night, it is a gift. so however you plan to celebrate this holiday season, i hope it is filled with love, laughter, and connection. and know that it's filled with gratitude from me to you. so have a merry christmas, a happy new year, and buckle up, baby, because we will see you all in 2025. and on that very positive note, i wish you a very good night from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news one last time, thanks for staying up late and have a fantastic holiday. first and foremost, happy holidays to all of you. and congratulations for almost making it to the end of 2024. it feels like many, many lifetimes ago, but believe it or not, at the start of this year in the early days of 2024 as donald trump vanquished his

republican primary opponents, one of the big questions hanging over the race was whether or not donald trump was even eligible to run for president. multiple lawsuits were filed across 36 states arguing that trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election were wholly disqualifying under section three of the 14th amendment. and for a very brief moment a few states successfully removed trump from mare primary ballot. but that was until march when the supreme court ruled unanimously against them. it was just one in a series of consequential rulings that ultimately benefitted trump, chief among them the high court's july decision on presidential immunity. that decision which determined that presidents are immune from prosecution for any official acts, that decision effectively delayed the start of trump's federal criminal trials until after the election. it ensured trump would not face legal consequences for trying to

overturn the 2020 election until voters head into the polls in this election in 2024. and oh what an election it was. the sitting president dropped out of the race 107 days before election day. then he endorsed his vice president as the democratic nominee. meanwhile, the republican nominee survived one assassination attempt in pennsylvania and then he survived another near assassination attempt in florida. and then after all of that, americans in each of the seven swing states chose to return the 45th president to the white house. >> i want to thank the american people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president. america has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate. i will govern by a simple motto,

promises made, promises kept. we're going to keep our promises. nothing will stop me from keeping my word to you the people. we will make america safe, strong, prosperous, powerful, and free again. >> in light of trump's victory in november, the federal and state criminal cases against trump have all either been dropped or suspended indefinitely. in other words, trump's delay tactics worked. but still, the fact remains that donald trump is the first and only american president to be a convicted felon. but also in just a few weeks on january 20, 2025, donald trump will reenter the white house emboldened. trump previously, famously, said that he would not be a dictator, quote, except for day one. and on that first day we will very likely see the start of a sweeping conservative agenda, including carrying out the largest mass deportation operation in american his

industry, expanding domestic oil production, pardoning the january 6th rioters, and reshaping the federal government by firing potentially thousands of career government employees. trump's plans will be assisted in large part by republican majorities in both the house and the senate. he will also have a group of hard core loyalists filling his cabinet to execute on his vision. now, whether or not all of trump's picks gain confirmation, well, that remains an open question. but it certainly seems possible that people including pete hegseth, kash patel, pam bondi, and robert f. kennedy jr., that they will be running key agencies within the federal government. so how should we orient ourselves as we head into 2025? what can we expect? joining me now are claire mccaskill, former democratic senator from missouri, and john allen, nbc news senior national politics reporter. it's great to have both of you wise people here, sage people,

predictors, fortune tellers. claire, you know, i wonder -- you've been through trump one, and i wonder how you're thinking about the dawn of trump two and whether some of these very big promise, bigger even than the promises he made the first time around, will actually be executed on. >> well, you know, if you tick off what he promised last time, he'd build a wall, mexico would pay for it. no, didn't happen. he's going to repeal obamacare. no, didn't happen. he was going to reduce the deficit. no, he blew the deficit up. so really there were very few promises he kept in the first administration except cutting taxes for wealthy folks. and he managed to do that with a republican only vote in the senate and also in the house. i don't even think any democrats voted for it in the house. there may have been a few. bottom line is he's promised a mass deportation. you know, that is way harder than it looks, and i don't think a huge chunk of the folks who voted for him are going to like

the way that looks. he says he's going to take off taxes, social security. he says all kinds of things that blow up the deficit. and i honestly, i don't see there's any way that the congress is going to be sitting next year with a very slim margin in the house and only a four-vote leeway in the senate is going to do the things that he promised. so i will tell you right now, promises made, promises broken. >> yeah, john, from the sort of bare knuckle brawl that is partisan politics in washington, d.c., how do you see the sort of trump's chances in getting any of this signature -- these signature proposals actually run through the bureaucracy and, you know, the reality of congress. washington, d.c., is not called the swamp for no reason, but i mean, you know, trump's grip may be tighter around the gop, but the fact remains, as claire points out, they have very, very narrow majorities here. >> yeah, alex, you were right to refer to senator mccaskill as

