jockeying for supremacy, essentially, over who see the gets to say what is lawful in the way of abortion. >> we have other states talking about movement restrictions on whether underage -- people trying to secure abortions. >> yep. >> can leave the state, whether they can be prosecuted if you move to another state. so there's a bunch of, like, federalism and sort of state -- >> at least that one implicates what we still understand as a federal constitutional right. that is the right to travel. >> right. >> it's still the law of the land. here, without a federal right to abortion, what you have is two states -- right, good point. >> essentially saying, we have the right to control this, and they're going to fight it out. >> i think we're going to see more of these suits. >> we will. >> hoping to intimidate providers. this, and they're going to fight it out. >> i think we are going to see more of these suits hoping to intimidate providers. that is all in on this evening. alex wagner tonight starts right now. >> intimidation through lawsuits, that is the story of today. thank you, my friend. so donald trump's war against a free press has reached a new level.

over the weekend we learned that abc news had settled a defamation lawsuit with trump for $50 million. the lawsuit alleged that abc news anchor george stephanopoulos had defamed trump when he misspoke several times during an interview and said that a jury had found trump liable for when it actually found him liable for sexual abuse. it's worth noting the judge in that very case clarified that the jury's verdict did not mean that trump's accuser failed to prove that mr. trump raped her, as many people commonly understand the word rape, but it's hard to imagine that donald trump brought that lawsuit because he really cared about the legal distinctions here. trump likely brought that lawsuit as part of a campaign to silence his critics and to keep controversy at a, and that campaign is ratcheting up. in a press conference yesterday trump celebrated the abc settlement and indicated that he wanted to bring lawsuits

against even more media outlets. >> i'm going to be bringing one against the people in iowa, their newspaper, which had a very, very good holster, who got me right all the time, and then, just before the election, she said i was going to lose by three or four points and it became the biggest story all over the world, because i was going to win iowa by 20 points. that was the des moines register. and it was their parents. we will probably be filing a major lawsuit against them today or tomorrow. >> the newspaper donald trump was threatening their is the des moines register, the paper of record for the state of iowa. the pollster trump mentioned his veteran polster and selzer, who published a poll in the final week before the election, showing donald trump behind in a reliably red state. late last night, trump made good on his threat and officially filed suit against the des moines register and and selzer for publishing that poll

. now the suit was brought not as a defamation case but as an alleged violation of iowa's consumer fraud protection laws. the register poll in question was spectacularly wrong, as a number of polls in the election were, and trump went on to win iowa by 13 points, which was actually a wider margin than his victory in 2020 and in 2016, but trump's allegation here is that the poll was somehow manipulated to make him look bad, and that allegation appears completely unfounded. it is hard to imagine how that claim will stand up in court but that may not actually be the point here. a legal battle with trump is going to be likely very costly for the des moines register at a time when the paper does not have considerable resources with which to fight the des moines register's parent company, gannets, is the largest paper publisher in america, but it has been losing money at a steady clip for the last few years. gannett lost more than $19 million in the third quarter of

this year alone, and to understand how the paper found itself in such a vulnerable financial position, you have to look past donald trump and you need to look at the man who was standing next to trump at that same press conference. do you see him in this picture? the reason trump called that press conference in the first place was to celebrate a suppose at $100 billion u.s. investment from a company called softbank, and that company is headed by a ceo, a man named masayoshi son, who is known to the business community simply as mosso. muscle is the 51st richest billionaire in the world, according to forbes, which has called mosso one of the worlds most powerful people. from 2019 until 2021, his company owned the des moines register's parent company, gannett, through a private equity subsidiary called fortress investment group.

