many senators to vote no for him to get through, and she made this point that she thought having covered every

nominee and candidate to be secretary of defense since rumsfeld, she thought we would be covering the things that made him extreme at a policy level. i wonder your thoughts about how we're three weeks in and already proving that we as a media are having a hard time chewing and walking gum. >> because i think donald trump is throwing two problems at us with each nomination. matt gaetz is a perfect example. there was the credible accusations of sexual misconduct as well as the complete lack of experience, but then in the other lane there was the what would he do as attorney general if would he prosecute the enemy's list and so forth. so gaetz is out. bondi is in. all the personal fitness questions are largely set aside. a question about at $25,000 check from donald trump that will come up. but now it isolates the question of donald trump's viewpoint of the department of justice. i think we're sitting on a similar spot with pete hegseth. there are all the questions, one, of a true lack of experience to run the department of defense, personal scandals

with him, one of the problems, the other problem is what are the policy positions that he would bring as secretary of defense. i think this is where he's going to run into a second brick wall with joni ernst because the ideas that he has around women serving in combat, in the military, hegseth's idea of ending wokeness and dei what does that mean for a diverse fighting force? look, i think it's kind of obvious this may or may not happen but the leading theory seems to be that hegseth is a dead man walking. the only reason he's doing the meetings is because he can't cancel these, trump can't cancel the meetings because the whole thing is following apart. hegseth is in this spot he has to go to meetings that mean nothing while he's waiting for the music to start for his own funeral. rightly, donald trump would be now lining up an alternative. if you look at the gaetz withdraw it was four or five hours to have the bondi announcement on the heels of that. they can't have hegseth withdraw

without desantis or ernst or somebody else. it will be someone who sails through nomination like bondi did to gaetz. >> our challenges in covering all the things wrong with hegseth, new reporting in the "new york times," david jolly, this is about his christian extremism, quote, before trump picked him to lead the department of defense, pete hegseth spoke often about a medieval military campaign that he saw as a model for today. the crusades in which christian warriors from western europe embarked on ruthless missions to rest control of jerusalem and other areas under muslim rule. as hegseth embraced a brand of christianity in recent years, he wrote that people who enjoy the benefits of western krifbization should thank a crusader. in his book hegseth offered a nod to the prospect of future violence, quote, our american

crusade is not about literal swords and fight not with guns yet. end quote. >> yeah. i think there's something really intriguing about this first round of cabinet picks, if people are paying attention anymore, should really matter, which is these first round of cabinet picks really expressed the true ethos of donald trump. in 2017, he picked people that were going to be leaders. tillerson, mattis and others, and we were figuring out how will donald trump govern even though we had strong clues from the campaign. now your a 're getting pure don trump from tulsi gabbard and matt gaetz and others on down. i would tell you the silver lining in a lot of these nominees with scandal having to withdraw and we end up with bondi and desantis and others, not that they bring any less radical ideas about their government, but it is now we get to isolate and focus in on their views of the department of

defense, their views of the department of justice, their views on dni. now having nominees that aren't scandal plagued because of allegations of misconduct or alcohol abuse or down the list those are a distraction going into a nomination hearing. when we focus on the role of governing under donald trump let's get to the scary parts of the next four years. i think there's benefit to the national conversation of seeing the second round of nominees like bondi, desantis, and others. not that they're less threatening to democracy in their views, but we get to have a conversation about the raw danger that we might be facing under a donald trump administration. >> interesting point about the distill, distillation of trump 2.0 something you were able to cover on the campaign trail in the reflection of this version of om his supporters. something this first sort of vomiting out of his impulses on appointments without -- i mean,

to their admission without any vetting, without any process. it does give us this purest form of what retribution, i am your retribution meant. there is more new reporting i want to share with our viewers in "the new york times," quote, pete hegseth's troubles at work raise questions about leadership. at fox news the network's human resources department looked into hegseth's conduct at the "fox and friends" christmas party in 2016 and discussed it with him. according to a person with intimate knowledge who spoke anonymously the following december hegseth got so drunk at a wedding of a fox news producer he struggled to stand upright in a men's bathroom according two people who declined to be named for fear of retribution. friends asked a producer who was there to get hegseth a ride home so he could make it to the set by 6:00 a.m. they said. i would just introduce this other bit of reporting from bob

woodward's book "war" about the last person or the first person to have this job under trump, former secretary of defense james mattis, so worried that trump would have a nuclear war with north korea that he slept in gym clothes ready in an emergency to join a secure call to deal with the threat. trump -- again, not about mattis but how far trump has traveled from someone who took the responsibility seriously he slept dressed so that he wouldn't have to waste precious time getting dressed for a secure teleconference to someone who has to be propped up in the men's bathroom and driven around so that they can make it to their tv job. >> that's why right after his name was initially mentioned, a guy that lives near me, marine, no longer on active duty, was very clear, he said i know this guy, i know people in -- that are still serving, that have opinions of him. they don't like him. he is not going to be good. not going to be good for women, for people of color, and we've seen that play out.

i remember when i was here maybe it was the last time i was here, and we were talking about rfk jr., there was a moment where donald trump in the same room at some kind of event said pointed to him and said, man, you're popular, but you don't need to get that popular. that is everything you need to know about his psyche. he doesn't want to have to keep defending the people he's appointing. >> right. >> what he wants to do is be the most popular person the a room, everybody talk about him and no one he's appointing. i don't think this is going to go far. i do think this nomination is in jeopardy for exactly that purpose. even if for nothing else, that might weigh in as well, but if for nothing else he doesn't want to have to be talking about these folks. i would add this piece, we haven't talked about the fact that the heritage foundation has a plan in place, and if donald trump isn't the person specifically that's going to execute that plan the senators are, and these appointees are, and so they actually have a vested interest in having

serious -- more serious people in these positions because they need to get something done, and i imagine that if it's not heritage or other folks that are talking to the senators and saying look, we have this 180-day plan can't do it for a guy who is not going to be there 180 days, maybe not even 100. if you have to stand up do it now. it's something we're not used to. we're used to seeing lindsey graham defending donald trump consistently. we're not used to seeing a lot of senators stand up to him. even as little as they are right now. but, you know, that's where we are. that's the challenge. >> let me press back on that a little bit. i mean, is it because they've suddenly grown a spine. >> no. >> or because they're so bad they have to. >> not because they've grown a spine. these folks are really bad. ernst is up in 2026 if i remember correctly and look, they realize they have to go back to the face voters many more times than donald trump

will have to -- >> and sooner. >> and sooner. they've got to find a way to defend themselves. i don't think it's for the people. it's for them. >> always for them. all right. i need you to stick around. when we come back we will be joined by someone who has firsthand knowledge about donald trump's deeply held belief and disgust with excessive drinking and alcohol abuse which could factor into how he decides how to proceed with pete hegseth. it's a member of donald trump's own family, fred trump will be here. police are still looking for the man who shot a health insurance executive in new york city yesterday releasing new photos and trying to piece together the evidence left at the scene. the shell casings of his bullets with cryptic writing inscribed on them. later in the broadcast the president-elect and his billionaire cabinet how they're coming to washington looking to cut costs through the federal government that no one seems to know exactly how just yet.

