luke sign us off. >> this is from 1975. my mom wrote the cover story about bruce springstein. that is steven van zant. she had beaten bruce at an arcade game. how about that? >> we are going to sign off tonight. >> and she had the idea before time magazine. >> for now signing off, for all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late. see you at the end of monday. by now, you have likely seen that time magazine has named donald trump as their person of the year. that is probably the only part of the story donald trump wants you to hear. if you read the profile of trump that time magazine wrote,

trump is not actually as all powerful as he would like for you to think. this is probably easier if i show you what i mean. time is going to report that earlier this year, trump was on the verge of supporting a 16- week federal abortion ban. then he was shown a document how that would cost him the election. what do you think happened next? spoiler alert, just six days after seeing that document, donald trump changed his tune. >> my view is we have it for everyone wanted it from a legal standpoint. the states will determine by vote or legislation or both. whatever they decide must be the law of the land. in this case, the law of the state. >> at least before the election, pressure worked. public opinion mattered to trump and it slowed his most

extreme impulses but now the election is over. and he doesn't need the votes of regular citizens but he does need the votes of congress. their majority is slim and they can still act as a check on trump's power. matt gaetz with looming threats of a house ethics report about his alleged sexual misconduct hanging over him, gaetz withdrew his nomination. trump told time magazine that he got gaetz to withdraw. when it became clear the votes weren't there, trump told gaetz, matt, i don't this is worth the fight. meaning this is still a fight. this peek, the fight between trump and the senate was focused on trump's pick for secretary of defense pete hegseth who faces allegations

of misconduct of his own a. and alcohol abuse and mismanagement. they are putting up quite the fight to get hegseth confirmed. here was the republican senator from alaska lisa murkowski describing what the message from trump felled like. >> we got you here. and if you want to survive, you better be good. don't get on santa's naughty list here because we will primary you. >> don't get on santa's naughty list because we will primary you. those are fighting words. because this is still a fight. joining me now is eric, staff writer at time. covering congress and national politics. he is the person who wrote the person of the year profile. and also with us is tara palmeri. host of the somebody's got to win podcast. thank you both for being here. i want to start with you tara.

some republican senators are experiencing especially the iowa senator to confirm pete hegseth for the pentagon chief. donald trump does not have a history of putting out a ton of political capital with respect to any of his allies bu this instance with hegseth, it seems like he is putting out quite a bit. is that the case and if so, why is he willing to spend that on hegseth when he wasn't on matt gaetz? >> it does seem like he is willing to put out some political capital but donald trump doesn't measure political capital. he will give someone an endorsement and take it back if that person doesn't look like they are winning. he has endorsed two people. he doesn't measure it the way that certain politicians do in the way they think there is only a certain amount. he believes that it is infinite. he seems to at least be standing by pete hegseth for now.

i really think that these attacks on hegseth from the heritage action, they will run ads in her backyard, but not just in her backyard, but in the backyards of bill cassidy, mitch mcconnell, lisa murkowski. other members who might be seen as less willing to go along with the pressure campaign. and there is also obviously trump's pit bull. mike davis, who is threatening to hire pis on these senators to dig up dirt on them. it is getting really dirty and i think a lot of these people are doing it to curry favor for trump. at the end of the day, he believers these nominees, it's on them whether they stand or fall. and if pete hegseth falls he will just move onto another. he doesn't think that reflects badly on him. >> in terms of what does reflect purply on him, one of the things you talked about is

this notion is that the american public is not prepared for the chaos that could ensue with a second trump term. do you think that chaos begins with the senate picks? and whether they get confirmed? >> i think what americans may not be prepared for is the scale of change and the potential for chaos. he is offering disruption on a massive scale. he ultimately will try to deliver on the agenda he campaigned on. to that extent, you are seeing that play out. but you are seeing him put people in place much quicker than last time. he is very deeply involved in the decision making process. but, you know, i think what you are really going to see is the

fact trump likes to put people through the wringer and see how they endure through a test. because what he admires most is resilience and their ability to withstand incoming from the other side. >> one of the things he does, is he will make his positions very malleable. we talked about that in the opening. you also said that eric as it pertains to woman of the promising he has made, walking back some of the things he said on the campaign to change people's expectations. given that. and you did this person of the year piece, how does the american public develop actual indexes or metrics to measure donald trump's success this time around? >> donald trump keeps some of

