conclude with this, as andy young told me, he may be gone, but he has not gone far. >> our thoughts, our prayers, and our gratitude to the entire carter family as a more in this sad loss. on that note, i wish you a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thank you for staying up late. we will see you again tomorrow. tomorrow. tonight on all in. >> if finalizes the conviction and makes donald trump officially the one thing he has not been, a convicted felon. >> the supreme court denies donald trump tonight. the breaking news that

president elect of the u.s. will face criminal sentencing hours from now. at what point did you realize, i'm not going to save the house? >> when my son-in-law grabbed me and said we got to go. >> with the largest fire uncontained, the devastation of life and property grows. >> the winds continued to be of a historic nature and a key factor of this firestorm. >> the latest from los angeles and the difficult task of finding facts in an information environment filled with lies. >> elon musk response to my report laying out some of the evidence was true. the american scene inside the national cathedral at the state funeral for president jimmy carter. >> stand up, my dad used to say, the abuse of power. >> when trent -- all in starts

now. >> good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. a lot happening. in 13 hours, donald trump will be sentenced for his 34 felony convictions into your. that's after the supreme court denied his request for delay. barely, 5-4 decision just came home in the last hour. chief justice roberts and amy coney barrett siding with the three liberals. deciding the first the alleged evidentiary violations of president elect trump state court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course of appeal. second, the burden that sentencing will impose on the president elect's responsibilities is relatively insubstantial in light of the trial court's stated intent to impose a sentence of unconditional discharge after a brief virtual hearing. justices thomas, gorsuch, and alito, they say they would've granted the stay.

go figure. with the decision, trump will be the first convicted felon to become president of the united states. breaking barriers right and left these days. he will have to appear virtually and in your courtroom at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow morning for sentencing. the so ruben is a legal correspondent kristy greenberg served as assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york where she was deputy chief of the criminal division. they join me now. let me start with you on the law. you and i talked and i will -- i thought there was no way this would happen. he would pull a rabbit out of the hat and they may have seated i will bet $10,000 it never happens. i was wrong. he exhausted his appeals in the near court. judge merchan order and one appellate level and they said no. the ultimate appellate level and they said no. emergency filing in the supreme court. guys, help me out. you've been there for me all along, help me out.

what were the arguments his lawyers were making. >> one argument is at the trial there was evidence introduced in which the jury relied for which he was entitled to immunity so the argument goes, under the separate -- supreme court ruling, not only does the president have immunity from prosecution for his official acts but he also has immunity from even having official acts, evidence introduced and trials having to do with his private conduct. that was the first argument. the second is imi president elect and the same constitutional concerns the department of justice recognizes with respect to sitting presidents and prosecuting them for any reason, though should apply to me. i am busy with important things under the transition act and you should stretch your july ruling to cover this period too. >> i might run for president someday. let's keep going with this.

you were surprised. >> i got this wrong. i really thought they would bail him out once again because that is what we have seen. this was 5-4. there were four justices who were prepared to help him out. i did not count on the fact that justice roberts and justice amy coney barrett would do the right thing. even then, the order is interesting. they say the reason they are okay with this is because the trial court stated intent is to impose the sentence of unconditional discharge which means nothing. no jail, no conditions. nothing. >> stop right there. that's a tip to that argument. the equities you are bringing forth which i's i am president elect and have busy things to do, meetings and mar-a-lago, they say we hear you but it will not be a bad burden. it's conceding there is

something there. >> yes. and they say this sentencing will be a brief virtual hearing. those are not words associated with sentencing of criminal defendants. they are not brief. that's not how it works for any other criminal defendant. are usually looking at an hour or more even in a minor case and they are not virtual for other criminal defendants. they are always in person. should we take the win, the sentencing is happening at all? yeah, but this is not business as usual. it's not how it works for anybody else. the american presidency is a get out of jail free card. that is what this is. >> i had gotten so cynical about this court that i thought -- i thought they would issue temporary order. of course, the shadowed docket and emergency docket is so complicated, do they need three or four? whatever. the point being, it does feel

