light that she brings to this building, to this business every day. news is a hard business, and hoda finds the good and the light in all of it. and everyone, i have been honored to share a desk with hoda every now and again. but more than that, blessed to be her friend. lucky for all of us, she will still be around the today show family, even if we don't get her every single morning. instead, every morning she will be waking, waking up and walking her daughters to school with a cup of coffee and zipping around the burbs. you see it right there in her new white minivan. i could not be happier for my friend hoda or her beautiful girls hope and haley. and on that beautiful note, i wish you a very, very good night from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news. thanks for staying up late. i'll see you at the end of monday.

>> tonight, we are continuing to keep a close eye on the devastating wildfires that are burning across the greater los angeles area. for four days now, dry conditions and a powerful windstorm have fueled seven fires that so far have killed at least 11 people, including a 67 year old great grandfather of ten named anthony mitchell, who was wheelchair bound and refused to leave behind his son justin, who had cerebral palsy. anthony's son told nbc news that the two men were waiting to be evacuated on wednesday morning, but the eaton fire in altadena spread too quickly. others reportedly died trying to protect homes that have been in their families for decades. 66 year old victor shaw was also killed in the eaton fire. a family friend told ktla that shaw's body was found on the side of a road, with a garden hose in his hand. right now, officials say the death toll is not yet known. the real one, at least as recovery efforts have only just begun, and new brush

fires like the archer fire, which broke out this morning in granada hills, they pose an active risk in terms of fighting these massive fires. the next 24 hours are going to be critical. red flag warnings in los angeles were slated to be dropped just as we came on the air tonight. 9 p.m. eastern, 6 p.m. pacific. confirmation from officials about those red flag warnings being dropped is expected and imminently. imminently. that means that the intense santa ana winds, which in the past few days reached hurricane force speeds, have finally begun to die down, at least for now. forecasters at the national weather service expect the reprieve to last about 18 hours, giving firefighters and emergency responders a small window to contain the fires before winds are expected to pick back up again on saturday and then again on monday when the next santa ana wind event is forecast to begin. at this hour. firefighters are making considerable gains in containing some of the smaller fires,

including the lydia fire, which is now 75% contained, and the kenneth and hurst fires, which are both over 30%, contained. the palisades fire, which was the first to erupt and was the largest fire at about 20,000 acres, is only 8% contained, while the eaton fire in altadena and pasadena has burned roughly 14,000 acres and is only about 3% contained. to put the sheer breadth of the destruction into perspective, in just three days, the los angeles fires have devastated roughly 56mi!s. thats an area larger than the cities of san francisco and boston, and it is more than twice the size of manhattan. joining me now from altadena, california, right near the eaton fire, is nbc correspondent ellison barber. ellison. thank you. advance for your in advance for your reporting. and i very much hope you are staying safe out there. what can you tell us about the latest on the ground in altadena? >> you know, look, alex, people

look at those numbers and they say 3% contained. but when we're looking around, we don't see as many big flames as we thought we saw before. we've heard from a lot of residents in this community that they're so frustrated that they can't come back into these areas that are still under mandatory evacuation orders. but let me try and show and explain to you a little bit of why this building, when we were driving by this about four hours ago, totally done. there was no smoke. it looked like this was completely under control and no fire to be seen. if you had asked me, would i walk inside around this? i probably would have told you. yes, because it looked like it was that settled. but look how quickly it's changed. this team on the ground, they've been here trying to put out what are hotspots inside of this fire? little flames that have been hidden underneath the debris, underneath the levels of this building that have popped up and reignited. they tell us over here, there's a stairwell. there's also a basement in this building. and this fire team tells us that when they walked by, they could feel the heat, which we could feel earlier, but they had a feeling that that because of their training, of course, they knew that there was

something more underneath it. and there have been numerous pockets of hotspot pockets of fires that have reignited inside of this building in the last couple of hours. and they've been working here diligently. and we'll watch your step as we walk a little back this way, so i can show you some more to try and get it under control. but they say when people are asking questions about why they can't come back into these areas and assess the damage, maybe go back into their homes. the firefighters we've been talking to here, they say this is why, is because they haven't been able to clear even buildings that maybe look from afar, like they're okay to walk into, because there's still all of this debris. and in a lot of these homes, there are basements. and inside of those basements there can be these pockets of debris and fires like this one in the back here. these are hotspots. they keep popping up, and that's making it difficult for them to truly clear an area and tell a community that it's safe to come back inside, even if the big flames that people saw at the beginning maybe don't exist in the exact parts of the community that they'd seen them in before,

