she went through. thank you. >> thank you. all right. that's going to do it for me today. "deadline white house" starts right now. "deadline white house" starts right now. hi there, it's 4:00 in new york will the real president-elect stand up? the world's richest man burying a bipartisan bill to keep the government running in a mountain of disinformation. bringing the government to the edge of a shutdown and leading everyone to ask, who is in charge? who is gonna call the shots in trump 2.0. a plan to fund the government with things like isaster aid, things that passed time and time again in congress, a bill negotiated by speaker mike johnson and the democrats met

its match in elon musk. here is what happened according to its nbc's reporting. musk posted to x about the funding bill more than 100 times over the course of the day. he repeatedly called the bill criminal and asked his followers to call their representatives. but he also posted memes, including one of him taking a sword to the bill and another referring to the kill bill films from director quentin tarantino. there were memes and primary threats and some is outright flagrant disinformation. this from politico, quote, musk didn't seem to think a government shutdown would would have significant consequences for the country. he responded, yes, to a post read, just close down the government until january 20th. defund everything. we will be fine for 33 days. the billionaire falsely claimed members of congress would get a 40% pay raise as part of the package. something both musk and the x account for his so-called

department of government efficiency got wrong. musk reposted a claim that the bill would provide $3 billion for a new nfl stadium in washington. this is not true. the bill transfers control of the site of the existing rvg stadium to the d.c. local government for redevelopment which could potentially include a stadium. but the facts did not matter at this point to the house republicans when elon musk says jump, they asked how high. it was hours into the musk-led rebellion against the bill from the man who is supposedly now leader of the republican party that would be donald trump finally weighed in. he issued a statement saying he now opposes speaker mike johnson's plan on that "the times" reports this, quote, on thursday morning trump sought to reclaim control of the political debate for himself issuing a threat of sorts to johnson that he must not give in to democrats

as he tries to find a way to keep the government operating without incurring the wrath of musk. today republicans went back to the drawing board and in just the last hour a member announced that they have an agreement on keeping the government up and running but it remains to be seen if their master elon musk will approve of this one. and all this chaos, all the memes and primary threats and mean tweets, bullying lawmakers into submission could very well be instructive, could be our first preview of what the next four years will be like. here is former republican congressman adam kinzinger. >> look, president musk this morning made it clear with all his vast government experience, which is basically he became rich on the federal government, that he doesn't want republicans to pass this and seemingly vice president trump kind of backed him up then at that point. what it says about the politics is it this is going to be a messy four years.

>> that's where we start. vaughn hillyard is back for us, he is still in west palm beach. also joining us, publisher of the bulwark group, political strategist sarah longwell. and joining me at the table, former congressman from florida, msnbc political analyst david jolly is here. vaughn hillyard, i am a student of patterns and the pattern is that when someone near trump looks more likely to be named the next "time" person of the year than trump himself, that person is sometimes cast off the island. is musk anywhere near that danger at this point since he seems to be running washington? >> reporter: the part for donald trump that person that we are talking about is somebody who is wealthier than he is. somebody who has a greater number of companies and arguably somebody with a larger footprint on his social media platform is bigger than donald trump's.

elon musk hasn't been pushed away at this point. i have to go back. i remember sitting on the side of the road in my car in 2022, nicolle, when there were tweets that were going out in real time between donald trump and elon musk. at the time elon musk was saying how he had never voted for a republican in his life until 2022. so this is not somebody who is steeped in conservative politics, yet now house republicans are essentially deciding on budgets base off his social media posts. but at the time it was elon musk that was saying that donald trump should, in his own words, sail off into the sunset and that an 82-year-old should not be the of the united states. in return, it was donald trump who was on his social media account suggesting that elon musk would come into the white house, into the oval office in his first term, and would ultimately, if he told them to, would go on to his knees. he would say, quote, when elon musk came to the white house asking me for help on all of his

many subsidized project, electric cars, driverless cars that crash or rocketships to nowhere without which subsidies he would be worthless, i could have said drop to your knees and beg and he would have done it. he called him a b.s. artist. those are words about donald trump -- about elon musk that now the man who he has held up as a proxy of his on social media at a moment in time before he is even president, but it's really quite stunning to watch him, i guess, creed to so much power to somebody who he clearly didn't have much trust in just 24 months ago. >> sarah, for someone for whom all of the mythology is faux strength, but strength at any cost, he looks like he is clearly now publicly being led around by the nose by elon musk.

>> yeah, look, i don't know. i don't like to get into the psychology of donald trump because donald trump's mind seems like a very dangerous place to try to get into. and so, look, all i can say is i think it seems like this is how he wants it. he likes having sort of vivek ramaswamy and elon musk out there as his enforcers with congress. it feels like already that trump has been weirdly quiet as these things have played out and it feels like i think donald trump ran to stay out of jail. i think that's why he didn't it. he doesn't care about the american people, doesn't care about running the american government. so right now i think he set up his own reality show and i think it seems like he is kicking back and watching how it plays out and he is letting these other guys do the dirty work. i think this shutdown is interesting for the potential shutdown because i think that donald trump thinks that they can do this now without him, him being donald trump, catching, like having to take

responsibility for it. he thinks joe biden had end up having to take responsibility for it. so i think it's him sort of laying down a marker of these are my guys who are going to be running things. everybody get used to it. but he feels like, you know, won't sort of ricochet back on him because he is not president yet. but i will say there is something, i don't know exactly what the word would be. um, there is something about watching republicans who have empowered elon musk, rfk, tulsi gabbard, donald trump, all people who, by the way, ten years ago were democrats and in some cases much more recently were democrats, it's interesting watching republicans having emboldened and embraced all of it these characters only to have these characters turn around and make it 100% impossible for them to govern. >> well, not just impossible for them to govern, but i think what sarah just described is a

phenomenon we were sort of canarys in the coal mine talking about since the primary in 2015 that the republican party's embrace of trump has nothing to do with republican things. nothing to do with conservatism. and to sarah's point, you know, the turning over of the levers -- now, they control all the levers of power, the republican party. to turn over the house to musk and ramaswamy and to ask the senate also controlled by republicans to confirm rfk and tulsi, it is a remarkable sort of abandoning of the party. >> it's wild. i mean, so part of what we're seeing today is the asymmetry between money and democracy. i mean, elon musk is a billionaire bully and he is pulling that off. but what we are seeing is an exercise in ignore nens because nothing that elon musk is fighting for is actually real. the other piece of this is this was not a fight they needed to pick. this would have sailed through.

republicans on capitol hill would have had their anxiety about it. the truth is hakeem jeffries and democrats have done that the last two years. he led the coalition be it on funding for ukraine, raising the debt ceiling, keeping the government open a year ago. democrats would have provided votes this time. everybody would have had a merry christmas, happy holidays, happy new year. elon musk and donald trump decided to pick the fight. i agree with sarah about donald trump. but i also think donald trump's analysis is actually wrong. joe biden doesn't bear any blame for this. this was going to sail through. the government was going to stay open. trump and musk chose to pick this fight and they are gonna lose this fight. so the question is how do you get out of to now? the biggest chess move starts with hakeem jefferies. does he deliver the caucus, a single vote? if he doesn't, there is no way out of this for republicans and joe biden's not gonna get blamed for it. donald trump and elon musk will.

