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>> that does it for us. make sure to tune in tomorrow night for special coverage of president biden's farewell address to the nation. coverage begins at 8 p.m. eastern, right here on msnbc. and on that note, i wish you a 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 tomorrow. >> it was 63 days ago that donald trump announced his intention to nominate fox news host pete hegseth as his secretary of defense. and in those 63 days, the american public learned a lot about pete hegseth. there were his controversial public positions, like his defense of accused and convicted war criminals, his contempt for the geneva conventions, and his repeated insistence that women in the military should not serve in combat roles. and then came a flood of revelations about hegseth. personal life. first, there was the discovery that he

had entered into a settlement with a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her at a conference in 2017. hegseth denied that allegation, but soon other stories were surfacing. stories about his reputation for drunkenness on the job, both as the head of two veterans organizations and as a weekend host on fox news. there were also stories about his financial mismanagement of the organizations he led, and stories alleging a history of cruel and offensive public behavior like drunkenly chanting kill all muslims! at a bar in ohio. all of that made it look like pete hegseth might, just might just fail to get the republican support he needed to become trump's next defense secretary. and a lot of the attention about hegseth fate fell on one senator in particular, senator joni ernst of iowa. senator ernst is herself a sexual assault survivor, something she has spoken openly about in the past. >> abuse is not something you can just simply forget. it stays

with you forever. and i know this personally. as a survivor and as a united states senator, i feel it is important to be a voice for the thousands of victims across iowa and so many more across our nation who have fallen prey to sexual assault, to rape, to harassment and other forms of abuse. >> again, that is senator joni ernst saying she feels it is important to be a voice for victims of sexual assault and rape and harassment. senator ernst is also a veteran, which made seth's comments about women in the military seemingly a particularly tough pill for her to swallow. here is how senator ernst spoke about pete hegseth just last month. >> 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. >> now, senator ernst, signaling that pete hegseth did not necessarily have her support was a big deal because it would take only four republican defections

to kill his nomination. as a veteran and a sexual assault survivor, ernst's vote was especially critical. and just last month, senator ernst was very much on the fence, as you can see in that interview. but in the days since republican senators and especially joni ernst have been on the receiving end of an unprecedented pressure campaign from donald trump and his allies. and elon musk backed pressure groups spent more than half $1 million on ads supporting hegseth, including this ad, which reportedly targeted ernst's home state of iowa. >> pete hegseth is a patriot. the deep state is trying to stop his nomination, but pete isn't backing down. call your senator today and urge them to confirm pete hegseth for secretary of defense. >> that is just the tip of the iceberg. as the new yorker's jane mayer reports this week. the amount of private money being spent on the effort to confirm hegseth is staggering for a cabinet nominee. the sum is rivaled only by the cash that

has been spent to pressure senators into confirming supreme court justices. one group, american leadership pac, reportedly plans to spend $1 million to muscle wavering republican senators in five states into approving hegseth, according to the most recent fec records. the group barely exists other than as a political piggy bank for four enormously wealthy right wing mega-donors. those four mega-donors are timothy dunn, a texas oil magnate. bill koch, a member of the right wing mega rich koch family. richard uihlein, the wisconsin billionaire who happens to be a major funder of election conspiracy groups. and thomas klingenstein, the head of the ultra conservative claremont institute, which he founded. with trump's election denying coconspirator john eastman. and all of that money appears to have been well spent. it has paid off. at today's hearing, senator ernst began her questioning by entering into the official record a letter of support for pete hegseth. and

from there, it was pretty clear where this is going. ernst spent half of her time asking about seth's commitment to auditing the pentagon, before asking some perfunctory questions about women and sexual assault in the military, largely agreeing with seth's answers on both. it was not an adversarial line of questioning. in fact, it was hardly questioning. at the same time, the new yorker reports that senator ernst turned down offers to hear privately from sexual assault accuser. now, earlier tonight, senator ernst denied that reporting, saying she never received a request from the accuser or her lawyer. either way, any meeting between senator ernst and the victim is unlikely to happen. despite ernst's announced desire to have any allegation cleared and to be a voice for victims of sexual assault. and that meeting is unlikely to happen because shortly after the hearing, senator ernst told a conservative radio host that she will now officially support pete