fortress then merged gannett with another newspaper company to make themselves the largest newspaper owners in america. and then they started hacking away at newsrooms across the country. from 2019 to 2021, gannett cut more than a third of its staff, while its private equity owners raked in tens of millions of dollars in management fees. according to axios, since 2019, gannett has dropped its number of local focus websites by 117 and it decreased its number of weekly newspapers by 127 point today one of gannett's largest shareholders is another private equity firm called apollo capital, and apollo is run by mark rowan, a man who literally, just weeks ago, was considered one of trump's top contenders to be treasury secretary. so donald trump is bringing an expensive lawsuit against the des moines register, and at the same time, he is surrounding

himself with the billionaires and private equity managers who have been working to drain that newspaper, and others like it, of precisely the resources they need to fight back. all of this is happening in a time where america's billionaires are tripping over themselves to kiss trump's ring. today netflix ceo ted sorrento's is reportedly meeting with trump at mar-a- lago. that comes as we are learning that trump has either met with or is expected to meet with amazon founder and washington post owner jeff bezos, apple ceo tim cook, and alphabet ceo so dr. chai. late last week the wall street journal reported that the day before thanksgiving, meta ceo mark zuckerberg dined with the president-elect that a patio on mar-a-lago. at one point zuckerberg and other attendees stood, hand over heart, as the club played a rendition of the national anthem sung by imprisoned defendants who are accused of crimes related to the january 6th capitol riot.

the irony of pledging allegiance to a song sung by accused insurrectionist maybe didn't register for mark zuckerberg. maybe he just didn't care. >> this is one of the big differences i think between -- we were talking about it before, one of the big differences between the first term. the first term, everybody was fighting me. in this term, everybody wants to be my friend. my personality changed or something. >> joining me now is rick hassan, director of the safeguarding democracy project at ucla law. thank you for being here tonight. i first just want to talk to you about the scope of this lawsuit against the des moines register. it is not a defamation suit, similar to the abc lawsuit. it has been filed under iowa's consumer fraud act. how is that meaningful -- how is that a meaningful

difference, and what does that entail? what is the sort of difference between that and a classic affirmation suit? >> so this law is merrily meant to protect consumers who are sold fraudulent goods, sold goods without warranties, walked out of money. it's not typically used for political purposes. it's not typically used for polling. so there are really, i think, three big hurdles that trump would face in this lawsuit, assuming that it goes forward from this complaint. first is that he probably can't prove some of the elements of the complaint, like that the des moines register made false statements. so long as they were accurately reporting the results of their poll, there's nothing false there. they also don't seem to have been providing any false information to deceive consumers. trump goes out of his way to talk about how this is merchandise and service. it's very convoluted. doesn't really fit. so that's another problem.

then there's a bigger problem, which is the first amendment. defamation like this iowa's suit is a kind of tort suit .1 is common-law, one is statutory. but what the supreme court has said is when it comes to political speech in a defamation context, we need to provide breathing room when people criticize public figures. you have to prove what's called actual malice, which means the statements are made either with knowing falsity or with reckless disregard as to whether it's true or false. and although i'm not aware of any cases where the iowa consumer fraud statute has been subject to an actual malice standard, in this context we have a candidate trying to attack a poll he doesn't like,

just because he didn't like the result, without any evidence it was a falsified poll. seems to me there's going to be a strong first amendment defense here if we even got to whether the elements of the tort could be met. >> i'm having a bit of a hard time understanding the basic logic, if we are looking at it from the consumer fraud piece. like and selzer and the des moines register are to some degree discredited by virtue of the fact that this poll was so off. a company doesn't willfully make products that it knows are going to be defective and revealed in stunning fashion to be defective, because that's bad for business, right? that's just a very kind of ill- advised sort of fraud, if in fact it is even fraud. basic logic dictates that they would want to be accurate, as opposed to being inaccurate, from a consumer kind of business marketplace standpoint. is that right 2 >> sure, and remember who the plaintiff is here, donald trump. if he's lost money because of this -- it's just the whole thing doesn't fit and you might ask, why didn't he just sue for defamation? because he wouldn't be able to meet the requirements to prove defamation. this is very different than the abc suit where there was a