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i went home on leave and there wasn't a single moment, especially at night, where i didn't replay every single aspect of the fire fight and every single decision that i made. i'd look around at 10:00 and say, what am i going to do today? how about i drink some beers, go have lunch and have beers, meet my buddies and have beers, one beer leads to many to self-medication to i earned

this. don't tell me i can't. >> that's pete hegseth in his own words talking about his relationship with alcohol that. that interview from august of 2021. joining you are coverage donald trump's nephew the author of "all in the family the trumps and how we got this way." fred trump is back. how you doing? >> just great. >> been about a year since november -- >> are you surprised? >> i was surprised it was called that fast. i held out hope as a democrat that kamala harris would have pulled it out. she didn't. many reasons that we're all grasping with and everybody has their opinion. >> yeah. >> but it's -- i'm still trying to grasp it. >> do you think there's anything about winning and also winning the popular vote which seemed to really irk donald trump the

first time that wouldn't -- i feel stupid asking this question -- that would change any of the menacing ways he ran? >> no. in his mind he has the mandate. we've heard it multiple times now, more than multiple times from him and from the republican party. he won. again, what can we do? democrats didn't pull it out. maybe we'll learn eventually from the mistakes, if you will, that were made. i have my opinions. you know, i -- as you well know, i am an advocate for the disabled. i tried desperately to get the harris campaign focused on that. a huge voting block. kamala harris not once used the word disabled. so that's a group of people that should have been for lack of a better word targeted and i was ready to do that and others.

we have to create a new coalition. i am a firm believer we need to get back to the grassroots. people will complain donald when to the bronx, basil, and i talked about this, he went to the bronx and won that vote. >> i think autopsies are important. one of the challenges, though, even to take your example and every campaign should be speaking about to and for and with on and off the disabled but donald trump mocks them. >> yes. i'm sorry for that. first interview i gave, donald trump did invite to have a meeting with a great group of advocates called equally alive. i went in the oval office. it went horribly bad. i said in that interview

november 6th, okay, we have a very tenuous relationship if we have a relationship at all. this is his opportunity in my mind to say i understand how important this is. i know we're going to be getting into this. but with alcoholism, and i grew up with an alcoholic father since i was a baby. i know what it is. and you can't just say, i'm going to stop drinking today. it doesn't work. i know people who are on the forefront of the opioid crisis and addiction with alcohol. let's meet, donald, and solve a problem or try to solve a problem, like with disabilities. >> what do you think donald trump is thinking about pete hegseth as these revelations and stories of public drunkenness and new reporting in the "new york times" i read from is about fox colleagues having to, quote,

help him stand upright in a men's bathroom and then, quote, get him a ride home so he could make it to set by 6:00 a.m.? >> i think donald trump's silence speaks a lot about this. not to sound trite, but having that history with my father and my family, there was no support from my family. and i've learned over the years that's what it really takes. not mocking somebody, not saying you're a loser, buck up and get better, it's not that simple. so i don't know if donald has it in him -- i wish he did -- maybe this is not the right thing to throw this guy into for personal reasons. >> knowing what you know about the disease of alcoholism, what do you think of having someone who in the telling of his

colleagues seems to struggle with his own consumption of alcohol as the secretary of defense? >> obviously this is a very deeply personal issue for me. so my first thought was going back, my father was a pilot for twa in the early 1960s. he lost that job because of alcohol. i get it. i've never questioned that. that was the right decision by the company. you're not flying 200 people at 500 miles an hour. i've heard hegseth say oh, i'm going to stop drinking if i become secretary of defense. as i said before, is it that simple? if it was that simple then everybody that wanted to stop drinking would stop drinking. as a young kid, i remember when i would stay with my father seeing bottles of vodka and i would pour them down the drain. that's a terrible way to grow up. it's a dangerous thing to have a

guy like that running the largest bureaucracy maybe on the planet. i think it's just too dangerous. >> do you think the fact that it's dangerous or the fact that donald trump doesn't understand it and doesn't like it, would be the explanation if he separates himself an abandons hegseth? >> i think he eventually will toss him out. let me start with this. i -- if anybody thought this wasn't going to happen, just having these yahoo!s put in place, it is, as basil, and i were talking about in the green room, i remember donald trump in 2016, donald trump, he's a lunatic, he's terrible, he'll resource. i think we're going through that moment right now. and he has none of those guardrails as we've said so many times. when i was in the oval office

one time i met general kelly. disagree with him on almost every policy but when you were in the presence of this guy that's something. he has what it -- [ inaudible ] secretary of defense. he has what it takes. if pete hegseth came up to me i would say not so much. >> yeah. can i ask you to stay through a break. >> of course. >> we'll all be right back. >> we'll all be right back you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job on indeed, it's easier for talented candidates to find it. which makes it easier for you to hire them. visit indeed.com/hire hey, grab more delectables. you know, that lickable cat for youtreat?re them. de-lick-able delectables? yes, just hurry. hmm. it must be delicious. delectables lickable treat. ♪ ♪ have you always had trouble with your weight? same. discover the power of wegovy®.