like there are four boats for whatever? like, on the record. it's the first supreme court ruling of the new trump era. the first, the last time he had a five-forecourt and is favor and now he is a 6-3 vote in his favor with roberts and amy coney barrett as the likely defectors to make a majority with the liberals. this feels like our first look at this court where there is four votes for do whatever you want. >> it is a dire -- >> do you feel that way ? >> i am a pollyanna so i will see the upside. the upside to me as they tried to stretch the meaning of the july presidential immunity far beyond that which john roberts who was its author intended for it to go. i think it backfired on them. in that respect, i was

gratified to see that. >> we have breaking legal news. do you know this? the 11th circuit which is the circuit that was reviewing an application but donald trump to stop the reports from jack smith's office has denied the request by trump's codefendants to block the release of special counsel jack smith's report, the three day delay and allow for further appeals. at the circuit court level on the documents case, they say you don't get to stop jack smith from releasing this. we will leave in place this three day delay that judge cannon put in that no one can find. >> they are saying it's procedurally. if you want to appeal her order you should've appealed directly and that three-day period will stay in place as a default. it gives trump time to now run to the supreme court because there will be a three day wait. >> there will be a scotus ridge

and they will get -- he's not even in office and there will be another swing here. >> this one, again, judge cannon's order was so absurd. the case wasn't even before her. she issues this order to see the whole report cannot be released, even the january 6 part, which is in even before her. this one i feel confident, at least with respect to the january 6 report which merrick garland said they intend to release, that that will be released and the supreme court will not block it. >> in terms of the document case, we read the indictment. it's not like we will learn something shockingly new in this report most likely. you are shaking your head. >> one of the things that jack smith said is he had unclassified evidence that he intended to prove at trial that would say, why donald trump had

these documents in the first place? what he intended to do with them. that has been the $64,000 question. was he holding them as trophies or to intend to sell them? why was it important for him to keep these? if we could get answers to those questions from jack smith in this report, that would have real value. they are is a reason why donald trump's team is trying so hard to keep this from being release. unfortunately, merrick garland agreed with respect to the classified documents case that we are not going to see it. there are two codefendants where they are pursuing appeal. honestly, donald trump's doj will dismiss the charges anyway. if you're weighing public interest, drop the case against them and let us see the classified documents report. >> i want to see the classified documents report for a slightly different reason. there is a cast of characters who witnessed or participated

with him. many of those people is scheduled to take important roles in the next trump administration. including susie wiles who is pack representative in the -- and kash patel a was a designated liaison between the former trump administration and the national archives. for those reasons, i would be interested in seeing it. think how much we learned from the mueller report with respect to all the witnesses and the documentation back and forth between people. that's what i want to see even if we never get classified information. >> that's a good point. let's go back to the sentencing. walk me through what happens tomorrow at 9:30. >> when we walk in ski, we will see a screen where todd blanche is with his client, donald trump, at mar-a-lago. >> maybe they choose a cool background. >> maybe. rudy giuliani was instructed to get rid of his american flag.

that was a joke kristy was making. we will hear from the prosecution and then the defense has an opportunity to speak. he will give trump himself an opportunity to speak. what is crazy is, i have bennett two trials were trump had an opportunity to speak. one is a witness in the other he wanted to make a statement and he got into skirmishes with the judges about talking too long and about things he had been precluded from talking about. what happens when he is virtual? what does judge merchan do? cut the feet. that an open question. i think this is the park kristy knows best is he will deliver a recitation of his reasons for imposing the sentence he says he will impose, and at the end, sentence him officially to this unconditional discharge, as we are expecting. >> we have gotten a preview of some of what judge merchan will say. in his opinion, he says this crime from trump, 34 felonies, represents the premeditated and

continuous deception by the leader of the free world. those are pretty strong statements about how he views the gravity of this offense. again, that's not normally something you would think is going to be met with no consequences whatsoever in terms of punishment. remember, it is good we are having a sentencing but this is not the sentencing he should be getting. he should be getting punished. michael cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for making this payment for the benefit of donald trump. he pled guilty and donald trump win trop. michael cohen accept the responsibility and trump has been in contempt of the gag order several times. this is something you would expect, if you are not going to be president in 17 days, he would have gone to jail. i expect, if it's not donald trump but his lawyers will go after judge merchan.

