trump-vance are basically like, that will be fine. i do think there are certain ideological's that that will overcome with a certain loyalty to trump. >> i think that will probably be the case. even with ethanol, corn syrup. i am not so certain, it is one thing to say it now. but if rfk successfully manages to get the government this subsidizing corn and iowa farmers start losing money, what happens next? >> great point. thank you both. that is all in on this wednesday attention to policy. >> that is the key. not a lot. >> great show, my friend. >> thank you. today we got the gigantic news that fbi director chris

wray plans to resign. to avoid the impact of partisan politics, they were appointed to 10-year terms. wray was appointed in 2017 after trump infamously fired the fbi director james comey. wry's decision today to step down rather than wait for donald trump to fire him is definitely worth chewing over. we're going to discuss that with a member of the senate judiciary in just a moment, but now that christopher wray has made the decision, now that he has announced that he will vacate his office on january 20th, the more pressing matter is who donald trump plans to nominate in wray's place. >> transition and i'll be ready to go on day one. >> are you going to be seeking retribution against donald trump's political opponents, sir? >> we look forward to a very smooth transition at the fbi and i'll be ready to go on day one. >> that was trump's pick for

director of the fbi, kash patel, on the hill today speaking with senators and shoring up votes for his confirmation. if you weren't particularly familiar with mr. patel, you cannot be blamed. he was a tertiary character in the first trump administration, but since the last trump administration ended kash patel has been loud and very proud about exactly what he would do if he were put in charge of an agency like the fbi in a second trump term. >> do you believe that you can deliver the goods on this in a pretty short order the first couple of months so we can get rolling on prosecutions? is. >> yes. we've got the bench for it, bannon. you know those guys. we will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media. yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who helped joe biden rig presidential elections. we're going to come after you. we're putting you all on notice. >> year' going to come after you. now on its own that statement might seem a little ambiguous.

kash patel has since said that he only means people who broke the law, but who exactly does kash patel believes nats description? who is he saying he should come after? to answer that question mr. patel has already published an enemies list, and when i say published, i mean kash patel literally printed this list in the back of a book. last year patel published a book called government gangsters, deep state, the truth and our battle -- the battle for our democracy. and in the appendix to that book is a list entitled, members of the executive branch deep state. and while the list has 60 people on it, the author makes sure to note that the list is not exhaust tiff. but on the list are people like former trump attorney general bill barr and hillary clinton and wouldn't you know it, the current fbi director who trump himself appointed, chris wray. the now it's not just kash

patel's enemies list that makes the idea of him running the fbi concerning. kash patel is also an after individual conspiracy theorist. from 2021 to 2023 he hosted a show for a far right news outlet called the epic times. nbc news reviewed 79 episodes of that show and found mr. patel and his co-host pushed unfounded claims of conspiracy theories regarding government officials, law enforcement agencies, the media and tech companies. all of those claims were about supposed attempts to rig elections, silence conservative voices and undermine donald trump. kash patel also openly embraces the far right conspiracy theory known as qanon. they assert that there is a deep state within the u.s. government that works to protect a cabal of pet doe file elites who secretly traffic children and harvest chemicals from their blood. here's a taste of what mr. patel thinks of the alleged master

mind behind qanon who calls himself q. >> whether it's the qs of the world, who i agree with some of what he does and i disdegree with some of what he does, if it allows people to gather and focus on the truth and the facts, i'm all for it. if it it's q or whatever movement that's getting that information out, i'm all for it every day of the week. people keep asking me about all of this q stuff. i'm like, what does it matter? what i'm he telling you is that there is truth in a lot of things that many people say and what i'm putting out there is the truth. >> npr reports that kash patel has either promoted the qanon movement or shared conspiracy theories in the past 15 years. when promoting one of his books patel signed ten copies with a qanon promotion as a gimmick but for people who think hillary clinton drinks children's blood.