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his name was fred, fred trump, and he had a problem with alcohol. he got addicted to it. they say alcohol is tougher than drugs to get off of. i was amazed because he -- he had so much going and everything going. i think he probably it happened in college at a fraternity maybe -- i don't know. somewhere along the line it happened. all of a sudden, you know, this is not unique, this is a very common story, unfortunately, but -- and then the family would see it and start to notice it, and it didn't get better. >> i mean, i want to -- is that hard to watch? >> it's always hard to watch. yeah. sure. for anybody who has that situation in their life. you know, addiction messes up families, it messes up friendships. it can end careers.

it's -- it's a brutal thing. as he said, you know, it's not just alcohol. it's pills, it's whatever addiction there is. this one, obviously, hit me directly. >> vaughn, that interview, i remember covering it at the time i think you came on and we talked about it, it wasn't the first time he talked about fred trump, but it's interesting to go back and watch it in light of the hegseth nomination. i wonder if where you think he's tracking the sixth nose on hegseth being related to this issue or chaux it up to someone getting bad press? >> i think that's a good question and my biggest question is to what extent is donald trump interested in that answer? we don't have any reporting he is placing any phone calls to people like joni ernst. she was at mar-a-lago one week ago shortly after he was first nominated, but my question for donald trump and his transition team is, to what extent is he

actually trying to get that answer. and -- because in the case of joni ernst, right, she's prime and ready to take on the role of d.o.d. chief herself, and yet, there's a hesitancy for donald trump clearly to make that decision and pull the plug on pete hegseth because he finds pete hegseth to be loyal and because he finds him as somebody who is going to get rid of the woke generals like he promised or is there also a sympathetic part of donald trump where he is seeing somebody who is pledging to him he has right sized his own ship in his life, is going to stop drinking and does he believe him and seek to grant him that opportunity? that is a question that donald trump has to answer to and we don't yet. >> fred trump is laughing. >> i appreciate what you're saying. this is not on the job training. i'm going to stop drinking. i'm taking over how many people are in the military. hundreds of thousands maybe.

$800 billion budget. pressure? i mean, pressure is one thing that brings on drinking. and i wish him the best. i certainly appreciate his service. none of that matters. we have to respect that. but, you know, lives could be in danger. >> yeah. i mean i -- david jolly, it's such a complicated thing to talk about someone's life, i made the decision yesterday not to air pete hegseth's mother's direct plea to donald trump on fox news because it felt somewhere along the line exploitive, and i won't accuse anyone of exploiting her but it felt exploitive. on the other hand there is a 22-page police report about an allegation of sexual assault and a woman who had claims to have had sex with pete hegseth who went to the hospital and took a rape test, subjected to a rape kit.

this is someone whose flaws and arguments for a lack of fitness, again we're not talking about the democrats' effort to block the nomination, six senate republicans, who in nine years have nodded along to grab them between the legs, good people on both sides, i believe putin not my intelligence agency, all of the outrageous things but they have seen something in matt gaetz and pete hegseth that has given them pause. to what do you owe that phenomena? >> one, the gravity of the position. the department of defense, as fred said, just as pete hegseth may not want to go through this confirmation hearing, republican senators probably don't either. we remember the breath cavanaugh hearing and anybody can be called to testify in a hegseth hearing. will this be about credibility allegations of sexual allegations or alcohol abuse or

about his view of the department of the defense? it will be all of that. every republican senator on the hill, not just six r hoping that donald trump chooses somebody else. perhaps the greatest contribution of this episode, this has been an incredible conversation at the table, if the nation is reminded about the impact of alcohol abuse and the disorder, the disease and the sickness of alcohol abuse, this could be an important conversation to have. we don't know pete hegseth's personal journey with kwhol, but we know our own and to the extent we have a conversation about how it can be debilitating and can have an impact on a family, this is a wonderful conversation. i think fred's contribution at the table should be heard by everybody. there is a question of who leads the department of defense. i think republican senators and democrats will end up with the right choice. i don't think it will be pete hegseth. national conversation around respecting women or around sexual violence, the conversation around the abuse

and use of alcohol that leads into this week is an important moment for the country. >> i mean, just to build on what david jolly is saying, it's an important moment to recognize that the men and women who have served especially in combat are owed a nuanced and in-depth look, right, at the full account of their contributions and their failings, and i haven't seen much coverage at all, in right wing media, where most of the trump coalition consumes their information. >> i mean david makes a fantastic point. thank you for all you said. we've had this conversation around opioid addiction. we didn't have this conversation around crack addiction back in the day. this is a moment in time to kind of put our arms around this. i just can't help but think that we have elon musk and vivek ramaswamy talking about how to

cut the federal budget in different places. you know, wasn't that sort of the defund the police argument. let's take money from places we've overspent and put it toward places where we need to actually spend money and have bigger conversations about issues that affect all of us. stop people from going down this path before they start. let's stop criminality before it starts, right. let's put our money and resources into these efforts. so you demonize the people who are making that argument. you're cutting, cutting, cutting, taking people away from civil service because you want to cut, but have we had a real conversation on where that money is going to go? are we actually having a more wholistic conversation around how we deal with some of these real pressing issues that affect every aspect of -- >> and no zero party affiliation. thank you so much for being here. of all the things we call on you to help us understand, this is

one of the toughest, so i really appreciate you being here today. >> pleasure. >> vaughn, thank you for being here. david jolly, thank you. basil sticks around longer with me. up next the latest in the still ongoing manhunt for the alleged shooter of the health insurance ceo yesterday right here in midtown manhattan. quick break. we'll be right back. carl: what's up, carl nation! it's your #1 broker with the best full-service wealth management skills in the biz. tech asst: actually i'm seeing something from schwab. (uh-oh) producer : yeah, schwab lets you invest and trade on your own. and if you want they can even manage it for you.