>> vaughn, since we have been on the air i have been handed nbc's latest reporting that suggests that house republicans appeared to have finessed a second spending agreement, avoiding a looming government shutdown hours after the original bipartisan agreement was torpedoed by trump. this feels like partly manufactured drama, partly, you know, wiping the egg off their faces. is this likely to hold if you're seeing this reporting as well? >> reporter: yeah. it was now president-elect just posting that there is a, quote, all caps, success in washington that speaker mike johnson and the that house have come to a deal and it should pass tonight, extend the debt ceiling for two more years, which we expect democrats to push back aggressively on. look, it is wild. i think we can objectively say to watch a budget be created

like this. we saw john thune, speaker mike johnson sitting by donald trump's side at a football game sunday. it's not clear which conversations existed about the cr. elon musk was there as well. these are men who have been together, he was on a text chain with elon musk and vivek ramaswamy. it's not clear where there is a drop in communication. but i think that it's quite remarkable, too, to watch elon musk openly call for the shutdown of the government through january. of course, donald trump had two government shutdowns, traveled around the country talking to federal -- a federal penitentiary employees, forest service employees, people who stopped getting their checks for several weeks. these are people that are federal civil workers who rely on getting paid for the work that they do, who let alone serious conversations the government agencies and the serious work that they do at a point no time in which places like the cdc are actively working through and planning for

a transition in which political appointees from the biden administration will be leaving and needing to welcome in new employees. there is a lot of major repercussions. but this is, i think, for donald trump here, to -- how far can you convince the american public to go, right? we saw this in 2018, 2019 with the trade war. there were farmers who voted for him that i talked to repeatedly who said we may not be able to break even this year on our crops, but it's for the betterment, for the long-term good that donald trump will be able to secure for us. and that's an argument we heard during the government shutdown, for the long-term securement. how long can donald trump make that case to the broader american public, touting for a government shutdown? it's really tough. that's one of i think our reporting questions that ultimately only the american people can answer to because elon musk can cheer on government shutdown, but the implications for folks who are entering the holidays are very

real. government employees who cried with me in 2019 during the government shutdown. i don't know how much donald trump is going to be able to buy into that. >> you know, there isn't a lot of precedence there for government shutdowns once they are being endured endearing politicians responsible for them. i take your point musk running the country is trump's design and that the reason at this point he doesn't feel threatened is because it's an arrangement that works for him. but the democrats -- i mean, this is the state of connecticut democrat congress -- representative, the former appropriations committee chair, the top democrat slamming speaker johnson and republicans for reneging. she said there was a good agreement in place, but for president musk. let me show you what hakeem jefferies said about not even who to negotiate with. >> that bipartisan agreement has now been detonated because house

republicans have been ordered to shut down the government and hurt the very working-class americans that many of them pretend to want to help. >> what do you make of the role, about musk is playing here? who is in charge do you view in terms of who you have to negotiate with? >> that's a great question. i don't have the answers right now. >> so, it's a question that doesn't seem to have an obvious answer, and maybe doesn't have an obvious answer because the politics aren't yet obvious to the trump side, but whether by design or by circumstance it is certainly shrouding this transition in a whole lot of who's on first questions, giving the democrats what seems like an opening. >> look, all we're getting right now is a preview into the next four years, especially the next two years, right, while republicans are in charge of the government. and i think it's important to

realize that, a, this is what the american public asked for, and b, governing is actually for grown-ups and republicans are children who have empowered the richest man in the world to basically tell them what to do via tweet and text messages. i mean, the idea that this cr was getting negotiated last night between vivek ramaswamy, mike johnson and elon musk via text, maybe not last night, but these are just preposterous things and i think that really is what the american public is about to see, and i think they think it might be fun for a while. things stop being fun when checks stop arriving, when prices go up because of tariffs, when the government shuts down and you can't go to any of the places, like the zoo or any of the places that the federal government runs. there are a million things that happen, and musk saying, oh, just shut it down and, you know,

we will all be fine for 33 days, i mean this is a person with no understanding of the government. look, hey, i am for having a smaller, more efficient government, but the idea that elon musk with his absolutely non-existent government experience is the one to deliver it on one hand, depending on the mood you are in, could find it enormously chilling that this sort of clown show is running the greatest superpower in the world. on the other hand, there is something true to form about it, right? this is donald trump made no bones about who he was and i listened to voters and focus groups, a lot said i voted because of elon musk. that's why i voted for trump. i voted for trump because of vivek ramaswamy. so if people wanted these folks to be empowered, they are now and we will see if people like it. >> yeah, i mean, a similar take, like let's let them hold the faberge egg that is our

government, our democracy, and throw it around amongst themselves and if they drop it and smash it, we could talk about who you should hand, you know, the most precious things on the shelf to. i need all of you to stick around. i want to show you a moment that i watched ten times. sarah's conversation earlier this month with former republican house speaker kevin mccarthy. also, later elected republicans with the surprising message today for trump's embattled secretary of defense nominee, not so fast. that they want to look at and the likelihood that they will get it before pete hegseth is confirmed or not confirmed. plus, just how extensive will it be? we know trump wants to target his enemies. he told us that. but new information today on how wide a net his fbi director pick could cast on a mission of revenge. and later, what could become a central battleground for the next administration is not doj,

not even the fbi. it's another body. one making waves today. all those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. k. don't go anywhere.