statement that was made by someone and you could argue about whether that statement was false and whether it was made with actual malice. here this is kind of garden- variety polling and i can't get into anyone's head but it sure seems like this lawsuit is meant to deter negative information about donald trump, whether it's polling or something else. it's meant to be a deterrent because you know when you file a lawsuit, even if it's nonmeritorious, it's very expensive to litigate these things, and of course when you're litigating against one of the most powerful people in the world, that itself can be quite intimidating. >> trump said that he really wants his doj to be fighting these battles in the future on his behalf. this is what he said. let's just take a listen to that real quickly. >> and i feel i have to do this. i shouldn't really be the one to do it. it should've been the justice department or somebody else, but i have to do it. it costs a lot of money to do it but we have to straighten out the press. our press is very corrupt

>> is that feasible? should we look forward to, as members of the press, doj launching suits like this? or is that sort of a dream that may have to be deferred, given the fact that the justice department, i don't know, sometimes is run according to the actual law? >> we don't know what the political appointees of the justice department have planned. there are lots of things that could be done to deal with the press. for example, going after journalists who refused to reveal confidential sources. you know there are certain kinds of protections that are not necessarily constitutionally required for the press but that the biden department of justice has been willing to put in place in order to protect the press as an important part of our society and serving a function of investigating and educating the public. even if there are no lawsuits being filed against the press, there is plenty that can be done that could undermine the investigative functions of the press, and that could,

especially when you're talking about smaller entities, could deter them if they don't have the resources or even larger entities if the corporate sponsors of those entities don't want the fight. you might see them like abc news just rolling over and saying i'm not going to fight this battle this time ergo >> chilling on many levels. rick hoschton, thank you so much for making the time. it's good to get your perspective on all of this point i'm joined in new york by philip bump, national columnist for the washington post. rick was mentioning in the end, invoking the abc lawsuit that was settled and i have a hard time seeing the des moines register lawsuit as disconnected to trump's victory in the abc lawsuit. bill kristol, not known as a liberal squish, yesterday on the bulwark said that the abc effectively settling with trump was a very conspicuous, unnecessary, preemptive

collapse on a core first amendment issue. how do you look at it as a sort of table center or seen center for what may come in the next weeks and months of the new trump administration? >> i think that's exactly right. we have several factors that are coming into play. the first is that donald trump and kash patel, who he's put forward to run the fbi, have both said that they want to target journalists, that they want to have some sort of retribution against them for their reporting, for what they are saying. we have this situation with abc news, which i am not a legal expert and seeing as we just heard the report describing, there was this real question with george stephanopoulos and so forth. i can say that it sort of stretching to me that the rich for this dmr, this des moines register lawsuit, cause it's so terrible and dumb, just it's dumb, it's a dumb, dumb lawsuit as articulated, so it seems to me sort of a mishmash. the absolutely very clearly wants to put the press on notice, i'm going to come get you, but then he has this

victory in the abc thing. he also has this absolute mess in iowa. so me as someone sitting back who read this, this morning, my response is less he's coming to get us with all guns blazing as so much this is donald trump and we are going to get situations where he does simply that doesn't work the way he wanted to. >> the thing that feels different, though, is the preemptive capitulation. the fact that he's getting $15 million from abc on a lawsuit that yeah, maybe it had more merit than the des moines register piece but it does have a deterrent effect for other people who may find themselves in the crosshairs. the other piece is the billionaire newspaper owners who are now finding themselves in trump's inner sanctum at mar- a-lago, and not just newspaper owners but mark zuckerberg at meta, people who control the spigot of information in the 21st century are increasingly bending the knee to trump. they may on their own like

patrick sue chung at the l.a. times, we're going to change the editorial focus of this newspaper, or they may just be close enough to trump to think, man, if he's going to go after them, he could come after me, too and that could hurt both the business i having media and the business i have elsewhere, for jeff visas. what do you think about the relationship brokering that's happening down at mar-a-lago as far as what it suggests to you about -- i know you work for the washington post so it's complicated. speak broadly. what message does that send about how girded people are for the fight? >> i think there's a couple factors. the first is that donald trump is returning to the presidency. we've seen him be president before, and one of the things every one learned very quickly when he was president is if you stroke his ego you get what you want. a lot of that is this. again, i'm not speaking on behalf of the newspaper but this is very obviously, a lot of people going down there, you're great, we love you, the best. >> the january 6th choir. >> that's a little further

