they wanted to avoid reopening pandora's box of the supreme court jurisdictions which then the court could use to revise down detections for journalists under the first amendment. not to mention, all of the different ways in which we try to end around the first amendment now. there is a little bit of a if you do, if you don't. maybe the supreme court slashes american freedoms of the press. if you settle the lawsuit, you create a precedence that the president can sue people. or, the incoming president can sue people into oblivion for what is at least a defensible interpretation of what the ruling was in that case. it is very dangerous situation. >> and it continues to be an open question about how it is going to go. great to see you and there is a lot going on.

great to see you again for your excellent reporting. that does it for me. thanks for watching. happy holidays everyone. stay right where you are. you donald trump isn't president yet, but the chaos has already begun. trump and elon musk through a spending fight into a tailmedicine. hakeem jeffries is coming up, and i have so many questions. ♪♪ well, everyone, think it's pretty safe to say it was quite a chaotic week in washington. it was also a very educational week, you could say, because we learned a lot about what's coming and how the republican party plans to govern. for starters, we learned that elon musk is pretty powerful.

i mean, he was really the spark that lit the whole dumpster fire of this week. on wednesday after house speaker mike johnson did a little dealmaking with democrats and came forward with a bipartisan spending bill that would keep the government open, a good thing, the richest man in the world too k to the social media platform he owns and fired off over 150 posts about the bill. many of them completely false, i will talk about that later in the show. demanding that republicans abandon the deal. and guess what, many of them did. those tweets from musk effectively torpedo'd the original bipartisan agreement and set off a mad scramble in the house to come up with a new one. in the meantime, democrats started highlighting what had become obvious to basically everyone watching. >> welcome to the elon musk presidency. >> donald trump and president musk blew up what was a bipartisan agreement. >> president elon musk. >> president musk.

>> president musk. >> elon musk who now everybody's calling president musk. >> if elon musk is kind of cosplaying co-president, why trump doesn't hand him the oval office. >> that drum beat got the happy couple's attention. musk felt the need to go back on x and say it was, quote, the media who was trying to drive a wedge between him and trump. also declaring it wouldn't work. a trump spokesperson even felt the need to clarify that the actual president-elect is, in fact, the leader of the republican party. i promise you that's not exactly a statement you want to have to make. so president musk tanked the original bill. everyone got super defensive. then as if to prove that he could make demands himself, trump got in the mix and said that any new bill must do away with the federal debt ceiling. now as a side note, he basically doesn't want the blame of raising the debt limit while he's president, and he wants to be able to spend and cut taxes

for rich folks like a drunken sailor when he gets into office. that's what this is about, that piece. in fact, he felt so strongly about that point that he said that any republican who didn't vote to raise the debt ceiling should be praermed ed -- prima, one of his favorite threats. there was a new one on thursday, one that included trump's demands, and 38 republicans voted against it. 38 republicans heard that threat from trump and basically shrugged. so it was on to plan c at that point which finally got over the finish line late on friday just hours before the government would have shutdown. now the house split most of the original package into three parts. one to keep the government open, one to provide aid to disaster areas, and one to provide aid to farmers. what it did not include that was -- was that demand from trump on the debt ceiling. and yet each though that wasn't included, 170 republicans still voted for it. so this time, 170 republicans

heard that threat from donald trump about primaries, and 170 republicans basically shrugged. that is very, very notable. for trump, it is very, very embarrassing. still after that series of bills passed on friday night, i was kind of waiting and wondering how trump was going to try to spin it as some grand victory. i was wondering how would he take an embarrassment like that and somehow make it seem like it's what he wanted all along, but it never came. nothing. no tweets, no truths, no reaction whatsoever. that's pretty notable, too. now elon musk did send out a tweet taking credit for turning a bill that, quote, weighed pounds into a bill that weighed ounces. to be clear he is referring to the number of pages. also to be completely clear here, here are a few things that were cut from the original bipartisan bill that -- that were in the original bipartisan bill that you would have appreciated. i'm going to pull this up to make sure i get this right from the actual list of things. first of all, a fix for stolen food stamp funds.