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even if you go to the poll -- >> not republican or democrat, i think it was maybe three months ago, independents believe the greatest threat to democracy was joe biden. getting re-elected. and that was independents, not republican or democrats. so what you say you can believe. that's not what the american public believes. >> there is a difference -- >> and what's true. >> i don't know why -- i don't know what we are -- why -- the

defense, sure. donald trump lied about an election being stolen and then sicced them all on the capitol:it's funny you roll your eyes because you went down and resurrected him. you know what hatched in the 2024 election? we elected the most dangerous criminal human being, corrupt human being that america has ever elected. and kevin, you helped him. you are the one who got him after -- >> you -- >> you -- >> you're welcome. >> sure, okay. and in doing so, and in doing so, you enabled this. and so joe biden -- the idea that joe biden's justice department is the problem here as eposed to donald trump and the fact that he tried to overturn an election and sic people on the capital is, i don't know if people let you get away with that in rooms all the time, but you should never be allowed to get -- >> okay. >> as i said, i watched that half a dozen times. that was sarah last week confronting speaker kevin mccarthy for his role in row sus

stating and rehabilitating and ushering in trump 2.0 in the wake of the journalist insurrection. back with vaughn, sarah and david. so, the pihappens of a after yo? >> kevin mccarthy was like, who is this person? i never heard of her until today. and, you know, i -- watching that clip, obviously, you know, i was -- i tell you what happened before, which was kevin mccarthy was very smugly sort of chastising democrats, they were talking about the weaponization of the justice department, and everybody -- i don't know. nobody was pushing back. and it seemed insane to me that people would let them sit there and lie -- i mean, jason miller was saying that there was an illegal raid on mar-a-lago and it was just allowed to sort of pass. and i think it's true. i think the reaction that i was

getting from them made it clear to me that people don't push back very often. i mean, i must have said a number of times about how kevin mccarthy himself lied about the election being stolen. they were talking about what the american people believed without acknowledging the fact that the american people believe it because people like kevin mccarthy and kellyanne conway and jason miller lie about facts, tell them an election was stolen, they tell them, you know, that, yeah, donald trump was the real president. or that they say, you know, there is the deep state. they say that the press is the enemy of the people and then wonder -- and then they act like, yeah, you know, well, i don't know, why don't voters trust the fbi? and so i just -- i don't know. i got very frustrated in the fact that there wasn't any push back on that and i had an opportunity to say my piece and i'm glad i got the opportunity. >> well, i guess the reason it's so important is that the person that called trump america's hitler is j.d. vance. the person who describes trump

as a despicable human being is mitch mcconnell. the allegations of sexual assault, the people who found him liable for that is a jury of his peers in the e. jean carroll civil litigation. the incitement of an insurrection was again a grand jury indictment. grand jurors anonymous, but of his peers. but the idea that what the trump enablers have done is to turn those attacks around and smear them on top of democratic institutions and small d democrat, the department of justice, the fbi. an important lesson what happens when things are undefended, you know, the mueller investigation was from a time capsule of another era. they never defended their work, never explained their report. bill barr distorted it and the

republicans maligned it and no one really knows what's in it. the attacks against the garland justice department. the hunter biden prosecution. focusing on what the jack smith -- i mean, you have to go so far down rabbit hole. my question is, what do we now that so many of the lies have stuck? >> that's a tough question. to your point, right, institutions don't defend themselves and i think that there were a lot of people during joe biden's four years that thought, look, if you just get things back to normal, the american people will see that they want it. but republicans were on offense, they were on communications offense the whole time. they were feeling people's heads with lies and they did stick and now we live in a very different environment. i think the only thing that can be done is that you learn the lesson. democrats have to learn the lesson that just putting out a report isn't going to be enough. that just passing legislation that's bipartisan and thinking

that voters will discover you did a good job without a concerted communication strategy that is deeply penetrating and goes into this new bifurcated media environment that we live in and where you are, you know, constantly hitting the same themes over and over and over again, this is a thing that donald trump frankly does well. democrats have to not ever adopt the playbook of cynicism and gaslighting and lying. but they have to figure out how to communicate their messages directly to the american people in a way where they are on offense and i think that my hope is that they learn this lesson, that they are absolutely to reach voters at the time where donald trump and these republicans are demonstrating that they do not know how to govern. it is having a material impact on people's lives and democrats are going to need to get in aggressively and say, this is what happens when you elect these people. and like they can't sit back and if, everyone will learn this lesson by watching it.

no, they won't. you have to deliver that message over and over again hard, elect good communicators, people on tv all the time, go into uncomfortable spaces like fox news and get aggressive about it. and that's what i felt like was needed. i felt like somebody's got to push back on these guys and democrats have got to learn that lesson. >> what do you see your role arizona someone sort of holding the flashlight in the cave, articulating the messengers with the generals and others and the kinds of voters who were persuadable? i mean, what is your theory of case for the next four years? >> well, you know, as we have been doing focus groups post-election one of the things that's really interesting and we don't have enough time to talk about it, it's really important to start thinking about, is that we are not living in a world where there are just, like, republicans and democrats anymore. if you listen to the people who voted for donald trump, many of whom had voted for joe biden before, they sort of low

propensity, low information voteknow, they -- they voted because of inflation, because they thought joe biden was too old. obviously, he wasn't the candidate anymore, but that had stuck with them. they are temperamentally, like, they always voted for democrats but they are red pilled. they are not republicans. they are red pilled. they are cynical. they are low trust. they are listening to joe rogan. and so i think as somebody who thinks about how you reach people, it is sort of trying to push the message that i just did, which -- and there is a couple of people out in the democratic side, like ben wickler, running for the dnc chair, we don't have a lot in common, but he has the right instincts about the communication strategy, which is republicans are defining who democrats are for the american people and democrats better start defining it for themselves. and so we are in a communications world now. we are in a world where, you know, your good policy decisions

and your defense of democracy norms values and institutions isn't enough. you have to communicate with people and got goat in there. look, not just fight in that sort of silly way. you have got to fight for your ideas. you got to tell a good story to the american people. and democrats are gonna learn that lesson going into 2026 or they are not. that's the one i will keep pushing. >> vaughn hillyard, trump is conceding one of the things that sarah finds in her focus groups the cost of things is something that is going to be hard to do anything about, saying, quote, it's hard to make things go down. how committed does the trump team seem to upholding any of trump's campaign promises? >> right. i can't tell you the number of campaign events donald trump said he was going to lower grocery prices or where he had boxes of cereal, bread and eggs and noted how inflation had jacked up the prices of goods

that americans relied on and promised to lower the prices but then it's now acknowledged that that's not exactly how that works. deflation could lead to a collapse of the economy. and so i think for donald trump though he has quite the -- and i don't mean this flippantly, he is the salesman for the successes of what he says his administration are in 2020, right. nearly won another presidential election in the middle of a pandemic he claimed that america's economy was better than ever. he said promises made, promises kept. that was the mantra of that 2020 re-election campaign. they fell short, but one which he is eager to boast about the economy, about the stock market, and we are looking at a time where in the days leading up to the election suggested that the united states was in effectively in shambles. and i think for donald trump though, i think this is where he finds himself. he is gonna have republican

majorities in the house and senate and it's going to be incumbent on him to actually deliver results the extent to which there is contrast the democrats are going to strike because so far donald trump just this afternoon has his sights politically on one campaign race in 2026, chip roy, the texas congressman, just north of san antonio, who donald trump just called for primary challengers to because he didn't go along with the debt ceiling proposal it that donald trump so far pushed forward. so the question is how frustrated is donald trump going to be within his own party and the ranks within it and is that going to entangle heim hymn with elon musk, vivek ramaswamy and potentially difficulties with their own ability to govern as opposed to quarreling with democrats over the direction and the fate of the country. >> we used to have a term for that. i will have you answer that. we have to take a break first. vaughn and sarah, thank you. sarah, great to see you. david jolly stays for the rest

of the hour. next, we will also tell you about this. trump's pick for secretary of defense saying basically bring it on. i am not sure what that means. the calls are growing on both sides of the political aisle for his fbi background check to be completed and shared. we will talk about that and much more when democratic senator dick durbin joins us on the other side of a very short break. stay with us.

