>> we have had states talking about movement restrictions on whether under aged people trying to secure abortions can leave the state of whether they can be prosecuted if you move to another state. there's federalism and state -- >> at least that implicates what we understand as a federal constitutional right. the right to travel is still the law of the land. the land. abortion what you have is two states essentially saying we have the right to control this, and they're going to fight it out. >> i think we're going to also see more of these suits. lisa rubin, that's great. that is all in on this tuesday night. >> intimidation through lawsuits. that is the story of today. >> over the weekend we learned abc news had settled a

defamation lawsuit with trump for $15 million. the lawsuit alleged abc news anchor george stephanopoulos had defamed trump 15 times when he misspoke in an interview and said a jury found him liable for rape when it actually found him liable for sexual abuse. it's worth noting here that 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 ruhe really car e about the legal distinctions here. trump likely brought that lawsuit as a repart of a campai to silence his critics and to keep controversy at bay. and that campaign is ratcheting up. at a press conference yesterday trump celebrated the abc settlement and indicated that he wanted t to bring lawsuits agait even more media outlets. >> i'm going to be bringing one against the people in iowa,

their newspaper, which had a very, very good pollster who got me right all the time, and then just before the election she said i was going to lose by 3 or 4 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 registrar, and it was their parent. we'll probably abe filing a mar lawsuit against them today or ai tomorrow. >> the newspaper donald trump was threatening there is the des moines registrar, the paper of record for the state of iowa. the pollster trump mentioned is veteran pollster anne seltzer 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 anne seltzer egfor publishing that poll. the suit was ngbrought not as a defamation case but as a

violation of iowa's consumer fraud protection laws. the register poll was spectacularly wrong as a number of polls in the election were and trump wept onto win by 20 points which is a wider margin than 2020 and 2016. but the allegation here is it was somehow manipulated to make him look bad, and that allegation appears completely unfounded. it is hard to imagine how that claim may stand up in court, but that may not actually be the point here. a legal battle with trump is going to be quite costly with the des moines register at a time when the paper does not have considerable resources of which to fight. the parent company gannett is the largest newspaper publisher in america but it's been losing money at a steady clip for the last few years. ganett lost $19 million in the

third quarter this year alone. you have to look past donald trump and you need to look at the plan who is standing next to trump at that same press conference. do you see him in this picture? now, the reason trump called that press conference in the first place was to celebrate a supposed $100 billion u.s. investment from a company called softbank. and that company is headed by the ceo, a man named masayoshi who's known to the business owcompany simply as masa. masa is the 51st richest billionaire in the world according to forbes. from 2019 to 2020 masa owned the parent company gannett.

they merged to make themselves the largest newspaper company in america and then they started hacking away at newspapers across the country. from 2019 to 2021 gannett cut its staff while its private equity owners raked in millions d of dollars. it dropped its local focus websites by 117 and it decreased its number of weekly newspapers by 127. today one of gannett's largest shareholders is another firm called apollo capital, and piapollo is run by a name named mark raulened. so donald trump is bringing an expensive lawsuit against the des moines rej star and at the same time he's insurrounded 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 at a time when america's billionaires are tripping over themselves to kiss trump's ring. today netflix ceo ted sarandos is reportedly meeting with trump at mar-a-lago. trump is expected to meet with toamazon founder jeff bezos, appleal ceo tim cook, and alphabet ceo. late last week "the wall street journal" reported that the day t before thanksgiving meta's ce nkmark zuckerberg, died with th president-elect zon a patio at 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 rycapitol 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 g were talking about it before -- one of the big differences between the first term. in the first term everybody was fighting me. in this term everybody wants to be my friend, i don't know. my personality changed or something. >> joining me now is rick hasan, director of the state osafeguarding democracy projec at ucla. thank you for being here tonight. i first want u to talk to you about the scope of this lawsuit against the des moines registrar. it's not a defamation suit. it is filed under iowa's consumer fraud act. how is that a meaningful difference, and what does that entail? what is the sort of difference between that and the classic defamation suit? >> so this law is primarily

