well, are you ready for it? well, i can tell you, untouchable taylor swift is all the way up. she saw what you might call a blank space at the top of the ratings and wrote in her name. the swift effect has dominated across spotify and all the other places people get their music which includes apple and youtube, for the second year in a row, spotify has crowned her the top global artist because more people are listening to taylor than anyone else right now, to the tune of a billion or 5 billion? it's actually 26 billion streams in 2024 alone. if you're curious about some of the other artists. you have billie eilish, karol g. g., sabrina carpenter. my friend was on tour with her this year. shout out and disclosure. i posted my spotify rap on instagram at ari melber. if you're interested, you can

see what spotify told me i was listening to the most. that does it for us. "the reidout" starts now. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> who are we to say that we're a better vetter and picker of people than donald trump? >> don't you think both sides should do the vetting? >> to some degree. but we have to be convinced. i mean, they should do all the background work, they should go after our nominees. donald trump did all the vetting they needed to do on pete hegseth. >> the great and powerful oz. sorry, i mean trump, knows best. no need for any vetting, tuberville says. forget that senate shall advise and consent thing in the constitution. we don't need that. while some senators worry about trump's pick for defense secretary's penchant for

alcohol, perhaps more alarming are the things pete hegseth has written about the military itself. also tonight, the musk and ramaswamy show arrives on capitol hill. selling members of congress on the joys of slashing funding for kids, veterans, college students, and so much more. plus, for the first time, we're seeing the face of the man police are searching for in the manhunt for the killer of a health insurance ceo in manhattan. >> but we begin tonight with the fox and friends weekend cohost turned trump pick for defense secretary, pete hegseth. back on capitol hill today, attempting to salvage his nomination that appears to be on thin ice. despite facing an allegation of sexual assault, as well as reports of excessive drinking and financial mismanagement of not one but two nonprofit veterans groups, all of which he denies, hegseth insists he is not going anywhere. >> i'm proud of what i fout for. i'm not going to back down one

bit. i will answer all of these senators' questions, but this will not be a process tried in the media. i don't answer to anyone in this group. none of you. not to that camera at all. i answer to president trump, who received 76 million votes on behalf, and a mandate for change, i answer to the 100 senators who are part of this process and those in the committee. and i answer to my lord and savior, and my wife and family. i'm proud to be here. as long as donald trump wants me in this fight, i'm going to be standing right here in this fight. >> but of course, the burning question is, will the laundry list of damning allegations be enough for any republican to stand up to their dear leader, donald trump, and vote no? what we do know is at least one republican senator is publicly not yet totally sold on hegseth. iowa's joni ernst. senator ernst who is the senate's first female combat veteran and an advocate for survivors of sexual assault in the military notably declined to

voice her support for hegseth this morning, even on fox. >> will you support his nomination? >> well, i did have a very long, lengthy discussion with pete yesterday. and i do appreciate his service to the nation. i also am a combat veteran. so we talked about a number of those issues. and 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. >> okay, it doesn't sound on your answer that you have gotten to a yes. if i'm wrong about that, correct me. and 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. >> and the senator is not alone. nbc news is reporting as many as

six republicans are currently not comfortable supporting hegseth's bid to lead the pentagon. according to three republican sources with direct knowledge of his nomination process. still, hegseth is trying his best to pressure skeptical senators, telling some he will just stop drinking if he's confirmed, and even reportedly having his mom work the phones on his behalf. which isn't exactly reassuring especially when you're talking about an extremely high-stakes job that oversees millions of service members and employees as well as a budget of hundreds of billions of dollars. but if the sexual asought allegation and reports of excessive drinking aren't troubling enough, what's equally concerning is what he may want do if he gets the job. a new column from "the new york times" dives into hegseth's latest book, the war on warriors. noting that a lot of what he writes sure sounds a lot like the comments trump made on the campaign trail about going after the enemy within.