this is an example of what they're so worried about. again, we were here four hours ago, and it looks like this building had nothing other than debris left. it didn't look like there were any sort of fires or anything still left, but it was wrong. and there are a lot of hotspots that have popped up from this one in the back to multiple ones in the front. the crew here telling us they will probably be working on this for at least the next couple of hours, in part because water is still an issue. there's a fire hydrant right across the street here. they're not using it because there's not enough water, not enough pressure for them to be able to pull from here in this part of town. instead, they are using a tanker that has water to pull the water from that sea. they should be able to use this across the street. they can't because so many fire teams and crews have been pulling from the water. we've heard fire officials and community members talking a lot about this in recent days. they haven't had enough water here and essentially they're out. so they're working and having tankers of water come bring them water so this team can stay here and try and fight this fire up the road though, three more

instances that look exactly like this where people are dealing with the same thing, different teams that are spread thin because there are so many hotspots and pockets in addition to the main fires and blazes that are so visual that they're trying to get under control. if this was a normal tuesday and this was the only building that had caught on fire, you would probably have a 4 or 5 alarm fire call where you'd have multiple fire trucks and engines here fighting this, but they don't have that because there are so many different pockets. there's just the one team here, 4 or 5 firemen maybe, that are fighting this fire alone, trying to get it under control. and they've already been here working for the better part of an hour. and they say the work here for this building alone is far from over. alex. >> just grinding work on the part of those hero firefighters. ellison barber, nbc correspondent. >> great to have you reporting for us, ellison. really, really helpful. >> please stay safe out there. in addition to fighting all of these actual fires this week, officials in los angeles have

had to battle a firestorm of misinformation. for example, this fake ai generated image of the hollywood sign on fire that went viral on wednesday. now, i can tell you that the hollywood sign was not on fire then, and it is not on fire now. so the people that live below the hollywood sign are not currently in danger. but this kind of misinformation is clearly very dangerous. what is happening in los angeles right now is still an active emergency. so keeping people informed with factual information is a matter of public safety. beyond viral hoaxes like the hollywood sign catching fire, the most prominent misinformation about the fires in los angeles right now is political. >> this is a true tragedy, and it's a mistake of the governor. and you could say the administration, they don't have any water. they didn't have water in the fire hydrants. they don't have water. >> the problem president elect trump was referring to there on wednesday is a is a real thing that did happen on on tuesday

night. while la's 9000 firefighters all simultaneously fought multiple massive wildfires, some of the biggest la has ever seen, the fire hydrants did lose water pressure. the system simply could not handle that many fires all at once. but rather than trying to figure out how to help or how to improve the systems, conservatives spread misinformation in order to play the blame game. early wednesday morning, trump was already blaming california's democratic governor, gavin newsom, referring to him as gavin newsom and claiming that newsom had refused to sign a document. >> trump called the water restoration declaration that would have apparently allegedly given la enough water to fight the fires. >> no such document exists. trump apparently made it up to score political points, and conservative pundits quickly followed suit, blaming everything from fish conservation efforts to native americans to diversity programs.

>> california can't get enough water to fight fires because of a stupid fish. >> gavin is literally tearing down western civilization for fish and indians. >> nothing against the indians. >> i love the indians, but really, it turns out that in recent years, la's fire chief has made not filling the fire hydrants top priority, but diversity. >> this right here, ladies and gentlemen, this is the leadership of the la fire department. >> i sure hope they know what they're doing instead of focusing on making sure there's water in the fire hydrants, the los angeles fire department battalion chief was more focused on racism and making sure there are enough women working at the fire department. >> for the record, the reason la's hydrants went dry on tuesday night had nothing to do with fish conservation or native americans, or how many women work at the fire department. all of it is beside the point. and it's not just inappropriate to spread that kind of stuff right

now. it's also potentially dangerous because there was a real problem on tuesday night. hydrants really did run out of water, and to be able to avoid disasters like this in the future, los angeles is going to have to figure out if anything actually did go wrong beyond the system just being overwhelmed and whether or not something went wrong. the system will clearly have to be improved, and that means getting to the bottom of what actually happened and not pushing partizan lies today. not only did california governor newsom personally invite president elect trump to come to california, inviting trump to work with him on emergency efforts rather than political smears, but governor newsom also called for an independent investigation into the loss of water pressure on tuesday night, announcing we need answers to ensure this does not happen again and we have every resource available to fight these catastrophic fires. joining me now to help us understand what we really know about what happened on tuesday is marty adams, who is the former general