wise and sage. she does point out the most important thing here which is the republican party in the house has basically no margin forker ror. you've seen president-elect trump now basically take people from the house that he's going to put into his administration, making that even harder to get things through the house. so that's going to be the biggest challenge. of course, the senate rules do allow for something -- and i don't want to get too nerdy here, but they allow for something called for budget reconciliation. i think you're going to see trump basically try to put together a reconciliation package which will largely be tax cut, maybe a few other items you mentioned, with an effort to get it through the house and get it to the senate. you only need 50 senate vote, whereas for other legislation you need 60. that's the first thing i think folks should look at, what's he putting into a reconciliation package, and to senator mccaskill's point, a lot of the things he wants to do

will blow up the deficit. in theory, budget reconciliation is intended to help balance the budget, to close the gap in deficits, to bring down debt over time. in practical reality over time, it's been used to do the exact opposite. and all of these proposals trump has on taxes will explode the deficit and add to the debt. it's not clear what he would do to offset that. i know elon musk is looking at government programs that he thinks he can cut. i don't think the votes are going to be there in congress for anything close to what you would need to offset what the plans would do to the deficit. >> unsurprisingly, i look at the landscape and see chaos, claire. not just because of the thin majority, but the fact you have republican senators up for re-election in 2026 who may not want to get on board, i don't know, mass deportations. you have elon musk and vivek ramaswamy in the mix, dictating maneuvers in the house, and maybe even the senate. this speaks to a center of

gravity that is dispersed and requires someone in the white house who can manage warring factions. and trump's behavior up until this point has not been to manage warring factions but in fact to pit people against each other. i mean, he likes the game of throne s. from a governing point of view it seems he's setting himself up for disappointment. maybe that's being euphemistic. what are your hopes for the senate being a source of potential mediation in all of this? >> well, you know, there's a song in the music man about trouble. >> yeah. >> and it says key that rhymes with p, and in this instance that stands for primaries. so what you're talking about is who in the senate that is a republican is so worried about a primary that they will do things that will get them in trouble in the general. and you know, alex, people need to remember there's still states

that will elect a republican or a democrat in the senate. i mean, pennsylvania's a good example. north carolina not too long ago. you've got ohio who just turned over a seat by a pretty narrow margin. so you've got -- you look at a state like utah where trump has never been the end all be all to the people in utah. so you look at some of these senators and you look at how long is it going to be until they run, how worried are they about a primary. and how much can they stand up to trump, but honestly, the thing that's going to be the most interesting is the clash of the titans, trump versus musk. because trump loves deficits. he loves debt. trump loves debt. his entire career has been about debt. and musk is busy acting like some richest man in the world from the sidelines is going to somehow dictate to the members of congress what they do. there will be a blow up there, and i can't wait to watch it.

that's what i'm looking forward to. >> you're already popping the jiffy pop. to that point, john, it's such an unusual arrangement, because elon musk in many ways in the closing days of the biden presidency and the sort of dawn of the second trump term, elon musk has a more prominent role than even jd vance, the former senator. elon musk has no governing experience. he's interfaced with the federal government through his companies but i guess i wonder from your vantage point how long you think that lasts, and what you see in the strange, for lack of a better term, love triangle of jd vance, donald trump, and elon musk. >> a couple things. one, when president trump realizes that elon musk thinks he is president musk, that's going to be a problem. there's not room for two presidents of the united states,

and donald trump didn't see room for another alpha male at the head of his government. so number one, i think that, you know, that seems like a collision course that's going to happen. number two, to your point, elon musk does not have governing experience. and you just have to look at his twitter feed to see some of the things that he's suggested and that vivek ramaswamy suggested that are not only nonstarters on capitol hill but also the kinds of things that would become a political disaster for any of the members of congress voting for them. so you know, when they start to understand how government works, perhaps they will, you know, they will adjust a little bit and try to figure out what it is they can actually do and what they can't do. but the third thing i would point out is elon musk has been given head position or co-chairmanship, i guess, with vivek ramaswamy of a blue ribbon commission. and i think senator mccaskill can tell you how much power blue ribbon commissions have in congress. and you know, to my experience the answer is none. and you know, obviously those