those measurements quite abstract. we asked him if you failed to lower the price of groceries does that make your administration a failure? he promised strongly that he was going to lower prices. this was a key part of his message. it was also one of the key frustrations expressed by voters who supported him. he basically said it is hard to bring prices down. we will try, but it is very hard. that is moving the goal post if you will. so it will be on members of the press and others to pin him on specifics. what can we expect it to be when you are president? what will real wage growth be? what will the consumer index be? but right now it is just wholehearted promises of american renewal and success. >> let's continue to talk cabinet. i want to talk to you tara. you reported you essentially went to fill out one of these

applications to work under rfk jr. and what you saw when you went down this rabbit hole of an application he is asking for applicants to choose some very important prewritten responses like i don't have much interest in having sexual experiences with another person. i consistently use my physical appearance to draw attention to myself. or, i have chronic feelings of emptiness. listen. i have applied for a lot of jobs. i know a lot of people out there apply for a lot of jobs. i hope you can help me make sense of what's the purpose of these questions. >> it is very strange and that is three of 100 bizarre questions. it starts mostly with like pattern assessment and then

word associations. that's about 30 minutes. and then it moves on into these very bizarre personality questions. i think there's, they're looking for people with schitzo issues. jordan peterson is the person behind this form. he is a psychology professor who has sort of gone to the right. almost to like a gadfly status. but is also a hero among a lot of people that believed in rfk jr. and the maha movement so i'm not entirely surprised but it gets very weird. it says before you take this, be well rested, recently have eaten and make sure you are not disturbed. some of the other responses are modesty doesn't become me. i get upset when people don't notice how i look when i go out in public. and here is another one.

and i can talk anyone into anyone. they are trying to weed out a specific type of person and find people who will go along with their agenda. which is obviously not exactly mainstream. i asked the trump administration. they said rfk can solicit nominees however he wants and they have to go through the vetting process from there. but yeah, that's how they are doing it. >> it causes me to wonder with everything else going on with some of the other picks, hegseth and then you have kash patel and other picks that are controversial. whether these sorts of things will fly under the radar because they are not being discussed. is there any possibility because of the more extreme picks that he has made and the bigger challenges they have faced that this is going

unnoticed by the public or the senate? >> oh absolutely. something like this would be a question mark. why is this intake form somehow qualify you for working for the u.s. agency that handles health. right? but right now, we have way bigger issues. even rfk himself, right? he said that wi-fi causes cancer. he has suggested that covid-19 was planned. and he is seen as someone who will be confirmed easily. one quipped i guess we will just get rid of seed oil. when they think about people like tulsi gabbard who has shown she is sympathetic to vladimir putin. and then went and visited assad after he gassed his own people

in syria. then you have kash patel coming in with an enemies list. they are just trying to get through pete hegseth. it is just wait and see and try to keep your cards close to the vest. you will have attacks coming at you from all different directions and it is better to hold off on that until later on. we are still halfway to inauguration day. so those hold-outs are trying not to show their concern for now. >> one quick question before we break. how of this do you think is resonating with the actual american public? or do they just see time person of the year donald trump and say the guy must be doing a good job? >> well, i don't think that the senate picks are causing a great deal of anxiety for probably the majority of americans. i think there has been polling out showing that a lot of

americans think trump is doing a good job. so i'm not sure just how much wide scale the american public are feeling weary of it. a certain segment certainly is. but you know, we will ultimately see the effects and consequences when he takes office. i think we will see someone very aggressively try to concentrate the powers of government inside the executive branch so that trump can carry out a really radical agenda we have not seen before. >> thank you both for making the time this evening. still ahead this hour, nearly four years after the january 6th capitol attack, arrest and prosecutions of rioters continue despite donald trump's vow to pardon insurrectionists on day one. but first, president biden commutes the prison sentences of more people than any other president in any single day. i'll be talking with the reporter who broke this story

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president joe biden made history this week by using one of his absolute powers to commute the sentences of nearly

1500 people. the largest single day grant of clemency ever. they were people who successfully rejoined their families and communities. president biden pardoned 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes. this follows his decision to grant a a full and unconditional pardon to his son hunter. biden's orders in his final days in office comes as he faces pressures from activists and advocacy groups to pardon people on federal death row and as he considers offering preemptive pardons to trump's political foes. april, thank you for being here, you were the one who broke the news of biden's decision to commute these sentences and you did it with me. thank you for bringing me the news, can you talk a little more around why biden has decided to issue so many