their filings have been replete with statements of how he is acting unlawfully. acting unconstitutionally. you don't normally see that. you can say you are wrong and we will go to appeal but you don't hear you are breaking the law. i think you will see fireworks. 100%. >> maybe he will say things about the judge's daughter. literally. he may do that. he got her address. i don't know. >> he mischaracterizes the gag order constantly. the part he has generally about abayas apart where he's not allowed to talk about family members of the judge, district attorney or anybody else involved in the case. he has abided because i think he understands the consequences are severe. guests when the gag order ends? tomorrow when he is sentenced. >> in terms of this technical thing we said in the intro, there's a long thing in the

channels of whether he's a convicted felon and what that means. walk me through why he is not yet until sentencing? >> sentencing as a final act of conviction and at the sentencing, one becomes a convicted felon. it sounds blearily into people at home, i considered him a convicted felon a long time ago. >> he was convicted of a felony. >> 34 counts of a felony but tomorrow at the sentencing or after and when the sentences handed down is when donald trump we are comfortable calling him a convicted felon. >> the one thing i will say is i do not think he will feel restricted by the gag order or his lawyers will. the rhetoric from them has been escalating in its frequency and content. and, what are the consequences for violating it? maximum of $1000 or put him in jail. he is not putting him in jail.

the supreme court just said you will not put him in jail. i expect fireworks. >> all right. i guess we will be watching. what a world we live in. lisa rubin, kristy greenberg, that was clarifying. trump has responded to the supreme court order declining to kick the can on his sentencing. >> just a few minutes ago, the supreme court ruled they will not slow down the sentencing. it is on for tomorrow. now what? >> called for an appeal. they acknowledge what the judge said about no penalty. there is no penalty. we will appeal end of week. psychologically, it's a disgrace. >> i am the first president and probably one of the first candidates in history that is under attack with a gag order where i'm not allowed to speak about something.

they ought to find out what that is about. this is a long way from finished and i respect the core's opinion. >> despite that he will be sentenced for his crimes. the highest office of the land as a convicted felon. joining his congressman eric swalwell, democrat of california who serves on the judiciary committee and a former state prosecutor. good to have you here. first your reaction to the news from the supreme court. >> it's the right call but a shocking call, the court they gave him absolute immunity and would plant in a said he can do whatever he wants and have no accountability would do this. there are separate questions now of will they have the muscle in the future as he continues to test them. it is the right call. what's the alternative? that he would be treated differently than anybody else who suffers a criminal conviction? that doesn't feel right. credit to judge merchan. in the last couple of months, you've seen these billionaire

brews going down to mar-a-lago, hat in hand, contributing to the inaugural campaign, and capitulating. he is standing tall and saying no. the rule of law still matters. >> i feel judge merchan conducted himself with integrity through the process and one of the few who seems to genuinely believe and has conducted himself as if the rule of law truly is equal for all before it. >> that's right. hopefully, setting an example to other judges cases will be coming before it. we will be back in the court so many times. if kash patel and pam bondi are prosecuting, investigating trump's enemies, that requires court supervision from search warrants that will have to be signed off on to early filings and motions in those cases. what the district court judges do is so important. i think he set an example of courage. >> i hadn't thought of that.

the 5-4 is a little worrisome to me. it's better than in the other direction. it's better than 6-3 the other direction. the difference between the last time he was president with a five-forecourt and kennedy was the swing vote, at least in the beginning, and the 673 court he will have now that as shown itself through the decision and others to be untethered from constitutional reasoning, from textual -- for president. when you think of what this term will be like with this court. >> and judicial ethics. in the judiciary committee, it's a thin minority, and we see the majority is within reach . what we are thinking about is, what can we do legislatively to rain these folks in?