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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. only $0.63 a day. your monthly support will make you part of the movement to protect the rights of all people, including the fundamental right to vote. states are passing laws that would suppress the right to vote. we are going backwards. but the aclu can't do this important work without the support of people like you. you can help ensure liberty and justice for all and make sure that every vote is counted. so please call the aclu now

or go to my aclu.org and join us. when you use your credit card, you'll receive this special we the people t-shirt and much more. to show you're a part of the movement to protect the rights guaranteed to all of us by the us constitution. we protect everyone's rights, the freedom of religion, the freedom of expression, racial justice, lgbtq rights, the rights of the disabled. we are here for everyone. it is more important than ever to take a stand. so please join us today. because we the people means all the people, including you. so call now or go online to my aclu.org to become a guardian of liberty. the manhunt for the gunman in yesterday's fatal shooting of

unitedhealthcare ceo brian thompson is still under way. the shooting happened as thompson was entering a hotel early thursday morning where he was -- early yesterday morning set to speak at the investors conference. nypd has yet to identify the suspect or motive but there are a number of new developments today that could be key clues in the nypd investigation. there are brand new pictures of the suspect showing him unmasked for the first time at a hostile on manhattan's upper west side. police are reportedly trying to determine if the suspect used a fake i.d. and paid with cash at that hostile. we're learning that just before the shooting the suspect visited a starbucks where he purchased a number of items that have been recovered by police. there are new details about what was left at the scene of the murder. shell casings with the messages defend, deny, and depose. that's according to a senior new york city law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. let's bring into our conversation nbc news national law enforcement and intelligence

correspondent tom winter. tom, let's start with this is your reporting on the messages on the kayings. what does that mean? >> sure. i think that's going to be a big question. i caution people, you know, and i've been doing this long enough and talked to enough detectives over the course of my career and apologize for being a little out of breath, thank got i'm in the seat -- >> we should tell people what happened -- >> in such high demand, left one studio and ran down to ours. >> i'm hopeful nbc has me on the unlimited limits plan. having talked to detectives in the past we have to caution that somebody can leave behind writings, leave behind information as way to misguide where investigators are going or to give them a false motive or false location. certainly that could be in play. it could be a play that this person is trying to send a message and very clearly what we saw this shooting is sending some sort of a message. whether it's a message -- no

message could make sense of killing somebody who has a wife and two kids, but something targeted at this company or person so there's a motive that you could see could line up even if it's not one that we would -- could possibly agree with or something that is completely far out there that just doesn't make sense to anybody except for the person that has done this. that's a big question. i think it certainly indicates to a lot of people that have looked at this -- not people necessarily directsly involved in the investigation -- this person is trying to send a message if it is what they were trying to do here. that's where that is as far as the writing on the ammunition. the fact that they have a clear face of this person, so beneficial. would have been beneficial maybe five, ten, 15 years ago just to get this out in the public, people are going to be calling in. i know this person. hey, this person told me they were headed to new york. they were a relative. i can send you a picture. but in this day and age with the

facial recognition technology the nypd has, they can now put this into a computer system they have called the domain awareness system and they can try to match it up to all sorts of images and video from all major grand central station, the airports possibly, talking about the tractions in new york city, the nypd cameras and say do we see this face anywhere else in the city and that could potentially be helpful as far as getting an identity, track of this person where they came from, and when they entered new york city if they were from out of town. >> to be clear the images we're seeing were taken at a hostile where he stayed. tell us about what we know now that we didn't know 24 hours ago. >> yesterday when we were here speaking about this we had a masked photo. this photo was developed after air time last night. they were able to at least get to the hostile and start to look at this and look at the video

from there. this is where he had been staying. apparently had some other roommates as well. we talked with eyewitnesses, our station wnbc at new york reporting with my colleague jonathan, we heard that law enforcement and the nypd detective bureau looking into whether or not this individual had a fake identification and if he paid for the room with cash, shows planning that he had those things on him, and then the intense desire, obviously, to conceal his identity. >> can we sneak in a break and keep you over and let you catch your breath a little bit. we'll be right back. your breath a little bit we'll be right back. now is the time to go back in time. and shine a light on the family journey that led to you. detailed dna results. inspiring family history memberships. now's the time to save at ancestry.

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in all of my years of law enforcement, i have never seen a silencer before and so that was a really something that was shocking to us all and so we are on the right path and we believe we're going to apprehend this person. >> you mentioned yesterday this is the new nypd police commissioner's first couple weeks on the job but she has a long history with a lot of things you've talked about, being deployed in this investigation. can you talk about that? >> you talk to some of the retired members of the nypd who are there when now commissioner jessica tisch was really involved in bringing the organization into its modern era from a technological standpoint, one of the person who say she took us out of the stone age,

coming together and putting together systems that can interact with each other and now the shoe leather work is critical when putting together a case like this with the detective bureau but the idea you can see an image -- if you're a detective and say that's our guy at this starbucks, you can send that photo immediately around to everybody else and say this is what he was wearing at that time or this is the -- these are the types of purchases he made and then you go from storefront to storefront, to hotel to hotel, restaurant to restaurant who has the video and track him along the way. that's how they were able to come up with the water bottle and wrappers they found. it's that type of technology and information sharing. we see it everywhere. tisch is responsible for that. >> we'll stay on it. tom winter, basil michael. up next, d.o.g.e., i think that's how you say it, leaders on the hill looking to slash

government spending. we'll look at that and much more when the next hour of deadline starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. i've been worn by celebrities, athletes, and world leaders. but i've always felt most comfortable up here, with the folks that made me who i am. i'm right at home, out here on the land. and i'm in my lane on the shoulder of the interstate. because this is where i come from. i've been showing up here for nearly 200 years. and i can't wait to see what's next. hats off to the future.

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i want to emphasize the individual federal employees are mostly not bad people because most are not and to the contrary most to our federal employees are doing what they do because they believe they serve their country and i respect that. i hope it will be good for many of the individuals who may make a transition from government service back to the private sector. >> here we go. it is 5:00 in new york and the united states federal government is the country's largest employer with more than 2 million workers and what you just heard was one of the two men donald trump has tapped to run his newly created department of government efficiency or doge wanting to cut down and significantly cut

back and reduce the federal workforce and in doing so trump believes the cuts -- or vivek ramaswamy will believe that it will be beneficial to the government. that was vivek ramaswamy, leading doge along with the world's richest man, elon musk . the two made a trip to capitol hill today and shared ideas with republican lawmakers about how they want to reform in/the federal government. while the idea of improving a system that doesn't work or is wasteful is a good one. most people feel it shouldn't come at the cost of the americans benefits or livelihoods and one of the maine goals of doge's cost- cutting. and in the outline of what they plan to do, they say this.