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donald trump's pick to be secretary of defense. we have senator dick durbin standing by. i want you to button up this conversation about what happens on the hill and who is in charge. >> well, look, on the cr and certainly senator durbin will have insights, i suggest if hakeem jefferies does not deliver a single democratic vote, i am not sure donald trump's pronouncement is accurate that they have a deal. you still have the 10 to 20 members of the house republican conference who do not want to raise the debt ceiling. donald trump wants them to. it would be raised for two years. no way freedom caucus voters go along with that. all eyes on hakeem jefferies. does he deliver votes or not. the other dynamic in this is the emergency funding for hurricane relief. there was $100 billion in the package that got scrubbed. is that back in? does that bring around some democrats? hakeem jefferies holds a lot of cards here. if he says, hey, donald trump, and elon musk, you screwed up the deal, no democrats are voting for this, then donald trump owns the government shutdown very likely. >> amazing.

all right. stay with us. we are going to turn to the pete hegseth pick. trump, at least as of 4:48 in the east, is standing by firmly behind pete hegseth. hegseth may be losing the support of republican senators on the armed services committee, which is of course vital to moving hegseth's candidacy forward. politico is reporting this. at least a dos senators are pushing to see the fbi's background check on hegseth. donald trump's embattled pick for pentagon chief a rare move for the committee that oversees his confirmation and a sign the former fox news host will face hurdles in the senate. hegseth is faison a battle for confirmation due to revelations that he has been accused of sexual assault, of having a drinking problem, by ten of his former colleagues at fox news, he engaged in financial mismanagement at the veterans organizations he ran, to say nothing of questions about his christian nationalist tattoos and offensive statements about

women and gay americans serving in combat. while no republicans have come out and publicly opposed his nomination, at least two susan collins and north carolina's thom tillis urged committee leadership to release the fbi report on hegseth. hegseth's confirmation hearing is expected to take place january 14th. let's bring in senator dick durbin, democrat from illinois. how are you doing? thank you for joining us, senator. >> good to be with you, nicolle. >> before we turn to hegseth, do you have any updates for us on the conversation, the story we have been covering of potential, a possible government shutdown? >> well, as i say, late breaking, fast breaking story since i have been standing here, it's been changing by the minute. and the bottom line is this. it was not negotiated on a bipartisan basis. the republicans want to go it alone and the house of representatives, i don't think that's a recipe for success. the democratic majority and the

senate want to be a part of the conversation from the start. so the speaker said he wants a vote this evening to test whether this proposal will go any further. we will see what comes from this. the thing that leaps off the page for me when i readjust the summary of it is extension of the debt ceiling for two or three years. why would this be such a priority for one very obvious reason. when donald trump was president of the united states he added more debt to the debt of the united states than any other president in four years in history. he is about to do it again when he expands and extends his debt -- tax return -- sorry, tax forgiveness and tax reduction package for the wealthiest people in america. if he does that, add to the debt of this country to help the highest income families and the debt ceiling would reflect that. >> it's clear that leader jeffries is confused about who is in charge and with whom he should negotiate. do you have a clear sense of his

directing these negotiations? >> i do not. i don't understand his dilemma, the chaos created around him. it's very engaging political chore he has been given here, a speaker of a fractious thin majority in the house of representatives. the notion of delivering all of them this evening is questionable. but let's see if the final roll call vote reflects that. >> let's turn to pete hegseth. he has been the subject of a whole bunch of revelations as well as questions about his own very public statements about all manner of things. what is your sense as to, one, when an fbi background check will be complete, and two, how widely distributed it will be? >> i can tell you this. enough questions raised about him and other nominees that we ought to stick with the 70-year tradition in the senate of requiring fbi investigations for

the major nominees that president elects. when it comes to key positions like attorney general or secretary of defense or secretary of state, i will say that the attorney general bondi of florida's report is completed and we are starting to review some of the materials that have been given to us. we could expect nothing less for the nominee for secretary of defense. >> would you consider -- i mean, nbc news has some reporting that quotes ten current and former employees of fox news who describe drinking very close to air time, he anchored a morning show on the weekends, would you be interested in talking to employees about his drinking as someone who would be in the nuclear chain of command? >> well, i am not on that committee. i am not on the armed services committee. certainly as a member with the constitutional responsibility, i have serious questions. i am expecting the front line of questioning to come from the committee, the members of both sides. i think that is a critical issue. it comes to his judgment. think about this dangerous world

we live in, split-second decisions that immediate to be made by the secretary of defense and certainly you want them to be in a position to do so with clear head. >> even you just go apples to apples, donald trump's last pick, jim mattis, used to sleep in a sweat suit in case he had to jump up in the middle of the night especially in crises like north korea according to bob woodward's book. we are a long way from trump's last go around. senator, any final thoughts on the broader assemblage of people to head critical national security agencies like the dni and the fbi? >> well, i very serious questions about each of the nominees. i will give them a fair hearing once i have assembled the evidence from the fbi investigation. i have many questions about robert f. kennedy and what he has proposed when it comes to public health. i happen to be old enough to remember the polio scare that was going across the united states and that vaccine was a life saver. they tested it on 1.3 million

kids in america before they released it to the rest. so it was thoroughly tested before it was released and saved lives. i know it because i lived through that era. >> senator dick durbin, thank you for joining us. we are going to sneak in a quick break. david and i will be joined by amy mcgrath on the other side. drew barrymore: in this family, we never give up. st. jude has helped push the overall survival rate from 20% to more than 80% within the us. but that means one in five children still won't survive. and every kid in this family is our kid,