for the longest time i was a traditionalist on this, and i thought the court has to be independent. they will police themselves. they have shown at every turn with alito and his family and his phone call, clarence thomas and that gives, they are incapable of doing that. it will take congressional supervision. to justice coney barrett, there's a phrase in football when the quarterback throws the ball across the field and the receiver drops it and gets drilled by the linebacker, you might as well catch it because they will hit you anyway. going forward, shown yourself as having the courage to stand up to him. they will hit you on this. we will need that type of courage going forward. for her to not be bullied by trump. he is on her list and that will be evident in the days ahead. >> i was slightly surprised she joined that immunity decision. sort of ad hoc and her

questions in oral argument i thought were sharp and shown genuine concern with the gravity of what had been committed. i want to play a little of a colleague of yours, i'm sorry, read a letter of colleague jamie raskin calling on alito to recuse on this case which obviously he did not. he said justice alito's decision to have a personal phone call with trump who obviously has an active and deeply personal matter before the court makes clear that he misunderstands the basic requirements of judicial ethics or, more likely, believes to be above judicial ethics altogether. this phone call happens yesterday. trump calls alito. it's about a former clerk of alito trying to get a job who according to the "new york times" is a subject of a tug-of- war in trump circles because he worked for bill barr, whether he is a true loyalist. alito could have said i will talk to you on saturday. >> this guy worked for alito 14

years ago and it wasn't like his last job was for alito. from james comey, when trump was trying to make the michael flynn case go away he applies maximum pressure. we know it president zelenskyy, can you do me a favor. trump knows how to make a phone call into it under the auspices of something legit and make his case in another matter. >> how are you preparing yourself? are you thinking differently? you were there for the first administration. you had several years in the majority and past a lot of legislation. a lot was good legislation. i'm not sure how much it helped you politically. how are you thinking about this congress? >> be purposeful. don't chase every ball that he throws. i was a junior member during the first term, having lived through exhausting ourselves going after everything.

we need to be more purposeful and not waste the energy of our supporters. with greenland, if you want to try to buy greenland, i can tell you how many told us on the campaign trail and in polling and research groups that they wanted you to focus on that, zero. we should just say great but what about the cost of groceries? that's what we were promised. if you want to send kids to die in canada, tell us what you will do to reduce the cost of gas and make housing more affordable? not to get so worked up but bring it back to what the voters told us their priorities were, and make it clear contrast and who is fighting for those priorities and who is creating distractions and nonsense. >> that is fair. if he does want to send kids to die in canada, probably would get strenuous objection. >> i don't think we should take him as seriously as we did. the serious issue is the cost

of housing, eggs, and if he will put this nonsense out there because he has his insecurity whether he can address those issues, which i think is what he is doing. he has his insecurity whether they can really deliver, so he distracts with shiny objects. we don't have to chase them and we can go back to the -- that was sent by the voters. >> let me ask you two more topics. one, there's a test of this right now with this piece of legislation that would make larger the category of immigrants who are here undocumented without status who can be put in the deportation queue. if arrested. not convicted for category of crimes. in a more controversial -- a part the democrats are focused on, give state ag's unprecedented power to essentially intervene in immigration court proceedings. fortysomething democrats voted for this piece of legislation

sponsored by republicans. it just past 83-9. you voted against it. is it an sign that it's getting democratic votes ? >> people will be targeted because they are brown. that's what's going to happen. we are not saying you have to go through the court process and be convicted of a violent crime. i don't want any undocumented individual to be here who committed a crime. what this says is if the officer says, you know what? the person looks like they are undocumented and i will pull them over. and the officer bought his mind whether it was lawful or not, he has a person pulled over into if they committed any crime, supporting the family, going to work, working in the agricultural field or hospitality, they are gone. it's the predicate to deport. i think that is wrong. by the way, we have a workforce crisis in america. if we get rid of the most violent folks, secure the