cracking down on junk fees like hidden hotel fees. criminalizing some deep fake images. keeps going. i have more i can list. they cut funding for research on premature labor, on the treatment of sickle cell disease, and on early detection for breast and cervical cancer. wait, there's more. it's not even just that. they also did away with ensuring that providers and internet service for rural areas weren't ripping off customers. i mean, can you believe that? that's a lot. they also cut funding for a program that helps 9/11 responders and survivors and cut enhanced funding for community health centers which typically has bipartisan support. also, by the way, they even cast aside funding for childhood cancer research which was only saved by the senate later on friday night. it's also worth pointing out that there would have been no deal if it weren't for the democrats who unlike republicans were a caucus very much on the same page. in the end, not a single democrat voted no on the final

package. just listen to how democratic leader hakeem jeffries, who i'm about to talk to, framed it on friday night -- >> house democrats have successfully funded the government. house democrats have successfully stopped extreme maga republicans from shutting down the government. crashing the economy and hurting working class americans all across the land. >> so an incredibly hectic week. one where elon musk's power over the republican caucus was on full display. donald trump's power seemed to be shakier than ever, and chaos was basically only constant. part of the reason, part of the reason that trump was elected is because the american people felt like there was a better answer, that the system, that the government wasn't working for them. but what became clear this week is that what the american people

are going to get is the world's richest man meddling in congress, an open question about who's really running the government, and a republican party that doesn't really seem to have its act together. maybe the system wasn't perfect. it really never is. but the new system isn't looking so great after all. joining me now is house democratic leader hakeem jeffries. in addition to his day job, leader jeffries is also the author of a new children's book called "the abcs of democracy." i know people watch regular doing last-minute christmas shopping. this is a perfect thing to buy them. great to see you. i wanted to start by asking -- i just gave me take on what a chaotic, hectic week this was where democrats essentially saved the day. what did you learn from this week? week? >> well, it was important for the american people to see the beginnings of what is going to take place over the next two to four years come is chaos, disfunction, and extremism, and a republican party that is not

really interested in helping out working class americans but is really determined to enact massive tax cuts for the wealthy, the well off, and well-connected corporations. that was the centerpiece of donald trump and elon musk's demand with respect to recklessly trying to suspend the debt ceiling and secure a $4 trillion to $5 trillion blank check. thankfully we stopped that from happening. >> it's been quite a week. one of the things i talked about a bit here, leader jeffries, is that elon musk -- we saw elon musk take kind of a powerful role in his power over the republican caucus. that surprised me i guess. maybe it shouldn't have. did anything about how he wielded his power surprise you? >> well, many people throughout the capitol are saying that he has perhaps mergesed as the --

emerged as the leader of the republican party moving forward. we'll have to see how that plays itself out over the next few weeks, next few months, and next few years. as house democrats, our position is simple -- there are three things that we should all be focused on in connection with the american people. first, lowering cost. second, bigger paychecks for hard-working american taxpayers. and third, securing safer communities. that's going to be our north star moving forward, and we'll see whether the incoming administration is prepared to join us on behalf of the american people. >> i note there were some -- i listed a number of them, pieces that were in this bipartisan agreement that were stripped out of the bill before it went to the senate. some of them were saved in the senate. but because of this whole chaos of this week, there has been questions about whether mike johnson is at risk of not being the speaker of the house in a couple of weeks.