manager of the l.a. department of water and power. mr. adams, thank you so much for being with us tonight. your your thoughts here are so critical, critical, so crucial in understanding how the situation became what it is. did conservation efforts pose a problem here? did they divert necessary water? would it have made a difference if we did not have those conservation efforts in place? >> no. you know, conservation has been important for the overall water supply in the city. but there's honestly adequate water supply to fight any fire in the city of l.a, there's enough water in storage, enough water in our aqueducts that we can fight any kind of fire. the challenge becomes getting the water from where it's stored to where the fire is. and that's what you really saw, particularly in the palisades. and again, what we just saw the report talking about in altadena, the same kind of thing. you have water systems designed to fight fires based on a structure fire or multiple structure fires, but no water system anywhere in america designed to fight an entire community on fire at once. it

basically just pulls so much water out that the system cannot keep the pressure up as it goes, and then then strands our firefighters without adequate water, water supply, and the pressure that they need and likely have to do their jobs. >> do you think a lot of people have been focusing on the santa ynez reservoir, which is a 117 million gallon water storage complex in the heart of the palisades that was offline, apparently during the fires because of some necessary upgrades and repairs to the reservoir. i know you were quoted in the new york times saying that something like an operational reservoir like santa ynez would have been helpful initially to more fully feed water to the system in the area, but maybe that it eventually those tanks would have been drained in a fire that was consuming so many homes at once. can you elaborate on that? because i know there's been a lot of speculation about this being the one of the critical sort of malfunctions in the system. it doesn't sound like you think that. >> yeah. so the water to palisades all starts what we call the stone canyon reservoir.

it's a large reservoir complex behind ucla and the bel air area. and that water flows west out sunset boulevard into the palisades and other communities. and so that's the source of all the water to that area. the santa ynez reservoir is a terminal reservoir. it's a dead end reservoir at the end of that line, much lower than the main reservoir, and water would be put in santa ynez reservoir. it would help during high summer demands. it would also be there in case there was a break in the pipeline. and you want to keep water in that community while the pipe repair is being made. but it's really a very much little brother compared to the other reservoir that's feeding all the water. now, standing, as my understanding, has been out of service for repair of the cover, there may have been a certain amount of water that could come out and help the system and have been there, but the reality is that the, the, the, the water flowing in the pipe reduced the pressure so much because so many demands on it that you really couldn't pump the pump stations to the higher

elevations. and that's where we saw a lot of firefighters struggling for water supply. even if there was more water available at the bottom with santa ynez reservoir, the pump stations are still a fixed amount and you might have had a little bit more water get up there. but by and large, as soon as more units started hooking up to the hydrants, you would have been exactly where you were in the first place. and that's what dry hydrants basically, because trying to pull so much water out of the system, so much more than what is ever designed to handle. we have fires in the palisades almost every year, and they're always fought successfully. they're fought from aircraft and the surrounding hillsides, as well as by ground forces protecting the structures. and it's always been successful. there's no reason to believe that the operation currently that was there wouldn't have been successful. and the whole system has been fed normally with the reservoir out of service. but what we saw was completely different than anybody had ever seen before. we've never seen it go from house to house, block to block through a neighborhood. and that kind of fire has never been anticipated or or provided for by anybody's infrastructure. >> well, it sort of sounds like,

though the infrastructure needs to be reconceived, given that we are in the age of climate change and these ferocious fires are increasingly more likely, do you think that that's going to be part of the rebuild effort? are you optimistic that a system can be built that might be able to tackle fires of these magnitude? >> yeah. >> alex, i think you had a really good point there is that we do need to look differently. you know, we saw the paradise fire. we never seen a community wiped out by fire. we saw what happened in malibu and ventura county a month ago. we saw now both palisades and altadena. what we thought would never happen has happened several times. and so i do think we need to look differently at what we're going to get thrown at us by mother nature. the fact that the dry climate and then the high winds provides a different, a different kind of risk than what we've seen before. i don't know that we'll build out a domestic water system all by itself that meets those kind of demands, because there are flip sides. if you build too much storage in the system, you may