border, we don't want to disrupt the people who are in the fields doing these jobs that no one else would take. people in restaurants and working in hotels because the cost for everyone else would go up. >> final question. your district is not in the fire zone right now but you are a californian. how do you think, how are you thinking about what legislation may be necessary in the federal response ? >> i have preventing the next disaster act and it goes it with the issue is here. we will continue to have unseasonable winds, unpredictable weather, and how'd we harden the infrastructure? these powerlines above ground, brush and branches hit them, they are causing fires. how do we underground those lines are put plastic coating on them as we have been doing in the bay area and anyplace affected by climate chaos. there's a lot we need to do right now. our hearts beat for the people in los angeles and the first

responders, but we have a responsibility to make sure california is still livable and affordable. >> the thing i learned today after the 1906 earthquake is the damage was caused by fire and earthquake. the city put in a high pressure hydrant system. there's two pressure systems precisely because of the issues they're facing right now. the latest on those devastating wildfires in los angeles and the dangerous misinformation plaguing the city plus residents. plus resi.

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nearly 30,000 acres have now burned across five active fires in the area of greater los angeles. the worst, the palisades fire, and the eaton fire have not been contained at all according to officials. at least six people have died although authorities caution the actual death toll is unknown. the palisades fire is the most destructive in la's history. this hour, authorities are warning of a new place in the northwest woodland hills in the calabash neighborhood. winds are expected to pick up again overnight. katie turner is a correspondent. she joins me now from pacific palisades. how is it looking? >> reporter: it's not looking good. as you mentioned, the 0% containment for the two big fires, there's the eaton fire and the fire threatening woodland hills and calabasas.

the cannot fire. the mayor was giving a news conference where she said it has the potential to flareup in the next hour and threatened quite a few homes in quite a lot of acreage. the winds today have been pretty cooperative which is good news. the supers goobers have been able to get into the pacific ocean, scoop up the water, and doused the hillside homes. try to get things wet enough so the fire is nothing to consumer doesn't want to consume it. we have not seen those flights in the past hour and a half, maybe two hours. i was talking to a source of mine and they said they are down and maintenance. hopefully they come back up. they have the capacity to make these flights at night, and the winds are supposed to pick up here. the wind advisory was extended to tomorrow, and they expect there will be strong gusts into the evening, maybe 60 more. you can see above my shoulder

and the palisades fire are hotspots on the hillside. another one erupted in the past couple minutes. there's at least five i can see right now. there is a home in the distance, behind those fires, that has not yet burned. if the wind picks up those flames, it could be a precarious for the homes above that ridge which managed to escape the flames. everything beneath that is gone. everything around here is completely gone. i used to live in a house below those flames and it is gone. down here on the flats of the palisades, the alphabet streets are gone. the mayor said 5316 homes in this area, the palisades fire, done. the acreage alone, 19,000, more than 19,000 acres. it's not just the palisades. if you look at altadena which is an hour east near pasadena, l.a. is so big, you could fit

delaware and rhode island into it. if you drive out there, altadena looks like this. apocalyptic. the clichis are clichis for a reason and they fit. it looks like a bomb was dropped. a powerful bomb was dropped. cataclysmic even. looking at the sun, not even the sun, the fires and the ridgeline as we were coming in on the plane late last night, it looked like the sun crashed into the mountain and started bleeding all over the mountains. it looks apocalyptic. the amazing news right now and we hope it holds is only six people have lost their lives. they just updated the. they found somebody in the palisades. another from the palisades fire i believe was in malibu and the others were in the eaton fire. six in places like this that were burning so hot and moving so fast would be absolutely unbelievable, chris.

