achievements, his legacy and what's ahead for the country. the last word thursday at ten on msnbc. msnbc premium gives you early access and ad free listening to rachel maddow's chart topping series, msnbc original podcasts, exclusive bonus content, and all of your favorite msnbc shows now ad free. subscribe on apple podcasts. >> good to be with you. >> i'm katy tur. pete hegseth confirmation is looking ever more likely, as republicans on the senate armed services committee appeared to fall in line behind trump's pick for secretary of defense. most notably, iowa senator joni ernst, a military vet and a sexual assault survivor who had initially expressed skepticism about his background, his own on the record statements and his judgment. here she was back in december. >> i did have a very long,

lengthy discussion with pete yesterday, and i do appreciate his service to the nation. i also am a combat veteran, so we talked about a number of those issues, and we will continue with the vetting process. i think that that is incredibly important. so again, all i'm saying is we had a very frank and productive discussion, and i know that we will continue to have conversation in the upcoming months. okay. >> it doesn't sound on your answer that you've gotten to a yes. if i'm wrong about that, correct me. and if that is the case, it sounds to me as if the hearing will be critical for his nomination. am i right about that? >> i think i think you are right. i think for a number of our senators, they want to make sure that any allegations have been cleared, and that's why we have to have a very thorough vetting process. >> again, that was back in december. >> here is senator ernst today

for the young women that are out there now and can meet those standards. >> and again, i'll emphasize they should be very, very high standards. they must physically be able to achieve those standards so that they can complete their mission. but i want to know, again, let's make it very clear for everyone here today as secretary of defense, will you support women continuing to have the opportunity to serve in combat roles? >> senator, first of all, thank you for your service, as we discussed extensively as well, it's my privilege and my answer is yes, exactly the way that you caveated it. >> senator ernst. they're putting a qualification and lining it up with a pete hegseth renewed or new, you can say, qualification for women serving in combat. before he didn't say that. he just said women shouldn't serve in combat, period. things change, though. and for all of the warmth

republicans gave hegseth, democrats demanded explanations if not answers, to the pile of serious allegations and controversial views that hegseth has expressed over the years. and as recently as this past november, women shouldn't be in combat at all. >> where is the reference to standards that they should be there if they can carry, if they can run? i don't see that at all. mr. hegseth. what i see is that there's a 32 day period in which you suddenly have another description about your views of women in the military, and i just want to know what changed in the 32 days that the song you sang is not the song you come in here today to sing. >> senator, the concerns i have and the concerns of many have had, especially in ground combat units, is that in pursuit of certain percentages or quotas,

standards have been changed. >> please give me an example. i get you're making these generalized statements quotas to have a certain number of female infantry officers or infantry enlisted, and that disparages those women. >> commanders are not capable of quotas for the infantry. >> commanders do not have to have a quota for women in the infantry that does not exist. it does not exist. and your statements are creating the impression that there that these exist because they do not. there are not quotas. we want the most lethal force. but i'm telling you, having having been here for 15 years, listening to testimony about men and women in combat and the type of operations that were successful in afghanistan and in iraq, women were essential for many of those units. when ranger units went in to find where the terrorists hiding in afghanistan or in iraq, if they had a woman in the unit, they could go in and talk to the women in a village, say, where are the terrorists hiding? where are the weapons hiding? and get crucial information to make sure that we can win that

battle. >> in june of 2020, then-president trump directed former secretary of defense mark esper to shoot protesters in the legs in downtown d.c, an order. secretary esper refused to comply with. would you carry out such an order from president trump? >> senator, i was in the washington, dc national guard unit that was in lafayette square during those years to carry out an order to shoot protesters in the legs. i saw 50 secret service agents to get injured by rioters trying to jump over the fence, set a church on fire and destroy it. >> that sounds to me that you will comply with such an order. you will shoot protesters in the in the leg. >> you can't tell me whether someone who has committed a sexual assault is disqualified from being secretary of defense. >> senator, i know in my instance, and i'm talking about my instance only it was a false claim. >> you would agree with me that if someone had committed

