federal ban on tiktok to kick in if there isn't some intervention. we have done our share of work on the platform. ain't no regular chocolate, it's dance and it's the good stuff. election night in america, that can only mean one thing. the legend at the map, steve kornacki. >> you know, i'm a diva, honey, and that's what we do here. >> we are trucking. this is what it looks like when we do a new show from the road. >> adrenaline's pumping. >> i was the relief pitcher today for nicole. got called in. >> you seem great. but i'd be more happy if this was our view. right here. >> fauci fauci. we're in brooklyn. yeah, we're in brooklyn. and if it's friday, you know it's time to fall back. >> hey, time to fall back. that's what they're telling tiktok. you can go there and follow me at ari melber before it might be gone. the reidout starts now.

>> tonight on the reidout. >> mr. hempstead, you are the ninth nominee for secretary of defense that i've had the honor to consider as a member of the senate armed services committee. i have voted in favor of all your predecessors, including those in the first trump administration. unfortunately, you lack the character and composure and competence to hold the position of secretary of defense. >> does a junior varsity fox host have the right stuff to lead 2 million uniformed service members? >> i mean, of course not. and democrats rightly blasted his fitness at today's confirmation hearing. also tonight, the damning results of jack smith's trump investigation now pretty much a moot point because of the slow moving attorney general, merrick garland. but we begin tonight with the job of the secretary of defense. now, you would be forgiven if you've never given much thought to what exactly the job entails. so a little explanation is in order.

the secretary of defense manages a staff of more than 3 million active duty, reserve and civilian employees of the department of defense, and controls a budget of around $900 billion. the secretary of defense oversees things like america's nuclear weapons command and what forces are deployed, where and when, as well as the staff and equipment at 500 military bases in the u.s. and some 750 american military installations abroad. in short, it's a big job, not just some figurehead ceremonial position. just take a look at some of those who have recently served in the position. current defense secretary lloyd austin commanded troops in iraq and afghanistan. president barack obama had leon panetta, whose resume included serving as cia director, white house chief of staff and a member of congress, as well as senator chuck hagel, the only vietnam veteran and the first enlisted combat veteran to

serve as secretary. even donald trump had four star general james mattis, who also commanded troops in iraq and afghanistan. but with trump returning to the office next week, we get this guy, yo! >> independence day is almost here. we're getting ready in the household. we celebrate america, old glory and the freedoms our forefathers fought to establish. >> yeah, that would be former fox weekend host and army national guard major pete hegseth, who took the opportunity to introduce himself to the non fox viewing audience today and seemed to have some difficulty remembering all the people to thank, including our seven wonderful kids. >> gunner jackson, peter boone, kensington, luke, jett, rex. sorry, it's a lot of them. >> and gwendolyn, there's a lot of kids to remember, you know, but he did make an effort to

distinguish himself from the men exclusively. men who previously served as secretary of defense. >> it is true, and has been acknowledged that i don't have a similar biography to defense secretaries of the last 30 years. but as president trump also told me, we've repeatedly placed people atop the pentagon with supposedly the right credentials, whether they are retired generals, academics or defense contractor executives. and where has it gotten us? he believes, and i humbly agree, that it's time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm, you know, boots on the ground. >> unlike some of those decorated combat veterans i just named, like former generals austin and mattis. but it was exactly his lack of experience that drew questions almost exclusively from democratic senators today, as republicans mostly glossed over his previous roles. >> do you think that the way to raise the minimum standards of

the people who serve us is to lower the standards for the secretary of defense, that we have someone who has never managed an organization more than 100 people is going to come in and manage this incredibly important organization. >> senator, i'm grateful to be hired by one of the most successful ceos in american history. should i be confirmed? >> you are asking us to lower the standards to make you the secretary of defense, simply because you are buddies with our president elect? and by the way, he has filed for bankruptcy six times. i'm not quite sure he's the kind of ceo you want to refer to as a successful businessman. >> among the other fireworks today, there was the democratic scrutiny of seth's comments about women serving in combat, including comments he made last november that women straight up don't belong in combat, saying they've eroded standards, which he has since walked back. today, the numerous women senators on the committee took took aim at seth's not so long ago denigration of women officers and his seeming change of heart.