suggestions will be taken seriously by republicans on the hill or at least some of them, but it's going to be very difficult to get votes for an entire package of cuts or piecemeal cuts. >> there's a question of what the legislative branch does, but there's also the question of how useful, i will say, the cabinet agencies may be in carrying out parts of trump's agenda. and on that note, claire, i wonder what you think about the picks trump has launched into the stratosphere so far. does it help to have pete hegseth at the defense department -- or does it hurt him, given the fact that pete hegseth has no experience managing a bureaucracy that size. does it help him that tulsi gabbard may be a dni or kash patel may be at the department of justice in terms of carrying out orders, or does it hurt him that neither has managed a bureaucracy of that size. how do you look at them in terms

of utility for his broader agenda? >> it's tbd. first of all, i don't think they'll all get through. it only takes four, and some of these folks -- i mean, like tulsi gabbard, her meetings with people steeped in the intelligence community in washington have not gone well. and i'm talking about republican senators. she appears ill prepared. she doesn't really understand how the intelligence community works. she has been flat footed about her love affair -- i should put that in quotes, not literally, just figuratively, her affection for assad, bashar assad in syria who we now know, we're finding the mass graves of his citizens he's killed. so i don't think they'll all make it. and then the other chance that people are taking voting for these folks, will they face plant. will they actually be able to execute. and trump is doing something that is not uncommon in washington. he, yes, he won the swing states. but he didn't even get 50% of the vote, alex.

and he's going to overreach here. he thinks everybody who voted for him likes him. there's a huge chunk of people who voted for him who just thought maybe the price of ground beef and milk and eggs will come down if he's president. and he's got that over his shoulder, the economy. and the tariffs he's proposing, the other things he's proposing, that is not a way to get to a place where you're going to bring down inflation. so it's going to be very interesting to see whether or not the democrats can stand up to him in a way they speak to voters instead of talking about him. >> real talk. a heaping dose of real talk for your stocking stuffer from claire mccaskill, john allen. thank you guys both for joining me on this very special evening. i wish you happy holidays, lots of rest for the months and years to come. thanks, my friends. >> thanks. >> happy holidays. still to come tonight, how donald trump's love of crypto could make some rich folks even richer all at taxpayer expense.

plus, anti-abortion activists are emboldened by what they won during the first trump administration, and now they have a wish list for round two. that's next. wish list for rouno that's next. emergen-c crystals pop and fizz when you throw them back. and who doesn't love a good throwback? ♪♪ now with vitamin d for the dark days of winter.

with dexcom g7, managing your diabetes just got easier. so, what's your glucose number right now?

good thing you don't need to fingerstick. how's all that food affect your glucose? oh, the answers on your phone. what if you're heading low at night? [phone beeps] wow, it can alert you?! and you can even track your goals. manage your diabetes with confidence with dexcom g7. the most accurate cgm. ♪♪ learn more at dexcom.com ♪♪ that is their question. and nobody knows shoppers better than shopify. the

undisputed, undefeated, checkout champion of the world. businesses that want to win, win with shopify. jen b asks, "how can i get fast download speeds while out and about?" jen, we've engineered xfinity mobile with wifi speeds up to a gig, so you can download and do much more all at once. it's an idea that's quite attractive. or... another word... -fashionable? i was gonna say- "popular! you're gonna be pop-uuuu-larrr!" can you do defying gravity?! yeah, get my harness. buy one line of unlimited, get one free for a year with xfinity mobile. and see “wicked,” in theaters now.

during his first term in the white house, president trump delivered for the anti-abortion movement. he appointed the three supreme court justices key in overturning roe v. wade. with trumps just weeks away from the white house, those activists are ready to hand the incoming president a new to-do lists. one of their top asks, outlawing medication abortion. here's what trump had to say about that during his first post-election interview on "meet the press". >> will you restrict the availability of abortion pills when you're in office? >> probably. i'll probably say with exactly what i've been saying for the last two years, and the answer

is no. >> you commit to that? >> i commit. things change, i think they change. i don't like putting myself in a position like that. so things do change, but i don't think it's going to change at all. >> i don't think it's going to change at all, but also, things do change. access to abortion pills remains very much a live issue. three states recently filed a joint lawsuit against the fda renewing efforts to restrict the primary drug used in medication abortions, mifepristone. joining me now is the president and ceo of -- ahead of us as a country. the first question i have for you is the states who are trying to sue the f da over mifepristone. what makes that movement meaningfully different than the last effort to do basically the same thing that ended up with the supreme court sort of rejecting the plaintiff's