and i should mention that that promotion was not for mr. patel's adult book, that was for one of mr. patel's three children's books. his plot against the king theories. those books follow a wizard named kash who sets out to save a king named donald from characters like hillary quenton and kamalalala. they're still available for holiday books or you can buy one of his bogus covid vaccine supplements which undo the nefarious covid vaccines or you can sign up for one of his mobile services or you can buy the a fight with kash branded t-shirt or kash patel bottle of wine. it is a blue state cabernet but you won't taste it. those are all things that donald trump's real life pick to run the fbi really sells. on top of the giftiness and on

top of the conspiracies and on top of the enemies list, one of the things we really have to worry about when it comes to kash patel are his thoughts on the fbi itself. >> i'd shut down the fbi whoever building on day one and re-opening the next day as a museum of the deep state. >> that was kash patel three months ago. not only does he think the fbi as it is currently run is nothing more than the dwoet, unquote, deep state but when it comes to the biggest case the fbi has handled in the past four years, the prosecution of the january 6th attacks on the capitol, kash patel thinks that the fbi may have encouraged rioters to commit crimes in order to entrap trump supporters for political reasons. >> it's not like they just said, hey, january 6th is going down. congress is, you know, being surrounded, go. the question that has to be answered is when did the fbi put those guys in and where?

and did those confidential human sources engage people who are not going to conduct criminal activity and convince them to do so? that is the definition of entrapment. >> to get more of a sense of who kash patel sees as the good guys and who he sees as the bad guys as it concerns january 6th, all you really have to do is listen to that strange mashup of the pledge of allegiance and star spangled banner that trump recorded with about 20 inmates who had been imprisoned for their actions on january 6th. remember that one? yeah. well, kash pro tell produced that song. that is the man donald trump wants to run the fbi. >> reporter: do you want kash patel to launch investigations into people on that list? >> no. i mean, he's going to do what he thinks is right. >> reporter: do you think that's right? do you think that's right, sir? >> if they think that somebody was dishonest or crooked or

corrupt politician, i think he probably has an obligation to do it but -- >> reporter: are you going to direct him to do it? >> no, not at all. not at all. >> reporter: is it your expectation that kash patel will pursue investigations against your political enemies. >> no, i don't think so. >> reporter: do you want to see that happen? >> if they were crooked, if they did something wrong, if they have broken the law, probably. they went after me. they went after me and i did nothing wrong. >> joining me now is one of the senators who will sit on the senate judiciary committee and currently does and that is the committee that will be in charge of confirming kpash tell. amy klobuchar. >> thanks, alex. >> thank you for being here. my goodness. can i first get your thoughts to the choice by fbi director wray to step down in advance of perhaps getting fired by donald trump? there's a lot of human cry about whether or not that was in some way conceding to or emboldening donald trump. what's your take? >> first of all, i have so much respect for christopher wray.

he embodies the motto of the fbi. fidelity, bravery, and integrity, and he did it when he was head of criminal after 9/11 with george bush. he was confirmed by the way, democrats and republicans, and then again as fbi director when donald trump put him in and every single republican voted for him and nearly every democrat. he then served with distinction really ramping up the efforts on cyber crime, one of our biggest threats our nation faces, and that's why -- by the way, thank you for bringing up kash patel's views on the headquarters. it is so important that we have a central location to deal with these cyber crimes, to coordinate with other agencies of government. and then he also, of course, has done his job and supported and defended the constitution. we all take that oath. so i think he is a model of what we want serving through two republican presidents all told in his career as well as one

democratic president. and so this idea that he resigned was really, let's face t how do we say it? the writing was on the wall. donald trump was very clear he was going to kick him out and like any good manager, he gets his things in order, he gives a month notice, he tells the troops that have so heroically protected our nation and investigated crime and arrested 50 violent criminals a day and gone after the fentanyl epidemic, he's got to tell his tloops who he has guided through this what he's going to do and put in place people to take over from him until a nominee is basically blessed by the u.s. senate advice and consent, right, in the constitution. the so i think that's why he did it. he did it for good reason. as he said, he didn't want to bring the fbi into the fray anymore than they already are. he has always been someone that respected those that work for him and i believe that's why he

