that does it for us. i wish you all a good night. and remember, you can catch my show every weekend starting at 7:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thank you for staying up late. goodnight. donald trump has repeatedly said he wants to pardon january 6th rioters on day one of his presidency. but i think most people imagine that was probably more figurative than literal until now. this is from donald trump's new interview with time magazine

which is out today. january 6 pardons. do you have in mind what the first 24 to 48 hours will look like? trump, i will be looking at january 6th early on. the first nine minutes of his presidency. just to be clear here, donald trump will become president at 12:00 p.m. eastern time on january 20th of 2025. that is when he will take the oath of office standing in front of the u.s. capitol building. and nine minutes later he will presumably just be delivering the opening lines of his inaugural address. you probably remember the images of the january 6th rioters scaling the scaffolding. that was there because of the preparation for the 2020 inauguration. it is from that very spot that donald trump is now suggesting he will pardon the criminals who violently tried to keep him in power just four years ago.

if he follows through it will be a remarkable display of authoritarian style leadership. but that will not be the only bit of authoritarianism creeping onto the stage on inauguration day. >> i was thinking about inviting certain people to the inauguration. some people said wow, that's a little risky isn't it? i said maybe it is. we like to take little chances but that's not a bad chance. >> we like to take little chances. little chances? the risky people donald trump is inviting to his inauguration are the authoritarian leaders of china and hungary. xi jinping and viktor orban. we told you about a report that trump had allegedly invited them to the inauguration. this morning, incoming white house press secretary caroline levett confirmed that an invitation had been extended to xi jinping. >> reportedly, and you can

confirm this, sounds like donald trump has invited president xi to the inauguration. >> that is true. yes. and this is an example of president trump creating an open dialogue with leaders of countries that are not just our allies but our adversaries an our competitors too. >> has he rsvped? >> to be determined. >> i'm not really sure what to be determined means there. either he has or he has not. but anyway, cbs says that xi has declined the invitation but will send a high level official. the fox news hosts are trying to put a positive spin on the fact that the man who spent the last four years accusing joe biden of being too soft on china is using the very first moment of his presidency to

cozy up to china's dictator and they are not the only fox news hosts running cover for trump on this. >> this is a power move. to intimidate the chinese leader if he declines, it is disrespectful and trump will take it personally. if he accepts, he will be forced to observe president trump at his most powerful moment. >> that might be the most craven attempt to put a positive spin on trump's erratic behavior since this. >> he looked directly at the sun without any glasses. perhaps the most impressive thing any president has ever done. >> get ready for four more years of that. now, jesse waters is right about one thing here. trump's invitation to xi jinping is a power move. but not on behalf of the country. on behalf of donald trump himself. throughout his first presidency, trump repeatedly showed affection for america's autocratic adversaries while

shunning our allies and the inescapable conclusion for that is trump wants to be liked by those guys and actually just be like those guys. he wants america to be like the cleptocratic governments of china and russia where people suck up to the leaders just to enrich themselves. and america's rich and powerful appear pretty ready to indulge in that impulse this time around. the wall street journal reports that mark zuckerberg's meta has donated $1 million to donald trump's inauguration. that comes two weeks after he dined with trump at mar-a-lago.

to be clear, this is not normal. neither meta nor amazon have ever donated anywhere near this much money to an inauguration before. it comes after bezos who owns the washington post scuttled his papers endorsement of kamala harris ahead of this year's election and after bezos offered trump these words of praise just last week. >> he has grown. i have seen so far is that he is calmer than he was first time. and more confident, more settled. >> trump's favorite billionaire elon musk just spent the weekend down in mar-a-lago with trump where he was hanging with viktor orban. the same hungarian strong man that trump just invited to his inauguration. there has been a lot of hand

wringing about the political efficacy of calling donald trump an authoritarian strong man. but whatever political impact those terms do or do not have, the plans and meetings and invitations leading up to trump's inauguration really do suggest he meant what he said about being a dictator on day one. joining me now is senator chris murphy. democrat of connecticut and member of the senate committee on foreign relations. senator, thank you for being here tonight. let me first get your reaction to the notion that billionaires are bending the knee to trump. billionaires who in one case or another often own press outlets like the washington post. there is patrick currying favor with the maga right. what does this tell you about the government emerging in next january? >> i think we talk a lot about the coming dictatorship. but i think what is really coming is what you would call