>> 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 do not have to meet 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. >> 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. now, i've heard of deathbed conversions, but this is the first time i've heard of a nomination conversion. >> it was also exclusively democrats who took on allegations of personal and professional misconduct by hegseth. during his tenure at fox and as the head of two veterans nonprofits, including allegations of financial mismanagement at veterans groups

and allegations he engaged in problem drinking as laid out by senator mark kelly. >> on memorial day 2014 at a cva event in virginia. you needed to be carried out of the event for being intoxicated, senator. anonymous smears just true or false? very simple. summer of 2014, in cleveland, drunk in public with the cva team. >> anonymous smears. >> i'm just asking for true or false questions. true or false answers. an event in north carolina drunk in front of three young female staff members. after you had instituted a no alcohol policy and then reversed it. true or false? >> anonymous smears. >> hegseth also responded to questions about his character, including an alleged sexual assault. in october 2017. charges were never filed, but hegseth did pay his accuser an undisclosed sum in 2023 and had

her sign an nda. virginia senator tim kaine asked him to explain how those allegations reflect on his character. >> you've admitted that it was consensual and you were still married, and you just had a child by another woman. again, how do you explain your judgment? >> false charges against me. you fully investigated, and i was completely clear. you have. >> if it had been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying to be secretary of defense, wouldn't it? >> if it's a false claim, then and a false claim now, if it had been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying to be a secretary of defense, wouldn't it? that was a false claim. >> well, perhaps as concerning as seth's refusal to answer whether or not an allegation of sexual assault is disqualifying to lead america's military. senators will ostensibly have to rely on seth's accounting, or lack of accounting. an fbi background check did not interview the woman who accused him of assault in 2017, or either of his ex wives. plural.

joining me now is a member of the armed services committee, senator richard blumenthal of connecticut. senator, thank you so much for being here. this was an instructive day. i think democrats elicited a lot of information that probably at least the fox audience didn't know. a lot of us have read the reports on it. but how did it strike you that republicans were mostly reading from op ed supporting of hegseth and declaring their support in advance? just your take on that. >> you know, my take on it, joy, was that republicans had the script because they are falling in line with the trump cult. and as my colleague tammy duckworth said, he has a ceo. he's a friend of that ceo. he is unconventional as a chairman. roger wicker, a republican, said, because he lacks qualifications that have led me,

like jack reed, to say yes and vote for general austin and general mattis and others before him. but what struck me today is that at most, this nominee is qualified to be a spokesperson for the department of defense. he's very glib and facile. he's excellent as a communicator. that's what he did as a talking head for fox. but he is unqualified by virtue of his running two veterans organizations into the ground financially. the accusations of sexual impropriety and alcohol abuse, there's enough already on the record, but republicans are choosing to look the other way simply because it's donald trump, and they are, frankly fearful of the pressure and the threats and intimidation that he's directed at them. >> it appears that includes senator joni ernst, who is a combat veteran herself, who has talked about experiencing sexual

assault, or in the military, herself, being a victim of it. she has indicated she's supporting him. does that surprise you? should it surprise us? >> i have a lot of respect for joni ernst, and she's a friend. and i'm not presuming she will vote one way or the other. >> she's indicated she will vote for him. >> and i am still hopeful. but i'm very clear eyed that republicans are falling in line. and i am disappointed. i'm frankly disappointed in any republican colleague who votes for this nominee. we showed today that he lacks the character and competence to command the most complex and difficult and important institution in this whole country, make life or death decisions. and there are no do overs for some of these mistakes if they're made. we're talking about here war and peace. and the secretary of defense has to be more than a spokesman. he has to lead with the qualifications and preparedness that the american people expect and demand in justification to those