physical violence against a spouse, that would be disqualifying to serve as secretary of defense, correct? senator? >> absolutely not. have i ever done that? >> you would agree that that would be a disqualifying offense, would you not? >> senator, you're talking about a hypothetical. >> joining us now, nbc news chief capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles, chief correspondent. congratulations, ryan. first off with that, correct me if i'm wrong. it sounded to me today in watching that, hearing that pete hegseth has a much smoother road to confirmation than he had maybe a month ago. >> i think that's a correct assessment on your part, katie. the thing to keep in mind here is that this is not a wide audience that needed to hear this message today about pete hegseth. it's actually a very small audience, roughly 5 to 10 republican senators that are going to determine the future of pete hegseth as the next secretary of defense. there are 53 republicans. they have the majority. he only needs 51 votes to get over the threshold. so the responsibility that democrats had here today was

trying to convince those skeptical senators to see their way as it comes to this nomination process, that they don't believe that hegseth is up for the job, and they should need to convince them of that same that same way of thinking. it did not appear, at least from what we saw in the back and forth amongst the senators that were on the dais, that that goal was achieved. certainly the most skeptical or at least potentially skeptical senators on the republican side on this panel were senator joni ernst of iowa. and her line of questioning certainly seemed to open the door to the fact that she was ready to vote to confirm. now, there are a group of republican senators that were not part of this committee who may be in that camp. of people that are skeptical of pete hegseth, they have yet to come forward yet and say that they have concerns. and just the general mood that you hear from republicans, this appears to be something that's heading in the direction of confirmation, barring some other bombshell

that has yet to be reported out yet, that could be legitimately confirmed, that would prevent hegseth from becoming the next secretary of defense. >> remind us again how many votes he can afford to lose from the republicans, so he can only afford to lose three republican votes, because that would make it a 5050 tie. >> he would get j.d. vance's vote as vice president to break that tie. if he loses four republicans, that would be enough to kill the nomination. so at this point, you'd have a hard time finding those four names of people that would be willing to stick their necks out and challenge donald trump, because that's really what it comes down to here. katie. it's not necessarily that if you ask them privately, do you think that pete hegseth is qualified to be the next secretary of defense? it's really more about the political consequences that could potentially come from taking such a stand. and particularly a lot of these senators who find themselves in a position where they may come to that way of thinking. joni ernst in iowa, perhaps susan collins in maine. these are both senators that are up for

reelection in 2026, and we'd be foolish to think that's not at least part of their calculation as they go through this process. >> it's not just trump's ire, his anger, it's the spend that could come against them. as elon musk has promised to primary anybody who stands in donald trump's way, promise to use his money to primary them. all right. ryan nobles, chief capitol hill correspondent, thank you very much. and joining us now, democratic strategist and author of the salty politics newsletter on substack, julie roginsky. she worked with hegseth at fox news and along with former fox news anchor gretchen carlson, wrote a letter to the armed services committee to share their perspectives as survivors of sexual misconduct at fox news. also with us iraq veteran, army captain and ceo of iraq and afghanistan veterans of america allison jaslow and staff writer with the atlantic, tom nichols. allison, i do want to begin with you. in watching the hearing today, we saw the allegations. we saw the controversies. we saw how democrats pushed him to get answers, how republicans warmed

up to him. i want to know from his testimony, specifically, how you think the pentagon would change under pete hegseth. >> well, you know, i think it remains to be seen how the pentagon would be reshaped under his leadership. i hope we actually don't get to that point, even if people are beginning to accept the fact that he might actually be confirmed. and i think as it relates to today's hearing, like the most concerning thing for me was that senators didn't dig into the fact that he openly lobbied for war criminals to be convicted or convicted war criminals. excuse me to be pardoned. these were men who had men that were serving alongside of them. speak up, because though they experience the same horrors of war, they thought that they crossed lines that we should not cross. and to me, that is the most concerning thing about pete hegseth. background. in addition to his comments saying that he thinks that we should not adhere to the geneva conventions anymore, and i think it was a real shame that

senators didn't dig into that more, because to me, it's the most disqualifying part of his background and i hope sorry. >> and no, i think that's exactly what i wanted to get to the geneva conventions. he was asked whether he'd adhere to them, and he was really squishy on that answer. he's been squishy in other publications about the geneva conventions. donald trump i asked him personally about the geneva conventions back in 2016, and he wouldn't confirm that he wanted to follow the geneva conventions. what would it mean? just put it into layman's terms for the us military to throw away the geneva conventions, the rules of war. >> i mean, it's basically the compact that we've entered into with other nations that even if we go to war against each other, that there will be certain basic rules, you know, that we will have rules of engagement, that we won't indiscriminately shoot people on the battlefield, especially on the asymmetrical battlefields that pete hegseth did talk about as a part of his hearing and many of the interviews that he's done up