what do you think? >> i think that's a real risk, and there will be no democrats available to save him or the extreme manage republicans from themselves based on the breaching of a bipartisan agreement that reflected priorities that were good for the american people. we're going to have to continue to work on several of those as we move forward, including plussing up resources for community health centers which is a bipartisan priority that republicans walked away from. even though it benefits people in urban america, rural america, small town america, the heartland of america, as well as appalachia. but we'll have the ability to wage those battles over the next few weeks and the next few months given that this is only a short-term continuing resolution that will expire on march 14th. >> and that means that vote, for

everyone paying attention, it will come up again, to raise the debt limit, to keep the government funding. i listed how there were 170 republicans or more than that who voted for this bill each though trump was threat -- even though trump was threatening primary opponents. you've been through this before, you were in the minority, not in this powerful position. do you think he's lost a hold on the caucus that he had before? >> that's an open question that will be very interesting. that certainly is one of the narratives that perhaps has emerged over the last few days in terms of what we saw in the congress, a willingness by some of my colleagues including far right extremists in the house republican conference to defy donald trump around the debt ceiling, in particular which means that notwithstanding their plan to sick the american people with trillions of dollars of debt in order to jam tax cuts down the throats of the american

people in part by cutting social security and medicare benefits that democrats will remain united and pushing back against that, and donald trump is going to have to find the votes for that reckless scheme amongst house republicans and house republicans alone. >> is there anything from navigating being in the minority during a first term that you're applying now as leader of the caucus? caucus? >> it's important for us to stay calm, stay present at all times because the margin is going to be extremely narrow during first 100 days of the new administration. the margins will be about 217 republicans and 215 democrats. even at full strength, house republicans will be at 220, we'll be at 215. that's the narrowest majority of any party since 1931. and so we've got to stay calm through all of the turbulence

that the republicans are going to try to visit on the american people in order to defend hard-working american taxpayers. we have to be present, and in washington to make sure that our leverage can shine through on behalf of the american people. and we, of course, have to stay unified in fighting for the things that matter which first and foremost is to lower costs for everyday americans, for working class americans, and for middle-class americans. >> one of the pieces that's -- that came out of the november election that i don't think has gotten enough attention is that democratic house candidates outperformed the top of the ticket which i think as we're looking for bright lines or lessons to be learned is an important thing to reflect on. why do you think that was, and how do you -- does that inform how you and other arty leaders are thinking about the messages for the party moving forward? >> we have incredible members of the house democratic caucus who

are returning, who are in battleground districts across the nation. and we're overwhelmingly successful. we have some red-to-blue candidates who were able to defeat republicans, in fact, in this most recent election. we flipped a total of ten republican-held seats this year. and we were able to hold some tough districts, as well. i think it was in part because all of our members and all of our candidates focused on quality of life issues. lowering gas prices, lowering grocery prices, lowering the cost of housing, which is a challenge that impacts americans across the country. and we're able to overcome a national environment that was more adverse than what we expected. it's also important to note as you know that in the last trump presidency, when the former president took office in january of 2017, there were 241

republicans and only 194 democrats. so the margin this time is going to be entirely different, and that's why we're going to fight as hard as we can to deliver real results for the american people and protect the things that matter like social security, medicare, and, of course, a woman's freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions. >> i think people are happy to hear all of those priorities. so you have this new book, i mentioned it at the top. i have it for my kids. it's called "the abcs of democracy," based on the first speech you gave as democratic leader which people can find. we'll repost it, too. when you went letter by letter through the alphabet. i'm sure that took planning. to talk about what the democratic party stands for. it's quite relevant now. it was a memorable speech. tell us what you hope young people get out of this book. >> well, it's an illustrated book for people of all ages, and certainly i'm hopeful that younger americans will have an

opportunity to process that elections come and go. presidents come and presidents go. but there are american values, american institutions, american ideas that have endured over a 248-year period that have made this country the greatest democracy in the history of the world. i was in part inspired by my younger days growing up on "schoolhouse rock." and just thought that these are principles that we have to continue to bring to life for the next generation of americans. >> i hope -- it's a good generation, we have a lot of hope in them. before you go, we're getting ready for christmas. what are you most looking forward to this christmas? you rarely get a break. >> looking forward to spending time with family, spending time in the community, spending some time in church, and watching the knicks. >> that sound like quite a full holiday. thank you so much, leader jeffries. i know you have quite a busy year ahead. i hope you'll come back and talk all about it. merry christmas to ur and your

family. >> thank you. democratic leader hakeem jeffries. perfect person to talk to in this moment. coming up, we just heard from jeffries, of course, but we should hear what republicans are saying about house speaker mike johnson. "punchbowl's" melanie zanona. and we're joined at the table in a moment. e joined at the table n a moment what causes a curve down there? who can treat this? stop typing, and start talking. it could be a medical condition called peyronie's disease, or pd.