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amy, the fbi background check isn't any sort of gotcha. it's a routine scrub sort of like self-oppo on anyone who might have had access to anything classified to make sure no one around the president could be blackmailed and threatened and endanger classified information. it seems important to remind people of that when we are talking about donald trump, who was indicted for taking national defense information to his homes and showing them to people knowing they were classified. but the idea that senators are waiting for the vet, for the fbi background check on hegseth, when there is so much about his inability to manage finances, inability to show up to work without babysitting him. his showing up for his job at a tv station granted it's not the pentagon, but showed up for work sometimes smelling like alcohol

according to ten current and former employees of fox news. and then the allegations or the accusation of rape in monterey, california. how much more do you need to say maybe this guy isn't the best pick to be the secretary of defense? >> yeah. so, you and i, and you just outlined it, we know what's publicly available about mr. hegseth. that he is unqualified and unfit for this job. what the fbi report is all about is, you know, it gives cover to the senators to either vote for or against him, you know. the ones that vote for him say, oh, i didn't see anything in the fbi report. the ones that vote against him can say, well, i saw something that, you know, really disturbed me. but what's already out there publicly is disqualifying. i mean, he is clearly unfit. and the argument from the other side, and i saw this from republican senators who are

saying, you know, you guys never did this for biden's nominees. well, biden didn't nominate somebody with such a really checkered background that is an affront to the values that the united states military holds, and let's be clear. pete hegseth, if he were to rise through the rank of, like, lieutenant colonel, colonel, he would not be able, most likely, would not be able to get a top secret security clearance with the bagrnd that we know of that's publicly available right now, nicolle. >> amy, david jolly. a question for you. with these nominations, we face questions about the extracurricular activities, some credible allegations of crimes, alcohol abuse. there is always a curiosity as a distraction from the lack of fitness to run a department, and the focus a week or two ago was fascinating. you were the first marine combat

aviator i believe in the history of the corps, joni ernst commanded a transportation unit in the middle east when she was serving. how would you approach questioning or how would you approach trying to kind of unpack hegseth's role as a secretary of defense? is it around the questions his personal conduct, credible allegations of sexual misconduct, alcohol abuse, or the policy roles of woman in combat, attacks on dei? how would you approach in as joni ernst if you were there as a logical democrat and an objective voice in? >> that's a great question. twofold. first of all, i was one of the first in the marine to core as a woman, not the first for many things. but i think it's twofold. one, you have to look at somebody's policy, okay, and there is some real worries with regards to pete hegseth.

number one, his advocacy of -- for war criminals. pardoning war criminals. that's a huge affront to the military justice system. so there are policy issues. the second piece that you have to look at is his background, his personal conduct. is he -- is he fit for this job? this is a very important job. nicolle said it before. you are in the chain of command for our nuclear weapons. there is no job in america other than being commander-in-chief, in my opinion, that is more important. and so the argument there that i would look at, and if i were senator joni ernst, i would say to pete hegseth and to the country, look, maybe he is a changed man. maybe he doesn't -- he isn't an alcoholic, maybe he is a fine individual now. but the problem is at least have

one leadership position, one before you become secretary of defense in which you have proven you can go to a job and not be fired for sexual misconduct and not be fired for financial mismanagement and not be fired for, you know, drunken disorderly conduct. at least one job. in a leadership position. i don't think he has had that. and so in my mind he is unfit for this very important position, david. >> it's such -- it's shocking to hear you say because it's such a stunningly low bar, one job where none of those things happened. i will show you what leader hakeem jefferies just said about the state of negotiations designed to avoid a government shutdown. >> the musk/johnson proposal is not serious. it's laughable. extreme maga republicans are driving us to a government shutdown.

>> david jolly, you said it about 50 minutes ago. >> it's not passing. if all of the planets align and republicans stick together in the house, the democratic senate won't pass this. donald trump is isolating chip roy and freedom caucus republicans to make this hard on them. but we are headed towards a government shutdown unless they strike a deal that democrats can actually support. >> amy, what would your sort of governing mindset be? i mean, leader jeffries made the point it's not clear with whom to negotiate as musk is clearly calling the shots. >> well, i think he's -- he is gonna have to continue to just talk to the american people about what's going on. because clearly the republicans and no offense to david jolly here, but they haven't been great at governing in the past. and i think that we're seeing that now. i mean, now with the new trump administration coming in, with

the house being, remaining republican-controlled and a republican senate, i think we will see more and more of this kind of, you know, lack of governing acuity. i mean, here we are right before christmas and they are talking a government shutdown. you better believe donald trump's gonna take the blame for this, and he should. >> yeah, and if there is one sort of synapse that will easily fire again, people remembering the chaos he craved and created. amy and david, thank you so much for spending time with us this hour. coming up next, the effort to protect the people on kash patel's very public enemies list is gaining steam. we will tell you about it next. t 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

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♪♪ we have been through a lot together, right? these are vicious, horrible people. i call it the enemy from within. all the scum that we have to deal with. they hate our country. that's a bigger enemy than china and russia. the enemy from within is a very sick group of people. i can tell you because i had to go through years of russia, russia, russia, and they knew it was fake. we have an enemy from within. thn

the enemy within, the enemy within, and what he calls a long list of his own political enemies and people who he believes wronged him in some ways and investigated him in some ways and investigated him in his campaign and especially those who sought to hold him in account, and charged him with crime, democrats, government officials and republicans, judges, news organizations, jurors. all of whom he said, and we showed you some of it were quote more dangerous than any of the american foreign adversaries, and now with the selection of kash patel, he has found someone who publicly shares in the belief that there are dangerous people inside of our country, in government service, in the media and elsewhere. a peek through patel's old interviews reveals pretty quickly, a long list of people who he might go after, and

according to him may have committed felonies. take a listen. >> the clappers and the brennens and the others who always lie, and when we are back in power, we will prosecute them for felonies. >> members of congress cannot hide behind the debate clause when it comes to s to s to when it comes to s to s suppr lies. >> there is also other lies told by cassidy hutchinson and she is also lying to federal officials under oath, and that is a felony. >> and if that man, cash kash p is confirmed, there is another fbi director who is ready to go and prosecute trump's perceived enemies to go with crimes and as you heard felonies, and also, former congresswoman liz cheney is at the top of trump's enemy within list should be

prosecuted, and we know that he has allies in congress willing to do his bidding without any facts, without any reason, a lie wrapped up in predication, maybe. on the flipside, new reporting from nbc news, there is reporting that was a support group that was mobilizing around the public projects of trump and patel's ire, and quote, the anti-trump forces build a network to aid potential political targets of the incoming administration. and those are people who were involved in the area, and those creating the infrastructure are in addition to lawyer, accountants who may find their taxes under audit, and other experts to find themselves fired or resigning without cause, and public relations officials whose