statements like, america today is in a cold civil war. our soul is under attack by a confederacy of radicals. and while his generation was fighting wars abroad, hegseth writes, we allowed america's domestic enemies at home to gobble up cultural, political, and spiritual territory. and weirdly enough, this is not the first time he has invoked civil war in a book. in his 2020 book entitled american crusade, he wrote that in the event of a democratic election victory, there would be a national divorce in which the military and police will be forced to make a choice, and yes, there will be some form of civil war. joining me now is sahil kapur, nbc news senior national political reporter, tom nichols, staff writer for the atlantic, and molly jong fast, msnbc contributor and vanity fair special correspondent. sahil, i want to let you give us the temperature among the republican caucus, but first, i want to give you a couple more

pieces of data from politico, a quote from a republican senator on joni ernst's vote. the threats are already on the table. quote, if joni ernst votes no, she's going to have a hard time with her re-election campaign, said one gop senator, noting during any floor vote, hegseth -- vote on hegseth, trump will be taking names. i want you to listen to senator richard blumenthal, himself a veteran, on opposition to hegseth. >> i have talked to five to ten republicans who have said to me, they're just waiting for the right moment to say no to pete hegseth. and for very good reasons. >> why do you think so few republicans, none by my count, have been willing to come out and say they will not support this nominee? >> nobody wants to defy donald trump if you're a republican. >> how much of all of that are you seeing in your reporting, sahil? >> joy, i think this nomination is still very much up in the

air. pete hegseth knows he's hit turbulence, that's why he's been here on capitol hill all week, having a bunch of meetings with senators, some of whom are supportive of him, some of whom have said positive things about him after the meetings, and others like joni ernst who have not committed to supporting him and sound quite skeptical. she is going to be a key person to watch for a variety of reasons, not only because she's on the committee that's going to be overseeing his nomination. she's a combat veteran herself. notice she just casually dropped that on fox news. there might be a reason for that, which is pete hegseth has said in the past he doesn't believe women should serve in combat. that does not sit well with joni ernst and i don't believe it will sit well with a number of republican senators as well. he has to answer for some of those idealogical statements he's made and answer for what has been quite a few allegations about him that go to his character. it really is a lot for republican senators to accept and to look past. but pete hegseth is playing the

part that he's not leaving until donald trump makes him go, whicm the way matt gaetz left. he didn't have to be pushed by donald trump. he decided to drop out. hegseth has indicated he's going to keep at it until donald trump asks him not to. he's also said he's a different man today. quote, i'm a different man than i was years ago. he said it's a redemption story. >> how has the addition of his mom to the lobbying campaign played on capitol hill? it did evoke a great deal of mockery of pete hegseth that he's sending his mom in to try to do cleanup for him given the email she wrote about him in 2018 about his poor character there. how has the mom played on capitol hill? >> well, for pete hegseth's strongest republican supporters, it's valuable testimony. it's a character witness that they can point to and say she's apologized for that note, retracted it, she says he's a different person.

for those who want to get to yes on pete hegseth, that is not going to be a problem. for the skeptics, i think it's the cascade of allegations, the allegations of financial mismanagement, the sexual assault allegations which he denies, the question of treatment that his mom put down in the letter that she has since retracted. it's a lot for senators to consider, and if he does make it to a confirmation hearing next month, if he plows through all this turbulence as he insists he will, that will be a very uncomfortable confirmation hearing, in part because joni ernst will be sitting there and also across from him is tammy duckwort, a woman who lost both of her legs in combat fighting for the united states. i don't suspect that's going to be a comfortable exchange. there's a long way to go, including, by the way, an fbi background check. >> very interesting that chris wray, who is still the fbi director, still has three more years and i know donald trump wants to replace him with kash

patel, but that's a whole other segment, tom nichols, you have been instructing members of our great military, so there are a lot of buckets here. we have really leaned into the sexual assault story, the mistreatment of women. some of the other stuff has gotten not enough attention. the guardian wrote about his book, american crusade, because i remember that george w. bush had crusade in the name of the operation we did in the middle east, and changed it because of the toxicity of that term in the world. among the consequences should biden wip, he predicted, there would be that america would decline and die. a national divorce would ensue, outnumbered freedom lovers would fight back. the military and police will be forced to make a choice. it will not be good. yes, there will be some sort of civil war. elsewhere in american crusade, he writes the hour is late for america, beyond political success, our fate relies on

exorcising. how would that sit as -- for a leader of the pentagon, the leader of the american military of the commander in chief to hold those views? >> well, first of all, it's important to point out that even if pete hegseth had lived an exemplary life, hiss lack of experience and these completely fringe ideas would be an instant disqualification. i think part of the problem is that donald trump and the people around him assume that everybody in the military thinks this way. that, you know, that there's this kind of core of spartans just waiting to be called forth, you know, at the behest of one brave major who feels that he was done dirt some years ago. and it's nonsense. i have known and as you say, taught hundreds and hundreds of military officers, most of them more senior than pete hegseth, and i think most of them would