pardons? >> first of all, you know charles, there is an up tick in the last year of a president for pardons but this president wants to leave with a bang. he wants to show america that he is still president and he tried to be transformative. right now, joe biden ties bill clinton and barack obama for the most clemency forgiveness if you will. or relief. than any other president. bill clinton and barack obama tied with 62. we expect this president in the coming weeks before january 20th or maybe on january 20th before noon to offer more clemency. mostly non-violent. but you go down a slippery slope when you get into violent crime. but they are reviewing the

justice department. the white house council's office. they are reviewing and getting an up tick of calls. >> speaking of slippery slope. there was a lot of thought had donald trump not won, president biden would not have issued the pardon for hunter and perhaps because he did not or might not have issued that pardon, perhaps he wouldn't have issued as many pardons as he is now. is there any validity to that snowball theory that began with trump being elected. >> first of all, this back and forth whether or not he was going to pardon hunter. the hot is a human being. that is his son. and understanding the president is a human being. and understanding the vendetta

that the incoming president or his cabinet has against him and his family as well as kamala harris and others. he said i will do this now. if he had done this on january 20th at noon people would have been up in arms because he wouldn't have been around to speak on it and talk about it. he did it now. got it out of the way. he did it on december 2nd. he moved onto other pardonsened and we are expecting a lot more and going into that issue of the retaliation. a lot of people on the kash patel list and others i have been talking to making inquiries. people who are in quote unquote the woke movement or people you would be surprised are within the government that you would be surprised about that are

very concerned and expecting to lose their position and concerned about retaliation against the incoming president and his administration. >> thank you so much for all you do. thank you for breaking this important news and being here tonight. coming up, the fate of the department of justice's effort to hold january 6th rioters accountable especially in the face of an incoming president who called the event a quote day of love. and is also vowing to pardon them on his first day in office. that's up next. after a short break. that's up next. after a short break.

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♪♪ welcome back. nearly four years after the january 6th attack on the u.s. capitol, federal authorities are continuing to arrest rioters who took part in the violent insurrection. this week, a man from florida named george fernandez was charged with multiple felony offenses. now today, federal prosecutors have secured over 1100 convictions related to january 6th. and, additional arrests are expected but the time for justice appear to be running out. president-elect donald trump

said one of the first acts of his presidency would be to pardon most of the capitol rioters saying it would happen in the first hour i got into office, maybe the first nine minutes which means that the years of hard work by the justice department could soon unravel with a stroke of his pen. joining me now to discuss is the former director of the justice department's office of public affairs. how do you think attorneys within the doj are reacting to the pledge donald trump has made to pardon january 6th rioters. >> i got to tell you when i was growing up my mom had a copy of the serenity prayer. god grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change. right? and i think it is that mind set

that so many prosecutors have when they hear donald trump's rhetoric. they are simply ignoring all of that as they should and focus on the cases and the work in front of them. i think there is a clear acknowledgment there is a difference between what donald trump says and what he does. rewind the tape to his first campaign where he said hillary clinton. we will lock her up. we will build a wall and get mexico to pay for it. we will get rid of obama care and replace it with something beautiful. he has all these promising and he doesn't fulfill them. so there is a clear acknowledgment of his history in this regard. now, if you are still someone who is an ausa and your

responsibility is to continue to prosecute cases against january 6ers and you hear that potentially in less than two months time all of your work could be washed away because of these pardons how seriously can you take going after these folks with respect to the investigations, the indictments, the prosecutions, and everything that goes into a case? how legitimate do you see your job being? >> if you are one of these prosecutors you have to keep in mind the people you are fighting for. i'm reminded, charles, there are five law enforcement officers who lost their lives as a result of injuries sustained on january 6th. and i think the country owes them an aggressive prosecution. they deserve to be, they deserve to have this case fully

adjudicated. certainly. people holding them accountable. one other thing, there is story after story of defendants who have seen the light. who have been working with prosecutors to hold other people accountable who have acknowledged that donald trump lied to them and they are trying to become productive citizens so i think between what i started with and this realization, that's what has to keep you going as a prosecutor. >> now donald trump has made a big deal about streamlining government efficiency. he has this office of government efficiency to cut back the fat with elon musk and

vivek ramaswamy. continuing with these prosecutions only to result in pardons or vice versa. how is this not a serious waste of government resources, particularly if within the first, as he said, possibly nine minutes of his presidency, he erases all the work that is done? i can't see that. help me understand. >> i can't see it either. i think what he is doing with floating these pardon is rewriting history. when you think about the whole what happened on january 6th, it is built on a foundation of lies. that the election was stolen. and we know it wasn't stolen. that is what he is trying to do. to rewrite history. to shape the narrative. and he is trying to potentially use this pardon power as a political tool. and that should concern all of us who care about the