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so just a month ago house speaker mike johnson was kind of riding high. i fresh off donald trump's victory in november, it seemed like he finally made it to the cool kids table. he definitely wanted people to know he made it to the cool kids table. here was the collage he posted from the army-navy game last week, making sure everybody was aware that he was in the box with donald trump and elon musk, if you weren't sure. you can see it in the collage there. same thing after a ufc fight.

lots of picture coming from johnson's account. ufc at msg was epic, he wrote. either another picture from the same night when johnson was hovering over a table on trump's plane that only had seat for trump, musk, don jr., and rfk. maybe hadn't quite made it to the cool kids table yet. he was close. got to hand it to him. he was nearby. he was on the plane. man, what a difference one spending fight can kind of make on where you stand in the world. after that bipartisan deal fell apart this week, nbc's garrett haake asked trump if he still had confidence in mike johnson. trump responded with a hearty "we'll see." not exactly a ringing endorsement. that's how i heard it at least. just listen to how some other republicans in the maga verse talked about mike johnson this week. >> he's got to go. he's got to go. people are sitting there, president trump supports him, president trump supports him until he doesn't support him. >> he is a good man. he's a friend. he's been a friend for a long

time. great person. he's lost control of this process. this is -- i don't know how he can remain in power. with elon musk or vivek as speaker. >> he's a friend and you threw him overboard. politics is tough. >> it is. >> how frustrated are you with speaker johnson? >> how's it sound? >> that doesn't sound great if you're listening to that and you're speaker johnson. melanie zanona is a senior congressional reporter for "punchbowl" news who's twitter feed i was refreshing. and top adviser to republican lawmakers in the house and the senate and was also communications director for the rnc. both join me at the table. that's a little tough. any time you say so and so is a nice person but, it's a death knell -- bless their heart. melanie, you've been doing tons of reporting on the hill. i talked to leader jeffries about this who indicated his speakership could be at risk.

>> mike johnson is in trouble. the dynamic around his political future has changed dramatically in the last week. a huge reason is because of trump. he was really banking on the idea that donald trump was in his corner, you know, he was saying nice things about him. that's why members were lining up behind him. people like marjorie taylor greene, a critic who said yeah, i'll vote for him because trump likes him, and we want to get stuff done. now it's a different scenario because of things like he was saying, we'll see, he's not happy, i'm told behind the scenes he's upset by the process -- trump, that is -- went down with mike johnson. jason is going to be serious work to win these people over. i think it comes down to what donald trump does. and that is the risk of putting all your eggs in the donald trump basket. because he is so mercurial and you don't know, he could say actually i want jim jordan, and i think membersed try to listen to him -- members would try to listen to him. we'll see what happens. the only reason i'm skeptical that he will ultimately not become speaker is because if you don't elect a speaker you can't certify the election results,

you can't do anything in the house. it was different with kevin mccarthy when it was joe biden who was in the white house. i think perhaps there will be an effort to try to really get something -- a speakership through quickly. we'll have to wait and see. >> there are comparisons to kevin mccarthy and the scenario because it was a spending fight. trump was threatening primary fights, and 170 republicans still voted for the final package. i don't know if that means he still has a lot of power or doesn't. mike johnson always said when people raise this, you know, bless their hearts if somebody can get the votes. can somebody else get the votes, or what's the alternative here? >> no. if you remember -- less than two years ago now, mike johnson wasn't on anybody's radar screen. and so many times -- >> hadn't served many terms. >> he was vice chair of the republican conference. there were stories of this unknown mike johnson. like, well, if you don't pay attention to capitol hill, most people don't, you don't know who mike johnson is. so then that short list is really short. and this is i think where republicans will find themselves if donald trump says something