did it. >> you mention the next fbi director who needs to seek and gain the blessing of the senate in sits role in advising and giving consent. that person at this moment looks like it will be kash patel, and i sort of wonder, john bolton has an op ed in the wall street journal titled "carb -- "kash patel doesn't belong at the fbi." this is what josh holly had to say today about kash patel's prospects on the hill. let's take a listen. >> so far i haven't heard anything from anybody suggesting he's not qualified. i've heard a lot of ranting and raving about huffing and puffing for the left and people like john bolton how they don't like his policies. that's fine. he's qualified for the job. >> just to like put a fan point on this. i'm not sure if josh hawley meant people from the left, comma, and people like john

bolton or if he is suggesting john bolton is a leftist. it's like, okay, that's where we are in politics. republicans seem to think kash patel is a shoe in here? >> i don't think that's done at all. we haven't seen the fbi background check, which we are going to get just like every line agent has a background check. i'm a member of the judiciary committee. i have not seen that yet. we also haven't had the open hearing. we've had a number of republican senators be clear they are not going to do recess appointments for these type of nominees. i think josh hawley should listen to the conservative attorney general under dloump at one point said over his dead body, his words, not mine, would he put kash pa fell in a role. i'm very concerned when you look at what our country is facing right now, a major cyber attack starting out in china against

our phone companies, very, very scary thing. we just had a classified briefing on it. when you look at the terrorist threats around the world, when you look at threats on members that the fbi investigates against people both sides of the aisle, this is not a time to put someone in that wants to go into the fbi on a revenge tour against the enemies of donald trump, which he has made very clear. so i hope my colleagues in the end, this is going to be -- come down to are there republicans who are willing to look at this and say, all we need is i think four, and say, wait a minute, this is not the best nominee for this josh. >> you know, it seems like there are two stages to this. there's this immediate period where there's a big push from maga right and trump's allies to put pressure on republican senators to say yes but then there is the confirmation hearing. that's when the senate is in full flower in terms of advise and consent. you are going to be able to ask kash patel about his record and air your own concerns. i wonder if you have a sense of

what you -- what you think is most alarming about his cv that is worth highlighting in such a public forum in such a critical moment, you know, when it comes down to really where the rubber meets the road and whether he gets confirmed or not? >> i think he raised a lot of them. the dog whistles to qanon. all of the things where he's engaged in conspiracy theories. i really even step back from that and i look at what he has specifically said just in the last few months that he wants to shut down the fbi headquarters and turn it into a museum. all right, i'm looking at classified and unclassified information that i have seen and democrats and republicans have seen about these major threats against our country, and i was in local law enforcement as a prosecutor running the biggest prosecutor's office in minnesota, worked with our incredible local police all the time, but i know that they rely on the fbi, yes, in the field offices, to go after the violent crimes and what's happening in

their states and white collar crimes, but they also rely on them when things get really tough and gnarley and there's threats that are not just against one town and one state but against our country, they rely on the headquarters of the fbi to go deep into this and call on their expertise across the nation. and for that you need people in the headquarters and that is what really concerns me when i look at just the integrity of the fbi and the work that they do every single day. >> you know, we are officially in the upside down where democrats have to remind republicans about the institutional importance of the federal bureau of investigations. here we are. >> remember, they -- they -- they talked a lot in their campaigns, republicans did, about keeping our country safe. i agree with that. i think that's the number one thing the government needs to do is to keep people safe in different ways. so if they're going to be true to their policies, i don't think you want to put someone in there that's on a revenge tour in charge of supervising over 30,000 employees who are putting their lives on the line every

day. >> a very important point. senator amy klobuchar, it's great to have you on the program. thanks for your time today. >> thank you. coming up, an 11th hour power grab by republican lawmakers in north carolina today undermines the very concept of democracy in the tar heel state. are they going to get away with it? first, maga world is unleashing the attack dogs and senate republicans are running scared. claire mccaskill and tim miller join me on that coming up next.