men and women who risked their lives and raise their right hand and are willing to give their lives. >> what should we make of the fact that it appears that the fbi investigation was incomplete, did not speak with his alleged accuser sexual assault accuser? he, of course denies it, but she was not interviewed and that his ex-wives were not interviewed, despite the fact that these were not all anonymous. his own mother wrote a damning email to him that was published saying that he was an abuser of women. his mother was she interviewed, i don't know, and also the fact that not all of you were given the ability to read even this sort of truncated fbi investigation. it's definitely reminding me of the kavanaugh not so great investigation. >> you know, i'm a i'm a former prosecutor, and i used to make arguments to the jury when defendant hid something. why is he hiding it? why is he covering up? because he has something to hide or cover up. that's what we should make of an inadequate and incomplete fbi report. let me say something else. these are not anonymous spears. they are

fox employees. right? who came forward and said, we saw him drunk at our office. >> party calls are coming from inside the house. these are all republicans. >> and we had to carry him out. yeah. his mother, the accuser. they're not anonymous. they're willing to be. at least the accuser is. and his one of his ex spouses is willing to be interviewed. but the fbi looked the other way. what we can make of that inadequate and frankly, failed fbi report is that they failed to do the job. and we were denied access even to that fbi report, which i think is not only a breach of our tradition, but it is also a whitewash. their stonewalling and slow walking. even on the present public record, there's more than enough evidence that he is unqualified and unprepared. >> privately behind the scenes. you don't have to disclose any names. do any of your colleagues

express concern that because not only is he unqualified, but they're also sending memoranda to try to drive out career people to drive out current leadership, the people who would be the backstop for normalcy. are any of them concerned that this is somebody who would not refuse an unlawful order from donald trump, let's say, to put the military into the streets of the united states and to use them in ways that could be violent toward the american people. to any of them have any concern about that? >> i think there is a concern that donald trump could give an illegal order, and none of these nominees. and tomorrow we'll have pam bondi, nominee for attorney general. at some point, we'll have kash patel, nominee for the director of the fbi. the prospect of illegal orders is clear and present with donald trump. he's never respected the norms for the military or the

military. and the irony is that this nominee says that our present troops are substandard. they have failed to meet standards. he wants to lower the standard for being secretary of defense. but how disrespectful to our men and women in uniform to say, you know, they're the product of an inadequate or substandard system and that somehow he wants to purge the ranks of the military? i think the effort is to purge the ranks for political purposes so that those illegal orders, if and when they're issued, will be followed, which is against the uniform code of military justice. >> i think we share the same fears. senator richard blumenthal, thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. and up next, more on pete hegseth and the republicans, unashamedly softball questions unashamedly softball questions and utter deference to dry... tired... itchy, burning... my dry eye symptoms got worse over time. my eye doctor explained the root was inflammation.

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1-800-290-7477 now or visit us at fund.com. thursday, president biden sits down with lawrence

o'donnell in the final exclusive oval office interview of his presidency. they'll discuss his achievements, his legacy and what's ahead for the country. the last word thursday at 10:00 on msnbc. stay up to date on the biggest issues of the day with the msnbc daily newsletter. get the best of msnbc all in one place. sign up for msnbc daily@msnbc.com. >> let's get into this allegation about sexual assault, inappropriate workplace behavior, alcohol abuse, and financial mismanagement during your time as a nonprofit executive. i should note that the majority of these have come from anonymous sources in liberal media publications. >> how many push ups can you do? >> i did five sets of 47 this morning. >> tell me something about your wife that you love.