afield but that's obviously a factor that's come into play here. i can say this -- that i think one of the responses that you can expect from the rank and file members of the media is -- i was about to use a bad word on tv, but we are not going to comply with that. we are still going to do the job that we've been hired to do, which is to tell the truth about what the president is doing, and if we get in trouble, we will handle that but this does not tell us. sure, we don't like the situation as its emerging. that's all that we can do ergo >> and i don't necessarily even think -- yes, journalists should always tell the truth and speak truth to power but it also is a question of what the firmament, like the fourth estate writ large, does in all of this, and i will call to everybody's attention, new york times point. this is from renaud anderson jones, professor of law at the university of utah. compared to the mainstream american press of a decade ago, today's press is far less

financially robust, far more politically frightened and exponentially less confident that a given jury will value press freedom rather than embrace a vilification of it. it is -- i find that gutting to read as a member of the media i also think it's true. there's just much less resourcing and public opinion has changed. does that worry you? >> yeah, absolutely. i think public opinion changing probably worries me more in part because my job is to make the washington post profitable but that worries me because obviously we have, for a lot of americans, lost the fight about this is important and when we go to this extra effort to make sure we are being accurate, there is value to that. we have lost that fight for a lot of americans and that's problematic what i do think at the end of the day there will always be people who are like you know what, i'm pressing forward anyway, and let the chips fall where they may, and i'm going to do what i think needs to be done here. we are seeing out both of a lot of independent journalists who have done newsletters and things along those lines, which obviously can be a mixed bag but speaks to that independence, speaks to that i'm still going to tell the truth and worry about the

repercussions later. i think that's where most of us sit at this point in time and if in four years time this becomes a huge problem because donald trump and kash patel and so on and so forth have leaned on us and stepped on our next then so be it but in the meantime we told the truth. >> philip bump with "the washington post", i'm sorry to put you in the position but thank you for your wisdom, my friend. coming up, rfk jr. worms there is at least one vaccine that republicans would rather not get rid of, but first, a federal judge has been forced to apologize for questioning the judicial ethics of supreme court justice samuel alito. we'll tell you why after the break. he break. out there with fasenr. fasenra is an add-on treatment for eosinophilic asthma that is taken once every 8 weeks and can also be taken conveniently at home. fasenra helps prevent asthma attacks. most patients did not have an attack in the first year. fasenra is proven to help you breathe better so you can get back to doing day-to-day activities. fasenra is not for sudden breathing problems.

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today we learned that a federal judge has apologized for violating the judicial code of conduct. that judge, michael panzer, is a clinton appointed judge who sits on the u.s. district court that serves western massachusetts. now judge ponds or's violation here was to question the ethics of supreme court justice samuel alito, hence alito's decision to fly flags favored by insurrectionist outside two of his homes. judge ponds or criticized that move in a new york times opinion essay earlier this year that was entitled, a federal judge wonders, how could alito have been so foolish. to be clear, it is an ethics violation to question the ethics of a supreme court

justice. but the ethical behavior at issue, at the center of all of this, is flying of political flags outside the health of a supreme court justice, no violations there. this is all coming at a time when public confidence in the american legal system has sunk so low that a new gallup pole puts it in the company of nations like burma, also known as myanmar, syria, and venezuela. joining me now is marco stern, senior writer i know you have thoughts on this. i myself had a few when i read the judge he was questioning alito's ethics is the guy that had to apologize. how does this work, mark? how does this work? tell me how this works. >> it's almost too absurd to believe, but there is a code of conduct that strictly governs the rules for federal judges in this country. but it only covers lower court judges. it does not cover the justices