so unbelievable that officials are worried they will find more. usually in situations like this, and remember from the hawaii fires, any national disaster, you have missing person reports and we have not got a lot of reporting a missing families are missing friends, which does suggest that maybe people were able to get out in time. it was a quick evacuation. it was chaotic. people left with nothing, but they were able to get out and able to save their own lives. i am staying in a hotel in santa monica over the, the next town over. it's filled with families. every hotel is filled with families who are looking to find out what they will do next. i've never seen anything like this. once people are able to get back in here, it's going to be -- the scale of the emotional turmoil, all the people, this

will last for months, years. it's really bad. >> i was remembering a piece, i think the "new york times" did, about folks living in tent, tarp city in a parking lot. a bunch of them were refugees from the campfire back in 2018, who had been working-class folks who were knocked out and could not get back up. that neighborhood is different so show economically. >> reporter: cannot add something? i know palisades, people will talk what a wealthy place it is and the celebrities and people who have means. people who have second homes, but not everybody. it is a town of 20,000, 30,000 people. i grew up in many parts of this area of the alphabet streets, those are families that have been here for decades and generations.

these are not superrich folks. what you worry about is, are they going to have fire insurance? is the insurance pay? will they have the money to rebuild or will they have to sell their lot too big developer for wealthy individual? will the landscape of the town turn into something completely different? would you have mini mansions instead of the small, single- family homes that made up the identity. i want to add one thing, the person who ran for mayor against karen bass lost, he developed, he redeveloped the village and changed it a lot. put in nice shops. that's one of the only places that is still left. he hired, i believe, a private fire crew to keep it intact. they helped keep some of those surrounding homes, but it's weird to see this entire community is gone. the historic buildings gone.

but the new shopping center is fine. >> strange. katy tur, thank you. stay safe. rumors, lies and hoax have spread during times of disasters. even the best of circumstances, crisis like this chaotic, unprecedented los angeles wildfires are vector for bad information. the polluted information environment is creating a blowtorch of lies being spread by the richest man in the world, on the platform he owns, to spread them. and the incoming president of the u.s. there's a false claim the city of los angeles is out of water. donald trump himself posted in number of attacks against the democratic governor no come. he looks to blame with lies including, newsom refused to sign the water declaration before him it would allow

millions of gallons of water to flow into parts of california. as his office notes, there's no such document is the water declaration restoration it's pure fiction. one outlet said since newsom has been an officer has not been legislation that would do what trump is describing. trump made it up. elon musk and others boosted similar claim that l.a. is out of water. democratic mayor bass is to blame with musk attacking state and local government that results in a shortage of water. this is really important. it is false. what is true is firefighters have been having trouble accessing water from hydrants, pulling it and there's a simple explanation that has nothing to do with the mayor. is the head of the city water department told bbc, we are fighting a wildfire with urban water systems which is challenging. los angeles has an urban water system designed to get water to homes and businesses. it is not designed to fight massive wildfires and a bunch

of places at once. a, b, c clarified firefighting crews were not without water but rather faced issues, and this is key, with water pressure. there's water but not water pressure. it's true for a number of reasons including high- altitude, droughts exacerbated by climate change, unprecedented demand for water to put out the places. the fact supply lines a feat fire hydrants are being disrupted by the raging wildfires themselves, none of that is the fault of the mayor the governor, but the whole point is to create a story in which they are the bad guys. it's not to say they're doing everything perfectly but there's not a real fact this is based on. the misinformation doesn't end there. musk claimed the l.a. fd prioritized dei over saving lives and homes which is a pretty gross statement, frankly. the core of the gross attack appears to be that los angeles fire chief christian crowley is

the first female and first lgbtq fire chief in la's history. because of that, to people like elon musk, she must be unqualified and therefore responsible for the fire. to be clear, crowley served in that l.a. fd all the way to fire chief and received special commendation in 2020 for her work during saving nine homes during the 2018 wolseley fire along with their wife is been decades in the los angeles fire department. her personal identity has nothing to do with the department preparedness to combat wildfires. all in it was not, the gross attacks. he signed on this post from conspiracy theorist alex jones claiming the los angeles fires are part of a larger globalist plot to wage economic warfare and the industrialized the u.s. before total collapse to which musk replied, true. how do i say this? the los angeles fires are not part of an intentional plot to