meant to protect consumers who are sold fraudulent goods, sold goods without warranties built out of money. it's not typically used for political purposes. it's not typically used for polling. and so there are really, i think, three big hurdles that trump would face in this lawsuit assuming that ceit goes forward from this complaint. first is that he probably can't prove some of the elements of the complaint such as that the des moines registrar made false statements. as long as they were reporting the poll there's no false there. they also don't seem to be providing any false information deceive consumers. trump goes out n of his way to talk about how this is merchandise and services can count as merchandise. it's very convoluted and doesn't really fit. that's the other problem. and then there's another big problem which is the first

amendment. defamation like this iowa suit, it's a kind of torte suit, one is common law, one is statutory. what the supreme court has said when it comes to political speech in the defamation context, we need to provide breathing room when people criticize public figures. so you have to prove what's called actual malice, which means the statements are made with knowing falsity or with reckless disregard to whether it's true or false. not aware of any cases where the iowa consumer whfraud statute has been subjec to actually mala standard, in this context where you have a candidate trying to attack a poll he didn't like just because he didn't like the result without any n'evidence there waa falsified poll, seems to me there's going to be a strong first amendment defense before we get to if the evidence of the torte has been met. >> i'm having a hard time understanding the basic logic if we're looking at it from the

consumer fraud piece. anne seltzer and the des moines registrar are to some degree discredited by the fact this d poll was so off. a company doesn't willfully make products that to knows are going to be ucdefective and revealed stunning fashion to anbe defecte bebecause that's bad for busine, right? that's just a very kind of ill-advised sort of fraud. they would want to be accurate as opposed to inaccurate, is that right? >> sure. and remember who the plaintiff here reis donald trump. you know, he's lost money. the whole thing doesn't fit.e you might ask why doesn't he just sue for defamation? because he wouldn't be able to make the requirements to prove defamation. this is different tan the abc suit when there was a statement wamade by someone and you could argue whether that statement was false and made with actual

malice. h i can't get into anyone's hea but it sure seems like this lawsuit is meant to deter negative information about trump, whether it's polling door something else. it's meant to be a deterrent because a lawsuit even if it's nonmeritorious, it's very expensive to litigate these things.it and of course when you're litigating once one of the most powerful people in the world, that itself can be quite intimidating. >> rick, trump said he really wants his doj to be fighting these battles in the future on his behalf.s this is what he said. let's just take a lelisten to that really quickly. >> and i feel i have to do this. i couldn't 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, but 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 doj

launching suits like this, or is that a sort of dream that may have to be deferred given the fact the justice department i don't know sometimes is run according to the actual law. >> well, we don't know what the political appointees of the justice department have planneda there are lots of things to be done to deal with the press, for example, going after journalists who refuse to reveal confidential sources. there are certain kinds of protections erthat 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 otimportant part of our sociy urand serving a function and investigating and educating the public. even if there are no lawsuits being filed against the press, there's plenty that can be done that could undermine the cinvestigative functions of th 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 rolling over and saying i'm not going to fight this battle this time. >> chilling on many levels. rick hassan, thank you so much for making the time. it's great to get your perspective on all of this. i'm joined now by philip bump, columnist for "the washington post." rick was mentioning at isthe en invoking again the abc lawsuit that was settled. and i have a hard time seeing the des moines registrar lawsuit disconnected to trump's victory in edthe abc lawsuit. bill kristol not known as a liberal squish yesterday on the bulwark ysaid 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 setter or seam setter of what may come in the next few