an oligarchy. that's a term you probably forgot from high school. what it means is that a handful of really rich people run the government. and they steal from ordinary people using their access to government in order to make themselves and their families even richer. that is likely what we are headed for in the united states of america. i don't think it is a coincidence that trump's cabinet is filled with billionaires. there's more wealth on that cabinet than 169 different nations. and you see all the folks that could stand up for our democracy instead bending the knee and putting their profits ahead of their loyalty to the country. donald trump just put one of their hand picked guys in charge of the agency that oversees mergers in this

country. the word is out that corporate consolidation is back in vogue even if it screws consumers. that's part of the reasons you see these billionaires lining up to donate to trump, to meet with trump. they know that he is going to put them first and he is going to put everybody else second, third, and fourth. that's i think what is coming here. >> what sort of shocks the conscience is the way it is so explicit. trump literally posted on truth social any person or company investing one billion dollars or more in the united states of america will receive fully expedited approvals and permits including all environmental approvals. get ready to rock. literally sacrificing the integrity of our land for corporate profit. the trump argument is that it a all flow down to the worker but we know better than that at this point don't we? >> yeah. of course. i mean trickle down economics

has never worked. it is just a lie made up by really, really rich people to make you think if you give them tax breaks that they will pass it down to workers. ask average workers in this country if they got the benefits of the tax breaks from 2017. this proposal is bonkers. what he is saying is you will get regulatory breaks in this country, but only if you are a billionaire. if you are a mom and pop factory that wants to add on a new wing to hire more local workers you don't get that dole from trump. if you are a local housing developer and want to build houses, you don't get that special deal. what he said with that social media post is billionaires get one set of rules. all the rest of us get a different set of rules like how much more plainly could you make it that this is an oligarchy coming in which six

or seven really rich people play by one set of rules that allows them to enrich themselves and all of the rest of us including small businesses in this country get screwed. he is telling you what he is doing. listen, i think we should start listening to him. >> it also toys with distinct nepotism. there is a great peas of reporting in the new york times that reveals that trump's middle east adviser, the father- in-law of trump's daughter tiffany trump is the lore around him is he is a billionaire and he has all this foreign business experience. but he basically runs a truck dealership. i believe in nigeria which made under $66,000 in 2023 his stake is worth $1.53. hand it to him for not being a billionaire and getting a job

in trump's administration. this person has no qualifications. that i can see from the reporting we have to be the middle east adviser at a time like this. what are the implications of having someone like this manageing the portfolio of the most volatile and key regions in the world? >> yeah. obviously this guy seems like he is a fraud right? he manufactures educational background. he is not really rich. it is noble to run a truck dealership. nothing wrong with that. but even if he was a billionaire, that wouldn't make him qualified to be the primary middle east adviser to the united states. he has no experience. all throughout the middle east in particular, you are seeing this kleptocracy. it is not just this guy. after trump left office, his son-in-law jared kushner went and did a massive deal with saudi arabia which this saudi arabia promised billions of

dollars to invest in kushner and his properties. properties that the trump family benefits from. there is no doubt that this administration's policy toward the middle east will be compromised by the fact that they are making money off of the very people they are sitting across the table from and supposedly having a conversation about the interests of the united states. it is just extraordinary. that we have allowed for the normalization of trump's financial empire to be woven in to the state craft of this country. all that matters is how much money he makes, how much money his family makes and it comes at a cost to the rest of us. we'll see really bad policy made in the middle east because he has unqualified people there. but more so, he will put his wealth and his family's wealth first. the national security of the country second. >> and his ego. the idea he is inviting xi jinping, the leader of china who this week, there is bomb

shell reporting about operation salt typhoon, one of the most significant hacks of this country ever. it is chinese hackers breaking into american telecom systems getting access to all kinds of records. that whole genre of spy craft was largely grown and instituted by xi jinping in china the same week donald trump is inviting xi jinping to attend the inauguration. i think trump conceives of as more of a coronation than an inauguration. it feels like that for donald trump. but it is an astounding study in contrast in terms of what matters to donald trump. >> reporter: i wouldn't have a massive problem with inviting president xi if he was part of a longer invitation list of great powers in the world. that's not what's happening. the only great power getting an