not need to fight a fire, but you will have water quality problems. and so there's trade offs and things that have to be taken into account. but there are solutions coming on the market. i know of a company that's looking at fire solutions and wildfire areas, how we might be able to incorporate those in the city where we can maybe move more water from point a to point b, provide additional pumps, something that's temporary, that can be put in place where it's needed. because it's not just palisades, it's topanga canyon, it's porter ranch in the valley, east l.a, griffith park, bel air, all these areas are at risk. and, you know, from a potential wildfire. so what you look at is a solution that you could use anywhere without having to rebuild the entire system all at once. >> it is so invaluable hearing your thoughts on this and getting that information. >> marty adams, former general manager of the l.a. department of water and power. thank you, sir, so much for clearing a lot of stuff up for us tonight. really appreciate your time. >> my pleasure. >> coming up, when will we see? >> special counsel jack smith's final report into donald trump's january 6th. election interference. when? well, mary mccord might know.

>> and she's going to join me. coming up. but first, trump made history by becoming the first president ever to hold the title of convicted felon. i will be joined by two people who were in the courtroom when it was handed the courtroom when it was handed down. that's next. when i was diagnosed with h-i-v, i didn't know who i would be. but here i am... ...being me. keep being you... ...and ask your healthcare provider about the number one prescribed h-i-v treatment, biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in many people—whether you're 18 or 80. with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to undetectable—and stay there whether you're just starting or replacing your current treatment. research shows that taking h-i-v treatment as prescribed and getting to and staying undetectable prevents transmitting h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. don't take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines and supplements you take,

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plans.com now. >> to understand more with msnbc. >> to be clear, the protections afforded the office of the president are not a mitigating factor. they do not reduce the seriousness, seriousness of the crime or justify its commission in any way. the protections are, however, a legal mandate which, pursuant to the rule of law, this court must respect and follow. >> president elect donald trump is now a convicted felon. but

unlike most convicted felons, trump doesn't have to go to jail or pay a fine or do community service. judge juan merchan gave trump an unconditional discharge, meaning trump will still be able to vote, but he cannot own a gun, and he will still have to submit a dna sample to the new york state crime database. and despite all of the incoming president's efforts to stop the sentencing and has vowed to appeal it, the stain of the words convicted felon for now remains attached to the name donald j. trump. joining me now is christie greenberg, a former federal prosecutor in the u.s. attorney's office for the southern district of new york, and andrea bernstein, journalist who covers trump legal matters for npr. both were in the courtroom today, and i am eager to get the birds, the meat, the front, the front row view of what happened. andrea, what was it like to be in there? and what can you tell me about the mood? >> i mean, it was sort of like it's always been there was a lot of reporters, there was a lot of prosecutors. but on the defense

side, there was a single trump lawyer bound to be a top official in the justice department. and then via video link, trump's lawyer, todd blanche, who is going to be the number two person in the justice department. and it was not like any sentencing in a white collar case i've ever been to, because normally there's a plea for leniency. >> the lawyers say, look, we have 800 letters showing what a great character this person is. >> the defendant says, i'm so sorry none of that happened. trump was defiant and did the same things he's been doing trashed the prosecutor, trashed the process that got him there, and then got this unconditional discharge that said, he did not want this sentencing to happen. clearly, he went all the way to the supreme court to block it and is not happy that he goes into the white house with this designation. and these 34 felony convictions. >> his reaction in court today, we have some audio that i'd like to play was definitely giving unhappy. >> let's take a listen. >> it's been a political witch

hunt. it was done to damage my reputation so that i would lose the election. and obviously that didn't work. the fact is that i'm totally innocent. i did nothing wrong. this has been a weaponization of government. they call it lawfare. never happened to any extent like this, but never happened in our country before. >> that's not typically the behavior of someone who's just lost the case in court and is going to his sentencing, right? christie. i mean, just as a refresher, that's unusual. >> no, generally, as andrea said, you see defendant who comes in and you learn something new, maybe there's some remorse or acceptance of responsibility, some rehabilitation, compassion for the people in their lives. you learn something about good that they've done and that none of that was there. i think he violated the gag order is one thing. he specified. one of the prosecutors on alvin bragg's team and singled him out specifically and said, you know, this is the guy from d.o.j. and then he went to the you know, he was at the new york ag's office,