themselves. the justices have exempted themselves from that code, and the code that they've written, which is much more lenient, is entirely unenforceable and voluntary. so lower court judges who have far less power and prestige and public image than supreme court justices, they have to play by this strict set of rules, and when they dare to call out a supreme court justice for acting in a way that is utterly becoming of the judiciary, they are the ones who get in trouble. not the justice who broke what would seemingly be bedrock rules of how to behave as a jurist, but the person who dared to call out the bad behavior. it is about as upside down as you could imagine. >> it's just crazy that the behavior in question does not get litigated at all, whether in the court of public opinion, among justices, or actually in an actual court. but we'll set that aside for

the moment. when you hear stories like this, mark, it is not surprising to me that a gallup poll shows confidence in the judiciary is the lowest it's been since i believe cole up started pulling the issue, 35% confidence rate. it's the lowest rate for u.s. courts in the history of the survey, and it's apparently bipartisan disgust and distrust. does that piece of it surprise you, given the court that most americans are probably most familiar with is the supreme court? i guess the countervailing force of all that, that might turn republicans off of the judicial system are the federal courts that saw donald trump indicted on criminal charges. is that how you are reading those numbers? >> i think that the supreme court gets way more airtime in this country than any other court. i suspect that these numbers derive largely from plummeting faith in the united states supreme court, which is probably the one court that most americans could actually name, may be other than traffic

court. and part of the problem is justices behaving badly, behaving like monarchs who can break any rules they want and act like they're not only above the law but above criticism, insulating themselves from criticism by their colleagues, as justice alito managed to do here but part of it is i think the republican party's key insight of this century is that it can outsource really unpopular policies to the federal judiciary. if the policy is too toxic to pass through the democratic process, then you can just stack the courts with partisan hacks and kick it over to them, and they'll do the dirty work for you. and that has been mitch mcconnell's defining legacy. it has worked really well in tilting this country to the right through judicial fiat, but it comes at a cost. as much as republicans might be able to insulate themselves from political blowback for some of these really bad supreme court decisions, the public is paying attention to

who is in the driver seat. they are seeing the supreme court issue terrible and incredibly unpopular decisions. they are realizing that the supreme court does not even bother trying to remain anywhere close to in line with public opinion, and i also think they see the way that this court was constituted, right? republicans holding open scalia's seat for neil gorsuch, pushing through brett kavanaugh despite allegations of sexual assault and pushing amy coney barrett through weeks after the election, after saying you can't confirm a justice in an election year. it looks dirty, it looks wrong, and a few years ago justice of the mayor warned about the stench that would come from the court if it suddenly began overturning a bunch of precedent laps after that spate of trump up point these were pushed on. i think that stench has very much wafted down to the public and it has become impossible to ignore. >> i will say, when american confidence in the courts is on the same level as that of the confidence in myanmar, and i'm half burmese so i know

something from what's going on in that country, that is not a good sign of a robust democracy. in fact is a sign of a failing system, when the courts are so at odds with public opinion and the people no longer believe they are issuing opinions in the best interest of the people themselves. mark joseph stern with slate, it's always good to get a little perspective from you, my friend. thank you for your time today. >> thank you so much. still to come this evening, trump's picked to head up all the agencies that oversaw health and medicine in the united states is facing questions about how he really feels about a vaccine that is saved millions of lives. how does he really feel? plus, lookup in the sky. yes. have you seen these things? the federal government is trying to dampen the frenzy over what may or may not be drones in the skies over new jersey and new york, and other parts of this country. we're going to talk to congressman mikey cheryl of new jersey about all that, next. ha.