find these views appalling. un-american. dangerous. you know, they are not there to be culture warriors on behalf of some holy righteous crusade. they're all to serve and defend, first and foremost, defend the constitution of the united states. that is their oath. and to defend the united states of america to obey the lawful orders of the president, and other officers. the u.s. military is not -- does not exist to be the vessel of some kind of, you know, great awakening of american militarism. i think it's really important to point out one other thing. the secretary of defense job is not some opportunity for self actualization and redemption. it's a dead serious job that includes running a gigantic bureaucracy, the care and the

health and wellbeing of 3 million people, and potentially being in the room when nuclear weapons are being discussed. so you know, the idea that this is some sort of redemption tour and he should be secretary of defense to prove he's overcome his demons, and i have sympathy for that, by the way. he's not the only guy who went through war and did a lot of drinking. i'm familiar with that story myself. but the idea that you have a right to be secretary of defense because that's your origin story is nonsense and it's dangerous nonsense. >> it is. and we didn't even get into the fact of alleged mismanagement of money, molly. i mean, that, i think, has also not gotten enough attention, concerned veterans of america often spent more than it took in. $37,000 in debt by 2016. revenues rose sharply, but spending rose faster, so you're managing a giant budget.

and he doesn't seem to have a history of doing that well. but i want to get to this third piece, which is the drinking part. i want to play you what he himself said about self medicating after being serving in iraq. >> 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 firefight and every single decision that i made. i look around at 10:00 and be like what am i going to do today? how about i drink some beers. meet my buddies and have some beers. one beer leads to many, leads to self medication, leads to i earned this. don't tell me i can't. >> this idea that he's going to redeem himself from that by having this job and managing 3 million people, your thoughts on that. >> i mean, so my own experience is that i got sober when i was 19 and have been sober for 27 years. for me, you know, someone who

came from a family with alcoholism and who, you know, comaul is something in my mind was a hereditary disease, but a lot of people end up becoming alcoholics after traumatic incidents, especially the veterans have a real problem with alcoholism, self medicating. exactly what he described. self medicating to treat a trauma. it's really common. it's not -- it's -- first, if it were simple as i'm not going to drink because my -- >> that's what he said. >> we would have many, many sober people and it would be great, but it tends to be hard to get sober. the other thing i would say this is a group that wants to cut v.a. services, this party. and we have a lot of veterans in this country who struggle with alcoholism and addiction who need treatment and who need treatment plans and who need counseling and need to get this help. and we have real addiction problems in this country. fentanyl, republicans love to

talk about fentanyl. it's a real problem. so there's an opportunity here to have a great conversation about addiction and treatment and recovery and staying sober. >> you can do that without putting in somebody who says on a st. patrick's day celebration, put up displays and he drank every beer including two former colleague -- according to two former colleagues who witnessed the incident. this isn't the place for him to fix that, in this job. >> it's really a stressful job. >> a 24-hour job. >> getting sober, the first year is about saying no, and the rest of your life is about saying yes. >> you can't say i'm going to stop drinking. thank you all. >> coming up, musk and ramaswamy take their doge mission to capitol hill today, pushing their promise to cut a trillion dollars from the budget. i feel like we have seen this movie before, except, you know, without the billionaire dude bros. we'll discuss next. 'll discuss t

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the world's richest billionaire, elon musk, and near billionaire viven ramaswamy were on capitol hill today to join a bunch of other really rich senators to go over the plan for the misnamed department of government efficiency, which is not really a department. part of the plan includes spiking unemployment by laying off millions of federal employees and gutting federal

agencies. musk and ramaswamy have already promised massive cuts to federal agencies republicans don't like. they also want to cut $500 billion a year from the federal budget and fire the vast majority of federal workers. all told, they want to slash $2 trillion in government spending. doge has no statutory authority and is essentially a presidential advisory commission that can make recommendations. neither musk nor ramaswamy have any public service experience, but that's not stopping them. their targets include the department of defense, sesame street, the irs, the department of justice, and the consumer financial protection bureau. they're also looking to kill any government programs that have their spending authorization set to expire. and you may want to think twice about celebrating some of this stuff because the proposal would include ending veterans health care programs, drug development and opioid treatment, housing assistance programs, health care programs, student loan programs,

