isolation. >> anonymity is such a unique experience of urban living. it's incredibly isolating. >> reporter: the rules are simple. >> you can sit and write a letter anonymously and exchange read one written by someone else. >> reporter: nadia wang is one of hundreds to join in. writing a letter that would never be sent and reading one from a person she's never met. >> they connect everybody together. it's just a beautiful thing. >> reporter: for some, the writing brings out unexpected emotion. >> we've had a lot of homeless people. we've had super rich, high-flying people. and they write about very similar topics. unrequitted love. >> this is weird, but i kind of like it. >> and reading stranger's secrets -- >> i was worried >> how has this mailbox changed your feels of isolation? >> yes. not that i don't feel isolated but i know i'm not the only one out there feeling isolated. >> reporter: unsent letters

delivering connection. maya eaglin, nbc news, new york. >> whether your letters are sent or unsent, my hope for you is love and connection find all of us this holiday season. on that beautiful note. i thank you for watching and i wish you a beautiful night. for all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late for me. >> reporter: so donald trump's war for free press has reached a new level. nbc news hat settled a defamation lawsuit for donald trump with $15 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 rape for rape. that trump's afuser accuser failed to prove that trump accused her. it is hard to imagine donald trump brought that lawsuit because he really cared about the legal distinctions here. trump likely brought that lawsuit to keep controversy at bay. that campaign is ratcheting up. at a press conference yesterday, . >> i will be bringing one against the people in iowa, their newspaper who had a pollster who got me right all the time. 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. i was going to winey aby 20

point win. >> the newspaper donald trump was threatening there is the des moines register. the paper of record for the state of iowa. the pollster trump mentioned is veteran pollster anne who showed donald trump behind in a reliably red state. late last night, trump made good on his threat and filed suit on ann seltzer for that. it was brought 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 onto win iowa by 13 points. 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. it has been losing money at a steady clip the last few years. they lost more than $19 million in the third quarter of this year alone, gannett. 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 standing next to trump at the same press conference. do you see this picture, the

company is headed by the ceo, softbank, a man named masayoshi son known as masa. masa is the 51st richest billionaire in the world according to forbes which has called masa one of the world's most powerful people. from 2019 to 2021, his company owned the des moines register's parent company gannett through private equity subsidary. they make themselves the largest newspaper owners in america. and then, they started hacking away from news rooms across the country. from 2019 to 2021, gannett cut more than a third of its staff.

gannett has dropped its number of local focused websites by 117 and it decreased its number of weekly newspapers by 127. today one of gannett's share shoulders is another private equity firm called apollo capital and it is run by mark rowan. a man who just weeks ago was considered one of trump's top contender to be treasury secretary. trump is bringing an expensive lawsuit and he is surrounding himself with the billionaires and private equity managers who have been working to drain that newspaper and others like it, all of this is happening at a time when america's billionaires are tripping over themselves to kiss trump's ring. ted serandos is reportedly

meeting at trump with mar-a- lago so that comes as trump has met with or is expected to meet with amazon founder and washington post owner jeff bezos. apple ceo tim cook and alphabet ceo. late last week, the day before thanksgiving, mark zuckerberg dined with trump at mar-a-lago. on a patio. attendees stood hand over heart while listening to the national anthem sung by imprisoned defendants convicted of crimes on the capitol riot. the irony of pledging allegiance to a song sung by accused insurrectionists maybe didn't register for mark zuckerberg or 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 is fighting me. this term everybody wants to be my friend. >> joining me now is the director of the state safeguarding democracy project. the scope of the lawsuit against the des moines register. 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? the difference between that and the classic defamation suit? >> well, so this law is primarily meant to protect consumers who are sold fraudulent goods. goods without warranties. it is not typically used for political purposes. it is not typically used for

polling. there are three big hurdles that trump would face in this lawsuit assuming that goes forward for this complaint. first is that he probably can't prove some of the elements of the complaint that the des moines register made false statements. they don't seem to be providing false information to consumers. about how this is merchandise and services, it is very convoluted. doesn't really fit. that is another problem. a bigger problem which is the first amendment. defamation like this iowa suit, what the supreme court said when it comes to political speech in the defamation context, we need to provide breathing room when people criticize public figures when you have to prove actual

malice. that the statements are made with knowing falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it is true or false. while i'm not aware of any cases where the iowa consumer fraud statement has been subject to a malice standard. where you 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, it seems to me this will be a strong first amendment defense here if we even got to whether or not the elements of the tort could be met. >> i am having a bit of a hard time with the basic logic if we are looking at the consumer fraud piece. ann seltzer is discredited by the fact this poll was so off. a company doesn't willfully make products it knows will be defective and revealed in stunning fashion to be defective because that is bad for business. right?