until this point. and you're speaking to somebody right now who lost a fellow platoon leader, wears a bracelet with his name on my wrist every day. we lost him while he was following the rules of engagement, but he couldn't tell the difference between the bad guys and the good guys, like many of us couldn't on the battlefield. but it doesn't mean that we still shouldn't have standards that we hold ourselves to, and it's really hard to suffer loss under those circumstances. but the us military holds ourselves to a higher standard for a reason, and it has everything to do with the implications not only for our national security, but we don't want our men and women in uniform who are fighting for us to be more vulnerable than they already are on the battlefield. and that's what it comes down to. >> tom, in your career, you focused on national affairs, national security issues. you were a professor at the naval college. tell me how pete hegseth is testimony to you. suggested the pentagon might change. >> a couple of things. first of

all, pete hegseth, in some of the more pointed questioning about his qualifications. >> pete hegseth made it clear that he would have no idea what he's doing as secretary of defense. >> which means one thing you would expect to see in a pete hegseth run defense department is that a whole bunch of people undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, the deputy secretary, all these other people would basically be running the pentagon without very much guidance. >> because as far as pete hegseth is concerned, you know, dei programs are the enemy and everything else. >> there wasn't much substance here to find out what he actually would care about in the rest of his management of the defense department. so one thing you'd have is a lot of chaos, because when you have a weak, unqualified secretary of defense, the pentagon and the defense department is huge. >> it's several fiefdoms. >> and, you know, it's like trying to it's 3 million people, all of whom are in different departments within that department. >> and he would spend his time

going on tv and doing what he did today at this hearing, railing and giving these little mini fox speeches about, you know, the war fighters and lethality and woke weakness and all that stuff while other people would run the place. one thing i want to raise about this, about even suggesting that the united states wouldn't follow the geneva conventions. and i think allison's point is exactly right. that's not who we are. that's not the kind of military we are. it's not the kind of country we are. but there's a very practical point. once you say that other nations will say, great, we don't have to follow them either. we'll we'll just, you know, we'll treat your prisoners well. just execute them if we want. we can torture your guys. we can do all kinds of bad things, as you know, has happened in the past. but the right answer to that is not to say, well, war is different now, so let's just trash all these rules. there was a lot of that macho posturing, and i think that's what you'd see in a hegseth pentagon, a lot of these kinds of statements. well, we're, you know, we're too tough to follow the geneva

conventions. and, you know, we don't have any of this wokeness. i think it would be i think you got a glimpse of what it would look like, and it would be a mess. >> i feel like we got a little bit of a little bit of color from hegseth on, on, on some cultural things at the pentagon, but also on changes in posture. and if you couple that with donald trump's own positions that he's held in the past, i think we i think we could see some changes. we're talking about the geneva conventions. yes, nato came up today. he was squishy on staying within nato. ukraine and russia came up only because the senator asked him about it. it was not in his opening statement. his opening statement only referenced china in terms of threats. so what might that mean? coupled with donald trump's own positioning toward russia and ukraine about what americans would be doing and what sort of support we'd be content we would be continuing to give to ukraine. and then also the way that the military interacts with american citizens on american soil. we heard the interaction between senator

hirono and hegseth on shooting protesters. senator slotkin, brand new senator, senator from michigan, just won in november. formerly, a congresswoman asked him about that as well and referenced the past. defense secretary mark esper, who served under donald trump, who refused to follow that order. let's listen. >> your predecessor in a trump administration, secretary esper, was asked and did use uniformed military to clear unarmed protesters. he was given the order to potentially shoot at them. helos flew low in washington, dc as crowd control. he later apologized publicly for those actions. was he right or wrong to apologize? >> senator, i was there on the ground and i saw the i saw i understand and i respect that i've been there, but i understand the level of secretary of defense involved in that moment. i was he right to so he was legality and the constitution. >> was he right or wrong to apologize? >> i'm not going to put words in