invitation is the dictatorship. the only country in europe that seems to be getting an invitation is the one that is sliding away from democracy. it is this big middle finger to the country telling everybody these are the kinds of governments he models. places where ordinary people have no power. where if you try to stand up to the leader you get thrown in jail. he told us during the campaign that the biggest threat do the country wasn't china, russia, it was democrats. that's what he said. and he put in charge of the department of justice and the fbi people that would go after democrats and he is just doubling down ton that by inviting the chinese and the hungarians rather than our actual democratic allies to the swearing in. >> are you going to be there? >> i have always gone to

swearing ins. if between now and then, we continue to get this kind of disdain for the rule of law if the swearing in is a signal that the day after will be the last days of democracy, everyone who loves the constitution should probably think twice about being part of that kind of anti-democratic spectacle. >> senator chris murphy. great to talk with you. thanks for the time tonight sir. >> thank you. we have much more to get to, tonight. have you heard that donald trump has chosen a new voice of america? and she sounds a lot like kari lake. first, new york city's prodigal son has returned. opening the stock exchange against a backdrop of his very own time magazine cover. but what will his return to washington dc next month mean

for your wallet? your finances? that's next. for your wallet? your finances? that's next.

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we will end inflation and get america affordable again. we have to get the prices down. too much. groceries, cars, everything. we'll get the prices down. we will cut your taxes, end inflation. slash your prices. but prices will come down, you just watch. they will come down. and they will come down fast. >> one of donald trump's signature campaign pledges was to end inflation and slash prices. but now that the election is over, he is changing his tune. in the cover story for time magazine just released today, trump was asked to consider whether failure to lower grocery prices would make his presidency a failure. he responded i don't think so. it's hard to bring things down once they're up. you know? it's very hard. trump's sudden bout of honesty follows an interview with nbc's kristen welker who asked trump last weekend whether his plans

for widespread tariffs might actually raise prices for americans. >> can you guarantee american families won't pay more? >> i can't guarantee anything. i can't guarantee tomorrow. >> joining me now, the political adviser to bernie sanders and michelle goldbergful thank you both for being here tonight. faz, we will intersect your intro in the outro. i do wonder if you are at all surprised that donald trump is actually saying explicitly out there in public i probably won't be able to lower grocery prices and tariffs will raise price. >> he is making a choice of the things that joe biden was doing to try to investigate prices. a federal trade commission was

investigating price gouging. stopped a merger. trump moves aggressively against that. no, all my billionaire friends don't like this kind of stuff so we will end the regulations so even the action that could be construed as helps to bring down prices, he is actively against. i have campaigned on it. good luck to you all. >> i don't know. it is hard to lower prices once they go up, the emoji with the explosion coming out of the top of the head. does anybody hold this individual. the prices may not come down at all. >> the chances to hold donald trump to account for anything are gone. people may hold the republican

party to account if they find their economic situation hasn't improves or has gotten worse because donald trump has, he is going to replace lena khan with someone who is much more in favor of all kinds of mergers and unfair trade practices. he is going to open up the government to all of his billionaire cronies. he is going to, people in his administration have plans to keep people off of medicaid or make it harder for them to get. but there has always been something of a divorce between the way that donald trump performs and the way that he is seen by his most fervent acolytes. you already see republicans perception of the economy changed overnight after he was elected so for a lot of people, their perceptions of the

economy and their own situation is highly partisan. the question is people more disconnected from politics who voted for donald trump only because they thought that it would reverse inflation and some of the post covid changes they blame on joe biden. whether they will be disillusioned well ere when they find find none of these promises will be kept. >> the stage craft of him ringing the bell was really donald trump's greatest dream come true. also a statement, principles and priorities. this is where he has always wanted to be. surrounded by wealthy people with more wealthy people coming to support him in his administration. ringing the bell at the stock exchange and saying this. let's just listen to what he had to say. this is today at the nyse. i think we have it. >> we are cutting your taxes. we will cut them substantially.