argument, saying you guys don't have standing to sue here. how is this different, and do you think it could be more successful? >> yeah, i think biggest difference is we don't have a biden administration to defend their fda and its decisions. and we don't have a biden administration fda anymore either. you know, not only do we not have friends in the white house and in the admin who will protect access to medication abortion, we will have embedded a team of folks who are on the same side as the states that are suing the fda. and that is deeply, deeply problematic. the fda's supposed to be above politics, but we already know -- we know the playbook from project 2025. and we know based on these nominees trump is putting forward and folks he's surrounding himself with that they have every intent of pursuing this agenda. i think it's so interesting, however, that donald trump himself understands extremely

well how deeply unpopular that agenda, which is why that "meet the press" interview with so interesting and why he was so careful not to commit one way or another. he knows the majority of americans support access to abortion, including medicated abortion. it's the most widely used form of abortion in this country. >> i think that political reality is interesting. i mean, you could see him try and have it both ways when he talked to nbc's kristen welker. things do change, but things don't change, just keeping the door flapping open in the wind if not just open to whatever may happen. you know? i do think it puts his fda in the hot seat if they, in fact, are the ones that don't argue against a ban on medication abortion and/or puts the supreme court in the hot seat and puts them in the position of once again outlawing abortion, given the fact medication abortion is the most common method of

abortion in the united states. are you, i mean, i know what you think about trump and the fda, but i wonder how you think of the court and whether there is anything that might suggest they might be hesitant to do the thing that i think has tarnished their reputation in the eyes of some. >> the court kicked the can down the road by ruling on standing. they left the door open for anti-abortion extremists to file a different kind of case with more credibility so. frankly, i'm very concerned about this court. this is the same court, as you pointed out, that overturned roe v. wade. this is a court that did not equivocate specifically on this issue. they left it to standing, which frankly, the lower court should have dismissed it in the first place on standing. but yes, the fda should be an independent agency. there is a shot or a chance that the administration and the folks

in it will decide to let it stand. i am skeptical about the court. that being said, we absolutely have to continue to build public awareness of the popularity of this medication. you know, last year when this case went to the court from the court in texas all the way the supreme court, we ran a multiplatform campaign educating voters about the importance of medication abortion. that is what we are poised to do again. it does matter when the public raises awareness and consciousness. i hope the court is watching. as you noted, they have never been less popular in this country. overturning roe was a terrible, terrible precedent to set for so many issues that trump and the gop are trying to avoid being tagged with. >> you know, i wonder independent of this particular effort to ban medication abortion, there's also state level efforts like the one undertaken by texas attorney general ken paxton, who is suing a new york doctor for unlawfully providing abortion-inducing drugs to texas residents, which

is in direct violation of state law. basically this new york doctor is part of a group that mails abortion medication to women in red states who cannot access it themselves. there are shield laws in eight states that protect those doctors from doing what they think is medically necessary for these women, but it does, you know, it is a challenge between effectively red states and blue states. red states saying that's not legal here, don't send these medications here. blue states saying, this is what's in the best interest of women, we're going to treat them accordingly. what do you think happens to an effort like that? even if it's not ultimately successful, there's the chilling effect that could have on doctors who want to do what they think in their eyes is the right thing for these women. >> so look, we know there's a reason ken paxton is going after this new york doctor. and you're completely right, it's the chilling effect, but it's also an opportunity for them -- much like they did on immigration, much like they did by, you know, busing immigrants to other states, they're trying to make the case that there's something wrong with doctors

from one state taking care of patients from another. they know -- and we said this last year the last time this went to the supreme court, they know that medication abortion is popular. they know that it is very easy to access, that it is a back door, sit a way around abortion bans in red states. they have absolutely no interest in letting their constituents have access to this care from any place else. this doctor in particular, they're putting their careers on the line to take care of patients from other states. what i think is interesting, and a story i would like our side to do a better side of tilling, and we're going to be talking about it a lot in the next coming year, is the success story of blue states. the fact that california, new york, so many places have these fantastic shield laws, that they have supportive governors, legislatures, attorneys general. california and new york have codified protections in their constitution. they are providing safe haven for these folks to cross over and get this care. this is how we're going to survive the next couple of years