the mouth of secretary esper or anybody else. >> he said them himself. you don't have to. what are you scared of? did he do the right thing by apologizing? >> i'm not scared of anything, senator. >> say yes or no. >> you can say no. >> tom. what did you think of that line of questioning? >> well, i think it shows again how completely unprepared he is to assume this awesome responsibility. i mean, this is a question he should have seen coming. but the problem for the nominee and for the republican senators on that committee is nobody wants to get sideways with donald trump and say something that's going to get them a tongue lashing on truth social or back in mar-a-lago, you know, he he these were these are should not be hard questions for a future secretary of defense. no i would not follow an illegal order to open fire on on protests on on protesters. yes. i thought secretary esper did the right thing or, you know, as senator slotkin said, or say, no, no, i think it was a

bad idea for esper to apologize. the problem is he he just needs to kind of get through this. and i think that's what you saw. there's kind of playing defense. just get through it. get 51 senators and then go occupy, you know, the e ring. as long as until the day donald trump fires you by tweet. >> and he's got to maintain exactly donald trump support because donald trump values very much how you perform in front of the cameras, what you look like on television, how strong, how tough you seem in the face of whatever questioning you might be under tom nichols. allison jaslow, thank you so much for joining us, tom. you're going to stay with us, actually, coming up next, we're going to have more on pete hegseth, senate confirmation on the other side of the break, we're going to talk about the allegations, the sexual assault stuff. also ahead, what's happening in california right now that the national weather service warns could cause explosive fire growth? sean penn is going to join us to talk about relief and recovery efforts on the ground.

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carlson speaking out for survivors of sexual harassment and assault. why was it important for you personally to send this letter? >> well, gretchen carlson and i, in the wake of our own experiences at fox news, created an organization called lift our voices that's dedicated to eradicating silencing mechanisms in the workplace that cover up things like sexual assault and sexual harassment and the beauty of what we were able to accomplish is that the senate unanimously voted for our law, the speak out act, which effectively allows survivors and pre-dispute ndas to get out of their ndas and to tell their truth. and so, from our perspective, the very same senators who unanimously voted for this legislation and also something called the ending forced arbitration for sexual assault and sexual harassment act, which also gives women back their voice. these senators unanimously voted for both these bills and gave brilliant floor speeches about how they wanted survivors to come forward, how they wanted to give survivors back their voices, how they

wanted survivors to own their own truth. and yet you have a report in the new yorker today that senator ernst and senator collins refused to meet with the sexual assault survivor, who claims that pete hegseth assaulted her in monterey, california, that the fbi never interviewed her, that fresh complaint witnesses were never called to testify. and the one thing i have to say about this hearing that's deeply disappointing is that nobody said that we need to bring the survivor in to tell us what happened to her behind closed doors. >> why do you think that didn't happen? >> i don't know, but that's a very good question for the senate. >> is it a hangover from the kavanaugh hearings? >> i think part of it may be a hangover. i think part of it is these senators are scared. they're scared of donald trump. they're scared of being primaried like senator ernst. they are scared and terrified that maga and elon musk is going to come are going to come after them. but that's no excuse because you have credible allegations of sexual assault and fresh complaint witnesses who will testify. i assume that this survivor told them in real time what happened to her, and yet nobody wants to talk to them. they'd rather bury their head in the sand. that's

unconscionable. the fact that pete hegseth could not tell us today whether sexual assault is disqualifying is just shocking to me. of course it's disqualifying. that's not a trick question. of course it is. >> you know what? that that struck me. it was those two lines of questioning from senator kaine and tom. i'm curious why you think he just didn't straight up answer this question with, of course, it's a it's a disqualifying situation. if you have sexually harassed or assaulted somebody, you shouldn't be able to serve in that position. or if you've committed violence against your spouse. he called those two suggestions hypotheticals. why dance around that? >> i suspect because he was worried about walking into a trap where he says this kind of behavior is completely disqualifying, and then someone accuses him of it, or there's another revelation or some other republican. senior republican has a similar accusation. then