against mike johnson. if he doesn't, mike johnson is smooth sailing, it's -- obviously a narrow vote. but he'll be fine. but the problem is for republicans, they're always trying to score points with donald trump. donald trump doesn't give points. he only takes them away. >> yeah. >> one at a time. >> i want to -- elon musk is another character thrown out for expressways, i'm not -- speaker of the house, i'm not sure about that. i want to play this. >> elon musk and i talked within -- an hour ago, and we talked about the extraordinary chals of the job. i -- challenges of the job. i said do you want to be speaker of the house, he said i don't know. this may be the hardest job. i think it is. we'll get through this. >> this is a serious question. this is the kind of thing that people who don't live and breathe politics like all of us asked in the last couple of days. is the elon musk for speakership a real thing? some republicans have brought this up. >> it's not, okay. technically you don't have a member of the house to become speaker of the house.

we have seen people like marjorie taylor greene floating this idea. what i'm taking away from that is they are looking at other options, first of all. i think that's a bad sign for mike johnson that this is even being floated out there. and just more big picture, if mike johnson is the speaker, it's very clear he is going to have to deal with musk in the same way he deals with donald trump which is getting his approval for everything, making sure they're in lockstep -- you saw what happened when he didn't get approval for the initial spending bill and blown up on twitter. i think that musk is going to be a huge headache for the gop leadership over these next few years. that's partly their own fault. they put him in this position, and now republicans are taking their cue was elon musk and not mike johnson. that is a problem. >> it's an extra person to watch what their twitter or x is saying. the guy who owns the platform. let me ask, one of the things that a number of republicans -- and you're familiar with the dynamics of the republican party and caucus, it's a narrow majority they have here. a number said i'm not supporting this, they don't want to raise the debt limit. many said they won't ever vote

to raise the debt limit. some will vote for extending the high-end tax cuts and say they're deficit hawks. this is not a time we're going debate that. what do you anticipate from seeing how many voted for this spending package? trump threatened primary opponents. there's going to be another spending bill package in march. what did this teach you about what to look for? >> we use all these terms like maga and house freedom caucus and so forth. the people voted against this bill were ogt partiers. we haven't used the term tea party in a long time, that's where they came from. >> the initial round -- >> absolutely. and -- you know, that strain is still there. and that's what we saw in this vote. i think so often when we look at things with donald trump, you can defy donald trump if you're doing so on policy reasons. you can't do it on things that are very trump core centric, build the wall, you have to support building the wall. obviously investigations, you see words like sham and all that. when it comes to policy, look at

marco rubio and china, for instance. he was absolutely against donald trump almost every step of the way on china. he's now a secretary of state. if it's on policy, you can defy trump. if it's on trump, you can't. >> and he's not married to many policies. i think that makes it easier for republicans to certificate of state their ground on some of these issues. >> loyalty the number one thing. melanie, doug, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> happy holidays to both of you. i appreciate you being here. coming up, we'll dig deeper into the week that was elon musk. president musk, whatever you want to call him. a quick scan of his social media feed tells an alarming story about what comes next. we've talked about that a little here. we're going to be talking about it after a break. about it after a break woah, limu! we're in a parade. everyone customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. customize and sa— (balloon doug pops & deflates) and then i wake up. and you have this dream every night? yeah, every night!