before we can restore access. these folks are heroes, so i want us to talk about how the blue states are leading the way in protecting fundamental freedoms while the red states are continuing to do what the majority of americans do not accept, which is hold these women captive in their states, restricting them from bodily autonomy and care that they deserve. >> we're at the point where you have to have sanctuary states for women's reproductive healthcare. and so it goes. mini, thank you for spending a little bit of this holiday season with me. i really appreciate your time. >> happy holidays. still to come, the cruelty is the point for trump 2.0 when it comes to immigration, but the resistance is already beginning. plus, how donald trump's crypto boosting could make some of his biggest financial supporters very, very rich. that's next. financial supporters very, very rich that's next.

lawmakers are trying to shut down planned parenthood. the health care of more than 2 million people is at stake. our right to basic reproductive health care is being stolen from us. planned parenthood believes everyone deserves health care. it's a human right. future generations are beginning to lose the rights we fought for. the rights for ourselves, our kids, and our grandkids. gone. just like that. i can't believe this is the world we live in, where we're losing the freedom to control our own bodies. last year, politicians in 47 states introduced bills that would block people from getting the sexual and reproductive care they need. where does it end? planned parenthood fights for you every day. but we need your support now more than ever. visit this website, call, or scan the code on your screen,

with your $19 monthly gift. help us win the fight for the constitutional right to control our own bodies. truly if planned parenthood had not stepped in, i would not be here today. they saved my life. your support is urgent. our rights and the rights of future generations are at risk. and lives are at risk. and that's why we have to keep fighting. in every state, everywhere. donate $19 a month, or whatever you can afford. and you'll help us fight against laws that block care, and take away our rights. we fight to make sure everyone and anyone can get the care they need. but we need your help. and there's never been a more urgent time to join. so go online, call, or scan this code now. sign up with your monthly gift today, and we'll send you this “care. no matter what” t-shirt. it is your right to have safe health care. that's it. we won't give up, and we won't back down.

we need you now more than ever. go online, call, or scan right now.

i think crypto's got a great future. i think it really does.

maybe we'll pay up to $35 trillion. i'll write it on a little piece of paper. we have no debt. >> it did not get a lot of attention at the time, but donald trump really did say he wants to pay down the national debt using cryptocurrency. and now that he's been elected, trump's wild crypto fantasies may very well become reality. as charlie writes for the atlantic, there is speculation trump could make good on a proposal to create a strategic reserve of bitcoins in the u.s., which could involve the federal government buying 200,000 bitcoins a year over the next five years, perhaps by using the country's gold reserves. for large crypto holders this would be an incredible scheme, a wealth transfer from the government to crypto whales. that seems like a pretty crazy thing to do, not least because cryptocurrency claims to be all about creating money that does not rely on the u.s. government. but it maybes sense when you understand cryptocurrency not as

a new technology or the symbol of some online libertarian movement but as an industry rife with speculators looking to cash in on donald trump's second term. as he writes, whether trump understands crypto beyond the basic notion that's a good way to win votes and get rich off the backs of his most fanatical supporters is not clear, but the alliance between trump and the crypto constituency makes sense philosophically. trump is corrupt and he loves money. joining me now is the author of that piece a staff writer at the atlantic. charlie, i'm a fan of your writing, and this piece in particular was very helpful for me, and i'm sure many other people who read it, to understand the handshake between maga and crypto. can you elaborate on the anti-institutional bent that unites these two subgroups of people be why there's so much kinship in these two worlds. >> there's a lot of it. and a lot of it is cynical.

crypto kind of seems like a technology that was in some ways built for the way donald trump likes to conduct business, right? which is like off the books and, you know, sort of nakedly financial, like greed is good in the crypto ecosystem, right? that's a very trumpian thing. but perhaps more important, i think, is the ethos or cryptocurrency, especially block chain, the technology it's built off of. it's an anti-institutional technology. that's the way it was created, to take the middleman out. to take away the banks and the central bankers and the government and the oversight and the regulation and all those institutional guardrails that, you know, they help protect people but they also leave people out of the financial system. people who are into crypto are really into that anti-institutional authority, and it makes a lot of sense. we are in an extremely low trust moment.