it will help and federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion plus an annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by congress are being used in ways that congress never intended. from $535 million a year to the corporation for public broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like planned parenthood. also, among those expenditures not authorized by congress are things like veterans medical benefits and head start, a program that provides early childhood education to low income americans, students. amid the backdrop of all of us the fact that elon musk and vivek ramaswamy are billionaires, two of the many billionaires donald trump is surrounding himself with as he assembles his new cabinet and other high-ranking positions. his pick to head the treasury department is set for secretary

of commerce. and mcmahon is his pick to lead the department of education and his choice for ambassadors to france and the uk are charles kushner and warren stevens. steve wycoff as special envoy to the middle east and kelly loeffler as small business administrator and all of them have one thing in common at least. they are billionaires with a b. we begin our our with our favorite friends and experts, our political analyst tim miller and a former rnc spokesman and now will host of the bulwark podcast and also joining us as a correspondent for bbc studios and then the cnbc senior washington correspondent who interviewed vivek ramaswamy yesterday. we thought with you -- start with you. your thoughts? >> they are envisioning a total transformation of the federal

government top to bottom and they will look at every possible couch for change in the federal government and the question is whether they can do it. the first problem they have is one of authority. they are an outside commission and it's a souped-up blue ribbon commission. we have seen those before trying to tackle spending. the other thing is the scale. they talked about $2 trillion worth of cuts out of a $6 trillion budget and you can't really do that without cutting what they call all of the discretionary spending which is everything the federal government does including the pentagon and then maybe touching some of the social security and medicare and medicaid, things that trump said he didn't want to touch and when i asked vivek ramaswamy yesterday for example of some big ticket items, north of $1 billion he would like to cut, he didn't offer examples. i asked him yesterday what trump has given him is guidance for things he would like to cut and he didn't offer any

examples. they are at a very preliminary stage but ringing the optimism and they are certainly very smart guys. >> tim miller, what are you watching in this endeavor? >> i am watching you trying to pronounce doge. >> yes. i speak for myself what i am and i am not. >> i am not exactly sure what the differences between a souped-up ribbon commission and a blue ribbon commission like the cyber truck of blue ribbon commissions. i don't know. we will see what they can do. neither of them have dc experience. the republicans have an astonishingly narrow house majority and there is a house seat that flipped to the democrats a few days ago as kind of a last one outstanding and now they have a 220-115 house majority and even more narrow than before and three of the members will be gone for a while because trump appointed

them to various positions so the government also. we all watched the republican house clown show during the kevin mccarthy saga and all the votes and they couldn't even vote on a leader and these guys can't vote on what to name the post office so you will get every single one on board to agree with these draconian cuts? we will see. to me, i think it is a lot of show but we may end up with something pretty similar with what you saw where they both a few miles of the wall and called it a victory but maybe a few easy things and call it a win and pretend like elon musk used his great power to overhaul the entire federal government and i think that is one possible option in the most likely but the second most likely option is they do start cutting real services to poor

people because that is where a lot of the money is going and those of the big ticket items he was referencing and i think there would be a lot of support with that in the republican conference despite the fact they claim to be the working- class party and i think cuts to medicaid and headstart you mentioned could be on the chopping block and maybe some more serious threats than some of the goofy stuff they were talking about with doge. >> i do appreciate your calling me out on my pronunciation challenges. i do want to follow up with you and the idea of cutting government waste, and 100% of the public's for that and nobody is for government waste, absolutely nobody and in the history of polling around policy and political questions nobody has ever said, yes, keep that waste. but the snag is even donald trump when asked in interviews with friendly folks that he almost exclusively does with interviews refuses to say one thing he would cut. as smart as these gentlemen are, what is your sense of what mission they go in trying to

cut? >> i looked up obscure government spending programs that have people haven't managed and it's money for hamster fights at northwestern university and money has gone on giving quails cocaine to see what the effects of addiction might be so, yes, there are odd programs which are tiny amounts in terms of the proportion of money that is being spent by the us government and as anyone in previous administrations has tried to do is cut ever meant spending and realize it's one thing to say you will do it in one thing to get that extraordinary reception that we saw on capitol hill and that's a fair word to describe that with elon musk walking around with his toddler and i don't know why that was happening but

maybe it is part of the show of this but when you try to cut things, those members of congress he was meeting who were so welcoming of them today will suddenly turn around and say that is a government program that my voters care about and they don't want cuts to the number of people who are monitoring air traffic control or the number of people at airports trying to check your bags at security because that causes them a hassle and anything that people try to cut there is a constituency and that is why it is so difficult to cut. i think maybe they will break what has been gridlocked what has been up until now finding ways to cut serious amounts of money but any time washington says any time you want something not to happen you create a commission and this feels increasingly like one of those commission reports that will sit on a shelf and gather dust. >> let me play some of what vivek ramaswamy said he will cut. this is from a podcast in september. >> 75% headcount reduction across the board in the federal bureaucracy and send them home packing and shutdown agencies that shouldn't exist, rescind every unconstitutional

regulation that congress never passed and true self governing democracy it should be the representatives that make the laws and the rules and not be elected bureaucrats. >> is there a single agency they can aim for which they plan to resume -- reduce 75% headcount? >> no. i asked him this yesterday to give me an example of what he would cut and he wouldn't name a specific thing. that may be because he isn't ready to do that yet or making enemies in washington on day one but it is possible for them to cut large numbers of federal employees and a lot of people say wait a second what about civil service protections that federal employees have so the federal government doesn't get politicized and that's an anticorruption effort that goes back generations and dozen that protect federal workers? it doesn't necessarily if you do what is called a reduction in force and you chop off huge francis -- branches and say we

and this entire operation of the federal government and in that case you can get around it. there are ways through the executive branch but the problem they have is they are not the executive branch but an outside commission and they will recommend this to trump and he will either do it or not and fight with congress to get it done in the first trump administration, remember, they didn't do a whole lot to cut spending and the acting chief of staff admitted to me at the end of his first term in the first trump administration that there was no political constituency in washington despite the rhetoric for spending cuts and when parties get in power they like to spend money because they control where the money goes which is just a political reality that these guys are up against. >> can you give me an example of what are some chunks of the government you can eliminate? >> you could say take anything or look to the department of homeland security and say any

piece of the department of homeland security we just don't want them doing that operation. we don't want them running this particular organization. entire subsections of the department you could say we don't want that anymore. now vivek ramaswamy told me yesterday he feels they could do that through executive authority and don't need congress and they would get into a constitutional issue and there could be people on the appropriations committee and charges spending the money will say, wait a second, you need a law to do that and come to us and you can't do that through executive authority so this will be litigated in the courts and they set themselves an expiration date of 2026. this may outlast that date and outlast all of our lifetimes. >> tim, let me show you how the director of national intelligence today answer the question about what would happen and this is a good example and you could take

something from the intelligence agency and cut it and here is her explaining what would happen if you did that inside the intelligence agency for example. >> if we are not connect the dots, we are not bringing intelligence together, then we may actually miss the next 9/11 and we will have a situation where we don't see what the threat picture is or provide the indication warning needed or be as successful at counting the national security threats we face today. >> my only point is behind every function you could cut is some reason why it is they are. >> yes. for sure. you listed some of those things like what are some things that republicans always mentioned like the corporation for public broadcasting like they could cut all of that i guess and that could be something you could do through executive order and there could be challenges.