weeks and months in the trump administration? >> that's thexactly right.on we have several factors coming into play here. the first are donald trump and kash patel who he's put forward to run pthe fbi, have both sai they want to target journalists, they want to have some sort of retribution against them for what they're reporting or what they're saying. we have this situation with abc use. i'm not a legal expert. there was a question what george stephanopoulos was saying. stit's striking to me this dmr, this des moines registrar lawsuit because it's so terrible and dumb. it's dumb, dumb, dumb. it seems to be a mish mas. he very clearly wants to put the press on notice i'm going to come and get otyou, but then he has this victory in the abc thing, he also has this absolute

mess in iowa. my response as much as it is this is donald trump and we're going to get in situations where he gets in situations that simply don't work the way he wants to. >> the fact he's getting $15 million from abc on a lawsuit maybe it has more merit on a des moines rej star piece but has a deterrent. the other piece are the billionaire newspaper owners now finding themselves in mar-a-lago and not newspaper owners but mark zuckerberg at meta. people who control this information in the 21st century are increasingly bending a knee to trump. they may on their own like patrick at "the new york times" may decide we're going to change the editorial focus in this newspaper or they may be close enough to trump think, man, if he's going p to go after them,

could come after me, too, and that could hurt the business i have in media and business i have elsewhere, if you're jeff bezos. what do you think of the berelationship brokering that's happening in mar-a-lago as far as what it suggests to you about -- i mean, i know you work ifor "the washington post," so complicated. speak broadly, but, you know, what -- what message does that send about how girded people are for the fight? >> well, i think there's a couple of facters here. the first is that donald trump rsis returning to the presidenc. and one of the things people learned very quickly when he was president was if you stroke his ego, you n get what you want. again, i'm not speaking on g behalf of a newspaper, but this is very obviously people are like no you're great, you're the best and then -- exactly. so that's a little further afield, but that's obviously a factor that's coming into play here. i can say this, that i think that 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're not going to comply with that. like we are still going to do the l job we have been hired to do, which is to tell the truth 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 the situation as weit's emerging, a that's all that we can do. >> right. and i don't necessarily even think -- aryes, journalists shod always tell the truth and speak truth to power, but it's also a question of what the firmament, like the fourth estate writ large does in all this. i will call to everybody's attention "the new york times" quote, this is from grenell anderson jones. compared to the main stream american press of a decade ago today's press is far less financially robust, far more politically threatened and exponentially less confident. i find that gutting to read as a

member inof the media but i als think it's true. there's much less resourcing, and public opinion has changed. does that worry you? >> esabsolutely. i think the public opinion changing probably worries more in part because my job isn't to make "the washington post" profitable, but that worries me because obviously we have as a lot of americans lost the fight about this is important.th and when we go to this extra effort to make sure we're being accurate and there's value to that, we've lost that fight and that's problematic. i do think at the end of the day there will always be people who are like i'm pressing forward anyway, and let the chips fall where they may thand seeing they outgrowth of a lot of independent news journalists but speaks to that independence and speaks to 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 necks, so be it. >> fight like hell. that's right. philip bump from "the washington post," i'm sorry to put you in this position but thank you for thyour wisdom, my friend. coming up rfk jr. learns there's at least one vaccine republicans would rather not get rid of. but first a federal judge has been forced to apologize for questioning the ethics of supreme court samuel aleto. we'll tell you why after the break. aleto we'll tell you why after the break.

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today we learned that a federal judge has apologized for violating the judicial code of conduct. that judge, michael ponser, is a clinton appointed judge who sits on the u.s. district court but serves western pasz. now the judge's violation here was to question the ethic of supreme court justice amual

alito and alito's decision to fly flags favored by insurrectionists outside two of his homes. the judge criticized that move in a "the new york times" opinion essay earl consider 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 this, the flying of political flags outside the house 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 gallop poll puts it in with countries like syria and venezuela. mark, i know you have thoughts on this. i myself had a few when i read that the judge who is