and this is the guy that they got to make a move on me. and that's prohibited under the gag order. you're allowed to criticize alvin bragg, not members of his team. he also attacked alvin bragg for, just as you said, he's trying to. he was just trying to get me to lose the election. and then, you know, he sounds like a broken record. it's this whole, like, i was treated so unfairly. i'm a professional victim. and then. and then he looked kind of on the screen like he looked bored at times. like he wasn't engaged. this is your own sentencing. and then he's just kind of rambling about people he didn't identify about, you know, things he's heard and people, you know, things he's read. but like, not really identifying what it is. and then he starts praising the conservative legal pundits on fox. he's virtually heard of nobody who thought the thought that the case should have been brought. clearly, he doesn't watch a lot of msnbc. and it's just, you know, it was kind of this rambling, unhinged thing. and he he reminded me of the crazy defendant that you see at a sentencing, who's, you

know, who's going to go to jail, not the person who's going to be the next president of the united states. i mean, it was unsettling. and to know that this is the person getting leniency when none of the, you know, none of the things that he exhibited at that sentencing would lead you to that result, other than the fact that he's going to be occupying the highest white house land. yeah, it's disconcerting. it makes people really question. i mean, you really can't say no one is above the law. now, today showed that donald trump is in fact above the law, at least the criminal law. >> well, and yet he, as you point out, he really didn't want this day to happen as, as as insignificant as the punishment is. he didn't want it to happen. >> i, michael cohen, who served time for this crime. right. >> was on with my friend chris hayes earlier at 8 p.m. and he brought i actually want to just play some sound from that interview because he makes a pretty strong argument. well, let's let michael cohen say it in his own words. let's take a listen. >> i hate to say this. i agree

with todd blanche, and i agree with donald trump in this. if there's no accountability and there's no deterrence factor because there is no repercussion for the 34 criminal counts, i don't see the point in having the conviction. they probably could have and should have just dismissed the case. >> what do you think of that, andrea? >> i have a lot to say about it. yeah, please. >> because first of all, i do think it's meaningful to have this felony conviction. it would have been worse if it was sort of frozen in amber and unsettled forever, which is sort of what the alternative seemed until last night was going to be. but this courtroom, the testimony unveiled before us, truths that we never knew about donald trump's white house, a little bit about his business, a lot about the way that he won the 2016 election. all of this testimony, all that we learned that has value, setting things down on the record. and i think we're increasingly going into a period where i think it's pretty clear that we are not going to be able to rely on legal

institutions to bring about justice, as we've understood it, but we have this important tool of truth telling. >> and i do think a lot of truth came out in this trial. >> so i, i wouldn't say, you know, it wasn't worth it. >> it was a hill of beans. >> and, you know, this, the judge was also obviously not happy. >> i mean, he sentenced trump's former chief financial officer to jail for essentially lying on behalf of the trump organization. he this is not the outcome that i think he wanted. >> and he's but he said, you know, he's the most he's a very deliberative judge. >> you can actually see him thinking in front of you in many cases. and he came to the conclusion that there was this election, he is going to the white house. i cannot make him serve jail time. so all i'm going to say is this was a very serious crime. it was all the more, all the worse, because it was done by the would be. and once leader of the free world. and for that reason, you know, i'm not going to sort of buy into the idea that this wasn't

serious, that it was frivolous, but that this is what the law says i can do. so it is what i am going to do. >> yeah, i feel like i was looking at history here, right like that. >> that though, that though trump was not going to immediately be punished. it was. >> we're setting a standard for upholding the law as much as michael cohen knew those things. >> but we didn't. the world didn't. and we got to learn them in this trial. >> michael cohen also, i believe, asked joe biden for a pardon and revealed that on chris hayes show as well, donald trump is going to ask for an appeal, he says. he said on truth social today, this was a despicable charade. now that it's over, we will appeal this hoax, which has no merit. i mean, what do we think of the appeals process for a sitting president? >> yeah, i'm not quite sure how that works. i don't know if he will appeal while he's sitting. i mean, his two lawyers are going personal. lawyers are going to be the number two and number three. so he would need to get other personal lawyers. they can't have, you know, wear both hats, even though i think in effect, they may actually do just that. but i do want to come

back to that pardon piece, because we have ten days, ten days where joe biden has the power of the pardon. there is a list, kash patel has said of here are the enemies. we know the people that, you know, potentially incoming a.g. bondi has said we're going to investigate the investigators, prosecute the prosecutors like they are telling us what they're going to do. they said it today. at the sentencing, todd blanch talked about the prosecution and alvin bragg. so did donald trump. like we can't be surprised when they actually then try to make these people's lives hell, like joe biden can stop this if they want a pardon. if there are people like michael cohen who said, i'm worried about retribution, here's what they've said they're going to do to me. i don't want to be dealing with investigations for years and deal with the money and the strain of that. like, i really think it is something joe biden needs to strongly consider this idea that norms are the things that we should be focused on right now. nothing about today was normal. yeah, like like we're past the point of norms. he's about to shatter the norms when he comes in in ten