but again, you don't just get to get rid of the woke parts of that or the show you don't like that is too liberal and if you do that then that is cutting sesame street or documentaries or people who turn the channel the see the news hour that they usually watch and then there is backlash and any of that stuff, there will be actual backlash. i am on the list of people we mentioned earlier for cutting government waste and if they had a big reconciliation bill and got things together and said we can trim some of these departments i would be for that and what this is is a clown show between two people that don't really know what they are doing who are smart who are stirring up a lot of dust and there is not a lot of evidence that there will be any real follow-through. >> the other thing is they are billionaires so in terms of having two billionaires go through and decide what

government agency is essential to people who aren't billionaires or ultimately close, it feels like another thing we should not just glide by is the new norm. >> for sure. and then how out of touch can you be? some of these people whose jobs we will take away from them, they will do better or maybe we will teach them how to code or give them a job at tesla and who knows what their plan is. that is not how life works. once people lose jobs, people get upset and a big part of trump's victory is people were upset about the economy and there are plenty of people on board for the whole maga thing but a whole subset of people who were upset about prices and if they start losing jobs and things get disrupted, they will be upset again and on the billionaire side of this, if you are a billionaire in america, you actually had a 1%

chance to get appointed by donald trump to his cabinet in the first two terms already and that is how few billionaires there are. it is much more likely if you were a billionaire that if you are put in his cabinet then some other things of that nature. so i think it shows how narrow these ban of people are he has around them. >> the interesting thing it's this total mask off. it is in about the plumber, joe the plumber anymore, or bringing jobs back or factory jobs back. it is about the american oligarchy and the billionaires who have benefited in this country who have reached incredible levels of success taking over the government and flashing it to bits. >> yes. it is possible there are union representatives advising donald trump as well and we are not hearing a huge amount of them. i think that gets to the question of what this is about. is it to reduce the wokeness or

spending or produce regulations which obviously would then benefit a lot of the billionaires who are advising donald trump at the moment. it is possible that is what it is for. i don't think it is really to reduce the number of people employed by the federal government because that has not gone up a huge amount since reagan and only 12% of the total budget anyway. so what is it for? what is it really for? i think elon musk said a lot of this is about regulation and cutting it around environmental regulations or safety regulations and that kind of thing would benefit elon musk and a lot of the other billionaires they were advising . i think this is something that is really worth watching and we talked a lot about democracy and autocracy on this program and i think watching the rise of billionaires and potentially of corruption around billionaires and

government contracts is something we have to keep a close eye on in the second administration. >> in fact it's something if you ask and i have to take a break but i will play this on the other side but there is much more to get to as elon musk and vivek ramaswamy get ready to take the helm of this effort like a hatchet to the federal government and the workforce. jasmine crockett will join the conversation and also had the biden white house discussing the idea of preempt him -- preemptive pardons for the individuals on the incoming administration very public enemies list and what that looks like and whether anybody on that list would accept a pardon. that is later in the hour. we come back after a quick break. don't go anywhere.

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joining our conversation is congresswoman jasmine crockett, democrat of texas and tim and caddie and eamon are still with us. i saw that jared moscowitz is the first democrat to join the house. what is your openness to both the idea of the stated mission of the elon musk vivek ramaswamy caucus or committee to cut government spending and the obvious vagueness of where exactly they will target those cuts? >> listen, god bless jared moscowitz and he is definitely

someone. here is the deal. i am all for making sure that we are spending taxpayer dollars in a very responsible way and the way we could define responsible could be different. we know that vivek ramaswamy wants to cut 75% of the federal workforce. i don't think that is responsible. here is the reality. we have nothing but billionaires who have been appointed to hopefully make the decisions for us every day working families and i don't know how that will work out but we will see. but why is it we are having a conversation about what it takes to bring in more revenue? and what it would look like is these people have now been put into position or have been put up to been in position and maybe they should start paying their fair share and start right there and maybe looking at cuts to pbs are looking at cuts such as snap benefits are

looking to make sure that we cut down on the workforce for social security or maybe even cutting back on social security or maybe we should start with making sure we have more income coming in. i can guarantee that elon musk is a few extra dollars that he could lend to help the country out. >> i mean, i know he sounds like a line in the beer commercial but he is the world's richest man but he has a lot of conflict with the federal government where he has this massive responsibility and this is reporting from the new york times. mr. musks rocket company spacex effectively dictates nasa's rocket launch schedule. the defense department relies on him to get most of the satellites in orbit and his companies were promised him of $3 billion nearly across 100

different contracts with 17 agencies. is entanglements are numerous and adversarial. his companies have been targeted in at least 20 recent investigations or reviews including over the safety of his tesla cars and the environmental damage caused by his rockets. that is reporting in the new york times and i think before this appointment was made. what are your thoughts about him and vivek ramaswamy having this awesome responsibility? >> they are nothing but entanglements. that is what this administration should be called, the administration of entanglements. this doesn't just start with these two rich guys that of absolutely benefited from federal contracts but it also starts with the president-elect of the united states. we know that he has too many entanglements. we know that the oversight committee has tried to dig and whether or not and how large the violations caused with donald trump engaging and in his first administration and we also know that almost on the day after his son-in-law left the white house, he was taking