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the flashing lights from thousands of reported drone sightings across the northeast may be coming into clearer focus. over the weekend an fbi official said there have been more than 5000 reported sightings but only 100 warranted review. the vast majority appeared to

be planes, helicopters, and legitimate drone operations, the president-elect trump today suggested the government or military knows more about the drones than they're saying. >> something strange is going on. for some reason they don't want to tell the people. >> as of tonight, federal and state authorities still have no answer regarding the drones that have been reportedly hovering over new jersey, new york and neighboring states. today the house intelligence committee received a classified briefing on the drone sightings and directly afterward ranking member jim himes said there is neither an imminent threat, nor is there evidence the drone operators are for an act is. at the same time, himes also said the culprit is not the fed goes. >> we spend a lot of time in this hearing asking the question in every way imaginable, as to whether or not any of these sightings in new jersey and connecticut, anywhere they are being cited, our federal government operations, and they are not. we are sure and we asked this question over and over again, they are not federal government operations to sniff radiation, gas recovery, anything else.

>> joining me now is congressman mikey cheryl, who is a democrat of new jersey. she's also recently announced she's running for governor of that state. congresswoman, it's great to have you here. i am eager to get your thoughts on this. everyone saying nothing to see here but there is maybe everything to see here. do you think the public is going to get any access to the declassified information that has made some congresspeople feel so confident that this is not an alien invasion? >> right. certainly. i'm going to continue to push for more information to come out. i had a white house briefing today, largely unclassified, and i think here is what we know right now. new jersey is a very crowded airspace. there are -- there certainly are drones over the new jersey airspace. there are aircraft. there are even planets that some people have cited and said they were drones. what we now have these very sophisticated radars on the ground to make sure that we can track these better, and we also have much of our law enforcement utilizing software so that they can tell, as

people report to them, what the aircraft patterns are in the area and what people might be looking at, and determine if further investigation is warranted. so this is all good news and i think it really is something that the people of new jersey are hearing and feeling a little bit better about. the frustration remains, though, that it took us about a month to get to this point. that's unacceptable. there still seems to be a lack of communication. i was just having that white house briefing today and i was reporting some information on the base in my district, and pat ryan was reporting information on the base in his district. we're both military veterans so we've been focused on some of the national security implications, and it seemed as if the white house might have been unaware of some of the information we were presenting to them, but we presented it before. so the communication still does not seem to be operating where

we want it to be operating, and it isn't clear to me that all of the information that the government has collated is being brought together and then dispersed to law enforcement on the ground. i'm still hearing on the ground some lack of information. and finally, we know the communication to the public is simply not where it needs to be. it has gotten better, but there is still work to be done, and it is for all of these reasons that i have been pushing out a plan. i'm happy to see that the first step, getting these radars on the ground, has been accomplished. we are seeing more communications, we're getting more briefings in congress, again, things that i think need to immediately happen. i would still like to see an agency in charge of interagency operations and i still want to see a future plan for the future dealing with drones like this. >> okay, but just to get to the essence of what may be happening here, is your assessment based on the information that you have, that you've been privy to, and that you can share with us, that this is just -- i'll read --

this is a joint statement from four government agencies, dhs, fbi, federal aviation administration and dod. we assess that the sightings today include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones and law- enforcement drones as well as manned fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones. is it just that the notion of like drones everywhere is out there, the public is seeing them where otherwise it might not? this is effectively business as usual, is that your assessment of this? >> you know i think we've heard from law enforcement agencies and military personnel that they have seen concerning drones. we've seen operations shut down on some of the military and some of the military bases, some because drones, and they could be any number of these types of drones that we just saw listed have gotten in the way of a flightpath. so while i still -- while i take there point, while i'm very glad these radars are on

the ground, these are specific to tracking drones and we are getting more information. i still feel as if there's a lack of information on specific events and there's a lack of information on exactly what happened, and an understanding of if these government agencies are communicating to the full extent that they need to be. so i feel better after having received the briefings i've had, and what i've heard about some of what's going on. i don't feel like we are at the point where every sighting, i have had a report back that it is in fact either a law enforcement drone, a hobbyist drone or aircraft or something that we would expect to be in the sky. so that is problematic and i'm still working to get to the bottom of that, and we are slowly getting there. the problem being it took far too long to get to this point, and problem c is i don't think we have the plan going forward