the industrialized the u.s. it's the exact same level of nonsense is marjorie taylor greene saying that some rothchild space laser started the campfire in 2018. remember? this alex jones theory may have proven to much for musk who deleted his response but alex jones who lied about the sandy hook shooting being staged, get the message loud and clear. >> elon musk responded to a post from the first half hour of my show today where i laid out the basic evidence that the democratic party, with their policies, are 100% responsible, consciously, for the historic fire destroying much of los angeles in the last 48 hours. >> consciously. consciously. the absolute barrage of garbage, of filth, of sewage just being pumped into the brains of people is

unbelievable. it starts to feel like a collective informational suicide . it doesn't help when the guy wants the so-called digital town squares blaming wokeness and fires. a journalist in prison of the media guild who previously reported for the los angeles times and been writing about disinformation including wildlife disinformation and each -- and he joins me now. matt, you know los angeles well and you are a local reporter. you said this is the first time i have experienced an emergency as a civilian. i can't tap my colleague on the shoulder go into the office. it's a disaster. tell me. >> that's right. i spent many years as a reporter at the los angeles times, many on the national desk, writing about disasters across the country. we all know the information

environment out there is awful, increasingly filled with conspiracy theories, but the kind of work that traditional legacy journalists are doing, a lot of times they're talking to people in a community directly affected by disaster. people who need to know whether they have to evacuate, because i need to know if their house will burn down or not. in these situations providing accurate information to people is vital. but, this time and this disaster, i am safe. i live away from the hills where the fires are. i needed information about where the fires were. what's the risk was. what kind of planning i should be doing. weather to get out. i had a realization surveying the landscape of trying to consume information through my phone. i don't have a tv or radio in my house so i was trying to do it via devices which is the media of future. it was a disaster. the social platforms do not -- accurate information. a lot of local news, local

newsrooms have been depleted by layoffs because they have not been able to survive into the internet era. it was extremely hard to get a basic understanding of what was going on. i would go to tiktok hoping to see something in st. joe videos. i did not get the sense that tick-tock mac the app didn't care if i lived or died. it's a broader crisis where on one end, the local news outlets that people used to rely on critically for coverage of these events, which is still being done by many excellent journalists here at the local newspapers and local broadcast stations, but there's a lot fewer of them now and more the information consumption on the consumer side is coming through platforms were some of the owners are conspiracy theories. dedication is not to the facts but their dedication is scoring political points and finding some other advantage to themselves.

it's an unholy alchemy the factors that will prevent people from getting information about what they need to know and even an hour ago, pat people in los angeles, we got misinformation from our own leaders and they sent out an erroneous evacuation warning to a vast area that was not going to evacuate. that is the mistakes that happen, they make mistakes and disasters but that's why you need vibrant local news outlets and people paying attention to counteract situations like that. >> i saw a darkly comedic post today, i'm trying to find out if my family and i need to evacuate and i go to twitter and here's 12 charlie kirk videos. this is what you write. you say in the old days, and to be clear, think local journalists in l.a. are doing an amazing job and local television like reporters of print, the news of a big fire would get handed to you. it would be on a handful of tv

channels where you watch succumbs or the front page of the newspaper that you subscribe to. with i think it fire news today is something you have to proactively seek an even weed out for. it's a you problem that tiktok will serve a joke videos until the moment of your death. i was struck with how quickly what the platforms incentivize. jokes, conspiracy theories, and, frankly, flagrantly racist trash about what the race of the leadership team at the l.a. fire department is. it selects for that because that is what gets clicks and engagement and attention. it does not select for, here are the zones and what you can do. here is the reality of the fire budget. >> yeah. you need existing local reporting capacity to deliver that information to people on a timely basis. the los angeles times which is

owned by patrick who himself has been bleeding into questionable political waters on this, is now probably at its smallest size under his ownership of any owner over the last century in los angeles. that's the dominant newspaper here. you need journalists in place who are prepared to cover events like this and cover the stories as they unfold predictably, and we don't have that anymore. to me, as part of a broader phenomenon of what's happening with information including life- saving information which is a shifting of the risk and responsibilities in many ways which, it's going to be your fault if you don't know the fire is coming whereas in the old days when we were on the same tv stations reading the same newspapers, it was unavoidable. >> stay safe there and thank you for your work. jimmy carter is laid to rest with all five living president and attendance at his state funeral. state funeral.