that is just a very bad ill advised fraud if in fact it is even fraud. basically 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? >> sure. and remember who the plaintiff is here is donald trump. he lost money. the whole thing doesn't fit. so why doesn't he 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 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 is polling or something else.

a lawsuit is very expensive to litigate these things. and of course when you are litigating against one of the most powerful people in the world, that itself can be quite intimidating. >> rick, trump said he wants his doj to be fighting battles in the future. this is what he said. take a listen to that very quickly. >> and i feel i have to do this. i shouldn't really be the one to do it. it should have been justice department or somebody else. but i have to do it. it costs a lot of money to do it. we have to straighten out the press. our press is very corrupt. >> is that feasible? i mean, should we look forward to as members of the press the doj launching suits like this or is that sort after 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's a lot going on. 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. investigating and educating the public. there is plenty that can be done that could undermine the investigation function of the press. when you are talking smaller entities could deter them if they don't have the resources. if they are larger entities if the corporate sponsors don't want to fight. you might see them like abc news just rolling over saying i'm not going to fight this battle this time. >> chilling on many levels.

thank you so much. i'm joined now here in new york by phillip, columnist for the washington post. i have a hard time seeing the des moines register lawsuit as connected to trump's victory. bill crystal not known as a liberal squish said 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 table setter or a scene setter for what they come in the next weeks or months of the trump administration? >> that's exactly right. we have several factors coming into play. the first is donald trump and kash patel have both said 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 the situation with abc news. i'm not a legal expert. there was this real question of what it was that george stephanopoulos said. but i'm a polling expert so it is striking to me that this lawsuit going to the des moines. because it is so terrible and dumb. it is a dumb, dumb lawsuit. as articulated so it seems to be a mishmash. he absolutely very clearly wants to put the press on notice. but then, well, he does have this victory in the abc thing. he has this absolute mess in iowa. and so, me as someone sitting back and read this this morning, my response is less like oh my gosh, he is coming to get us so much as it is that's right. this is still donald trump. and we will get situations where he does something that just simply doesn't work the way he wants it to work. >> the thing that feels different is the preemptive

capitulation. the fact he is getting $15 million from abc from a lawsuit that maybe had more merit than the des moines piece. the other piece is the billionaire newspaper owners finding themselves in trump's inner sanctum at mar-a-lago. not just newspaper owners but mark zuckerberg at meta. they are bending the tree to trump. they may on their own like patrick decide we are going to change the editorial focus of this newspaper. or, they may just be close enough to trump to think man, if he is going to go after them, he could come after me too. and that could hurt the business i have in media and the business i have elsewhere if you are jeff bezos. what do you think about the relationship brokering that is happening down in mar-a-lago? as far as what it suggests to you about, i know you work with the washington post so it is complicated. >> i will tread carefully.

>> speak broadly. but you know, what message does that send? >> donald trump is returning to the presidency. we have seen him be president before. and one of the things that everyone learned quickly. if you stroke his ego you get what you want. this is very obviously a lot of people are like no, you're great. >> i'll pledge allegiance to the january 6th choir. >> that is a little further. but that is obviously a factor coming into play here. i think one of the responses that you can expect from the rank and file members of the media is you know, 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 have 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 cow us. sure, we don't like this

situation as it is emerging. and, that is all that we can do. >> referee: don't necessarily think. it also is a question of what the firmment like the fourthestate at large does to all of this. this is from 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 and politically threatened and less confident that a given jury will value press freedom rather than embrace a vilification of it. i find that gutting. but there is much less resourcing and public opinion has changed. does that worry you? >> yeah. absolutely. i think the public opinion changing probably worries me more because my job isn't to make the washington post profitable. but that worries me because we have for a lot of americans