days. so we need some urgency here. and we need people to, you know, maybe not pull their punches, but actually try and use any tools in our toolbox to get some kind of fair outcome when we can. >> quick, quick nugget from today, todd blanch said this was a politicized prosecution. i think the president agrees with me, with me that this should never happen again. so we're about to find out. >> okay, well we'll see. t minus ten days. christie greenberg, andrea bernstein, thank you guys both for joining me tonight. really appreciate you. thank you. still ahead this evening, a blockbuster final jobs report for president biden is setting the bar really high for the incoming commander in chief. >> how about that? >> but first, an appeals court could clear the way for the public to see special counsel jack smith's final report into january 6th at any moment. so why hasn't it done so yet? we will discuss that coming up w(auctioneer) let's start the nbidding at 5 million dollars. (man) robinhood gold members get a 3% ira match.

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allowed to release the report immediately. now, we are currently awaiting the court's decision on that issue and depending on how the court rule, the special counsel's report on january 6th could be released at any moment. but trump's lawyers in their efforts to block the report, have already given us some insight into what it contains. according to a letter from trump's lawyers, the report identifies trump as the head of the criminal conspiracies, and it includes what trump's lawyers call attacks on other anticipated members of president trump's incoming administration. it also contains criticism of elon musk's social media platform x, for stonewalling investigators efforts to obtain trump's data from the site. joining us now is mary mccord, a former senior justice department official and the co-host of the newly rebooted main justice podcast, which i'm sure is as indispensable as prosecuting donald trump was mary. first of all, why is the justice department fighting to get this

report released asap rather than sunday or monday, when it would be free without any legal encumbrances to be released? >> yes. >> i'm not sure it's so much about these two days, because at this point, one day has already, you know, ticked away of the three. i think that in many ways what the department of justice was trying to do is resolve what seems to be some confusion, at least, between about whether the department of justice had actually asked the 11th circuit to vacate judge cannon's injunction when they opposed the wall. >> now, to carlos de oliveira, those are the trump's original co-defendants in the mar-a-lago case. >> when doj had opposed their motion in the 11th circuit for an injunction and doj was basically saying, look, we are renewing what we asked for already, which was that the injunction not be filed and that

a ruling that judge cannon cannon's injunction was unlawful and essentially 11th circuit. what you already did last night was deny the motion for an emergency injunction or any injunction, and therefore, you did already rule that judge cannon's injunction was wrongly granted. >> and therefore, you know, there should not be any impediment to releasing the special report. >> so this whole litigation honestly parallel before judge cannon and the district court and in the 11th circuit has become, i think, a little bit of and i'm just going to use my hands a little bit like this with now daniel oliveira interpreting things one way, jack smith and the government, i should really say the government, because jack smith is in on this, interpreting things another way. and the 11th circuit, it's a little bit unclear what they think they have done. so i think that the that the government was really responding to the 11th circuit saying government, if you want

to vacate that judge cannon and judge injunction, file an emergency notice of appeal. and that's what they did. >> right? >> so just to be clear, because we didn't explain the judge cannon of this, all because this is unusually complicated. but effectively, the federal district court judge, aileen cannon, has ruled in favor of what trump and his allies want, which is to keep these reports under seal. and the 11th only temporarily. but the 11th circuit is basically saying, you know, they can be made public after judge cannon's injunction expires on sunday or monday, depending on which timing you go with. >> is that right? >> well, they don't say those words, but that's one interpretation of it, right? >> and of course, go ahead before judge cannon, nauta and de oliveira are actually arguing. oh no, no, judge cannon, now you should extend your injunction even longer. while now the government's newly, you know, new appeal gets handled. >> so this is like this is why i said this is like parties just

ships passing in the night and not understanding each other. >> and i don't know that that is accidental. >> i do think that i think the government's interpretation of what the 11th circuit did is the better interpretation. and i think what walt noda and carlos de oliveira and donald trump, by attempting to intervene, are trying to do is trying to sort of obfuscate things, make it seem like judge cannon still has something in front of her that she can hang on to. >> and i don't think that's ultimately going to be successful, but it is certainly delaying things right now. >> mary mccord. it's a complicated world out there. we don't have the report yet. i'm confident next week when we see you next, we might just have it. thank you for joining me this friday evening. >> my pleasure. >> still ahead tonight, the state of the biden economy and what it means for trump's big promises. promises. >> that's n business.with us. it's not a nine-to-five proposition.