>> she's the smartest, most capable, loving, humble, honest person i've ever met. in addition to being incredibly beautiful. >> and don't forget about your kids. >> i'm supposed to talk about my kids. >> no, no. well, she's also the mother o an amazing mother. >> yes. of our blended family of seven kids. >> i'm pulling you along. i'm trying to help you here. >> what makes you so awesome? >> republican senators on the armed services committee did their very best to help out trump's pick for defense secretary. fox television's pete hegseth during his confirmation hearing today. even the chairman, roger wicker, played down the various allegations against him as just anonymous sources in liberal media. despite the fact that the sources behind some of these accusations include a woman under an nda, seth's former colleagues at fox, and even his own mom, who wrote an email in

2018 saying he had routinely mistreated women. joining me now is retired army major general paul eaton, senior advisor to votevets and msnbc political analyst, and former senator claire mccaskill, who once served on the armed services committee. i'm going to start with you, claire. you know, they did everything but walk over and hug him. the republicans, you worked with some of these people. is it just fear of primaries? because apparently joni ernst, she just got off the radio with a guy named simon conway in des moines and indicated that despite it all, she's down for him. she's going to support him. does this surprise you? and what is going on with your former colleagues? >> yeah, i'm disappointed in joni because joni, first of all, knows about women in the military and the challenges they have faced because she lived it in some painful ways. so i'm disappointed she's overlooking some of the obvious character flaws this man represents. you know, but the thing that's really ironic about today, joy,

is that they're trying to say that he needs to be secretary of defense to clean politics out of the pentagon and what they are doing for the first time in history is they're making the confirmation of secretary of defense a completely partizan exercise. never before in the history of the armed services committee has a nominee refused to meet with the members of the opposite party. never. the fbi background check. incomplete. not thorough, but not shared with the democratic members of the committee. the way this whole thing came together was them saying to the pentagon and to america's military, take a side. and it's so sad to me because as i served and i think that my colleague that is going to speak in a minute, major general is going to major general is going to confirm that it's been an oasis of bipartisanship, the armed

services committee, but it never was party line votes. i was there for the confirmation of trump's first secretary of defense. he got 98 votes in the senate. he was qualified and competent and had character and, by the way, had dust on his boots. how dare hegseth imply that people like lloyd austin and jim mattis had not been in combat, risking their lives for this country? it was quite a spectacle today. >> yeah. major general eaton, is. is this someone, pete hegseth, who you would promote if he were serving under you? >> knowing what i know right now. it's very easy. no. certainly not. >> i can't speak about what he what his qualities were while he served on active duty. >> the. if you can get folks back there who will speak on his behalf, who served with the nominee here, that might be helpful. but knowing what i know

right now, he is definitely do not venmo. >> let me play for you, major general eaton, this is senator eric schmitt of missouri, and he explained what the republican's beef is with the military as it is currently constructed and why they feel they need pete hegseth. take a listen. >> dei is not about giving everybody opportunity. it is rooted in cultural marxism. the idea that you pit the room, any room with oppressor versus oppressed. it's race essentialism and it is poison. it has no business whatsoever in our military. i think the american people have spoken loudly and clearly about this. they're tired of this. they're tired of woke ideology. >> now, i don't know what race essentialism is. i guess he got it off of twitter, but that seems to be the point, right? that they're angry about dei,

which they say lowers quality. but here is the sign that was hanging up behind senator schmitt as he spoke. he misspelled the word military. so he himself or his staff had problems with basic spelling. pete hegseth is the least qualified nominee i think we've ever seen for secretary of defense. but he meets the demographic characteristics for the right not to call him dei, because it seems to me that what they're saying is the military has too many women. it has too many black people, it has too many brown people, it has too many gay people. and that the only quality people who exist, who are qualified to do anything, even if they have no background, are white, straight, christian men. that's how i read it. major general eaton, that they're essentially saying that they need to drive out the nonwhite christian men out of the military. would that make the military better?