constitution. who are pro democracy despite our political affiliation. >> you are someone who has been on the inside, particularly from a messaging standpoint around the doj. we know that the conversation around donald trump, kash patel, the fbi, the doj, there is an extreme concern that it will be weaponnized in a political way to go after donald trump's political foes, if you are the communications director, how do you message and also steer the attorney general to make sure the doj remains an independent and democratic institution that is not subject to the political whims of the president? >> listen, i think this is a lost cause based on the people

donald trump has appointed. the attorney general has a good resume. but it needs more than a good resume. it requires an acceptance of what court rulings are even if you don't agree with them. pam bondi is somebody who has embraced election denialism. and i have to tell you, we are probably running short on time. 24 years ago tonight, al gore conceded to george w. bush in that recount. i worked on that campaign and it was tough for thousands of his supporters and staff members. but that's what happens when courts rule. you accept the outcome and you move on with your lives no matter howdies appointed you are. pam bondi has not moved on. she has a stance beyond what the attorney general embraced in terms of the election

denialism so i'm concerned about the people that donald trump is placing around him. they have loyalty to him and they are putting that above the constitution. >> you have taken us to church, to history class and the dog all in one segment. thank you for your time. still ahead, on monday, daniel penny was acquitted for choking jordan neally to death in a subway and he will be in a suite watching the army navy football game with donald trump and jd vance. i will discuss how that happened and what it says about the country we are living in. stay tuned for more coming up. .

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♪ ♪ gifts that say i get you. etsy has it. vice president-elect jd vance is pouring fuel on the fire of the national controversy of the killing of an unarmed black man in new york city. daniel penny, a white marine veteran was acquitted of killing a homeless black street performer. he appeared to be experiencing a mental health episode. daniel penny had been a passenger on the train car and put him in a choke hold which ultimately resulted in nealy's death. the case itself has become a national flash point with many liberal and progressive activists saying penny should

have been found guilty while conservatives rallied around him as a vigilante hero. jd vance announced that daniel penny will be his honored guest at the football game saying daniel is a good guy and new york's mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone. joining me now to discuss this is new york public advocate jomani williams. i want to get your reaction to jd vance's sort of propositioning of daniel penny as somebody with a backbone and should be celebrated. >> the question is what are we actually celebrating? at best, we are celebrating a person who unintentionally perhaps killed a homeless man who was having a mental health episode and came on a subway car asking for money. why are we celebrating that?

why all of a sudden with a dead person, jordan nealy is now not the victim, daniel penny who had no accountability held on him is somehow the victim. and we see this often, too often, who you decide to celebrate and why, we should be honest about it. jd vance is not being honest about what he is celebrating. i do not know daniel penny but i do know he decided to go to the bar, have a drink right after. now he is deciding to go to a football game and be a part of this celebration. and that now is a choice he is making. which is different than what he was explaining before. >> it is a very important point. whereas you might have decided to act in this moment out of impulse, you are now making a choice to be celebrated and propped up if you will as a hero in this moment. i don't think many people have

discussed. because new york city is such a progressive city in terms of the political ideology, people don't necessarily take seriously the class lines that exist within the city that may have contributed to how people process as far as the jury, this ultimate case. can you just speak to how that dichotomy between new york as a progressive city, but also, sort of really strong class and racial fought lines? >> new york city is one of the most segregated cities in the country. and that is about where people live and where people go to school. as progressive as we want to be, how we live is not the same. and i would always say if people would just think about if this was reversed, and it was a homeless black man who

choked to death a former white marine having a mental health episode, how would we be viewing this? who would be celebrated and who wouldn't be? and that is really important. and the thing is we have to remember that people actually told daniel penny to stop. because he was no longer whatever the threat was. i don't want to down play what somebody was experiencing on that train. if you are from new york city, you have all been in the situation. you should not be allowed to kill someone, particularly because you were afraid of what the person represents. and being black, being homeless, a combination is a hell of a thing. but i always have to remind folks the first words jordan neally said was i'm hungry. daniel penny said he had to intervene. someone could have intervened

with some food. >> so one of the things i think need to be discussed and i'm curious to see your thoughts, we have actually seen this before. you mentioned daniel pantaleo. who killed eric garner. we have seen it with kyle rittenhouse. where the right maga if you will, the extreme far right decides to take these vigilantes and prop them up as heros. how dangerous do you feel like that is both politically and practically when you don't have a sense of context, when you don't really understand how the dynamics in new york city function. to take daniel penny to the army navy football game and put him as a hero on a national level. how problematic do you see that being? >> you are conflating victims and heros. you should want someone to