and head start. republicans and some democrats are rushing to sign up with this presidential advisory commission's branch in congress. publicly, they're celebrating the plan to gut the government. but what they say privately is a different story. one senior republican aide told punch bowl news two people who know nothing about how the government works pretending they can cut a trillion dollars both with pulpits to preach from and the ear of an unpredictable president, disaster. the only good thing is at some point they'll overpromise and get bounced by trump. until then, disaster. joining me is maxwell frost of florida, a member of the house oversight committee. there are some democrats who are tempted to join up with the doge committee, the real congressional committee associated with this advisory group. are you one who is tempted to do so? >> well, as of now, it's not even a committee, it's a caucus which anyone can make a caucus

of anything at any time in congress. this is what i'll say, look, we're going to find room where we can work together over the next two years with our republican colleagues but let's be honest about doge and this whole thing, it's a joke. two billionaires who are cos playing as government officials, not an actual department of this government. it's an x account right now. here's my thing. i'll all for making our government more efficient but we have to look at the proposition here, the proposition of these two guys is that to make the government more efficient, we have to fire a bunch of people and take away a bunch of funding. and that lack of nuance and actually providing real oversight on how we can make the government work in a better way shows me first-hand that they're not coming at this on the right foot and not coming at it from the right place. i mean, look at elon musk. this isn't even the mention, the horrible discrepancies we have seen and the fact that elon musk has a vested interest with government contracts. so we have to look into this --

this issue that we have right now with these two billionaires coming in. >> i will note that musk owns companies with federal contracts. tesla has at least $352,000 in contracts. spacex, at least $15.4 billion with four agencies. wonder if doge is planning to cut any of those. to the point you made, it strikes me a lot of americans say i want the government to be run like a business. they don't have to think twice about how government works. they say cut that, cut that, and i'm going to go have lunch. i want to play something, i don't know if you were alive when they ran, in the late 1980s -- sorry, late 1990s. this was jim mclaszewski talking about cutting overspending at the pentagon. >> despite a promise to reform the system, the pentagon revealed today that it is still wasting millions of dollars each year in the purchase of spare parts. for example, for an air force

kc-135, the pentagon paid $75.60 each for 187 setscrews that should cost 57 cents. that's a 13,000 percent increase in the price. >> now, congressman, this is one area where i actually agree with people who say we need to cut waste in the government. the pentagon has been bloated and overspending and buying $500 hammers since i was in high school in the '80s. so this is one where -- look at where the spending goes. $71.6 billion in defense spending is spent in texas. $68 billion in virginia. $60 billion in california. $32 million in your state of florida. and $27 billion in maryland. the interest that these government contractors have in their bloated spending which is overcharging americans for real, is distributed throughout all of these very important states, and those states have senators who are going to want to defend that spending and congressmen who are going to want to defend it. is it feasible for someone like

an elon musk to say, we're just going to start slashing defense spending, which i think a lot of americans would actually want, and have those people in those states stand down for that? >> if that's something they're serious about, i think they'll find bipartisan support on that. 75% of our military budget goes toward contractors. like you pointed out, a lot of these contractors are completely stiffing the american people and ripping away our tax dollars and a lot of this money goes unaccounted for. i have a bill, a bipartisan bill, defense oversight act, which passed and helped empower the inspectors general to make sure we can figure out where the money is going. if they're serious about that, i'm in. like i told you at the beginning, i'm just looking at the way they're coming at this whole thing. zero nuance, just talking about cutting stuff without looking at it. i don't know, i'm a bit skeptical that elon musk is going to be serious about actually cutting defense spending and looking at these contractors. but we'll see. again, this guy has not had one

single successful business that hasn't leached on to taxpayer money. we'll see how serious he is. >> exactly, to cut government federal contractors that have defense spending that get tax money for defense, he would have to cut his own companies. he is in business in texas and in florida with government contractors. you're right, he's been made a billionaire by federal tax money going into his businesses. trump has picked yet another billionaire, about half a dozen billionaires in his new administration, a guy named jaredizenman to lead nasa. a 41-year-old founder and ceo of a payment processing company called shift for. he's flown to space twice on commercial spacex missions but he's never worked in nasa or the federal government. he partnered with musk and spacex in 2022 to pay for the launch of the polaris program which is three private space flights. he seems to be buddies with elon musk, and that and being a billionaire are his

qualifications to lead nasa. your thoughts? >> the same thing on elon and ramaswamy. trump, it looks like he wants to be surrounded by people with no experience who are simply happy to cos play and dress up like government officials. this is a billionaire who spent his own money to go to space and be like an astronaut and now he's going to lead nasa? it's not leading nasa any time. next year, we have artemis 2 which is going to send people around the moon for the first time in a long time. this mission is critical because it's going to lead to artemis 3. having a guy who wants to cos play as a government official, let's see, maybe he's going to try to put himself on the ship to get a free ride to the moon or something, but it shows how unserious trump is by putting these loyalist billionaires in these places. in the election, trump was able to capture a significant amount