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essentially, he eradicated a disease with love and respect. he waged peace with love and respect. he led this nation with love and respect. to me, this life was a love story from the moment that he woke up until he laid his head. >> today, former president jimmy carter was laid to rest in plains, georgia, following a state funeral in washington.

all five living presidents attended the service. president biden delivered the eulogy. bill clinton, george w. bush, barack obama and of course, trump in attendance. i am joined by jonathan alter, a documentarian and other the biography, his best life of jimmy carter. that was his grandson jason carter who gave that eulogy, which i thought was just incredible and transfixing and a beautiful remembrance of his grandfather. >> yeah. jason carter is the chair of the board of the carter center. he will, i think will be governor of georgia sunday. he lost narrowly in 2014, and what his success and his drive and ability to carry on his grandfather's mission indicates there is hope with this younger

generation, and i felt this when i went to the rotunda last night, and people were waiting for five hours to see jimmy carter lying in state. many of them young, born after his presidency, but inspired by his example. and so, we can do better, and we can be better. that was the message out of this moving and evocative funeral, and i think, inspiring message as we tried to deal with this very rocky road ahead. >> yeah, it's always strange and sometimes awkward and kind of interesting in a weird way when you have all the presidents together. donald trump is sitting next to barack obama and there's a moment where he said something and obama cracked up, whether genuinely are out of politeness, we don't know. it is hard to hear the tributes

to the fundamental character traits of jimmy carter in the room at donald trump, who genuinely, and my respect -- in many respects, lived his life in the opposite fashion. truly. i don't think that would be controversial to him, in fact. it was hard for that context not to suffuse the viewing of it, i found. >> carter was the on-trump and trump is the on-carter. president biden when at that. he used the word character three times. he talked about abuse of power. that was what trump was impeached over. something else that joe biden said that stuck with me was carter doesn't have to be part of what he called a by gone era. we can be inspired by his example to light our way back to a better politics.

we won't get there in the short- term, but when you have these sorts of moments, these rituals in our civic religion, you get the sense that democracy is dented but it's not dead yet. >> when you talk about people coming to the rotunda and remembrances and learning more about his life and his presidency and does work after the presidency, it's so striking to me, the minute by minute news cycle can be all- consuming and someone who is up at the moment is up forever and someone who's down is down forever, the ups and downs of this man's and the fact he left office in 81, what a loser. what a failure. this consensus view that he had botched the job unto cares about him? the legacy he leaves these many

years later and how long and productive a life he lived and how fleeting those judgments are from day-to-day and moment to moment, -- >> what's happening with jimmy carter is what happened to harry truman. he was unpopular when he left office in 1953, but over time, about 40 years later, historians came around and they started to understand much more to truman than people at his time thought. we have to distinguish between the way we as journalists look as presidents which is how are they doing politically? are they up or down? how good of a communicator are they? on that score, carter was a failure and reagan was a great communicator. historians have a different mission. we need to look at presidents by how they touched and change the country in the world.

in that sense, jimmy carter was a visionary leader for a lot of the reasons on the environment on foreign policy that are getting good discussion. he continued his public service and he believed it was only in serving in government. he was only in government 12 years. he believed you can make a big contribution and that people could be inspired to do better. inspired to do better. it is a wonderful legacy. >> jonathan alter, thank you for making time for us on a busy day for you. appreciate it. that is all in on this thursday night. "alex wagner tonight" starts right now. good evening. >> have i to i have to say this. his presidency in ma