lost the fight about how this is important. and when we go to this extra effort to make sure that we are being accurate, there is value to that. we have lost that fight for a lot of americans and that is problematic but 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. let the chips fall where they may and i will do what i think needs to be done here. we are seeing a lot of independent journalists who have their own newsletters. but speaks to i'm still going to tell the truth and worry about the repercussions later. that is where most of us sit at this point in time. if in four years time this becomes a huge problem because donald trump and kash patel have leaned on us and stepped on our necks so be it. but at least in the meantime, we told the truth. >> fight like hell until you have to go on. sorry to put you in the position, but thank you for your wisdom. coming up, rfk jr. learns there is at least one vaccine

republicans would not want to get rid of. but first, having to apologize to samuel alito. we'll tell you why after the break. why after the break. same. discover the power of wegovy®. with wegovy®, i lost 35 pounds. and some lost over 46 pounds. and i'm keeping the weight off. i'm reducing my risk. wegovy® is the only weight-management medicine proven to reduce risk of major cardiovascular events such as death, heart attack, or stroke in adults with known heart disease and obesity. don't use wegovy® with semaglutide or glp-1 medicines, or in children under 12. don't take if you or your family had mtc, men 2, or if allergic to it. tell your provider if you plan to have surgery or a procedure, are breastfeeding, pregnant, or plan to be. stop taking and get medical help right away if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, or any of these allergic reactions. serious side effects may include pancreas inflammation and gallbladder problems.

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alito's decision to fly flags favored by insurrectionists outside two of his homes. 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, the flying of political flags outside the house of a supreme court justice? no violations there. this is all come at a time with public confidence has sunk so low that a new poll puts it in the company of places like burma, syria, and venezuela. joining me now is mark joseph stern. i know you have thoughts on this. i myself had a few. how does this work, mark? how does this work? tell me how this works? >> it is 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. the code they have 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 as supreme court justices, they play by this strict set of rules. when they dare to call out a supreme court justice for acting in a way that is utterly unbecoming of the judiciary, they are not the ones who get in trouble. not the justice who seemingly broke bedrock rules of how to behave but the person who dared to call out the bad behavior. it is about as upside down as you can imagine. >> yeah. it is just crazy that the behavior in question does not get litigated at all. whether in the court of public opinion among justices or actually, you know, in an

actual court. but we'll set that aside for the moment. it is not surprising to me that a gallop poll shows american confidence in the judiciary is as low as it has been since gallop began polling the issue. 35% confidence rate. it is the lowest rate for u.s. courts in the history of the survey. and it is apparently bipartisan disgust and distrust. does that piece of it surprise you? i mean, given the court that most americans are probably most familiar with is the supreme court. i guess the counter veiling 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 the supreme court gets way more air time than any other court. i suspect these numbers derive largely from plummeting faith in the united states supreme

court. which is probably the one court most americans could name besides traffic court. it is justices behaving badly. acting like monarchs and like they are not only above the law, but above criticism insulating themselves from criticism as justice alito managed to do here. but part of it is i think the republican party's key insight is it could out source really unpopular policies to the federal judiciary. if it is too toxic to pass through the democratic process, you can kick it over to them and they will 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. but it comes at a cost. you know, 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 drivers seat. they are seeing the supreme court issue terrible unpopular decisions and the supreme court does not try to remain close to in line with republican opinion. and they see the way this court was councilmember constituted. pushing amy coney barrett through weeks before the election after saying you can't confirm a justice in an election year. it looks dirty and wrong. justice sotomeyer worried about the stench of the court if it started overturning a bunch of precedents. i think that has very much wafted down to the public and become impossible to ignore. >> when american confidence in the courts is on the same level of that of confidence in

myanmar and i am half burmese so i know something from what is going on in that country. that is not a good sign of a robust democracy. in fact, it 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 is always good to get a little perspective from you my friend. thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you so much. still to come this evening, trump's pick to head up all the agencies that oversee health and medicine in the united states is facing questions about how he really feels about a vaccine that has saved millions of live. look up at the sky. 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 will talk to congressman

mikey cheryl of new jersey about all that next. about all .