questioning alito's ethics is the guy that had to apologize. how does this work, mark? how does this work that -- yeah, tell me how this works. >> i mean, 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 omcovers 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 leapiant 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 unbecoming 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. >> yeah, 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, you know, in an actual court. but we'll set that aside for the moment. i mean, when you hear stories like this, mark, it is not surprising to me that a gallop poll shows american confidence has been the lowest since it's been since gallup began tracking the issue. and it's apparently partisan 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're 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 other than maybe traffic court. and, you know, 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 by criticism from their colleagues, as justice alito managed to do here. but part of it is that 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 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. 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 who is in the driver's seat. they are seeing the supreme court issue terrible and unpopular decisions. they are realizing the supreme court does not even bother to try to remain anywhere in close in line to public opinion. and i also think they see the way this court was constituted, right? republicans holding open scalia's seat for neil gorsuch, pushing through brett kavanaugh despite allegations of sexual assault, then pushing through amy coney barrett through weeks before an election after saying you can't confirm a justice in an election year. it looks dirty and looks wrong. and a few years ago justice

sotomayor was warning of the stench that would come from the court if it suddenly began overturning precedents after a that spate of trump appointees was pushed on. i think that stench has wafted down to the public and it has become impossible to ignore. >> yeah, i will say when american confidence in the courts is on the same level of that of the confidence in myanmar, and i'm have burmese so i know something of what's going on in that country, that is not a good sign of a robust democracy. in fact, it's 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 interests of the people themselves. mark joseph stern with slate, mark it's always good to get a little perspective from you, my friend. >> thank you so much. still to come trump's pick to head over the agency of health and medicine in the agency is facing questions about how he really feels about a vaccine that will save millions

of lives. how does he really feel? plus, look up 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 congresswoman miky sheryl of new jersey about all that next. congw jersey about all that next

the flashing lights from thousands of reported drone

sightings across the north east 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'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 spotted 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 hines said there is neither an imminent threat nor evidence the drone operators are foreign actors. at the same time hines also said the culprit is not the federal

government. >> we spent a lot of time asking the question in any way imaginable as to whether or not these sightings in new jersey and connecticut, anywhere they're being sighted are federal government operations, and they are not. we were assured, and we asked this question over and over again. they are not federal government radiations to sniff radiation, gas, recovery, anything else. >> joining me now is congresswoman miky cheryl, democrat of new jersey and also recently announced she is running for governor of that state. congresswoman, it is great to have you here. i am eager to get your thoughts on this. everyone's saying nothing to see here, but there's of course 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 so confident this is not an alien invasion. >> right. so certainly, and 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's 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 some people have sighted and said they were drones. what we now have are very sophisticated raiders on the ground to make sure that we can track these better. and we also have much of our law enforcement utilizing software so 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've 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's collated is being -- 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 raiders on the ground, has been accomplished. we are seeing more communications. weir 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. >> okay, but just to get to the essence of what may be happening here is your assessment based on the information that you have and that you've been privy to and that you can share with us, and i'll read this is a joint statement from four government agencies, dhs, fbi, the federal government administration and dod. we assess 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 outlet there and the public is 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've heard from law enforcement agencies and military personnel that they have seen concerning drones.

we've seen operations shutdown on some of the military -- on some of the military bases, some because of drones. and there could be any number of these types of drones we've seen listed have gotten in the way of a flight path. so while i still -- while i take their point and i'm very glad these raiders are on the ground, and these are specific to tracking drones, and we are getting more information, i still feel as if there is a lack of information on specific events. and there is a lack of information on exactly what happened and an understanding of if these government agencies are communicating to full extent they ned 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 problem "a." and i'm still working to get to the bottom of that, and we are slowly getting there. problem "b," 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. i have the plan. we have to go forward in a more rapid bay in the future. >> yes. especially because the aliens move pretty quickly. i'm kidding, we know they're not ail yanz. >> we have no evidence of that, no evidence of aliens. >> the fact you're 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 sherrill, she

is on it. donald trump says he is has a plan for the polio vaccine but what about his pick for health secretary? some disturbing information on that front right after the break. some disturbing informatin that front right after the break. how easy is it to play the lottery with jackpocket? step one grab your phone. step two download jackpocket and start ordering tickets for your favorite state lottery game. step three let the good times roll. jackpocket is so easy to use from home or on the go, and there have been over $500m