the maga world is full of people who are incredibly skeptical and distrustful and resentful of elites. and they like the idea of this. so this culture has a real overlap with the maga, the trump ethos. >> yeah, nothing says anti-institutional like the u.s. president creating a strategic bitcoin reserve built on gold. what? i mean, just can we talk about the irony of maybe using federal gold reserves to buy a strategic bitcoin reserve? i mean, the whole point of crypto is it's outside the government. do you see any issue with the creation of this. do we need to worry about crypto cash. also, will the public care. this is undermining the very point of crypto. >> it's undermining the point. there's, you know, it's hypocritical. but it's also very alarming, i think. you know, who's to say whether donald trump's going to make good on any of this or whether this is like lip service to a constituency that, you know, put a lot of money behind him and

put a lot of faith in him, i think what's really alarming about this is the fact that this would be a wealth transfer from the federal government to the people who currently hold a lot of bitcoin. the government would be buying bitcoin from these people. and every time, every year, it would buy about 200,000 bitcoins. every year it did that, that, you know, that purchase would drive the price of bitcoin up, further enriching those people who have crypto and making it so the next year when the government was buying those reserves, it would cost the government more money. they would be getting a worse price. and then, you know, a side of the corruption element of, that you also have this idea of the government having the strategic reserve of the most volatile currency that has really existed that's not like tulips, right? to be enmeshed with this

technology that's best suited for doing crime. >> as you point out, the narrative of, that you know, taking crypto bros and making them richer year over year is not something that the, quote,unquote, populous working class agenda of maga would tolerate, right? i mean, in theory, it's such an obvious transfer of wealth, like many other trump policy, to the richest again and again and again. one would think there'd be political fallout from that. >> when i put this, all this stuff, the whole, the trump policies, just the notion that, you know, crypto has enriched a certain set of people who've become really important political donors to this researcher, molly white, who studies cryptocurrencies and, you know, the volatile effects. what she said to me was very striking, which essentially is there is this anti-institutional authority adopted by these folks but then once they get the power or the influence, they basically lose that and say, well, we're

not anti-institutionalists, it's just we want to be the institutions, we want to be the authority. and that's what i think we're trying to see here. if these trump proposals go through, if we start to see, you know, the posh regulations for crypto that help it thrive, i think what's going to happen is it's just going to be a new set of authority. and it's going to be, you know, the people who are rich from this speculative asset. >> i mean, charlie, it's a great piece. i'm a big fan of your writing, like i said at the top of this segment. everybody should go read it. it's an important perspective for the coming months and years. thank you for your time in this busy holiday season, i appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. trump is vowing to use more inhumane tactics to deport immigrants -- what those groups are planning to do now. that's next. are planning to do now that's next.

go-friends, gather! keke! chris! jason! boop! friends. let's go, let's go, friends! hold onto your dice. woohoo!! -nice frosting, pratt. -thank you! how we doin', keke? tastes like money to me. i can't go back to jail! wait, did you rob my bank? -hehe. -are we winning!? -ha ha ha! -oh boy! yeah! money, power, friendship. let's go! do i smell okay? [sniff] mhm. why are you shimmying? oh! unstopables now has odor blocker so i'll feel fresh all day, even after a red eye. we all use unstopables. looks like he does to!

smell unstopable. my name is brayden. i was five years old when i came to st. jude. i'll try and shorten down the story. so i've been having these headaches that wouldn't go away. my mom, she was just crying. what they said, your son has brain cancer. it was your worst fear coming to life. watching your child grow up is the dream of every parent. you can join the battle to save the lives of kids like brayden, by supporting st. jude children's research hospital . families never receive a bill from st. jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food, so they can focus on helping their child live . what they have done for me, my son, my family-- i'm sorry, yeah. life is a gift, especially for a child battling cancer.

call or go online and help save another lives of children like brayden. now, i'm 11 years old. we were actually doing the checkup for my brain. and they saw something in my throat. it's thyroid cancer. it was heartbreaking to find out that he has cancer again. but we knew who we had behind us. it just gives me hope. you can make a difference. join with your credit or debit card for only $19 a month. and we'll send you this st. jude t-shirt. without st. jude or its donors, we would have been in a bad place. these kids, they've done nothing wrong in the world. finding a cure for childhood cancer, it means everything. help st. jude give kids with cancer a chance. [audio logo]