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do more for others, you can make all the difference to an animal who needs you. >> please be the one to do that >> please be the one to do that for an animal today. go online, mopping is hard work, but then i tried the swiffer powermop. it has a built-in solution that breaks down dirt on contact. plus, it's 360-degree swivel head cleans up along baseboards and even behind the toilet. bye, bye bucket. with the swiffer powermop. december. in four years, the economy created 16.6 million new jobs, the most in any single presidential term. i believe the economy i'm leaving is the best in the world and stronger than ever for all americans. so i think that's what we have. we'll see what the next president does. >> we sure are. >> that was president biden today announcing a seriously

strong jobs report as he heads out of office in december. >> the unemployment rate dropped to just over 4%. >> for context, an outgoing president hasn't had lower unemployment numbers during his first term since bill clinton. in addition, the united states added over 250,000 jobs last month. that's 100,000 more than expected. the last time the u.s. economy lost jobs was in december of 2020, when donald trump was president. but as the biden administration leaves the white house on an economic high note, the trump administration is already trying to lower expectations. donald trump himself recently admitted that it will be very hard to lower grocery prices, despite that being one of his biggest campaign promises. joining me now to discuss is shakir. he's the founder and executive director of a more perfect union. faiz. it's like, can can we pull our hair anymore? we're watching these two realities collide. oh, all the lofty promises trump made highly unlikely to come to fruition, at

least on the timetable he suggested. and here's joe biden getting almost zero credit, effectively being kicked out of office for one of the strongest economies, if not the strongest economy in the world. >> up is down. down is up. what's your reaction? >> where do we start with this one? >> so one is the strong economy is a result of choices made, policy choices that were made right. >> when? when we were in the midst of the pandemic, we wanted a strong labor market. therefore, we put stimulus into people's pocketbooks, child tax credit, unemployment insurance. we backstop jobs through the paycheck protection program. all of that maintained that that workers would be in a good position to negotiate for higher wages coming out of the pandemic. and as a result, you have had more jobs and higher wages start to increase. obviously, inflation also occurred because corporations saw that you had more money in your pocket books. they went after it. they increased prices. one of the learnings of the next time is you got to have constraints on pricing power of corporations. so now here we are with generally a strong economy, right. alex. it's like productivity is pretty high. wages are starting to go up.

unemployment is pretty low. stock market is very high. corporate profits are high. so what problem are you trying to solve. that's the fundamental question. what issues could we solve for in a democratic administration. we were offering specific problems that affect middle class people. it's big issues in their in their lives that continue to remain expensive, like the cost of college, buying a house, renting those things. we had specific policy solutions for trump is doing none of that. he's got no solutions for any of this stuff. instead, you listen to them. they want to do d.o.j. cuts, and they want to do tax breaks for the rich, which addressed no. of none of the problems that this current economy is dealing with. >> well, and they also want to deport a huge part of america's working class, which is going to have an inflationary effect. i remember during the campaign cycle, obama came out and said, you know, donald trump talks about his economy. i know it was a good economy because it was my economy. >> and i can see the same thing happening right now where it's like, you know, if the economy continues on this trajectory before donald trump enacts his billionaire tax cuts, trump's

going to hale himself as the economic king. >> and it's the biden economy he's inheriting. >> and yet the public over and over gives conservatives who inherit good democratic economies. >> they give conservatives republicans the credit. when does the cycle end? >> well, you're right about it. >> and but the fight to working class people is to kind of help explain and understand it. i think one of our lessons learned of this, alex, is that for the last four years, there's a lot of people didn't know and understand some of the choices that were made. that's why i kind of go through some of those choices, because the continual education needs to happen, and the opportunities for education, again, will happen with trump because he's going to make certain decisions. elon musk himself, some of the billionaires that surround him are going to make choices in the tax fight and the tariffs fight that are going to be completely averse to middle class interests. and it will be, again, an opportunity to say, hey, you know what? we were putting on the table as free community college that would address your education woes. we were talking about building more affordable housing units in america would address the housing issues. we were talking