>> joey, first, i'd like to tell you and senator mccaskill, that i'm very proud to be among you. and i applaud what you get done and what you're doing for america. thank you. as for the whole dei argument, when i came into the military, it was 1972. we were going through real challenges from gender integration and from racial integration. and yes, it was still being integrated, even though harry truman integrated the air force back in the late 40s. dei we didn't call it that then, but we were hypersensitive to make sure that you had representatives in your unit. and i was an all male unit back then. infantry was all male, but i had some real challenges with american society, with coming out of vietnam and racial

integration. and thank god i had a black first sergeant when i was a company commander, because between us, we were able to pull that off, maintain combat capability, yet make each component of your force feel valued and respected. and that's all it is. that's all this dei stuff. you know that it's woke. it's no it's not. it's integrating our women. it's integrating all our races. it's integrating all our religions. we've got a really complex machine here, and we're doing a very good job to make it better. >> i'm going to let you comment on this. gentleman is from your state senator schmidt. but i feel, claire, that this has been very revelatory. i think it's very useful to know this, because whenever republicans say dei, it's just code for we only want white men, white christian men to do things. and if anyone isn't that, we automatically say they're unqualified. and if they are that, we automatically say they're qualified even when it's clear they're not. this man is

clearly not qualified, but he has the right demographics to make republicans feel special and to feel confident. that's the end of the story, right? yeah. >> you know, if you spent five minutes at the pentagon and i got to tell you the truth, you do not get a vibe that this is an overly leftist organization, not this is this is this is an organization that's steeped in discipline, values, character, and integrity. and i got to tell you, joy, the last time i looked. what is it? woke to be sober. you know, this is a man who couldn't decide today whether he was a new man who deserved redemption or where every everything that was said about him was, quote unquote, anonymous smears. yeah. he wouldn't even admit to the things he admitted to. he was so rehearsed to say anonymous smears. so i know one thing. if this very same man with the very same profile came in front of this committee nominated by a

democratic president, not one republican would vote for him, not one, because they would say his profile was disqualifying and was not the kind of profile you want in the most important position for the most important military fighting force, for the values we treasure in the whole world. >> let me play elissa slotkin for you. major general eaton, thank you. well, said claire, because i think this is what gets to i think what a lot of people, including senator blumenthal, fear about why donald trump wants this particular man to be secretary of defense. here is senator elissa slotkin questioning hegseth? >> 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 that. >> i understand, and i respect that i've been there. you're about the level of secretary of defense involved in that moment. >> was he right? 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. and say yes or no. you can say no, major general. >> i'm sorry. senator angus king also asked about the geneva conventions and did not get a straight answer as to whether pete hegseth believes the geneva conventions were rightly decided or should be followed. so that, i think, is the fear. major general eaton, that he wants him there in case he decides to issue illegal orders to use the military against the american people. he'll do it. is that what you do? is that too much of a concern, or is that something that you're concerned about? >> no, that is a great concern because at the same time, we have to tell our military that

while the commander in chief is immune from prosecution for anything that he does or fails to do as president of the united states, and he is also a flawed individual who is responsible for the good order and discipline of the armed forces of the united states, as is the secretary of defense. so what we really do have here is a failure to communicate. and this business of still working the woke agenda is, is going to be a continuing failure. >> we need to pay attention to these things. we appreciate both of you for helping us to understand what we're really seeing here. retired army major general paul eaton and our friend, both of our friends and former senator claire mccaskill. thank you both. up next, jack smith's report is finally out with the former special counsel arguing that if this election interference case had gone to trial, which of course it didn't, the evidence against

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and you shouldn't either. join me@charm.com and get paid when you say. >> in six days, donald trump will be sworn in as president at the same location where just four years earlier, he sent a mob of maga insurrectionists to the capitol in his final attempt to try to overturn the 2020 election. to this day, trump has faced zero accountability for his actions. but at the very least, just after midnight last