foreign dollars seemingly because of his association with the white house. we have nothing but conflicts. i don't think this administration cares about that. we know the supreme court has empowered them to literally do what they want to. so conflict or not, they are playing fast and loose. unfortunately with the election we just had. it is almost as if the american people don't care because we already knew that donald trump was a fraudster who surrounded himself with a number of criminals which is why he ended up handing down so many pardons to people within his inner circles and it wasn't those people that we know historically have had issues with the criminal justice system because they have been targeted and maybe we needed to give some relief to this around family because we know their sentence was something that was excessive or we know that

unfortunately the communities that have been historically targeted and that is not who donald trump is looking out for but looking out for his inner circle and exactly who he is looking out for now. i would hope and wish the best for this administration because i do love this country, but i am telling you right now i did not have faith in him when he was running the campaign and based on the people he is trying to put in positions, i am having even less faith that this guy cares about us, the regular citizens. >> you tried to get at this issue of conflicts of interest which i try to marc the ways trump 2.0 is different from the first trump presidency and one of them is there isn't even a pretense but there aren't financial benefits to being associated with this administration but let me play your question and answer with vivek ramaswamy . >> i think anybody who this

applies to if anybody is offering recommendations you should always have a skeptical lens to look at what the motivation is for making that recommendation and that's the best advice i would give to the public and be skeptical when somebody is making a recommendation and what you have to do you have regulators who are regularly joining the industry that the regulated and is that a conflict of industry -- interest? absolutely. apply that standard 360 degrees. >> i guess the problem is they aren't applying it in either direction at least as of yet. >> yes. elon musk is he said is a billionaire and he gets a lot of federal contracts and he will be deciding which federal contracts are wasteful and you think will decide his own federal contracts are the one wasteful and we will wait and see but the congresswoman mentions revenue and that's interesting. i do have a story out that posted while we have been on the segment about the tens of thousands of american millionaires with the irs

discovering are simply not filing tax returns at all with the irs in violation of their tax obligations. that is a huge tax dodge and i did mention that story to vivek ramaswamy yesterday when we were talking offstage to gauge his interest in that and he did seem interested in the idea of going after some of those folks and we will see if they embrace the idea of getting more revenue from blatant tax dodgers as the one we talk about right now on cnbc but usually republicans don't like anything that smells like a tax increase so anything that is about tax enforcement may be radioactive on the republican side it out and they may not be able to raise revenue either when it comes down to it. we will see. >> there is some sort of dissonance, right? trump, the first time road this wave of almost like a slice of the bernie coalition is now out of the closet as a billionaire

and these are not even like tech pros but the billionaires club. do you think there are any laws of political gravity that still apply to him on these issues? >> i do. you want to say no like how does he win again. but i always thought this. all the way to 2016 when democrats were asking for advice with the super pac and that campaign with the hilary super pac and do people what gets to stick to him is his decision this hurt real people and it happened in the private sector life and i don't think anybody on the left have done a particularly good job of making that case and if that feels like the distant past now. but in this administration there will be an opportunity to re-up that and it will happen again and billionaires will get good deals and the corruption will be mind-boggling like

nothing compared to the first administration and he has his own bitcoin which is an trackable and we could do hours on the potential corruption out there. i do think it could be political gravity associated with that. the one other thing if we are talking positive for a second is i look at this doge commission and they say there is some easy low hanging fruit and they say $3 billion is going to elon musk's companies and boom, lop off 75% of that right there and that is to billion plus. right there and i think it could be the tip of this sphere on this. >> you have an opportunity to pitch this and apparently since we have this conversation elon musk and vivek ramaswamy have left the capitol and their parting words is they want to meet with democrats next time and would you meet with them? >> i will meet with them but i don't know if they want to meet with me but if they are going

to have this doge commission or whatever it is they are calling it an absolutely want to understand as much about it as i can so i can report back and it's kind of like that time we had a go see the january six at the jail so i do show up to make sure the truth was reported. so absolutely come to see me and let's have a talk so i can make sure and i want to point out something mentioned about the revenue and it's something we talked about in the oversight committee because as i have stated over and over the oversight committee is making sure we are getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse in our governments and one of the things that we talked about is the fact that they continuously defund the irs and we know right now the irs is actually at a record low as it relates to how much money they are getting and i do want to say the amount of money they are getting right now for their employees is around the levels it was in the 1970s.

i argue all the time is we have a few more people in this country so absolutely we shouldn't be at the levels we were at in the 1970s and what we hear consistently from the irs as they go after the little guy and go after the guy making 50, 60 and $70,000 per year and attacking them for not paying taxes and things like that because they don't have the support they need to go after these big guys because they say their taxes are too complicated and they continuously push 2-d fund the irs. >> i think that was trumps mantra. >> and that story -- i hate to interrupt but i was talking about in this story, congresswoman, we are talking about people making $1 million a year or more or $5 million per year or more or simply not filing their tax returns with the irs and a whole lot of reasons presumably why some are doing that in some could be legitimate like sickness and other things but a lot of things going on and it's not

complicated or these esoteric strategies where they send money to ireland and back but they are just not filing returns. that seems to be some low hanging fruit that somebody could go after if they wanted to but the irs hasn't had the funding and the department of justice has no appetite because they are misdemeanors and small potatoes so a lot of guys have gone unpunished for years. >> i was going to say unless your last name is biden then you have an appetite to figure out what has been going on with your taxes even after you paid your taxes and you could maybe face a felony which is something that typically isn't done by the department of justice and i wanted to add that point. >> i am glad you did. thank you, congresswoman, eamon, katty, and tim . i feel

this will be a target rich environment for news of nothing else. when we come back, the dozens of people who find themselves potentially in donald trump's crosshairs, the biden ministration has now reported to be actively considering preemptive pardons and we will bring you that reporting next. . thanks...revere. we really need to keep zicam in the house. only if you want to shorten your cold! when you feel a cold coming, shorten it with zicam (revere: hyah)

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members of the biden administration have 46 days to answer a very simple question, what can i do to protect the

people will donald trump has threatened to attack, prosecute, persecute, menace, basically. they cite senior democrats familiar with those discussions reporting their is vigorous internal debate right now among his top aides about whether or not to issue preemptive pardons for some of those people who have been explicitly threatened. the white house officials are carefully weighing the extraordinary steps of handing out link it pardons to those who have committed no crimes both because it could suggest impropriety only fueling trumps criticism and because those offering them could reject them in the deliberations touch on pardoning those currently in office elected and appointed as well as the former officials who have angered trump and his loyalists and they may clear in its reporting that president biden himself hasn't been brought into these discussions yet. a white house spokesperson declined to comment but didn't deny the discussions to

political and joining our conversation is the former acting assistant attorney general and then msnbc legal analyst mary mccord in the former u.s. attorney and former deputy assistant attorney general. harry, this falls squarely into the category of taking trump literally and what he has literally said in an interview after interview after interview after interview is that the real enemy in the real threat to this country is "the enemy within." he and his to run the fbi and's first nominee to run the department of justice have spoken extensively about what that retribution looks like and who would includes. i wonder where you place this conversation about preemptive blanket pardons. is it overkill or justified? what you think of it?