about making sure that grocery prices go down by going after large corporate monopolies who have too much pricing power. that was the direction that we were on, and that's the direction we could return to. i think we just did, you know, we got to work on the politicking and telling a story because trump's story, his story telling to working class americans through the mcdonald's suit, is riding around in garbage trucks. his fights against corporations that he names by name. it's appealing in political theater while the policy that does not speak to middle class problems. >> well, right. and i guess i wonder if that actually needs to be part of it. >> i mean, do democrats really just need to go on offense with the theater a little bit more? >> that's i mean, you got a couple policy which we have with politics. so when you're doing these things to help middle class people's lives, remember that we are in fights and in tension. you know, how many times have we been in tension? literally today you have mark zuckerberg going on joe rogan's show, complaining about the biden administration's regulations on him were too tough. you know, elon musk, one of the things that has animated

him for the last many years. but joe biden was mean to me. it was it was that those are the issues of the billionaire class. they're telling you that they're upset with the direction that we were heading in. the problem in challenge for us is we got to lean back into that. yeah, yeah. mark zuckerberg, that's right. we were going after you. and here's why. because you were abusing people's financial data through your platform. you were peddling misinformation that was dangerous to people's lives. you want to see a democratic party embrace that fight with a billionaire class when we are in power, not just when we're on the outside fighting the oligarchic era. >> well, there are going to be a lot of opportunities for democrats to go off on offense in the immediate. so listen to faz. >> that's what i always say. >> faiz shakir, thank you for part of your friday night, my friend. >> happy friday. happy weekend to you. >> thank you. coming up, remember when congressional republicans said they had a star witness who would expose all the secret corruption by the, quote, biden crime family? none of it ever came to pass. but we do have an update about that star witness. and it is not good for

congressional republicans. >> that's next. >> i'm sick of all the division that's in this country. >> i'm sick of political brainwashing. >> i'm sick of food prices. everybody needs to live. >> i'm sick of fake people. >> i'm sick of clickbait being glued to my phone. >> the name calling it just further divides them. >> i'm sick of willful ignorance. ignorance. >> i'm so sick of war. most people don't realize how processed typical dog food is. at the farmer's dog, we believe dogs should be able to get their daily nutrition without the excess processing. ♪♪ at harbor freight, we do business differently from the other guys. we design and test our own tools and sell them directly to you. no middleman. no folks in suits

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powering possibilities™. 1-800-403-7539. that's one (800) 403-7539. >> donald trump plans to reshape the u.s. government. >> democrats have wasted no time in laying the groundwork to fight the incoming trump administration. >> donald trump wants a presidential cabinet full of loyalists. don't miss the weekend, saturday and sunday mornings at 8:00 on msnbc. >> msnbc premium gives you early access and ad free listening to rachel maddow. chart topping series, msnbc original podcasts, exclusive bonus content, and all of your favorite msnbc shows now ad free. subscribe on apple podcasts. >> a very busy day of news. >> we have never seen anything like it. >> we're going to report the facts out together. >> there are several stories breaking what protects the country? >> what protects the constitution? >> do you still believe that the collapse of the regime is inevitable? >> what's your level of concern and fear for your own future? >> america is dealing with many issues, from grocery prices to gun violence.

>> it has been over 400 days since the war in gaza started. ying trump hire a fiercely loyal staff. >> much more to come here tonight. >> stay with us. >> to understand more with msnbc. >> the show began and continues being the place to have the hard conversations. >> we've got one last piece of news to get to tonight, something that really flew under the radar this week. you will recall that throughout much of the biden presidency, republicans in congress tried desperately to uncover some kind of corruption involving president joe biden and his son hunter. and those republicans thought they had the goods when they discovered an fbi informant who was willing to confirm some of the most salacious allegations against those two bidens. he was named alexander smirnoff, and conservative media went crazy with the story. fox news sean hannity did no fewer than 85 separate cable news segments about the informant, alexander smirnoff, and his

allegations, but it turned out that none of it was true, none of it. in a spectacularly embarrassing debacle for congressional republicans, their star witness was indicted for lying to the fbi. it was also revealed that some of smirnoff's claims about the biden family had allegedly come from russian intelligence. and this week, the so-called star witness alexander smirnov was officially sentenced to six years in prison for lying to the fbi and for committing a little tax evasion as well. we leave you on that note. that is our show for tonight. now it's time for the last word with ali velshi, who's in for lawrence. good evening. >> ali. >> i hope you got some r&r plan for this weekend, because this has been one week of news. >> ali, i have a five and seven year old and so, so, so for several years you will not actually have any r&r in the weekend. >> sorry i brought that up. we'll talk about a 2030. yes, exactly. well have have a good few hours at least