we got them down to 21% from probably 42 or 44%. now we are getting them down to 15%. but only if you make your product here. otherwise, you pay $21 which is not bad. >> it is all about corporations. this is it this is who he is. this is the trump tax cuts on steroids we are about to see in the second term. what did you make of that? >> raising the minimum wage to 15. his fight for 15 is to lower the corporate tax rate to 15. the question you have to ask yourself is what problem are you trying to s? what's the issue here? strong economic growth. billionaires, wealthy people doing great. the stock market is up. so if you come around and offer people a tax cut to large corporations, wealthy people, there isn't really a problem. the issue is greater income and

wealth inequality. where people are getting screwed around in the middle class. and he is offering nothing right now. and the one thing, this is where the influence of the billionaire class is really important. when they are around him. if you are a billionaire, how did you get that rich? you find a way in the tax loophole that helped you get rich. so if your hedge fund billionaire, you get favored taxation. that is what they are looking for. that's the kind of stuff we have to fight to put onto the agenda against these guys who want to just dole out favors to the billionaire class. >> i absolutely understand what you are saying that the time to hold trump accountable is over. in theory he is not running again. but holding the republican party accountable. they will fall in line lock step on all of this. they have shown no interest in departing from anything donald trump has proposed. what should democrats do, given

how naked the ambitions to coddle the richest, given how explicit the favoritism toward the corporate class is? what is the correct response from democrats? >> what it is not is, you have seen a lot of bipartisan overtures. people saying they will vote for members of trump's prospective cabinet. on the one hand, i understand, you just lost an election. you can't act as if you won it. at the same time, i think that for a lot of democrats, they feel like the party that is supposed to be leading them is just kind of rolling over and showing its belly. at a time when we are on the verge of as chris murphy said, the verge into the

transformation of a fully corrupt oligarchy. you would like to see democrats fighting that and also pointing it out. there was a perception of donald trump for a long time that donald trump represented a fundamental break with paul ryanism. that people hated paul ryanism with its lust for tax cutting and entitlement reform and all the rest. and that donald trump is a different kind of republican. what we are seeing instead at least so far, the signs are that this incoming administration is going to be with some exceptions tariffs and the like. but in terms of its attitude on the government safety net and income inequality and taxes will be paul ryanism on steroids. >> do you think one part of this resonates more deeply with the american public than

another? >> if you are working class american, does that have more resonance? what of the data we have gotten so far about what the administration will look like and how much it is an olgaty. what oligarchy. >> right now, we are watching them fight among themselves. a lobbiest group in dc. to get their agenda. he is not president yet. and he hasn't put forward his tax bill. we haven't gotten the tariffs yet. we got pretty decent judgments about where they are likely to go but don't have the

concreteness. when that comes: there is a lethargy out there that isn't quite at the same level of ready for the fight. i hope once the actions start coming, these are, we can't take these lying down. making decisions that will ruin the next generation of america. so i'm hoping that when he starts to make some of these, and you and i can figure out some of them. when a billionaire class and the doge says we want to end meals on wheels, food stamps. cut medicaid. find all kinds of cuts that disproportionally hurt working class people, that's mobilization time. that is action. now you have the harmed recipient. the people we know have been purposefully targeted by trump. that i think hopefully gets us to the place of let's engineer a movement in america.

>> i can't believe we'll have to say the word doge as much as we are. that's the least of the indignity. thank you my friends for your time this evening. >> thank you. coming up, twice failed arizona senate and gubernatorial candidate and robust election denier kari lake is well known for her disdain for journalists and the truth. i'll speak with npr's david about what might happen now that kari lake has been tapped to lead the independent news service. stay with us. ndent news service. stay with us. i didn't know who i would be. but here i am... ...being me. keep being you... ...and ask your healthcare provider about the number one prescribed h-i-v treatment, biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in many people—whether you're 18 or 80. with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to undetectable—and stay there whether you're just starting or replacing your current treatment. research shows that taking h-i-v treatment as prescribed and