intervene if someone needs help but you should not be able to choke someone to death even if it is unintentional. and have no consequences at all. not the worst consequences but no consequences. and i will add to that we had a major of new york city who said daniel penny did what new york city should have done. and these kinds of words are very dangerous for the people most vulnerable in our city to begin with, the people who need our support. no one will say that jordan neally wasn't failed every step of the way we are lifting up the person who accidentally killed this man. had no accountability. and, as much as he has talked about that, it is now himself saying i will be celebrated as something else. i will allow these folks to put me in a point of view that is

very harmful. >> how do we as new yorkers and as americans begin to address the other systemic failures that affected jordan neally and brought him to this point. >> we have to say and, and not or. so it is clear that daniel penny may have not meant to do this and he did. and with, if we had taken care of what he needed, we can discuss what resources new york city need to address the chronically homeless and mentally ill. but that's not what they want. they want to celebrate something else. hopefully, we who respond can remember the humanity of everyone so we can hopefully calm things down and address

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on the nasdaq to have at least one woman or person of color or one member of the lgbtq community on their board of directors. this was approved three years ago and it was part of a pattern. in 2020 and 2021, as calls for racial justice came from all over the country in the wake of george floyd's murder, dozens of companies across america made commitments to enhance their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. but a new pattern has taken hold. as donald trump rallied against dei initiatives on the campaign trail, american companies like ford and john deere cut their diversity programs. over the summer, the supreme court outlawed affirmative action in college admissions. diversity efforts are winding down in nearly every corner of the nation just in time for trump to return to the white house. joining me now is professor of arts and sciences in is sociology department in washington university in saint louis.

professor, thank you for being with me on a friday night. what is your reaction to this louisiana case and what is the impact we are likely to see from it? >> well i'm going to be a little bit ambiguous and say it is a really bad idea. but yeah, this is not really a good choice. the reason we know organizations are in a position when they are more diverse, they are better able to innovate. and they have to take specific steps to get to that point. so when they are ham strung by efforts that make that more restrictive we are seeing organizations put in a position that actually is not for their best interest because it undermines their ability to operate in a way that is best for their long term financial goal and success. >> is there a case study just

straightforward that looks at any particular business, private business or publicly held business that says look at their bottom line. before dei was implemented, they were here after dei. they were here. and that is the best case study you have for why diversity and inclusion matters. particularly if you are concerned about the bottom line for your business? >> i can actually do you one better and i can point to meta analysis which show pretty comprehensively when organizations do focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, when they make that a core part of their business and a core part of their operating platform they see the returns you are talking about. we know that inspires organizations to have a variety of different ideas. they are able to come up with types of strategies moving forward and innovate in ways they are far less able to do when there is less diversity in organizational spaces so we know from company after company

that when companies do move in this direction it is to their benefit. >> one of the things i have heard consistently is look, it was 2020, 2021. we paid a lot of money for consultants and workshops and racial healing and dei and we did not see any results. is that a function of bad practitioners or unrealistic ebbing pigs faces? how do you make the metrics realistic? >> it is about the companies not following the evidence. it is common for many organizations to do what they see other companies doing. what they see other companies doing is not necessarily what works. and there again is a wealth of data that does document the strategies that lead to more diversity and organizations. companies can engage in trying

to rethink their outreach strategies to be more broad and include places that they might otherwise overlook. they can make sure they are engaged in practices where people are more network internally inside the organizations but a lot of companies don't do that and they rely on things like diversity training that involve external consultants that may not know the company culture. so i think what you end up seeing are companies that do what seems popular, what seems quick and easy and not necessarily what works but when companies do what works they get the results they say they want. >> all right professor, i have about 60 seconds. donald trump is going back to the white house. we have four more years of maga. is dei on its death bed? >> it's not in a good position. but i will say i think it is important to take the long view. when we take the long view, we can think about the fact our country is changing. and a lot of organizational

leaders and a lot of companies realize they are in a better position by being aware of the fact they need their companies to meet that need. i wouldn't consider it dead just yet but it is not in the healthiest place we would like it to be. >> i would say it has been in hospice a little while. professor, thank you so much for your time. that's going to do it for our show tonight. but you're not getting rid of me just yet. i'll be back tomorrow morning filling in for my good friend ali velshi so join me at 10:00 a.m. right here jason, how's it going, my friend? >> i'm good. happy holidays to you. thank you, charles, and thank you, everyone, for joining us tonight. tonight's top political stories are like a newscast from the