of working class americans. i think people are going to wake up as they turn on the news and see he's not fighting for working people, not fighting for working families. he's looking to prop up his friends, billionaires and polluters instead of fighting for the people. that's what the next two years is going to be for house democrats, shining a light on this circus of complete bs. >> we'll be here reporting it when they cut sesame street and veterans benefits. i think a lot of people who voted for trump will be unples nltly surprised. you will be there fighting against it. congressman maxwell frost, thank you very much. coming up, new information is emerging about the killer of the united health care ceo including new security camera images. a live report is next. ease? will it get worse? how common is it? who can i talk to? can this be treated? stop typing. start talking to a specialized urologist. because it could be peyronie's disease, or pd. it's a medical condition where there is a curve in the erection, caused by a formation of scar tissue.

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the manhunt is still going on in new york city for the gunman in what police have called a brazen, targeted killing of unitedhealthcare ceo brian thompson outside a midtown manhattan hotel wednesday morning. police have released new photos of someone they're referring to as a person of interest in the hopes the public will be able to identify him. nbc news is also learning new details from the attack including that the words deny, defend, depose were written on the shell casings at the scene.

according to a senior law enforcement official, those words are eerily similar to the title of a book that is critical of the insurance industry, though there is no known connection at this time. and while investigators are still piecing together the suspect's movements, both before and after the shooting, including searching a hostel they believe he could have stayed at, the shooter's identity as well as himotives remain unknown. here now with more is nbc news correspondent priscilla thompson in new york. what more besides what i just said do we know about the suspect? >> reporter: yeah, joy, here in the last hour, we have learned what could become a critical piece of information, which is how exactly the suspected gunman got to new york city, with police now saying that they're operating under the belief that he took a bus from atlanta to new york city on november 24th. sunday, november 24th. so about a week and a half ago, late night bus, and has been perhaps in the city for that

long. and so as you noted, police really trying to get a fuller picture of what this suspected gunman's movements may have been in the hours and the days leading up to this brazen crime. and we know that they did search that hostel up the street on the upper west side, and they did speak to people who may have seen or spoken with the suspect, and of course, they got that crucial surveillance video, those images, the first we're seeing of this person of interest completely unmasked. so that has now been splattered across televisions throughout the day today. newspapers i'm sure, so people now have a sense of who exactly they're looking for, but they're hoping they can track down some sort of bus ticket or purchase or something there with how he got to new york city that can give them a name, which could be another key piece of information to put out there, and the other thing that we saw today is that nbc new york actually obtained surveillance video showing the

suspect on that e-bike riding down west 85th street heading into central park which is where the nypd says the last known place where they know where this person was at this point, they are not saying publicly anything further about those whereabouts other than that shooting occurred. he ran into an alley and got on an e-bike and made his way into central park. a lot of new information developing in talking to people and of course that starbucks video that we sahib the minutes before that shooting happened which we now know that he had a water bottle and energy or protein bars that police were able to figure out where he dumped that and collect that. i will say one thing about that surveillance video of him on the e-bike, he is not wearing that backpack he was wearing in the video of the shooting. it's possible that may be something else he may have dumped that police may be able to find on surveillance video, find that backpack and again have more cloughs to figure out who this person is and get them under arrest so they can begin

to ask questions and get to the bottom of what that motive might be. >> correct me if i'm wrong but i believe you have to have an account to get on an e-bike. i would think that might be part of the investigation, figuring out what account was used to get on that bike. >> reporter: yeah, certainly, a question because originally had nypd thought this may have been a city bike or something like that, but they're saying that's no longer the case. it's unclear if this was an e-bike he purchased here or rented here or where exactly that bike came from, but again, one of the key questions to figure out, his identity. >> what about the widow of this man who leaves behind a wife and children? she had made some statements that they had been receiving threats. do we know anything more about that? >> reporter: yes, she talked to our digital team, and she said that he had spoken about receiving threats and that she was worried that there may have been a lack of coverage, so unclear what she meant about that, but what we do know based

on the information we have, that his travel habits did not change as a result of those threats. so we know today there are a lot of questions about security. this was a public, a high ranking ceo of a major company out in public, traveling for this shareholder meeting that had been publicly announced so anyone could have potentially shown up, so there are questions about, we see him walking alone. did he have any security? was he offered security? was that something he declined? a lot of questions there, and about whether unitedhealth could have liability in all of this by him not having security. >> indeed. nbc's priscilla thompson, thank you very much. coming up, how trump's strong man rhetoric mirrors that of some of the worst authoritarian leaders around the world. ♪far-xi-ga♪ ask your doctor about farxiga.