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billionaire backer elon musk. now as we mentioned earlier, musk inserted himself in the middle of the spending fight on capitol hill. on wednesday after a bipartisan deal had been negotiated and announced, musk immediately began railing publicly against the bill. you might know he posted a ton about the bill. what you might not know is he posted a ton of things that were completely false. he said that the original bill funded a bio weapons lab. it didn't. he reposted a claim that the bill contained $60 billion for ukraine as well as mask and vaccine mandates. it didn't. musk posted a claim that the bill included $3 billion for a new football stadium in d.c. didn't include that either. but musk, the richest man in the world and owner of the social media site formerly known as twitter, got what he wanted, and house republicans killed the bill. and i don't know who needs to hear this, but an unelected billionaire with a lot of government contracts appearing to call the shots in congress, not exactly a healthy sign of

democracy. by the way, all that fear mongering republicans and the right wing have pushed about liberal billionaire donors like george soros all seems pretty rich right now considerings what elon musk -- considering what elon musk has been up to the last couple of days. right now musk is basically flaunting his influence to bully lawmakers and government officials. he has singled out relatively unknown federal officials and workers whose jobs he wants to cut. and he has warned republicans standing in his and trump's way that he will fund primary challengers against them. one of their favorite threats these days. and as we look at all that influence, i think it's important to point out that his actual positions are at times indiscernible from your average red pilled poster on fortune. he has said that the woke mind virus is a threat to modern civilization. he's echoed the white supremacist great replacement theory. he said that europe is headed toward civil war due to the arrival of refugees. and this week he even expressed

support for a far right party in germany. in the midst of the spending fight in washington, musk tweeted that only the afd can save germany. now, for those of you who don't know the afd promotes an ethno-message and has been confirmed extremists by the intelligence agency. some leaders have broken german laws by repeating nazi slogans. and it has ties with known neo-nazis. so that is the kind of thing that elon musk has decided to promote to his 200 million followers. that's what he's using his platform for. like i said, in some ways there's not that much that separates musk from a run of the mill internet troll. he spreads misinformation. he celebrates extremism. he does it to basically stir the pot. the only difference, and a big one, is he's the richest man on earth who owns and operates one of the biggest social media mega phones in the world. and who basically controls the president -- president-elect of the united states.

and that, my friends, is a very dangerous combination. coming up, donald trump is enlisting the help of house republicans in his retribution campaign, and they are setting their sights on liz cheney. trump was posting about it today and former acting solicitor general neil katyal is standing by. nding by plaque psoriasis symptoms define me... emerge as you, with clearer skin. with tremfya®, most people saw 100% clear skin... ...that stayed clear, even at 5 years. serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections may occur. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms or if you need a vaccine. emerge with clear skin. ask your doctor about tremfya®. ♪♪

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congress was that house republicans are already trying to help trump deliver on his promise of retribution in his second term. in a report released this week they called for an fbi investigation into former congresswoman liz cheney. baselessly accusing her of witness tampering among other things in connection with the testimony of cassidy hutchinson. now the problem, as you might imagine, is that their allegations don't pass the smell test. of course they don't. in fact, their case is so flimsy it's already falling apart under scrutiny. that's not actually the point here. i don't think these republicans care. their goal is to tee up, i think, but i'm going to talk to my guest about this, a federal investigation of liz cheney under false pretenses which would save trump the trouble of ordering one himself. trump is also pushing accusations, characterizing them as, quote, egregious and unthinkable acts of crime. which they definitely are not. joining me is our friend and former acting solicitor general, the best explainer out there, neal katyal. okay, neal, this allegation

against liz cheney is pretty baseless. we've said that. everybody's said that. i think it's important for viewers to understand why. >> so it's kind of nuts, jen, to think that the one crime that occurred around january 6th was not the hundreds of people who invaded the capitol or the leadership that led to that insurrection, but rather the crime was the investigation into january 6th. but that's what this house report evidently says, that cassidy tchinson, one of the witnesses against trump, had counsel and that liz cheney ignored her counsel and just went and talked directly to cassidy hutchinson and procured another lawyer for cassidy hutchinson and the like. this is just bogus. it is true that there is a crime in the statute, 1622, that bars someone from procuring another from committing perjury. here all liz cheney did was say to cassidy hutchinson, you've got a trump-affiliated lawyer