reputations may be tarnished by accusations, and other psychologists who are able to help manage this stress who may be caught in the crosshairs, and that is where we start our hour. and tim heaphy is here, and also the acting attorney general at the department of justice and meteorologist legal correspondent carolyn is here, and also, angelo is with us. and now, what is the writing of the plans for retribution using fbi, and will you talk us through it, not being paranoid or projecting what trump has said in rallies, but what is in the plan? >> well, they wrote it down. not just wrote it down, but talked about it. part of the strategy is a little bit of the shock and awe. you go in right away, and you

fire as many people as you possibly can. and if you can't, then you install as many loyalist, and those who needs a signments of retributions, and that what project 25 was designed to do is to give the step-by-step guide of what has to happen out of the gate, and to organize the personnel who can execute it, because it is worth keeping many mind that when we are talking about kash patel as potentially the fbi director, he is not doing the work himself, but it is going to be assigned to the actual agents, and this is where the larger infrastructure is coming into place, and maga had been legitimized and so this is how you turn these agencies into an agency of revenge. so what you do is to go out the find a couple of the individuals

who send a very clear message and investigate, and you find one or two things that you can really hang your hat on to in order to unravel the narratives. and so it is not clear that they are going after january 6th, because one of the things that they have to show is that all of the attacks against trump were all legitimate because the entire 6th thing was a hoax perpetuated by the media and democrats to serve as a bullworks, and so now it is a message built on top of a much more profession al cooperation. >> and now, angelo, where they are, t maybe is the word maniacal, where the u.s. attorney general of the nyjny

says they farmed it out to a more amenable office, and it feels like they have learned to avoid the pockets of resistance? >> that is exactly right. one of the things that patel has clearly indicated is that most of the things that have been done, and both of the investigation side, and the prosecution side, you should avoid washington, d.c. as much as possible, and in fact, move as much of the investigations out to offices across the country, and whenever you can, you should stretch the degree of jurisdiction, and you should make prosecutions all across the country as well in friendlier jurisdiction where is the jury pool is going to be more sympathetic to the story that you are telling or the targets that you are going after. so it is not just in terms of the initiation of the investigations of potential prosecutions, but they have also

thought about how to help them to be successful on the back end as well by finding more friendlier forums and jury pools, and the part that i find more disturbing in all of this is patel's particular understanding of the execution parts, but his relationship to the right wing media swamps, and so when he was on the board of truth social is to take the qanon to help them build the momentum for the stories they were telling, and so when you have somebody who understands how the tap into this right wing media machine, and the fever swamps, and how to take the little bread crumbs that you would take as a result of the investigations, you can see how it comes together. you break main justice and this is no longer one of the barriers or the firewalls against

injustice. you farm it out to as many friendly places that you can to pursue the investigations way outside of the bounds and the norms and then you initiative prosecutions in for ums in the last year you have been telling the right-wing media that you have been telling the right wing narratives that many of the audiences already believe, and you have the target served up on a platter in a prosecution that never would have take eppb place in -- taken place in the first place, and now you are in a new reality. and kash patel is not just part of it, but he keenly understands it. >> and bread crumbs is a good way for that, and chris murphy had an admonition for the press in the straight coverage which is fair of what congressman loudermilk sought to do with a

non-fact-based accusation against liz chainny eney which be a predicate for charges against her, and what is your thoughts of what could happen or should be done? this is fabricated to make a referral from congress for a criminal investigation so that the incoming president can do the kind of thing that he tends to do which is a bit of the dodge and a weave. i'm not going to direct the investigations, but oh, these people may be deserved to be investigated, and that is up to kash patel, and congress believes they need to be investigated, and so it is going to provide some cover from him, and plausible iability that he is not applying retribution, and this is coming from the congress, the house, after an extensive two-year investigation. there is another thing that i worry about besides the fact

that potentially kash patel will find enough complicit people within the fbi to launch largely baseless investigations, but i worry about the distraction of the fbi resources, and the potentially department of justice resources from the things that should be getting investigated. we are certainly not at any low point when it comes to other types of national security threats both terrorism threats as well as espionage threats, threats from our adversaries, and we have other traditional, domestic, criminal cases that the fbi normally spends time on, and those include fraud investigations, transnational trafficking, and hate crimes, right. so there are a lot of other areas that the fbi's vast resources should be deployed to, and in addition to being concerned about baseless investigations, i'm also

concerned about really dropping the ball when it comes to legitimate national security concerns and also public safety concerns. >> i share your worry, mary, but there is not a book written about the first trump presidency that didn't detail christopher wray and others about the inane things that had to do with the ongoing investigations of russia and even if someone wanted to focus on the threats to u.s. national security, they would be undeterred by someone like trump who was seemingly obsessed and i could have rolled for two hours the musings and fetishing of his political revenge. >> i think that career men and women within the fbi and the intelligence community and within the department of defense and the department of justice and the other national security

agencies will be trying to keep up with the threats wherever they may come from abroad and will be trying to take actions that they are, you know, authorized to take to mitigate the threats, and trying to approve the appointees, but i totally take your point and agree with you that certainly the former president trump first time in office did not want to take these things seriously, but there are people in government who will, and that could include some appointees, and some who have not been named yet, and with refocused so much on the secretary level, and problems with the nominees like pete hegseth, and certainly with someone like kash patel and john ratcliffe and others, and we have concerns about them, but there are many more that we don't know, and there is something about that environment, and seeing the

threats coming in everyday, and i will put president trump aside, because he has those threats brought to him in the presidential briefing, and i don't know how much he listens to that, but there are others in the milieu who are in that circle who appreciates the threats seriously, and they will make sure that adequate resources are put toward them, and that is what i have to hope for. >> that is our best hope that they will be squared enough by the actual intelligence and that they will see it, and not influenced by anyone else atop the agencies and respond in the manner appropriate at the top of the people in these agencies. and now, this also may have a sense of what is investigated or maybe his office investigated for conduct including folks and visitors to his office taking some strange photos and

touring -- do i have that right? >> yes. nicole, exactly right. perhaps, and i always hesitate to ascribe undue motivation to any public servant absent evidence, but it is true that for a period of time the select committee focused on a tour that representative loudermilk gave to a group at the capitol. and if you recall there were members of congress who gave tours to rioters who were somehow involved in a collusion or conspiracy to help people prepare for the insurrection, and candidly, we did not find that, of explicit agreement of members of congress and rioters of surveillance or tours that gave rise to that activity. we looked at it, and we did not reach those conclusions, and we said so. representative loudermilk's tour