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position on military issues as well as the allegations against him. so i don't think there was anything that we did not cover. >> as of this afternoon, senator susan collins says she remains undecided about pete hegseth as defense secretary, but maga world is seizing the moment with a pressure campaign to ensure that all of trump's cabinet picks are ultimately confirmed. an op ed from iowa's attorney general is doubling as a not so veiled primary threat to iowa senator joni ernst who was initially hesitant to back hegseth. a warning about primary ally charlie kirk to senator rounds after he said he didn't have complaints about the current fbi director chris wray. and a pointed message from senator tom cotton was a signal from the rest of his republican colleagues. of the 723 cabinet secretaries

received no votes from the president-elect's party. no one should be surprised that the republican senate will confirm president trump's nominees. florida senator rick scott elaborated to the bullwark's mark kaputo. they're all going to be confirmed. respect the fact that he won in a landslide, respect the fact that he is the president. joining me now is tim miller, co-host of the bullwark podcast and claire mccaskill, senator from missouri. it is great to have you both here. claire, when you read statements or hear statements like that from rick scott, the sort of confidence some might say verging on bluster, how accurate do you think it is looking at the behavior of your former senate colleagues? >> you know, first of all, let me correct him on a couple of things. since the clinton transition, if there were people that were nominated that had serious problems wlrks it was a lack of qualifications or things in

their record, they typically either, a, would not be nominated because they were -- would not be taken seriously or, b, they would withdraw their nomination after they saw that they had significant opposition. so there's a lot of people that they nominate that weren't confirmed, you know? we can go through history and tick them off. even under the clinton administration. so i think the idea here is these are not serious nominees and republican senators know it. and the question is just this, will the susan collins and lisa murkowski and mitch mcconnell plus one more stand up for the institution of qualified nominees for very serious positions in face of non-serious nominees being forwarded by the trump administration? >> yeah. i sort of feel like we've been to this party before, tim, right? where we're like what will susan

collins do? and yet -- and then we sort of watch the spectacle of pete hegseth, the reporting, the allegations and the swirl, and the fact of the matter is, tim, today he looks like he's standing on relatively solid ground. so i guess i wonder, does donald trump just have an innate skill at sensing weakness? i know you guys on the bullwark talked about this in his episode. he can sniff out spinelessness and boy the scent is strong in the republican caucus. >> yeah. we have been to this party before. the party sucks, alex, unfortunately. we're stuck here forever, i think. sorry party. anyway, look, trump did smell out -- sniff out the weakness among the political establishment. the republican political establishment in particular though, you know, some of the democrats i think have not exactly shown the biggest fight in their belly either for some

of the stuff, particularly the republicans. they have rolled over for him. they have turned out to be exactly who he thought they were as far as their willingness to go along with them, the fact that most of their tough talk was just bluster, the fact that they were all just as corruptible as he is so he won that bet big time. i hate to give donald trump credit for anything, but that was right. for some would rather it not be pete hegseth, if they could figure out some way not to waste any political capital, not speak out and have him withdraw, yeah, i'm sure there's more than three republicans that would just love pete hegseth to withdraw, but none of them are going to do anything about it. we've seen that with joni ernst, the only person to step out a little bit was brushed back quite easily, to be honest, by

maga. trump didn't really need to get involved. >> i do wonder, claire, when we talk about the strategy, at least on part of the maga associates of donald trump, it is to package all of these controversial nominees, which is to say all of the nominees, together and i believe the term of art was like voltron, so you can't separate one from the rest. they all work as a unit, you're in for one, you're in for all. do you think that's possible? do you think it's possible that they pull all these people over the finish line with the sort of threat that damning any one of them is damning all of them and a middle finger to trump? >> yeah. the again, listen, tim's right about one thing, i have way too often on this network saying, i just can't imagine that would happen. i mean, and it -- and it happened. the idea that he is headed to the oval office, by the way, not

in a landslide, not in a landslide. he didn't even get 50% of the vote so that's not a landslide. you have to get more than 50% of the vote for it to be a landslide, but, you know, all of these aren't like the others. marco rubio is not like kash patel. they're not the same. you know, the idea that you would -- some of the people nominated for other jobs are perfectly fine. i mean, they're not perfectly fine to me, but they certainly would pass the test of wanting to do a good job at running the agencies they've been nominated to head, not figuring out a way to tear down the agency, shut down the agencies, spend all their time going after political enemies or culture wars. so, yeah, hegseth, gabbard and kash patel, those three aren't like the others and rfk, they're not like the others. and if the republican senators