right now across the u.s., people are trying to ban books from public schools and public libraries. yes, libraries. we all have a first amendment right to read and learn different viewpoints. that's why every book belongs on the shelf. yet book banning in the u.s. is worse than i've ever seen. it's people in power who want to control everything. well, i say no to censorship. and i say yes to freedom of speech and expression. if you do too, please join us in supporting the american civil liberties union today. for over 100 years, the aclu has fought for your rights and mine. including the right to read all manner of books. so please call or go online to myaclu.org. for just $19 a month, only $0.63 a day.

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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 had been more than 5,000 reported sightings. but only 100 warranted review. the vast majority appear to have been planes, helicopters and legitimate drone operations

though president-elect trump today suggested the government or military knows more about the drones than they are 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 spotted hovering over new jersey, new york, and neighboring states. they received a classified briefing on the drone sightings and directly afterward the ranking member said there is neither an imminent threat nor evidence the drone operators are foreign actors. at the same time, he also said the culprit is not the federal government. >> we spent a lot of time in this hearing asking if any of these sightings are federal government operations and they are not. we were assured and we asked this question over and over again. they are not federal

operations. >> joining me now is congressman mikey sherrill. it is great to have you here. i'm eager to get your thoughts on this. everyone is saying nothing to see here, but of course there is maybe everything to see here? do you think the public is going to get any access to some of the declassified information that has made some congress people feel so confident that this is not an alien invasion? >> right. certainly. i will continue to push for more information to come out. i had a white house briefing today. largely unclassified and here is what we know right now. new jersey is a very crowded air space. there certainly are drones. aircraft. planets that some people have sighted and said they were drone. what we have now is sophisticated radars on the ground to make sure we contract 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 that it took us about a month to get to this point. that is 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. it seemed as if the white house had been unaware of the information we are presenting to them but we have 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 governments 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 are 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 future, the future dealing with drones like this. >> just to get to the essence of what may be happening here, is your assessment based on the information that you have and

have been privy to and can share wases. this is a joint statement from four government agencies. dhs, the fbi, federal aviation administration. we assess the sightings include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbiest drones and law enforcement drones as well as manned, fixed wing aircrafts, helicopters, and stars mistakenly recorded is drones. is the public seeing them where you know otherwise it might not? this is effectively business as usual? is that your assessment of this? >> you know i think we heard from law enforcement agencies and military personnel that they have seen concerning drones. we have seen operations shut down on some of the military and some of the military bases. there could be any number of these types of drones we have seen listed have gotten in the way of a flight path. so while i still, while i take

their point, while i'm glad these radars are on the ground specific to tracking donees and we are getting more information. i still feel as if there is a lack of information on specific events. and there is a lock of information on exactly what happened and an understanding if these government agencies are communicating as they need to. i don't feel like we are at the point where everything sighting i have had a report back that it is a law enforcement drone, a hobbyist drone or aircraft or something we would expect to be in the sky. so that is problem a. and i'm still working to get to the bottom of that. and we are slowly getting there. the problem b, it took far too long to get to this point. problem c is i don't think we

have the plan going forward in the future which is why i sketched out a plan. i have the plan. we have to go forward in a more rapid way in the future. >> yes. especially because the aliens move quickly. i'm kidding. we know they are not aliens. >> we have no evidence of that. no evidence of aliens. >> that's what we want today hear from you. an you feel better. the fact you are saying you feel better makes me feel better and that you at least have a plan also makes me feel better. all my friends who have been texting me about what is going on with the drones, just listen to congresswoman sherrill. she is on it. thanks for your time. it's great to hear from 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? disturbing information on that front after the break. bing inft front af ter the break. well would you look at that? jerry, you've got to see this.