somebody asks hegseth, well, now that your secretary of defense, didn't you say this is, you know, disqualifying behavior, the you know, the problem with working for donald trump is that you always have to leave yourself a trap door. you always have to leave yourself a quick exit from any position of principle. because at some point, if you make a statement of principle, trump or someone around him is going to put you in the position where you might have to either act on it or rescind it. and so it was just easier, i think, again, i think hegseth said, look, i've only got to get through four hours of this. the people who support me aren't going to change their minds. the people who don't support me aren't going to change their minds. i just need to get out of this. with no major blunders or errors. and you'll notice that at one point, jack reed, who did bring up the issue about work, about pardoning war criminals, by the way, that senator reed said, you know, it's pretty unusual not to have a second round of questioning because mark kelly asked for one, and he said that

is a breach of protocol. and roger wicker basically said, thank you. noted. and that's it. that's that's all he had to get through. he doesn't come back for another day. chuck hagel went through three rounds. ashton carter went through. two senators are sent. when a senator asks for this. it should get more than a shrug. but i think everybody just understood he's not qualified. he's got a lot of baggage. get through this four hours and then just, you know, ram him through as quickly as possible. now that may not happen. there may be those four republican votes. i'm not as sanguine as some as you were or ryan are. you know, at this point that he's headed for a nomination, but that may just have been his thinking. just get through it and don't answer these questions. >> yeah. listen, there is a there is time. it's going to be a vote by the full senate. so there might be some republicans who we haven't heard from who have enough reservations putting pete hegseth up there. julie, you mentioned before that you think that there's a fear factor involved with some of the way some of the republican, not

republicans, senators, the way they they questioned hegseth. i wonder, tom, if you think there's a fear factor in whether that means they're going to just start confirming these folks and what it says. and i know we're not there yet, but what it says, if they do allow a confirmation of somebody like pete hegseth, i mean, and i don't say it to try to try to overly denigrate hegseth, he's just so far out of the norm and so far out of the qualification and expertise of somebody who's been in that role before. there are others who believe very much in donald trump's vision of the world, his views on policy, where where we should be that are more qualified, that that do have a degree of experience leading the pentagon. >> you know, and i thought of this when i was watching joni ernst. i wonder it always seems that in the republican party, there are people waiting for someone else to do the thing that needs to be done. and maybe

ernst was just saying, i'm not going to lead this charge. i'm likely to be the replacement if and when he implodes or is fired early. i think you saw what you saw. a lot of republicans basically saying, this isn't going to be our problem now. that's that's i worked in the senate many years ago. you know, senators, there used to be a time when senators said, i don't want my vote to be associated with, you know, this kind of a candidate. and senator reid brought this up about john tower at one point saying, yeah, this this body turns down senators for jobs like this. we did it to john tower. now, i think their attitude is, look, we just nothing matters. give trump the people he wants, let them implode. you know, which is it makes sense from a political point of view, from the point of view of a, of your personal survival in politics. it's really a terrible thing to take that approach and put the

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credits with code tv. i probably should have told him we weren't real doctors. >> the santa ana winds are still whipping southern california, gusts of 75 miles an hour expected in parts of los angeles and ventura counties, where overnight firefighters were able to put out a new fire in the santa clara river bottom. the eaton and palisades fires are still burning as crews work on containment. in the face of all of these renewed winds. at the same time, los angeles is dealing with a storm of frustration from residents trying to get back to what remains of their homes, along with both a building crisis and insurance crisis and a housing crisis amid la's already slim housing stock. joining us now, the founders of community organized relief effort corps, sean penn and ann lee. first off, thank you very much for getting to our camera today. i know it's really hard to

navigate los angeles, but we're so happy to have you both. i want to start with you, ann corps. why did you find it so essential to organize this? and what exactly are you guys offering? >> we had a lot of experience during covid and have great relationships and partnerships here in los angeles, and it's happening in our own backyards and affecting our own families. >> it would be remiss for us not to do something, and we have a lot of capacities because of that. so this is our time. >> sean, what sort of need are you seeing? >> well, immediately on day one, we started to occupy the biggest shelter, getting out hygiene kits, starting some cash subsidies. cash subsidies are so essential right now, people. i keep emphasizing if you just close your eyes and consider having lost everything and just trying to get basic needs done, trying to find shelter, trying