can't see that, if they're from states like wisconsin or states like pennsylvania or states where you can still elect a democrat statewide, they'll feel it. they're not -- they may not feel it in the primary, but i guarantee you they'll feel it in the general because those nominees are not going to be good at their jobs. >> i just -- i feel like we're at the beginning of a line of questioning which, you know, maybe we're not at the beginning, we're in the middle of it, how much will they countenance. how much can he push them? we have some i'll ka you will it breaking news tonight from cbs which is that president-elect donald trump has invited chinese president xi jinping to attend his inauguration next month. this is in addition to apparently hungary's far right leader victor orbon who said he is still considering whether to attend. this is not something we do, tim. we do not invite foreign dignitaries or autocrats, i

guess he's still a foreign dignitary to our american nomination. first of all, let me just get your thoughts on that and whether we are crossing a sort of rubicon. >> the only thought -- the first thought that comes to mind is a quote from george w. bush about the first -- about the first inauguration. that is some weird -- well, you know what. you're going to have to google what it was that george bush said i think here on cable but, yeah, look, not only i guess could be a dignitary but he's a foe. chairman xi is a geopolitical foe. donald trump wants this kind of weird pomp and circumstance where he gets treated like, you know, a cadillo who's being honored by like the heads of the other tribes, alex. it is very -- it's not democratic. it's unamerican in the sense that it is not in the traditional american sense of what the presidency is which is you're called mr. president, not

his excellency for a reason. you represent the people. you're the representative of the people. you are not -- this is not, you know, some weird coronation like they have other places around the world. but obviously donald trump doesn't really get that, and this is about his ego. it would be very strange, indeed, to have xi jinping at his inauguration. >> it would be -- we've had ambassadors to inaugurations but this is the first time in american history we've invited another foreign leader and potentially, as you term it, a foe of america to the inauguration of an american president. it certainly smacks of coronation and perhaps that is the point. tim miller, claire mccaskill, thank you for being here tonight. really appreciate your time. still ahead this evening, the massive power grab north carolina republicans managed to mask inside a hurricane relief bill. first, one writer says democrats misunderstanding of a key voting block might have cost them the election. i'll talk to new yorker staff

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new reporting from "the new york times" today shows that during the first few years of the biden administration the united states saw its largest immigration surge ever adding an average of 2.4 million migrants per year and surpassing the

immigration boom of the late 1800s and early 1900s. several factors contributed to this including political chaos in places like haiti, venezuela and ukraine. according to the times the immigration policies president biden kept in place until his border crack down this past june. immigration became one of the biggest liabilities in the 2024 presidential election. they argue the party should learn a lesson from this. he writes for more than a decade democrats have struck an implicit electoral bargain even if liberal stances alienated some working class voters, those policies were essential to holding together the party's multi-racial coalition. that bargain appears to have been based on a false understanding of the motivations of latino voters. karma calls that misunderstanding understandable. they run and staff immigration

advocacy organizations and who care passionately about immigration policy reform with the views of latino voters who overwhelmingly do not. joining me now is jalani cobb, the dean of the columbia journalism school. dean cobb, it's great to have you here. >> thank you. >> i want to know how you're thinking about this and processing this, right? there's a lat of actions to sort through, but this notion that democrats have effectively ill advised by the elite institutions that serve them. >> yeah. you know, you would include news media in there as well. >> yeah. of course. >> because, you know, we have tended to report and cover communities as if they are monolithic, so the dynamic here that, you know, it's certainly for people who are reporting about this, you always know to some degree or another that there's some disparity between, you know, what the consultant class wants -- >> yeah. >> -- particularly -- and what

ists want and what the rank and file voter want. that goes across committees. the same sort of thing happened, we were looking four years ago about where african americans were on police reform, things like defund the police. >> yeah. >> those attitudes were way more varied than people suspected. we also saw in this last election that the views of women on reproductive rights were complicated. >> yes. >> and so -- and even if people, you know, really firmly believe in one issue, they're making a kind of counterbalance kind of argument. do i care about this? sure. am i going to vote on this issue this particular time? maybe not. and so the only thing that i'd say in kind of response to that is that this may not be an either/or. you know, there are people who care, you know, strongly about immigration but who are going to vote on the ee conomy. it always becomes a little bit more of a kind of give and take when you are in the