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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. he is facing bipartisan questions over policy on abortion, vaccines.

and agriculture. but donald trump seems willing to stand behind him even if that means taking up a position no other president in modern history has had to take. >> what about the polio vaccine? >> i'm a big believer in it. and i think everybody should be looked at but i'm a big believer in the polio vaccine. i think you will find that bobby is much, he is 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 very much affected by that. friends who have obviously, they are still in not such good shape because of it. and many people died. and the moment they took that vaccine, it ended. >> trump is right about that. during the last major pole you outbreak in the 50s , more than 3,000 people, mostly children,

died from the virus. thanks to the vaccine developed in 1955, polio has been eradicateed in the u.s. for decades so who would want to get rid of it now 70 years later? maybe this guy. >> joining us now is aaron siri. >> he has led several high profile lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers and federal health agencies. >> aaron, you have been fighting for information from the fda. >> he is the guy that has been asking pfizer to release the covid-19 vaccine data. >> i love aaron siri. nobody has been a greater asset to the medical freedom. >> aaron siri is a lawyer who specializes in vaccine lawsuits and has been advising kennedy, even reportedly helping him vet candidates for top positions at hhs. he 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. his 2022 petition asked the fda to withdraw or suspend approval for the only polio vaccines in the u.s. last month, siri was interviewed on the high wire podcast. siri suggested he will continue petitioning the u.s. government to pause vaccine access. >> there are lots of things that will help their outsiders from the outside attacking in. for example, the fda acts on petitions. if you want to license a product, you have to petition them. if you want a product withdrawn or reevaluated you often have to petition them. that is the normal way for that

to happen. >> as the times notes, if the senate confirms kennedy as health secretary, he will oversee the fda. kennedy could take the rare step of intervening in the review of the petitions. some of which may be very well filed by aaron siri. what are the odds that 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 at politico about that next. in at politico about that next. e. for me. i may have trouble getting around, but i want to live in my home where i'm comfortable and my friends are nearby. i can do it with the help of a barber, personal shopper and exercise buddy. someone who can help me live right at home. life's good. when you have a plan. ♪ ♪

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i walked 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 pick to head up health and human services. rfk jr. is on day two of a four- day blitz? which he will sit down with republican senators and try to convince them he is the right man for the job. if all democrats hold firm, kennedy can only afford to lose three republican votes. joining me now is jonathan martin, senior political columnist for politico. he is out there talking about polio vaccines, saving lives. how endangered do you think his nomination is here? >> i think it depends on two factors, how much does he put back in the bottle someone with more extreme views than those around him. like the lawyer senator kennedy mentioned. and then secondly, it is 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. so that to me is the issue. 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 the next month or six weeks and does trump eventually say it is too much. we can't get this through? look no further, alex, than the hegseth nomination. trump was ready to move on and talking openly about ron desantis because of the coverage. that is what shapes trump more than anything else. is what does the media coverage look like. >> what do you think about the reporting that trump is attracted to on a strategic level to picks like robert f.

kennedy jr. and tulsi gabbard because they are former democrats. does that make him hold onto their nominations longer than even hegseth who is just a fox news personality. he doesn't represent some prize as it were. >> i know what you are saying. it reflects the breadth of his coalition that he won to his credit which includes a lot of independents and some former democrats. the flip side of that alex is that there is no ingrained loyalty or tribal connection on the hill among the republican senators to kennedy or gab in a way we gabbard. a fox personality is tangible. fox is very important to them. in some ways easier for them to abandon i think one of the trump converts who they personally don't have a

connection to than somebody from the fox family. especially gabbard. i would say this if you want to hear a prediction. i think tulsi gabbard will have a harder time getting confirmed than pete hegseth. >> as many as eight gop senators have doubts about her. do you think we are in a position now, we talked about these democrats being in a class of their own. but in the broader context of trump nominees, if he lost gaetz, can he lose gabbard? there was this notion they had to be packaged together like voltron. does that hold true for someone like gabbard? >> the entire slate has been helped by the fact gaetz was torpedoed. i think hegseth can explain away his drinking by saying i'm

sober now. he can explain away his infidelity by saying i have a wife and we have a happy marriage. he brought his wife to the meetings and talked about his sobriety. can he can't necessarily do, alex, is sort of talk away his ideological views and that is tulsi gabbard's challenge. the issue with her is not personal. it is you had these views as a democratic lawmaker. you with were bernie sanders and met with assad. that is harder for the national security hawks. the beef with