night, the final report, preserving special counsel jack smith's investigation, was made public, outlining all the evidence he compiled against trump in the election interference case. smith made clear that had it not been for trump's win in november, the prosecution would have ended, would have would have ended only one way. quote, indeed. 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, and perhaps for the first time, smith was able to defend himself against the constant attacks from trump's claims that smith was acting as nothing more than a puppet sent by president joe biden to attack his political rival, smith wrote. and to all who know me well, 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. joining me now is attorney timothy heaphy, former lead investigator for the january 6th select committee. this had to have been kind of bittersweet for you, because it was a confirmation of the work that you all did as well, and yet no consequences. >> yeah, more sweet than bitter joy, because the story i read in the special counsel's report was exactly on all fours. the story that was told in the select committee report and that we told in our hearings over time, as our work is compared to other investigations, it stands up and will continue to stand up to the test of time. >> what do you think was the most damning piece of evidence that would have convicted trump had he ever gone to trial? >> the thing that struck me about reading the special counsel report was they make a great effort to show that president trump was aware that those claims of election fraud were false. he was told repeatedly by very close advisers. he never asked critical questions, pushing back on the incredible information he was given that there was fraud. the statements that he made

acknowledging his loss were going to leave this crisis to the next guy. the litany of evidence that shows specific intent to deceive america to me, really, really crucial evidence and would have been an important part of the proof at trial. >> i think it was clear to a lot of us that donald trump was running so desperately to be elected again, because he didn't want to go to jail. it was a it was a get out of jail free card, which it clearly was. the supreme court made it clear it was this i found very interesting, given the way the supreme court gave him immunity and the thing they saved him from. special counsel jack smith considered charging donald trump under the insurrection act. smith wrote in his report that the office considered doing that, but ultimately concluded that it would be difficult to prove. given the complicated legal definitions of insurrection and whether incitement had occurred, i will note that the colorado supreme court found that trump engaged in an insurrection, as that term is used in section three of the 14th amendment. of course, our supreme court negated the 14th amendment's third section three. what do you make of that? yeah. >> look, there was a menu of

possible charges available to the special counsel. >> he chose ones, i think, for expeditiousness things that were well defined in precedent, and he opted out of charging things like incitement to insurrection that really weren't as developed. i think that all of the prior insurrection cases involved rebellion against the government by an outside force, someone that wanted to overthrow a government. here you have the sitting leader of the government. so does it qualify under the legal definition of insurrection or not? kind of unclear. and i think it was an attempt by the special counsel, essentially to set that aside and charge things that would be unobjectionable. appropriate charges and then present the evidence to a jury. >> we know that more than 1500 people have been convicted, tried and convicted for various crimes related to arriving at the capitol and doing what trump wanted them to do. what do you make of the promises to pardon those individuals, including some pretty violent people? yeah. >> look, i hope that the

president on january 20th draws some kind of a line between things that he will pardon and things that he will not. there are a spectrum of culpability of people's participation in the attack on the capitol. at the least culpable end, you have people that were trespassers, that were disorderly, that were either convicted of or pled guilty to misdemeanors all the way. on the other end of the spectrum, you have seditious conspiracists, people that advocated the use of force to prevent the lawful function of government. very, very serious charges. i hope there's a line drawn somewhere between there. if it's a blanket pardon to all of them, it really eviscerates the rule of law and joy. if you accept that criminal consequences can deter bad behavior, then the excuse of criminal conduct can encourage bad behavior. so i worry the message that this sends if they're a part. >> but i mean, jack smith's report, i feel like one of the things that it does show is that impunity breeds bad behavior, right? absolutely. well, this is the most impunity you could possibly get. i mean, jack smith's report is pretty clear. this man did attempt an

insurrection. what does it mean that rather than face just the rebuke of even a trial, he essentially walks clear from it, and now he gets to come back in surrounded by other people who also pushed the big lie. pam bondi is about to probably be the next attorney general of the united states. she's the one who got rudy giuliani to get involved, right? he is the one who got these 1500 people to commit the crimes they did. they're all apparently going to walk away free for it. and i wonder what that says about our democracy. >> yeah. look, any time criminal conduct is excused, it it is erodes the rule of law. i think there's a broader audience for that report. there's a broader audience for the work the select committee did. and that's history. that's posterity. right. it's important to have an accounting of what happened in the short term. it did not result in accountability to the people. president trump and the others in the report. but it does matter historically. and the work that we did on the select committee was, was the audience was both america today, but it was also legacy and