who is not letting you tell the truth. here's a list of other lawyers who can represent you. that is not witness tampering. witness tampering is when you're preventing someone from telling the truth, and here liz cheney was enabling cassidy hutchinson to tell the truth. this is not a crime. no way. >> such an important point. she was trying to enable her to tell the truth publicly to the american people. that was what the objective was here. so i raise this, but i'm really curious, most importantly, of what you think. it may be that some of these republicans recognize this is a little flimsy, but part of the -- the question is what's the point here. and part of the point, some of us speculate, is it's to predicate, to justify a doj investigation. i mean, that's not how it's supposed to work, but are you worried that trump's fbi could use this as a pretext to try to launch a prone? >> they could try, but it would fail right at the get-go. not just because there's no crime here or any credible

allegation, but also because liz cheney as a member of congress at the time is entitled to the constitutional protection of speech or debate immunity. it's actually in the constitution, unlike trump's claim about being absolutely immune when he was president. it's in there. it would prevent it. i don't think that's what's going on. why are we hearing about all this conversation right now in december? i think because the republican party is thinking about what's going to happen on january 20th and one of the things donald trump wants to do is pardon the hundreds of people who were involved in the january 6th insurrection. and so i've already been convicted, they've gone through jury or other trials and the like. i think what trump is trying to do here is to bait president biden into pardoning liz cheney. and that will allow trump to say, hey, look, even -- even biden thinks liz cheney did something wrong by pardoning these people, this investigation is bogus. now i need to remedy what's left in part in all these january 6th

people -- and pardon all these january 6th people. i think that's what's going on. a hope that biden will use the pardon power to protect liz cheney, and then that will enable trump to use it for the january 6th insurrectionists. >> gosh, that's a lot of getting in the minds of a lot of people. but it sounds pretty right on to me. you've advised a lot of people -- the thing about these congressional committees -- not how it's supposed to work -- they have subpoena power, right? they're supposed to use that to get to the bottom of the truth. i mean, if you were advising liz cheney, who hasn't hidden -- she's called this malicious -- what would you tell her to do in this case? >> i think she's -- she'll fight, and there will be no problem for her. i mean, there's no crime here, not even the hint of one. and she's protected by immunity. i suspect this is a fight that she wants to have. liz cheney is one of the last remaining symbols of a principled gop. and this new gop isn't going to try and stop until her memory is

erased. but i think it's very important that she continue what she started. >> neal katyal, thank you so much. always one of the best explainers in the business and legal minds. appreciate you joining us. coming up, democrats pass up a big opportunity to elevate one of their youngest and brightest stars. we'll tell you what happened and talk about it with our friend david hogg, candidate for vice chair of the dnc. we'll be right back. ce chair of the dnc we'll be right back. predicament, ace. you overdid it on the loaded fries. undo it with pepto fast melts. ♪ when you have nausea, heartburn, indigestion, ♪ ♪ upset stomach, diarrhea. ♪ when you overdo it... ...undo it with pepto bismol. ♪ who knows what tomorrow will bring ♪ (dog whines) ♪ but as for me ♪ (knock at door) ♪ i'll wait and see ♪ ♪ and maybe it'll bring my love to me ♪ ♪ who knows ♪ ♪ who knows ♪

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so on capitol hill this week house democrats missed what i would consider a big opportunity. they passed over congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez for the top democratic spot on the oversight committee and chose gerry connolly, a much older member backed by speaker emerita nancy pelosi. why does that matter? this is one of the new committees that generates media coverage. under jamie raskin is became a critical platform for countering republican misinformation. while i have deep, deep respect for speaker pelosi, she's been on the show many times, she's fierce, and nothing against congressman connolly at all. this felt like an obvious chance to apply some of the lessons we should have learned from the november election, right? instead, democrats passed over one of the youngest, most media savvy members of congress for a key leadership public role. joining me is someone who has known the importance of having a seat at the table, david hogg