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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 policies, abortion, and vaccines. but so far trump appears 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 it, but i'm a big believer in the polio vaccine. i think you're going to find bobby is much -- he's a very rational guy. i found him to be very rational. nothing -- 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're still in not such good shape because of it. and that was -- 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 3,000 people, mostly children, died from the virus. thanks to the 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, 70 years later, well, maybe this guy. >> joining us now is aaron siri. >> has led several high profile lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers and federal health agencies. >> aaron, you have been fighting for 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's nobody who's been a greater asset to the medical freedom movement than him. >> 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. 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. his 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 like the one we just played. on that podcast siri suggests he will continue petitioning the u.s. government to pause vaccine access. >> there are lots of things that the federal government, it will

help if there are 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 to be withdrawn or reevaluated, you often have to petition them. well, somebody on the outside needs to be tuitioning them. >> 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. 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, senior political columnist at politico, about just that coming up next. columnt just that coming up next

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 -- that petitioned the fda to get rid of the polio vaccine. the polio vaxepe has saved hundreds and hundreds of millions of lives in the world. >> that was senator john kennedy, republican of louisiana, talking today to his meeting of robert f. kennedy jr., no relation, 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 and convince them he is the right man for the job.

now, 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. j. mart, president kennedy is out there saving lives, how in danger do you think rfk jr.'s nomination is in here? >> i think it depends on two factors. number one, how much does he put back in the bottle some of the more extreme views or the extreme views of those around him like the one senator kennedy mentioned? and secondly it's the factor 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 in the course of the next month to six weeks, and does trump eventually say it's too much, we can't get this 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 more than anything else is what does the media coverage look like. >> do you think their -- i mean, what do you think about the reporting that 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 tuls ae gabbard because they were former democrats and that is a badge of honor for trump. i guess i wonder do you think that makes them hold onto their nominations longer than even hegseth who is effectively just a fox news personality. he doesn't represent some sort of prize. >> i know what you're saying. it reflects the breadth of his coalition he won to his credit

which include a lot of independents and some former democrats. i think he attributes some of that for having endorsements from people like kennedy and gabbard. the flip side of that there's 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 a network that's very important to them. and so in some ways it's 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 and especially gabbard. in fact, i would sit here tonight and i would say this, if you want to hear a prediction, alex. i think tuls i gabbard is going to have a harder time getting confirmed than pete hegseth. >> and reuters is reporting more

than eight senators have questions about gabbard. i know i asked you these questions about democrats being in a class of their own, but in the broader context of trump nominees, if he's lost gaetz, can he lose gabbard again? if you broke one off, they were all in danger. do you think that holds true for someone like gabbard? doesn't sound like the sept sees it that way. >> i think the entire slate had been helped by the fact gaetz got torpedoed because trump doesn't want to have a pattern of yanking 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's my wife, we have a happy marriage, which he's done, by the way, on those meetings on capitol hill. he's talked about his sobriety. what he can't necessarily do, alex, is sort of talk away his ideological views, and that i

think is tulsi gabbard's challenge is that the issue with her is not personal. it's not alcohol. it's not infidelity, it's you had these views as i say a democratic lawmaker, you were for bernie sanders and met with assad, 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. with tulsi it's ideological and principle, that's why i think it's easier to torpedo her than hegseth. >> that's the reality. jonathan martin, always great to talk to you, buddy. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. i need to know not what you all have reported but the history and the facts around his position on vaccines and vaccine mandates, those sorts of things. >> these are big issues. they're life and death issues, let's be very serious about

this. this is not