was of a constituent who came to congress and he gave a tour of the ellipse, and he gave a tour in the congress office buildings, but we never concluded that congressman loudermilk never did anything to aid in the insurrection. but the focus with him was different than other people in congress, and so he was the chairman of the person who was investigating the investigator, and reading his report, there was no basis for the very serious allegations that he mak the committee, and other

records, because the official record was the transcript, and a number of those involved secret service members and aides of the trump and biden white house, and our access to them said that we could not make the interviews public, and we had to return them, and congressman loudermilk ultimately got those himself, and so there has been no hiding of the information and the accusations of ms. cheney witness tamper, and ing, she wa involved because of the public witnesses coming forward. there is no way that we you could have had access to cassidy hutchinson or mark milley or others if it weren't for ms. cheney's credibility as a long time republican, and she certainly retained the information from ms. hutchinson which she provided earlier, and she explained the reason for

that. she did not come forward, because she was afraid to, and not until she had independent counsel that she did. ms. cheney did not make that up, but she was reporting what we heard from a very important witness. and so the report that says she should be referred for criminal conduct allegations is not founded. >> and what about the fact that cassidy hutchinson and liz cheney are being the subject of allegations. >> well, ms. cheney was a very visible person of the committee, and she attention. she is a very good lawyer, and asks very good question, and she

is involved in the day-to-day work of the committee. she is a public servant, and she did her very best to try to get the facts and circumstances of what informed the attack on the capital. but because of how been, she isg rod. >> everyone stay tuned the, because we will look at who the trump administration has described as the enemy within, and what the effort is to protect those people. also, what jerome powell is calling a remarkable economy, and how trump could upend everything, and why he could be the next official that trump tries to get rid of. don't go anywhere. n't go anywh. c,mon bo! this is a before picture of bogart.

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we're back with tim, mary and angelo. and so my conversations with the outgoing administrators, and they have talked to us with the media that we have a role to play absolutely, but i wanted to read to you some reporting from the "times" about how these officials will have some access to the truth of what is happening. this is from david firestone from "the new york times" editorial board. they will dig through phone records to find the brutality of the leakers and that is going to

make it more difficult for the whistle-blowers. and trump has made it clear that he will use fear as one of the tools to reshape washington. and fear to restructure competence or -- exposure of corruption, incompetence or improper use of the office. that's why the senate should have passed the bill to prevent this. and so, now, looking at this, and most of them were fired in the first place, and the ones that remain under extremely, extremely unimaginable pressures to tow the line and fall into line, and talk about the climate that will sort of take place starting on the 20th of january.

>> yeah, i mean, that is actually the big effect here. this is why, you know, so much of this planning makes a difference, and it is not so much that the aspirational policy is written down, but it is how you implement and execute so many of the actions, and part of it is that you have to change the culture, and change the culture that is relying on the norms and the series of practices that have served them well. maybe there are inefficiencies, but those are the norms, the safeguards and guardrails tole allow the whistle-blowers to get out there, and they will fire these people under schedule f, and congress has tried to change the structure to not get these people fired, but they never did it, and pulled it out of the

reauthorization act and so congress did not do their job. so the fear of that still exist, so even if they have not signed it on day one, and put in the key influencers they know that at any moment it could happen, and the climate is a, my job could disappear at any point in time, and i have one foot in the door and one out of the door, because i need to be prepared to jump, and i could be made a target, and there are instruments to sniff out or identify me as a deep state agent which is the other part here, and when you are looking at trump's enemy list, many of them center around the conspiracy that there is a massive deep state which is designed to do nothing but to create friction around trump. so if you are one of the individuals, you will have these factors in your head every single day when you try to do your job. and what you will see in the

fourth estate, the media, which is starting to take some steps to turtle, and inoculate themselves to operate out of fear that they cannot protect them, and the public that is opposed to them as well, and that is the real problem, and you have to delete as many people to replace with loyalists, and those who do not leave, you leave them essentially neutered so that you cannot have them effective in the place they are in, and that is how you create a runway to use these policies that are deeply significant. >> and mary, you know, the populated sort of the quasi republican administration, and i had sources then, and i don't now in department of justice, around the military, around intel, and these were people who had been on the national security side, sort of

protecting the country from america's enemies, in a post-9/11 era, and they were concerned about trump's need to eradicate them. and so there are reporters 1 million times better than me, and if i don't find sources, that is not the problem, but it is going to be difficult to ascertain what is happening inside of the most importantly the national security administration, and tha st is n illegally, but to have an ally at war, and to extort zelenskyy, and so what is your concern as a

national security voice, and inside of the national security as a voice to sound the alarm? >> this is one reason why these efforts to create a whole network of attorneys and experts who can come to the defense of people who are target eded wrongfully by donald trump and others are important. they are thick-skinned and they read some pretty terrifying things everyday, and they continue to do their jobs, and they do important things for our employees overseas, but it does not mean that they will not be exempt from being targeted by

our own government whether it is criminal targeting or other types of targeting. and so, it is human nature to try to avoid that for one's own self, and so if you have done nothing wrong, and so glad that you have made it clear, we are not talking about diing national information because that is a crime, and not doing that, but raising concerns, legitimate concerns about what the appropriate whistle-blower channels, and there are laws that protect the whistle-blowers inside and outside of the national security space, and you should feel comfortable using those channels, and it will help if they know that there are people out there, and lawyers out tlo who here who want to he they are wrongfully targeted, and i was in the government for a long time, and you are not making millions of dollars working for the government, and the prospect of paying out for

attorney support, and other support if you are unfairly targeted, that could mean for other people, that is the retirement money, and planning to send the kids to college on, and paying the credit card bills and mortgage, et cetera. so it will help, and that why these efforts are so important to have people a little bit more important to raising the flag, and waving the flag when things need to be reported to congress or reported up the appropriate chain. >> so much of the first trump presidency, and the national security stories were within the administration itself or the republican party itself, and it was rex tillerson who called trump a fing moron, and corkerson who called the white house a fing day care, and it was mattison who helped him to

understand the geopolitical situation, and he slammed his fist down on a table, and he said he would not follow any of them into war. and so, tim, how do you see this climate differently, when you are watching the clearly senate confirmation that trump has put forward to head these vitally important agencies. >> nicole, i worry about the media f, and looking at the department of justice norms, and the respect of the freedom of the press, and when i was a u.s. attorney, i could issue a subpoena to the people in my office to anyone that we thought had relevant information about potential crime, except for reporters. that required multiple levels of

justification up the chain, because this is a norm and not a law, and this is a doj policy and not a statue, and because of the respect of the independence of the press, and the vital role that media plays in the democracy, it had to be extremely unusual circumstance that justified prosecutors going after information about sources, notes, wanting to interview journalists. democracy depends on the norms like that, and respected by the department of justice for the independence of the media in this country, and the vital role they play. i worry that when i read or when i read about what the enemy's list, and what some of the appointees are determined to do with respect to the media or respect to members of congress like ms. cheney, perceived enemies, they are blowing through the norms, and disregarding them. that is when democracy fray,

because it is coming down to good people willing to respect the norms that have been established, and these are not democratic norms or public norms, and mary knows this, attorneys public generals enforced that law as vigorously as the attorneys general, and so, the justice department and the fbi are really troubling. >> this is a conversation that we will have over and over again as we look to protect folks that trump says he plans to target. tim hee fi and -- tim heaphy and mary mccord and angelo, thank you. d angelo, thank you. with vicks vapocool drops. this week on chewy, shop and get a $30 egift card