co-founder of march for our lives, and just announced his bid for vice chair of the dnc. so you've been out there a little bit since the election. you've been saying things that i think are interesting. you mentioned in a recent interview that when you raised concerns that kamala harris was not doing enough to win over gen-z voters you received messages from political consultants who said you didn't know what you were talking about, which i think is quite a response. what is the consulting class when there are some great consultants, some not as good, but what are they getting wrong generally about gen-z voters? >> one, i think it's that we are going to be able to move them with ads. gen-z is responsive to obviously the messages they see on social media. and i think that's one of the biggest mistakes that we made. we thought we could just put tons of money into telling young people how to feel instead of addressing how they actually felt. when inflation was going up and

cost of living was going up dramatically in many of our urban centers especially with the cost of housing, our response a lot of the time was you don't understand your rent going up 20% or 30% was not that bad because according to this chart of the g7, so on and so forth, our inflation isn't as bad as theirs. that might be true. but we need to meet people where they're at. instead we should have talked about the corporate landlords buying up tons of homes around the country and choking the market. what we should have done was talked about what effort we have to build more housing and increase the available supply. instead it was to tell people that they weren't right in feeling what they felt. we should have listened to how they felt. that's one of the biggest things that i'm doing in my run for vice chair is encouraging our party to stop paying consultants to shove our fingers in our ears so far that we just don't hear the voters and instead listen to what they're actually saying. and it may not be as profitable for consultants not to get cuts of the ads but it will be more effective. >> sound like you're saying two

things. there's delivery mechanisms where ads were run. a lot of run on digital ads. what i'm hearing more is the message being used in the ads was not the right message for gen-z voters, and probably i would argue other voters, as well. let me ask about something you said. listening is something -- i agree with this, a lot of people have said this. how exactly does the party do that effect snivel they're not going to show up in diners. that's not super effective. what does that look like to you? >> i think for me it looks like if i win this role i would like to go around the country and talk to young people and older people, too, and everywhere in between. a lot of the areas that traditional democrats have left behind in rural america and red states, and have conversations about what we can do to address the growing monopolies that are big ad, for example, address the -- the crushing realities that many people are facing around the country, and talk to people and listen to them. not to say that we're going to agree on everything obviously, but this is part of the reason why i joined the club in

college. it wasn't easy, but it's important thing to do to know what other people are saying and listen to them and just write them off over and over again. one of the other things that i would like to emphasize, too, in many of the conversations i've had with different bombing -- different voting members of the dnc is to invest in state parties, we need to build sustainable infrastructure where it's not just every four years we have a massive presidential campaign that comes up and then we're sending people two months before an election to live in michigan or pennsylvania from another state in a community that they don't know anything about other than what wikipedia said. instead we built infrastructure with the communities there and help to build them up. that means organizing local democrats, state parties, and the national party as part of that. >> it sounds like what you're saying is more of a 50-state strategy which a lot of people have talked about. before you go, i know you haven't endorsed anyone for the dnc chair. is there anyone in particular you'd be most excited to work

with? >> you know, i think that i'm excited to work with whoever it is. i've had many conversations with all of the chair candidates, as you can imagine. you know, i think somebody like ben would be a great spokesperson. i think ken martin is an incredible organizer, as well. and whoever wins that role, i look forward to working with them if i have the honor of getting elected to this. it's going to be a quick election, but i look forward to conversations with members of the dnc. >> david hogg, you named two state party chairs, one from wisconsin, one from minnesota. both running. thank you so much for joining us. i look forward to talking to you more in the new year. i've got one more thing to talk about. we're back after a quick break. k things changed for me. breztri gave me better breathing, symptom improvement, and reduced flare-ups. breztri won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. it is not for asthma. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. don't take breztri more than prescribed. breztri may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain,

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okay, that'll do it for me but we are already working on a great show for tomorrow night, we will keep digging into all the fallout on capitol hill after the chaos we saw this week. congressman himes is the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee and he will stop by and talk about all of it. that's tomorrow at 8:00 eastern . for now, stay right where where you are because there's much more news coming up on msnbc. good afternoon from washington, d.c. we begin with new reaction to