starting with the criminals and we got to do it. and then we're starting with others. and we're going to see how it goes. >> initially it was pitched as a plan to send back criminals, but now trump's campaign promise to carry out the largest deportation of undocumented immigrants in u.s. history, that has broadened to include american citizen who is live

with undocumented family members. >> i don't want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don't break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back. >> as trump prepares to fulfill those promises, advocacy groups are also preparing to fight him. and at the forefront is the american civil liberties union, the aclu, which successfully delayed the implementation of trump's muslim ban during his first term in office and helped end his administration's practice of separating migrant families. with less than a month before inauguration day, the aclu says it's ready. joining me now is deirdre, aclu's chief political and advocacy officer. it is great to have you here. tell us something good. deirdre, first of all, the talk of immigration, trump is prepared for the largest -- or is preparing for the largest deportation operation in american history, and i wonder kind of how you guys are thinking about a battle which could be one of epic proportions.

how are you prepare something. >> yes, well thank you so much for having me. really glad to be here to talk about this. yes, trump starts talking about criminals and then immediately moves to talking about deporting 20 million people, which is, in fact, double the estimated number of people who are actually undocumented in our country. and the aclu has been preparing on three fronts. first, of course, our litigation front. and i just want to remind you that during trump's first administration the aclu filed more than 400 legal actions against the trump administration and was successful in many of them, even arguing before trump-appointed judges. so we are confident in our litigation teams' prowess and ability to meet this moment. second is what we're calling our firewall for freedom. and this is an effort that we are doing with our affiliates. the aclu has an affiliate in every single state in this

country. and those affiliates have close relationships with their governors, their attorneys general, the legislatures, the mayors in cities. so we've been working together to build out a firewall to protect people's rights and liberties at the state and city level. and then finally, there are millions of grassroots supporters all across the country. we've been holding trainings. we have hundreds and hundreds of people coming to these weekly trainings to learn about what we can anticipate from a trump administration and start to get ready to fight back. >> can you talk a little bit about the states and the firewall, what is it, the firewalls of freedom. what does that mean when you're partnering with states. i assume most of them are blue states or blue state representatives, governor, mayor, et cetera, is that how you create bulwarks against trump's most draconian policies? >> on a practical level it's giving them the tools that they

need to resist. to say, no, our state's or city's resources are not going to be used to carry out your undemocratic political plan. whatever it may be to violate people's rights. states do not have an obligation to take their state resources, whether it be police or national guard or proprietary personal information about their residents, and use it in service of trump's political agenda. they are under no obligation to do that, and we're helping them have the tools to not do that. >> state's rights is now a liberal cause. i do wonder, you know, you mentioned that the aclu has had success arguing its cases before even trump's appointed judges. how are you guys thinking about the supreme court where so many of these high profile pieces of litigation end up now that there's a strong conservative majority on the court and they've handed trump some very real win this is year. how are you looking at that as

the final end game to a lot of in? >> first of all, just remind you hardly any cases go to the supreme court. >> okay. >> it's less than 1% of all legal cases that are heard across our judiciary system go to the supreme court. so many, many, many cases are decided in lower courts. but yes, the supreme court does have a mixed record. and you know, i think we've really seen in the aftermath of the dobbs decision a real disappointment with how politicized the court has been with the general public. however, we see courts as an important piece of protecting democracy. we still argue in front of the supreme court. and we still expect a fair hearing. >> well, listen, all i know is we are going to be looking towards you for a lot of information. i think there are a lot of americans that are looking for pushback. it's great to hear how you guys are thinking about the road ahead. and we will be in touch in the

coming weeks and months. thank you for spending a little of the holiday season. i hope you get some rest before january 20th. deirdre of the aclu, thanks so much. we will be right back. much we will be right back.

z's bakery is looking to add a pizza oven, arissa's hair salon wants to expand their space, and steve's t-shirt shop wants to bring on more help. with the comcast business 5-year price lock guarantee, they can think more about possibilities for their business and not the cost of their internet. it's five years of gig-speeds and advanced security. all from the company with 99.9% network reliability. get the 5-year price lock guarantee, now back for a limited time. powering five years of savings. powering possibilities™.

one final note before we say good night. putting this show together would not be possible without all the ridiculously smart and talented people who work behind the scenes. they are also quite nice. here are the wonderful people who every week bring you alex

wagner tonight and the rachel maddow show.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ good evening and welcome to a special holiday edition of the last word. with every vote counted in the presidential election