to pick up the pieces of your life. and as we move forward, we're working as navigators on the applications for assistance through fema. and then also long term, we're looking at the debris, the debris removal, which we've done a lot of. we had moved over half, half a million metric. meters of rubble in haiti in a very short time. it's one of these. the picture of this fire is very reminiscent of that, in the sense that it seems like it's just beyond repair. and yet, you know, one foot in front of the other. the repair does come, the cleanup does come, and then it's bonding with working with the families and businesses that have been hit. >> you're talking about coordinating with fema to try and make sure that people get help immediately. i'm also really struck by the cash

subsidies that you're handing out or the cash that you're handing out right now, because even if you're able to get the first third of the payment from insurance companies for your home and for what you're experiencing, it takes a lot of paperwork to get through that. and they're supposed to give you, i believe, the first third pretty quickly. there is going to be a gap between that payment and what you're able to afford right now. tell me about the experiences that you guys have personally had with folks. i know every angeleno has gone through something like this before, or every angelina at least know somebody, or is close to somebody who's personally experiencing this right now. and i'll start with you. >> yeah. i mean, it's even in our own staffing that people have experienced losing their homes and being displaced. you know, we're accustomed to seeing this when we're responding to disasters. you know, in the hurricane belt of the united states and, you know, abroad in the caribbean, in these places where we know to expect some of

these things. but right now, seeing it at the extensive extent that we are here is, is quite it's an incredible. but again, i think we've been poised to be ready for this because of covid and the established relationships that we've built over time. >> sean, what about you? >> and i would add that the, the, the, the cash assistance available through fema, we've known phds who can't get through the application system. and all these things are complicated and people are preoccupied at the time of their most need of focus. so the navigators that will supply, we hope to be very helpful with that. there is also another set of people who are not eligible for that. that's people who, for various reasons, don't have social security cards. so they would also be identified among the most vulnerable, which is the criteria for the first. >> how are you? how are you identifying these these people? how are you getting to the folks? because again, there's so much need, there's so much. it's so scattered right now. how are you getting to folks? >> so this goes to partnerships

and goes to the history that we have in the city with grassroots organizations, within the communities, with the churches, church leaders, where you're able to you. we already have a built in roster, and we will only be expanding upon that because it's a with the social security numbers, you know, that that then comes out of it. it's why we're in so much need of support and donorship, because that money that we disseminate, it's also you have people who are undocumented who are in a lot of trouble right now. so this on as a, as a human, cause, you know, we have them on the screen, a one of those little graphics to scan, bring your phone up to it and you can get all the resources from core. >> we'll put it up full for you right now for a second. but again, you can go right to the bottom of your screen, scan your phone, and to get all the resources, both from the core response and the socal fire fund, if you want to. if you

want to donate. sean, i know you guys and i know you guys have been to so many of these disasters before. you talked about covid as one of them, but you've been to haiti, sean. we've talked about that in the past. tell me on a on a human level, what it's been like for you to personally experience something so close to home, something of this magnitude, so close to home. >> well, you know, in the 1994 wildfire in this area, i lost my house. i was in a very fortunate state of mind where i think that more more than not, i was able to focus on the stuff i'd been liberated from. but this really goes to people in different times of life and the vulnerability of a thing like this happening to a family, you know, depending on what's going on with that family's finances, going in, what support system they have in or out of the city, what support system they've lost in, in or out of the city as a result of the fire. it's it is

a, let's say, a lot the same but but more familiar and for us, i think part of our motivation and part of our kind of excitement about getting in the game on this is we're not going to have to take the time to learn the culture within which we're working. the areas of operations. or as ann said, our backyard. and we know it in the dark as we know it in the day. and so and a lot of people and by the way, the core works, is a community organized relief effort. we're going we're going to be absorbing people from their communities to ultimately take lead in a lot of our programs as we move on. >> and i would just add that essentially, much like much like haiti, there is so much outpouring in the very beginning of support, a lot of attention, but we need to sustain that. so much of it is focused right now on immediate relief, but a lot of focus needs to maintain and stay there for these communities for the next few years. and so we just encourage everyone to

remember that this is a marathon. >> yeah. and remember, there's a lot of different people who lost a lot, a lot of people who don't have the same means as others who are going to need a little bit more help. sean, i think it's so important what you said about haiti and how it seems like there was no way to rebuild. but what you've been able to see in other disaster zones as well, that you just start doing it and it does happen. you can remove all this debris, you can start rebuilding one foot in front of the other. it's so hard to see that right now with all the devastation out there. but but it will happen. it's just it's going to take some time. guys, thank you so much for being with us. i know it's just a terrible situation, but i'm so happy that we have core and that you guys are are helping out with all of the need that's there. sean penn and ann lee, thank you. thank you. and still ahead, where the gaza ceasefire and hostage deal