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the rise of autocrats and right wing populism is a global phenomenon, and one of the major stories of our time. it is a topic journalist maria ressa, known for defending democracy and fighting disinformation, is acutely familiar with. the 2021 nobel peace prize winner joins me now. she's the ceo of rapler, a filipino news site fighting for press freedom. also the author of how to stand up to a dictator, a fight for our future. quite a title.

a timely title. thank you for being here, ms. resa. i want to have you walk us through how rodrigo duterte took control of the filipino government and what he did to it. >> first, i think you have to understand that the philippine constitution is patterned after the united states. we were a colony of the united states for about 50 years. i joke that we spent 300 years in a convert, 300 years under spanish colonial rule, and 50 years in hollywood. which means our constitution has the three branches of government, but like the united states, we have a strong executive. when rodrigo duterte took over, when he took his oath of office, the first death of the drug war happened within four hours. and the daily killings in the drug war helped create an atmosphere of fear, which then

helped him have filipinos and institutions voluntarily give up our rights. and let me explain what that means. it is a consolidation of power and money. and most businesses at that point would duck. they wanted to see, because in some ways a corrupt leader is easier to deal with because everything becomes transactional. that's on the business front. that's the money part. but on the power part, how do you crush the institutions? how do you crush checks and balances? through fear. and then pushing the people who are in those institutions to duck as well. and part of the way he did that was by appointing people who weren't so professional or people who weren't professional but were extremely loyal.

we used to joke that, you know, ignorance and arrogance is a lethal combination. >> this sounds eerily familiar with what we're seeing happen in the united states. what that tells me because that is what is happening here, is that the thing to look at in these kinds of situations is to look for up front cruelty and sort of manifestations of up front sort of spectacular cruelty, right? and expect shock and awe. >> absolutely. look, the headline i didn't give you was that after president duterte took office, our institutions crumbled within six months. and what we from the philippines are looking at the united states and worrying about what will happen. we used to think institutions in the u.s. are strong, but as you have seen, your supreme court

has actually already given the president extreme powers that weren't there before. so it's funny, like, this combination of fear and greed and incompetence of people who are appointed, rodrigo duterte appointed about 6,000 people, and the critical, the critical institutions that would give in almost immediately would be justice, law, rule of law. will rule of law prevail? that's when you begin to realize that definitions can really be whittled down. all of my arrest warrants that were issued, there were ten of them issued in a little less than two years, and most of those cases of the ten cases, only two are left. we have won them, but it took eight years. that's the other part. so it's this combination of what

the government can actually do given its real power but the other part is, the role of technology and how that can be used to insidiously manipulate citizens. that's a lethal combination. >> was there a point at which people who wanted him to be the leader, who thought he was going to help them, changed their minds, and how can people pivot if they then oppose what has happened or did they? >> you know, in the philippines there is a six-year term limit for the president. one term, six years. that's one of the major differences. but i joke that from duterte to marcos, it was a great introduction, from duterte to marcos, the philippines moved from hell to purgatory. and again, you go back.

this is power and money, and the consolidation of both power and money crushes institutions and checks and balances. the question really for how quickly a country, a democracy can erode depends on the people and the people who have power within those institutions to actually give up that power. to abdicate responsibility. >> yeah. and in that sort of environment, is there some advice you can give us? because we're now at the beginning of our duterte era, of what we should be doing in order to survive it and in order to resist it? >> i think the first is don't voluntarily give up your rights. do not -- walk in now in the next month, right, understand what's at stake, build alliances. this is a time to collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. define the values. what are the lines that you

won't cross? what does american democracy stand for? and know when those lines are crossed because you can rationalize everything, especially when fear is there. and fear happens at an individual cellular level now for anyone there. i think the other part is, we use the phrase hold the line. hold the line is knowing where our rights begin and end for the media, for example. the intimidation tactics will start online. i called it death by a thousand cuts. it already has, exactly, and it's significantly worse. we have seen this all around the world, and yet the united states has not been able to deploy any