circumstances of what people are going to do when they go into that voting booth. >> i think what sort of shocks the conscience though is the way in which trump talked about migrants. >> sure. >> i i this we have a little bit of a sort of compilation of some of his choice remarks. let's take a listen to that to refresh ourselves. >> they're poisoning the blood of our country. that's what they've done. they're poison. you know now a murderer, i believe this, it's in their genes. and we've got a lot of bad genes in our country. i don't know if you would call them people. in some cases they are not people in my opinion. these are animals, okay? is. >> i mean, that is some of the most virulent rhetoric. so, yes, the economy is an important thing, but to also sanction that kind of language seems like a different thing entirely. i'll recall one of the lessons i learned be from paula ram moss who's done great reporting oen this. the many latinos have fallen into the traps of white

supremacy diligently conforming unknowingly or not to a system that doesn't just discriminate against them but also sees them as threats to the preservation of whiteness. like white americans, these latinos now foresee that they have something to lose if immigration isn't more aggressively regulated. unlike white americans, they have something to prove, their own belonging here. >> sure. i would add to this, there is another dynamic for which donald trump has politically been an enormous beneficiary. as a matter of fact, it may be uncalculable benefit to him, which is that all of the rhetoric, the thing that sets off alarm bells in the ears of lots of progressives, even lots of main line liberals, there is an be effect on the right where people can say he's not talking about me. >> exactly. >> there are people on the left going, oh, yes, he most certainly is talking about you. you may not recognize it or not. other people on the other side saying he's talking about people who came here, quote, unquote, the wrong way. >> yes.

>> he's talking about even the kind of totalizing category of latino is difficult because you have to disaggregate that to get a wide a wray of differing opinions. people may say he's talking about latinos from this particular place but not this place. and so that rhetoric, you know, is -- it should be alarming to anyone. >> yeah. >> but the fact is that the people are able to make enough psychological distance between what he's saying and their own sense of their personal well-being that gives them the space to still adhere to being a supporter. >> i mean, i don't think i'm being polyana. maybe overly optimistic that trump's plans -- optimism is the wrong word to use, but i still believe the american project is strong enough that when people see as nbc is reporting that trump plans to scrap the policy of restricting i.c.e. agents from churches, schools and hospitals. i still believe in this country

that that is not something a vast majority of the public will accept as a way to keep the border safe. i don't know, arresting people at church, school and hospitals? >> i at one point thought people wouldn't tolerate children being separated from their parents at the border, and a lot of people didn't, but there were a whole lot of people who were reconciled themselves to it. the one thing i will say about this is on the church score, it is really difficult to imagine people being dragged out of pews while praying. you know, people being able to reconcile themselves with that? we've seen a lot that we didn't expect people to go for. that may actually be a bridge too far. the other thing about it is that these roles are in place for practical pragmatic reasons not because of their liberal polyanaish sensitivities but because you really don't want to arrest people at hospitals because you don't want people with communicable diseases afraid to go get treatment, you

know? and you don't want to arrest people at schools because you want them to actually go to school. >> correct. >> and so there's that part of it, too. >> i feel like we're going to be asking the question, is it a bridge too far a lot in the coming weeks and months. >> we will. >> jelani, thank you for helping me make sense of this. the. >> thank you. >> it's complicated. difficult, fraught. great to have you here. >> thanks. still ahead, north carolina republicans use the waning days of their legislative super majority to strip power from incoming democrats. how they did it and what comes next. that is right after the break. stay with us.

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world. businesses that want to win, win with shopify. north carolina was walloped by hurricane helene in september and then 103 people died. western north carolina was hit particularly hard by catastrophic flooding, so it is not surprising that a republican state representative's emotion was palpable today as he argued for passage of a bill that in part moves money into a fund for hurricane relief. >> we had a storm in avery county county. our bridge, the water had come up to such a point where my family and i decided we needed to cross the creek to keep from being cut off. >> that lawmaker went on for about 17 more minutes on the verge of tears the whole time.