history. and i do think it matters, joy that these facts are out there. >> i have to ask you, as somebody who investigated what donald trump did, what's to make him leave in 2028? i mean, he'll be incredibly elderly, even more elderly than he is now. but if he decides he's going to be vladimir putin now that he's gotten away with it, and the supreme court has said he has absolute immunity, what's to make him leave? >> yeah, that's one of those questions where we're going to see about guardrails. we're going to see about whether or not there are separation of powers, whether there are places and people in the government that are going to say no. thankfully, there were in 2020, and i hope that even though it is different now, four years later, that there are enough people and enough processes that will say that's unlawful, that's no precedent, no, you can't do that. >> we shall see. timothy heaphy, thank you very much for all the work that you did to make sure that we at least knew the truth. up next, the inane republican hypocrisy afoot as they dare to threaten to withhold money from california and its residents as its residents suffer. don't go

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federal taxes every year than they receive in benefits, one of the few states to do that. in fact, los angeles county alone contributed more than all but four other entire states. but since this is a maga party, no good crisis can go to waste. especially when it comes to exploiting people's pain. speaker mike johnson confirmed that they're doing that for trump's gain, because the concession they want is for congressional democrats to sign off on raising the debt limit. johnson, who is from louisiana, which got $62.3 billion in federal aid in the aftermath of hurricane katrina, is saying that california should do something to get something. >> it appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty in many respects. >> so that's something that has to be factored in. >> i think there should probably be conditions on that aid. >> then there's alabama senator tommy tuberville, who doesn't actually know what the branches

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presidencies are defined. and for donald trump's first 100 days. rachel maddow is on five nights a week. >> now is the time. >> so we're going to do it. >> settle in providing her unique insight and analysis during this critical time. >> how do we strategically align ourselves to this moment of information, this moment of transition in our country? >> the rachel maddow show five nights a week, beginning monday.

>> today in black women's history. michelle lavaughn robinson obama said absolutely not. with democrat after democrat, including her husband, former president barack obama, treating the insurrectionist in chief. you know, the guy who demanded obama show his papers even before trying to overthrow the government and taking classified documents home? treating that guy like a normal president, including planning to attend his second inauguration. the clintons will be there. and president biden and presumably first lady jill biden all seated soberly under the american flags. republican speaker mike johnson will not fly at half mast, as tradition calls for when a president dies because donald threw a tantrum. i suppose the bushes will be there, too, pretending it's all normal, but not michelle. in the fine tradition of harriet tubman, fannie lou hamer, ida b wells, and sojourner truth. michelle said, nah, i'm not being a part of that. just like she did when the obamas were

seated, were slated to sit beside the trumps at president jimmy carter's funeral. black women have had a unique sojourn in this country, denied the protections of womanhood during slavery. black women persisted, protecting their children where they could and insisting on not just their own dignity, but also calling on this country to live up to its promises. i had the honor of spending more than a year studying and interviewing just such a woman, a great woman named myrlie evers-williams, who survived the assassination of her husband, presidential medal of freedom honoree and world war two hero medgar evers, who she more than frequently told, no, i'm not doing that. during their 11 years together, i was honored to chronicle their civil rights love story in my book, medgar and myrlie, which last year i shall humble brag became a new york times number one bestseller, and this year is an naacp image award nominee in the

biography category. medgar and myrlie is out in paperback today with some cool new things in it, including a photo we found of marie's teenage singing group, the chansonettes. but tonight, as i think about michelle obama, i'm also thinking about miss myrlie, who at 91 years young, is still putting her foot down and insisting that we be better as a nation. and that is tonight's reidout. thank you all for tuning in. you can follow me on blue sky and instagram at joy-ann reid, at tiktok at joy-ann reid official. and please do follow our show accounts on instagram and facebook at the reidout, tiktok at the reidout and on blue sky at joy msnbc. com all in with chris hayes starts now. >> tonight on all in. >> so are you saying that you would stand in the breach and push back if you were given an illegal