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years and this is why powell was able to announce the quarter point cut to the interest rate, and he also signaled he is going to be making fewer of the cuts in the next year and inflation is going to linger in 2025 and that sent stocks tumbling. it also pushed powell closer to the top of donald trump's 2025 enemy's list. but for the fed and the economy, the reality is that what happens next under the trump's administration is frankly anyone's guess, and the certainly stated by powell should be a reality check for the economy of what he cares so much about is how it works and why this president has the specific authority, as well as the damage that his mass deportations and the steep tax

cuts could do this to this economy. with us is eamon javits and christine romans at the table. and i felt this way when powell might leave because trump wanted him to do, and they asked why, and he said, it is because it is against the law, and it felt this could be the friction point, and between trump 1.0 and the doj and now this could be the trump and 2.0. >> well, he said legally, could he make you leave, and it was a no and no. and the fed chief has been clear that they are the inflation fighter, and that is the most important thing here around the presidents would like to have

control of the economy, because they could goose the economy, but he has said that the economy is still good, really good, and so they can sit back and they don't have to cut the interest rates, and that could be something that president-elect does not like for the beginning of next year. >> eamon, what is your sense of how much they anticipate interest rates being a political cudgel that donald trump may try to impose? well, the state of play here is that donald trump believes that he has the authority to fire jay powell if he wants to, but he doesn't want to just yet, and it is not clear that he has the authority, and it has never been tested in the urt ed in ed in is a legal gray area if a president can push out a fed

chair. and so powell struck a very defiant tone saying it is against the law, and jay powell is striking for the independence of the fed, but trump has some options here, and he could announce in advance who his next fed chair nominee will be, and that sort of hobbles jay powell's ability to communicate with the global market, because the financial markets will go to the next person who is speaking to trump, and less to powell. and so there are ways for trump to undermine powell short of firing him, but it is a potential friction point going into 2025. >> let me show you what powell said about trump's economic policies, and it is possible that the stated policies don't become the actual policies, but

this is what he said about what we know. >> we don't know much about the actual policies, and so it is very premature to know about to conclude about what tariffs about what countries and what size, and whether it is retaliatory tariffs and we have to take our time, and see what the policies are, and how they are implemented. >> and it is the $64 million question in the time of trump. >> right. >> and we don't know much about the policies, and historically neither does anyone at the white house, because many of them are made up as trump takes in information, and whether it is from the past like from fox news or podcasts and other place, and so, how do the markets respond to that? >> it is so interest, because jay powell was asked time and time again about tariffs and

deportation, and the other things that could affect the economy, and he steadfastly does not want to talk about it until it actually happens. so he does not want to talk about the hypothetical with donald trump. and looking at what trump has said, tax cuts, and tax cuts means that, and tax cuts and deficits means that the u.s. is going to be issuing more bonds, and other things that could be happening that could be inflationary and could be disruptive to the american economy next year where the economy is solid overall, and so we don't know what is going to happen. >> we do know that there is no vanity on trump's part like a strong economy, and people hope that he does not want to wreck it. is that right? >> yes, he uses the stock market as his own personal scorecard, and he does not want to take the

credit or the blame. and presidents do that. and there is a feeling that it is a some sort of counter measure of what his instincts are next year if the markets move, and donald trump has said it won't. and everybody is wrong that the tariffs are inflationary, and he has a different world view than the experts. >> we just don't know what he knows about the tariffs, i guess. we have to sneak in a quick break, and no one is going anywhere. much more on the other side. mu. oh... stuffed up again? so congested! you need sinex saline from vicks. just sinex,

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eamon, we talked about the friction points, and i think that if you are sort of any fair read of the exit polls can leave you with a pretty clear understanding that the voters thought that they were getting something great in a trump economy, and i want to level set that with some facts. when trump took office for the first time, it as recovering from a slowing economy, and this time, it is a slowing economy, but it is above the fed inflation and interest rate ss d

memories of the rapid price increases of a few years ago that are fresh in consumers' minds. can you take me through that. >> yes, a number of things that are great, and the stock market except for the last ten years, which is the longest since 1974, and this week has not been great, but this year has been great for the stock market. and unemployment is in a great place, and looking at inflation, it is more under control than it was a couple of years ago, and the problem is that prices are still high. and so prices are going up slowly than they were before, and so people remember when milk was cheaper than it was before, and when people go to the grocery store, they remember it, and people hate a pay cut, and this is feeling like a national pay cut, and that mood pervades through the economy and the voters' minds, and a lot of that

was reflected in the vote for donald trump. this is a business guy, and he can fix that. but the challenge is that some of the signature ideas is things that economists say will increase inflation. mass deportation is going to increase inflation, because you will lower supply particularly agricultural commodities and raise the food stuffs and tariffs, and widespread tariffs are raise inflation economists will tell you. and so trump is in a tricky spot, because the campaign promises were things that will help inflation, and he was elected when the inflation is high, and what will he decide to do, and we have no idea how to predict that, and that is because this is a president who is serving a second term and will be detached from political calculations. >> and he said that he is going to have a hard time making

prices go down. >> and in the campaign trail he was surrounded by grocery prices and now admitting that it is tough to go down. and another thing is child care, and homeowners insurance, and insurance, and there are a number of things that are not working for families for a long time, and over numerous presidencies, and covid made it worse, and this is another reason that have made it worse in the folds. >> and he has not run on anything that make any of those things better. >> and maybe in housing. we will see what that policy turns out to be when he gets into the white house. >> i will be turning to both of you early and often. early and . families never receive a bill from st. jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food. speaker 3: one in five kids in the us

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thank you very much for letting us into your home during these truly extraordinary times. "the beat" starts right now with ari melber >> thanks. i am ari melber and we are watching the spending plan after the in-fighting that led to trump asking republicans to back out of what had been their spending pl