in the future, which is why i sketched out a plan. we have a plan. we have to go forward in a more rapid way in the future. >> yes, especially because the aliens move very quickly. i'm kidding. we know they're not aliens. >> we have no evidence of that, no evidence of aliens. >> that's what we wanted to hear from you and obviously you feel better, the fact that you are saying you feel better makes me feel better and that you at least have a plan also makes me feel better, and probably a lot of other people out there. all my friends who have been texting me about what is going on with the drones, just listen to congresswoman cheryl. she's on it. thank you so much for your time tonight. it's great to hear it. >> thank you, i really appreciate it. coming up, donald trump says he is a fan of the polio vaccine, but what about his pick for health and human services secretary? some disturbing new information on that front, right after the break. he break. llular level.

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for more than a decade farxiga has been trusted again and again, and again. ♪far-xi-ga♪ ♪far-xi-ga♪ ask your doctor about farxiga. thumbs-up from robert f kennedy jr. on the hill today as he lobbied senators to confirm him as trump's health and human services secretary, securing enough support to make america healthy again looks like a particularly steep uphill battle for kennedy, who is now facing bipartisan questions over his stances on agriculture policy, abortion, and vaccines. but so far trump appears to be

willing to stand behind his controversial pick, even if that means taking a position that no other president-elect in modern history has had to take. >> president trump, what about the polio vaccine? >> well i'm a big believer in it and i think everything should be looked at, but i'm a big believer in the polio vaccine, the salk vaccine. i think you're going to find that bobby is -- he's a very rational guy. i found him to be very rational. you're not going to lose the polio vaccine. that's not going to happen. i saw what happened with the polio. i have friends that were very much affected by that. i have friends from many years ago and they have obviously -- they still are not such good shape because of its and many people died. and the moment they took that vaccine, it ended. >> trump is right about that. during the last major polio outbreak in the u.s. in the '50s, more than 3000 people, mostly children, died from the virus. thanks to vaccine developed in

1955, polio has been eradicated in the u.s. for decades. so who would want to get rid of the polio vaccine now, seven years later? well, maybe this guy. >> joining us now is aaron siri. >> erin siri. >> lawyer aaron siri. >> aaron siri has led several lawsuits against vaccine and health agencies. >> you have been fighting information from the fda. >> he's the guy that has been asking pfizer to release the covid-19 vaccine data. >> i love aaron siri. there is nobody who has been a greater asset to the medical freedom movement than him. >> aaron siri is a lawyer who specializes in vaccine lawsuits and he's been advising kennedy, even reportedly helping him vet candidates for top positions at hhs. according to the new york times, siri has spent the past several years petitioning the fda to pause the distribution of more than a dozen vaccines, including products that cover tetanus, diphtheria, hepatitis

a and polio. siri's 2022 petition asks the fda to withdraw or suspend approval for the only polio vaccine that is still used in the u.s. now his concerns are not shared by credible medical professionals but they have been amplified by anti-vaccine media outlets. the one that produced a that highlight reel we just played. last month siri was interviewed on the high wire podcast hosted by del big tree, who is an anti- vax conspiracy theorist. on that podcast siri suggested he will continue petitioning the u.s. government to pause the vaccine access. >> there are lots of things that the federal government, it will help that they're outsiders, for example, the fda acts on petitions. if you want to license a product you have two petition them. if you want the product that's wrong reevaluated you typically often have two petition them. that's the normal course way for those things to happen. somebody on the outside needs to be petitioning them to

>> as the times notes, if the senate confirms kennedy as health secretary he will oversee the fda and in that capacity, kennedy could take the rare step of intervening in the fda's review of the petitions, some of which may be very well filed by aaron siri, the same man kennedy has called the greatest asset to the medical freedom movement. one of the odds the senate will still vote to confirm rfk jr. even if it might mean the return of polio? i'm going to talk to jonathan martin, senior political columnist at politico about just that, coming up next. nex. so easy. swiffer. wow. the mother of all cleans. love it or your money back! this land is your land.