>> first, i think it is really tough for a lot of reasons, but the first order of business has to be, come on? do they mean it and would they do it? i think that is what is going on in that room and nobody has ever lost money betting on trump to be even worse than he says and all indications from the last month since the election that he has been not only ernest but redoubling and some of these most nasty vengeful, petty, politicized actions. i think that first step you really have to assume, especially because you are in this very difficult position of we can only act and then we lose our chance but, yes, they are dead serious and kash patel, yesterday said this in a prudent saber letter for somebody who said something on msnbc at i think you have to assume they are in earnest. now what? it would be a huge move. it would give trump the ability

to say they are politicizing everything but on the other hand, we are talking about a series of deeply unfair, meritless, potentially ruinous prosecutions and look at the list with solid republicans and i just saw pat philbin on your list and many, all from really low to high level. i think you have to assume they mean it. nobody has ever done anything like this, a whole wave of preemptive pardons but nobody has ever been confronted with a reasonable prospect that when the next guy gets in, they will be a reign of terror and this is the only chance to deal with it before he has to surrender that power. >> mary, let me just show folks and again this is in their own telling and people that donald trump has explicitly threatened that rallies and social media

posts, discussing a tribunal for liz cheney and i believe a military tribunal is the language he used and discussed court marshals and for admiral mcrae even and talked about prosecutions of adam schiff and other prosecutors involved in cases around him and targeted judges. this is a list of donald trump's nominees from his own book by kash patel called deep state, and enemies list and i will read some of the names of folks covered and actually i will read the names of the people that are trumps own hires and appointments, michael atkinson, bill barr, john bolton, pets of baloney, stephanie grisham, gina haskel, charles kupperman, ryan mccarthy, marc milley, pat philbin, rod rosenstein, christopher wray. what are your thoughts about

how the biden administration is taking seriously the things that donald trump and his pick to lead the fbi have said about who and how they would target? >> i think they are taking it seriously. everything we have seen since the results of the election have come in have sort of moved us more toward a true and deep- seated concern that he may follow through on some of these threats and i would say in particular announcing that he intends to fire christopher wray, the director of the fbi and appointed kash patel, somebody who has his own enemies list, which you have shown there on the screen. and also somebody who has repeatedly just like trump repeatedly talked about retribution, they do have to take it seriously. and then something we talked about the other night when i was on is that kash patel has

even said we are coming after you, we are coming after the deep state and coming after journalists. we don't know whether it will be criminal or civil and we will figure that out later. that is the tell that it isn't based on anything because to bring a criminal case you have to have probable cause that a crime was committed and prove that crime beyond a reasonable doubt and to bring a civil case you have to have a cause of action within injury and culpability by the person for creating that injury and he doesn't suggest there is any of that but these are just people that they feel wronged donald trump and they want to go after them so it is extraordinary to think the white house would be considering this with people who there is nothing in the record that would suggest have committed any crimes because it's not required by the constitution or any law that pardons only be given to people who have actually been indicted or prosecuted or convicted of a crime. that isn't required, but it has

always been thought to be something of an implicit when you accept a pardon, something of an implicit admission of guilt of something. this would be very different. for people on these lists, i think every one of them believes they have done nothing unlawful that they would deserve any investigation four. the reason it is being considered is for something that harry said and others have been talking about today is that just launching investigations, bogus or not, really put people through the ringer. it could be financially disastrous to hire attorneys and disastrous to your job, your reputation and your family. i think that is why they are thinking about this so carefully. >> i will ask you to stick around and i will sneak in a break. we will all be right back. >> >>

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(♪♪) (♪♪) start your day with nature made. and try new zero sugar gummies. harry, you have made some news of your own today resigning from your post at the l.a. times and writing about it and tell us your rationale. >> well, i put it all out in my sub stack but let me just start here with everything we were saying last time. papers have such an important role to play now and in this country, trump has captured the political arena and maybe the supreme court and going after now the fbi and potentially the military and, really, one of the few institutions that are able to stand up and push back and in their finest tradition

and trump has made clear he will go after them and that is an absolute five alarm fire. some papers and my former newspaper, the l.a. times, i think, rather than pushing back strongly in the tradition of the finest papers in the country, think of watergate and john mitchell saying if i can be vulgar, graham will get her -- caught in a wringer and here i think there is no other inference but the owner of the l.a. times has decided to curry favor with trump to move in that direction to be, in his own words, fair and balanced. i just think this isn't a time for balanced when you have somebody who isn't telling the truth on the other side and it is a deep responsibility. instead, i think they cowered and are worried about their

personal holdings and just being threatened by trump and that is a really shameful capitulation. i just felt i couldn't be a part of it and had to resign. >> i do appreciate your both taking a stand and the interesting thing to me is there isn't a single example in human history the world over of appeasement being successful and i understand the reasons people do it. i really do and it is now or never but there is not a single example of it working out for the appeaser. thank you both so much for spending time with us today and we will be right back after the other break. , nutrients for immune health. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein.

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the answer is j.p. morgan wealth management. between pardons, shake-ups with the white house legal team before they even get into the building and an extremely consequential supreme court term as the justices hear an historic case on transgender rights, the next four years are going to be full of legal news and headlines. you can get your fill of updates on all the legal stories we cover here on the program with the deadline legal newsletter. scan the qr code on your screen to have it delivered to your inbox. we'll sneak in another break. thk want to get the most out of one sheet? delectables lickable treat. grab bounty. (♪♪)

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now xfinity internet customers can buy one line of unlimited and get one free for a year. . thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. we're grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. >> thank you so much. welcome to "the beat."