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it's time to take a sledge hammer to the mainstream media's lies and propaganda. >> that was the failed republican candidate kari lake in one of the ads from her race for governor of arizona in 2022. last night, president-elect donald trump announced lake as his pick to run one of the world's most important media outlets. voice of america. since world war ii, the congressionally funded news outlet has on rated with the mission to provide free and comprehensive news coverage all across the globe. today, they bring broadcasts to 150 million people. broadcasts in places that do not have a free press like

china and venezuela. and the network's russian language website is still up and running. and providing factual information to people in russia who access it through encrypted internet connections. its purpose has been to provide a counterbalance to china and russia and give people access to the truth. and now donald trump wants to put kari lake in charge. >> i'm kari lake. i worked as a news journalist for 20 years so i know the ins and outs of the corporate media and know how corrupt it is. it is not recording. it is prop canada and it is biased. it is unethical. journalism is dead. >> you probably know her best

for her refusal to concede after losing both her 2022 run for arizona. lake was one of the most vocal proponents of the big lie that the 2020 presidential election was big. she made a big name for pushing for hydroxychloroquine. so the truth is not exactly kari lake's thing. to give you a sense of what kind of media she views as truthful and good. the show she chose to go on today, the show was steve bannon's war room podcast. here she is on that show after steve asked her why she was the right person to lead the voa. >> i have been in broadcast journalism 30 years. as most people in the war room posse know. i walked away from a lucrative

contract during covid after the government was pushing so many lies about covid. what kind of treatment, the vaccine. on ton of that, the 2020 election being rigged. i really cherished my time as a journalist and when it became apparent it was impossible to become a journalist in a world taken over by propaganda, i chose to walk away rather than stay in it. >> does that sound like the voice of america to you? david joins me to discuss coming right up next. ♪ ♪ holiday memories made by alexis brought to you by etsy. customize and save with liberty mutual. customize and sa— (balloon doug pops & deflates)

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a u boat had fired on california. and the president struggled to improve arms production. >> it would tell listeners the truth if the news was good or bad. for 85 years they have worked to honor that promise with obtuser reporting for an

objective reporting for an audience. that is why there is considerable alarm that trump wants the next voice of america to be kari lake. a former local news anchor turned staunch election denier. joining me now is david. a wealth of information on this subject. david, lake said in a tweet this week under my leadership, the voa will excel in its mission. chronicling america's achievements worldwide. correct me if i'm wrong but i don't think that is the voa's mission at all is it, david? >> i mean, that could be part of the diet of news provided the global audience along with debate and dissent and other news in the u.s. the notion is that the voice of america is

performing a small d democratic service in two ways. so it is providing as you laid out to viewers a service in those countries that don't have a robust and free press. that it provides news reports reliable even for listeners or viewers who are accessing these reports and regimes that don't allow domestic news outlet to provide that themselves. secondly, it is modeling what a liberal democracy again can be. by saying we look, we acknowledge there are report that's do not reflect well on our public officials. whether democrats or republicans and we will present that to you because a, we think you need it to be well informed. and b, we want to show you what a free press really likes like. simply talking about america's

achieverments is a pr element. talking about america's news, that's a network. >> it feels like it dove tails with the conservative mission to rewrite history whether it is talking about institutional racism or slavery and otherwise ban books that challenge or critique american institutions. it sounds like kari lake wants to focus only on the positive and that therefore anything that critiques the presidency or the institution of the presidency, the administration, republican platforms that are ascendant in the republican trifecta of the courts and the executive branch, that will be censored. do you have any sense of what that might look like? how that would change what is happening at the voa at present? >> i think you see an enormous draining of the talent of people who have covered so many countries, so many regimes. and uncovered developments that were not being robustly

reported on. further more, we can look back to the end of trump's first term. he had wanted to appoint a controversial former documenttarian and corporation for public broadcasting official named michael pak and his nomination languished for a few years but he rammed it through in late spring of 2020. why? the white house went on the attack against a network owned by the federal government on rated not here, but abroad. the voice of america. because president trump felt at that time it was not reporting that the covid-19 outbreak was squarely the part of the communist party government in china and he felt it was offering chinese propaganda. the white house put out official statements attacking the voice of america and the senate republicans reluctantly pushed through his nomination. he waged a 70 month long war. civil war on the