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report, smith writes. but for mr. trump's election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial. joining us now, msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. a lot of fighting over this. it did come out. what did we learn, katie? >> i think a lot of what we learned here is jack smith taking us through the decisions that he made. so not just the evidence that he had to support those claims that led him to the conclusion that he would have been able to secure a conviction. but for presidential immunity and trump's reelection, but also telling us these are other charges, for example, that i considered and i ruled out, and here's why. and also, there is a substantial federal interest in our prosecuting him. and one of those interests is making sure that, like people are treated alike, given the more than 1500 people that we have prosecuted for crimes related to january 6th, it was only fair that the person who inspired their crimes, on whose

words they relied, was also prosecuted. >> i think it's significant that he believes that even in light of the supreme court decision on immunity, you know, i do and i don't, because if you read the report in particular talking about the pressure campaign on mike pence is so divorced from their roles as president and vice president and really more about their roles as candidates, that you can understand why jack smith and his team were convinced that that constituted wholly unofficial conduct for which the president could be prosecuted. >> he drops a footnote, for example, at one point where he says the rally at the ellipse was wholly paid for by campaign dollars and outside donations. it was not an official event. it was nothing but a campaign speech. >> donald trump called this all politically motivated. he called it a witch hunt. he's been very denigrating of jack smith. he writes in this letter to all who know me well. jack smith does the claim from mr. trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the biden administration or other political actors is, in a word,

laughable? that's notable because we heard nothing from jack smith over the course of this investigation. >> jack smith behaved like a by the book prosecutor at all times. and one of the things that people like me heard about jack smith when he was first appointed to the job in november of 2022, is that he had a reputation as a bit of a maverick, or even a little bit of a cowboy, that he was not a partizan, that he had been, for example, one of the lead prosecutors in the john edwards case, which ended unsuccessfully but nonetheless was involved in prosecuting a former very prominent democratic elected official and presidential candidate. that was something that his supporters kept bringing up to show jack smith is no crazy partizan. he's someone who prosecutes where the facts and the law lead him. >> lisa rubin, thank you very much. i'm sorry for the coughing. i am still i'm still purging the muck and the gross air, the toxins from los angeles. thank you so much. coming up next. if not today, then when? what we know about the final stages of a cease fire. a potential ceasefire that

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cease fire deal in gaza. joining us now, nbc news international correspondent raf sanchez. so, raf, i asked aaron david miller yesterday if this time felt different. i'm going to ask you the same thing. you've been covering this since the beginning. does this time feel different? >> it does feel different. >> katie, you have this real deadline that president elect trump has set january 20th, his inauguration. >> in his words, if there is not a deal by then, there is going to be, quote, hell to pay. he has never spelt out exactly what that means, but it has really focused minds of negotiators in the room in qatar, doha. and you are also seeing american officials from president biden on downwards, talking with a level of immediacy, a level of optimism that we have not heard before. but at the same time, katie, u.s. officials are really struggling to keep finding new ways of saying that this deal is incredibly close. and yet it is not yet over the line. you heard secretary blinken there describing it as being on the brink. an israeli official tells

me that there is agreement now on the broad issues. the remaining questions are to do with implementation. so just to give you an example, there is a consensus that there will be 33 israeli hostages, living and dead, released in this first stage of the deal. the question, though, exactly what days, exactly what order will they be released in? how many palestinian prisoners will be released in exchange? it is that really, really devilish detail that these talks appear to be going down to now. there was another round of negotiations this morning with the mediators meeting with the israelis and the americans in one room, hamas in another room. the hope was that was going to be the very final one. it is now midnight in qatar. there doesn't appear to be a deal that's come through. so it looks like these talks are going to continue tomorrow. >> we will keep watching raf sanchez in london for us. raf, thank you very much. and that's going to do it for me today. deadline. white house starts after this quick break. >> talk to me about the quality of life and just how a stairlift

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