his palpable and heartfelt emotion makes the cynicism of what his fellow republicans used that emotion for, makes it particularly disturbing, baugh it was all in service of a power grab. here's the backstory. while kamala harris lost the state of north carolina in november, democrats at the state level did much better. they won almost every statewide race including the offices of governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general and superintendant of schools. the one statewide race a democrat did not win was for state auditor. democrats also ended the republican legislature's super majority for the upcoming legislative session which means that as of next month republicans won't be able to override their democratic governor's veto simply on a party line vote. but for now, for this moment, they can. and what they used that power for today was wrapped inside that bill for hurricane relief.

that bill strips crucial powers from the incoming democratic administration. among them, it curtails the power of the next democratic governor to appoint the judges he wants. any republican judicial vacancies will now have to be filled with another republican. the incoming democratic attorney general will not be allowed to argue in court against any laws passed by the republican controlled general assembly. and authority over north carolina state board of elections will be transferred to that one statewide office that will be controlled by a republican. the yes. elections will now be overseen by the state auditor. democrats and supporters of small d democracy have worked tirelessly for weeks to keep the spotlight and the political pressure on republicans here to try and shame them from going forward with this just abundantly obvious anti-democratic power grab, but

republicans in north carolina today passed the bill under the guise of hurricane relief while they still had the super majority. what do democrats do now? the chair of north carolina's democratic party has some ideas and she joins me next. hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. customize and sa— (balloon doug pops & deflates) and then i wake up. and you have this dream every night? yeah, every night! hmm... i see. (limu squawks) only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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the motion carries. having passed by the requisite 3/5 vote and the bill

becomes law notwithstanding governor objections. the senate is notified. those that can't control themselves can leave out of either of those doors. >> okay. okay. >> make sure. >> despite clear objections the north carolina house voted today to pass a bill that would take power away from the incoming democratic administration, including officials like the state's governor and attorney general. joining me now is anderson clayton who's the chair of the north carolina democratic party. anderson, thank you for joining me. first, what is your reaction to what happened today in your state. >> republicans once again used their powers in their legislature to strip powers away from the voters of north carolina. it's nothing that we haven't seen this party do time and time again in the state and we're prepared to fight them at every level possible through litigation efforts afterwards but also through maintaining the voter education that we need to

continuously help people understand that what's happening right now in our state legislature and also our judicial branch in north carolina is political corruption from the republican party in our state. >> you mentioned legal avenues. can you elaborate on that? what recourse do you think you have through the courts? >> you know, we're exploring every option that we have right now as a party. we fully anticipate, you know, friday last week we were able to file in federal court to protect over 60,000 voters that republicans and north carolina gop are trying to disenfranchise right now in our supreme court race and the north carolina democratic party will continue to use every avenue possible to fight for the voters that we can in our state and to protect their rights at the ballot box. >> can you elaborate? i mean, just for people who don't understand practically what this means, can you sort of explain to our audience what the implications of this power grab by republicans mean in terms of the functioning of the state and the governor and the attorney general and down the line?

>> senate bill 382, and make no mistake, it was marked as a hurricane relief bill, but it does nothing to get actual funding out to communities, specifically small business owners who don't need grants right now, they need assistance fully from the federal government and from our state government in getting back to where they were pre-hurricane helene coming through and destroying communities across western north carolina right now. senate bill 382 though is really a power grab from republicans that takes away powers from our attorney general, our incoming democratic attorney general and thinking about it right now, the power of the attorney general is to in any case scenario, if there is a bill, if there is legislation that they find to be against the constitution of our state, the ability for them to sue based on that precedent is there and it strips that power away from the attorney general and it essentially becomes a lame duck position in our council of state right now.

republicans know that and they did that because of the incoming congressman that they gerrymandered out of their seat in the federal legislature right now, jeff jackson, who's coming in as our next attorney general but also looking at the next positions on the council of state that republicans have disenfranchised and it looks at our superintendent losing power and also consolidates judicial offices across the state as well. >> it is just a stunning authoritarian style power grab. anderson clayton with the north carolina democratic party. thanks so much for your time tonight. we will be following this story. hope to have you back soon. >> thank you. that for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. i should go without saying. i'm going to say it anyways, this is not easy for me. i love this place. i love our mission. i love our people. but my focus is and always has