professionallists of the voice of america. but it is on two parts. it was on the professionalism of the voice of america and the u.s. agency for global media trying to erode the non- partisan non-politicized nature which is a template of how the administration looked at the larger administration and looks at how it wants to handle appointments and employs the work force in the white house in trump 2.0. he lumped in the voice of america and its soft diplomacy abroad. promoting democratic values with the largest press which at that timhe was attacking as fake news all the time. that was the banner that kari lake is flying under. whether or not she makes to this position or not, that's the agenda they have to try to bring this institution to heel, to represent not just in their

occasional acknowledgment of what the official position of the american government is but reflecting it as if it was fully fact. >> i think that posture extends to the broader media, the white house press room. eric trump said during a podcast episode that the incoming president is considering opening up the press room to a lot of independent journalists. we should be clear about who eric trump thinks is an independent journalist. that could be joe roga. what is your expectation for the upheaval that brady press briefing room. which is a critical exchange and form for debate between the press and the administration, what that might look like in a matter of weeks? >> look, in any other moment if you ask me dave, how well do you think the white house press core does holding government parties accountable? i might take issue with the way it is done. but there are important moments

where you hear questions that above all in the american electorate and news reports that need to be challenged and tested in realtime and public view. that is what that press briefing room is providing. when president biden proved not to be up to the job. many millions of americans, you saw that being posed to his representatives at that lectern because that is the form which takes place. i don't know if they want to spend their times lingering around in tiny cubicles for the chance to ask officials questions. joe rogan wants people to come down to austin to his studio. but at the same time, if you displace, i don't care about bringing people in so much. but if you displace people providing accountability asking important questions that have public per chias and meaning, that is a problem indeed. >> as someone who used to sit in one of those rows i can

attest the kitchen is very small, but that doesn't mean the work is not important. david, great to have you on the show. >> you bet. >> we will be right back. . >> we will be right back. also . i asked myself, why doesn't pilates exist in harlem? so i started my own studio. getting a brick and mortar in new york is not easy. chase ink has supported us from studio one to studio three. when you start small, you need some big help. and chase ink was that for me. earn up to 5% cash back on business essentials with the chase ink business cash card from chase for business. make more of what's yours.

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i have one, too. i'd be so lost without mine. we are talking about mentors, right? yes. a mentor can guide you. support you. and unlock your potential. being a mentor can be just as life-changing. you can create opportunities. and inspire the next generation. helping someone find their path can transform your own. so find a mentor. or become one. wait, can i do both? you know what? let me ask my mentor. of course, you can. bring someone along on your journey. and see where it takes you. as republicans gear up to take over washington next month and celebrate all that winning, we got a case study this week in how to respond to the moment if you are skeptical that america is about to be made great again.

sarah, a conservative political strategist, was seated at a "new york times" event on a panel that included some of trump's biggest enablers. this is what she did when former speaker of the house kevin mccarthy tried to rewrite history. >> indedents believe the greatest threat to democracy was joe biden getting reelected. >> so the idea -- i don't know why -- the defense of merrick garland, sure. donald trump lied about an election being stolen and then sicced them on the capitol. it's funny you roll your eyes, because you went down and resurrected him. you want to know what happened in the 2024 election is we elected the most dangerous criminal human being, corrupt human being, that america has ever elected. and kevin, you helped him. you're the one who went and got him after, after -- >> you're welcome. >> yeah, thank you.

and in doing so you enabled this. and so joe biden -- the idea that joe biden's justice department is the problem here as opposed to donald trump and the fact that he tried to overturn an election and sic people on the capitol is -- i don't eno if people let you get away with that in rooms all the time, but you should never be allowed to get away. >> here's to more of that energy in 2025. s that is our show for tonight, and a reminder, you can listen to every single episode of alex wagner tonight as a pod cas for free. scan the qr code on your screen or search for alex wagner tonight wherever you get your podcasts. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, alex. i loved hearing kevin mccarthy's thwarted attempt to rewrite history. >> you're welcome, and then she say, yeah, thank you, whatever. oh. >> yeah. >> you just play it on loop, on