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i walk into my meeting with mr. kennedy with an open mind. i can tell you this. i have reached one conclusion. he should fire his lawyer, the one that petitioned the fda to get rid of the polio vaccine. polio vaccine has saved hundreds and hundreds of millions of lives in the world.

>> that was senator john kennedy, republican of louisiana, talking today about his upcoming meeting with robert f kennedy jr., no relation, donald trump's picked to head up health and human services. rfk jr. is on day two of a four- day blitz in which he will sit down with republican senators and try to convince them that he is the right man for the job. now with all democrats hold firm, kennedy can only afford to lose three republican votes. joining me now is jonathan martin, senior political columnist for politico. j mark, you know senator kennedy is out there talking about polio vaccine saving lives. so is donald trump. how endangered you think rfk jr.'s nomination is here? >> i think it depends on two factors. number one, how much does he put back in the bottle some of his more extreme views or the extreme views of those around him like the lawyer senator kennedy mentioned? and secondly, if the same factor, alex, that shapes every trump appointment, which is,

does the coverage get to a point where trump finds it to be embarrassing or somehow worthy of cutting bait and abandoning his pick. that, to me, is the issue, is, is this fellow going to be seen as so extreme that even republican senators can't confirm their own president's pick, and what does the nature of the coverage look like in the course of the next month to six weeks, and does trump eventually say it's been too much, we can't get them through. look no further, alex, then the hegseth nomination. trump was ready to move on and was talking openly about ron desantis, because of the coverage. that's what shapes trump or than anything else, is what does the media coverage look like. >> what you think about the reporting we have that trump is attracted to -- you know, on a

kind of strategic level, to nominees like, or picks like robert f kennedy jr. and tulsi gabbard, because they were former democrats, and that is a badge of honor for trump? i guess i wonder, do you think that makes him hold onto their nominations longer than even hegseth, who is effectively just a fox news personality. he doesn't represent some prize, as it were, politically speaking. >> i know what you're saying because it reflects the breadth of his coalition that he won, to his credit, which included a lot of independence and some former democrats. i think he attributes some of that to having endorsements from people like kennedy and gabbard. the flipside of that, alex, is there is no ingrained loyalty or tribal connection on the hill among the republican senators to kennedy or gabbard, in a way that we have a fox personality, well boy, that's tangible for a republican senator, because fox obviously is a network that's very important to them. so in some ways, easier for them to abandon, i think, one of the trump converts who they

personally don't have a connection to, then somebody from the fox family. and especially gabbard. in fact i would sit here tonight and i would say this, if you want to hear a prediction, alex. tulsi gabbard is going to have a harder time getting confirmed than pete hegseth. >> and reuters is reporting as such, same as many as eight gop senators have doubts about gabbard. do you think that we are in a position now where -- i know i just asked you about these democrats being in a sort of class of their own, but in the broader context of trump nominees, if he's lost gaetz, can he lose gabbard again? does it say anything? there is this notion they all had to be packaged together like vaulter on because if you broke one off they were all endangered. do you think that holds true for someone like gabbard?

it doesn't seem like the senate sees it that way. >> i think the entire slate has been helped by the fact that gaetz got torpedoed because trump doesn't want to have a pattern of this, of having to yank his nominees, because it's simply embarrassing. look, i think hegseth can explain away his drinking by saying, i'm sober now, and he can explain away his infidelity by saying, here is my wife, we have a happy marriage, which he has done, by the way, in his meetings on capitol hill. he's brought his wife to those meetings and he's talked about his sobriety. what he can necessarily do, alex, is talk away his ideological views. and that's, i think, is tulsi gabbard's challenge. the issue with her is not personal. it's not alcohol. it's not infidelity. it's you had these views as a democratic lawmaker and you were for bernie sanders, and you met with a sod. that to me i think is harder. it's harder for the national security hawks than pete hegseth because the beef with hegseth is more his personal conduct. it's easier for them to torpedo her than hegseth. >> can't talk your way out of a meeting with bashar al assad. jonathan martin, always great to talk to you. that is our show. now it's time for "the last