hegseth s nomination. >> i thought it was good hearing for him. does he have your vote? >> i am breaking news, simon. i figured you would ask this. so yes, i will be supporting president trump's pick for secretary of defense, pete hegseth. >> now, senator ernst was not the only republican who effectively rolled over today when it came to vetting pete hegseth. in fact, a lot of the questioning from republicans was utterly embarrassing. >> how many genders are there? tough one. >> senator, there are two genders. >> how many push ups can you do? >> i did five sets of 47 this morning. >> the only reason why i'm here and not in prison is because my wife loved me, too. tell me something about your wife that you love. >> maybe if you could spend a minute. just elaborate a little bit about the wokeness, where it comes from, and who will be held accountable. >> despite all of that,

democrats did their best to hold hegseth accountable for his controversial past, including and especially senator tim kaine, democrat of virginia. >> you've admitted that you had sex at that hotel in october 2017. you said it was consensual. isn't that correct? anything you've admitted that it was consensual and you were still married and you just had a child by another woman. you had just fathered a child two months before by a woman that was not your wife. i am shocked that you would stand here and say, you're completely cleared. can you so casually cheat on a second wife and cheat on the mother of a child that had been born two months before? and you tell us you were completely cleared? how is that a complete clear? one of your colleagues said that you got drunk at an event at a bar and chanted, kill all muslims. another colleague, not anonymous. we have this, said that you took coworkers to a strip club. you were drunk. you tried to dance with strippers.

you had to be held off the stage and one of your employees in that event, filed a sexual harassment charge as a result of it. now, i know you deny these things, but isn't that the kind of behavior that, if true, would be disqualifying for somebody to be secretary of defense? >> senator? anonymous. false charges. >> they're not anonymous. >> joining me now to discuss all of this is senator tim kaine of virginia. senator, thank you so much for being here tonight. let me first, just get your reaction to the news. we got just about an hour ago that senator joni ernst, who has long been seen as maybe one of the republican linchpins to pete hegseth nomination, is going to indeed vote for his confirmation. what are your thoughts? >> alex? i'm shocked, but not surprised. >> can you elaborate on that a little bit more? for a while there, it looked like she was not going to be an easy vote. it looked like she, given her background and her priorities, was going to try and hold

hegseth to perhaps a higher standard than other republicans. what's your estimate of what happened in the interim between then and now? >> i think you laid it out pretty well in the introduction. i have worked closely with senator ernst on a variety of issues on the committee, including battling a culture that that for too long was too tolerant of sexual harassment of women military members. but when she raised legitimate questions and didn't just sign on board with the nomination, the amount of pressure that's been applied to her from from the trump team and, you know, you focused on things like ads on tv. but this is also things like personal threats and the kinds of things that you you unleash. you know, again, i'm shocked that her focus on the needs of people who have been on the receiving end of sexual assault or sexual harassment has faded. but i'm not surprised because the

pressure applied to her has been so significant. it's a sad day to hear that. but, you know, i think at the hearing today, democrats did a pretty good job of shining a spotlight on the character of this individual. and it is the, you know, my belief that we walked out of that hearing with many, many more questions than when we walked into the hearing. >> i want to play some of your line of questioning, which was, you know, absolutely something that people paid attention to in terms of how tenacious you were compared to a lot of other people in that room. this is about hegseth and his doling out of ndas to alleged victims. let's just take a listen to that exchange. >> in finalizing divorces from your first and second wives, were there nondisclosure agreements in connection with those divorces? >> senator, not that i'm aware of, but if there were, you would agree to release them from a confidentiality. senator, that's not my responsibility. >> did you ever engage in any

acts of physical violence against any of your wives? >> senator? absolutely not. >> can you elaborate on what you were trying to get at there? >> well, a couple of things. the i think the records show that pete hegseth has nondisclosure agreements. potentially with respect to his first two wives. i believe with at least one of the two veterans organizations that he worked for and sort of ran into the ground. he has a confidentiality agreement with the person that filed a sexual assault complaint against him that he ended up settling, making a cash payment to and entering into a confidentiality agreement. he had the nerve to say in the hearing today, hey, i'm an open book. and i pointed out. yeah, but you've got all kinds of people tied up with confidentiality agreements that can't share with us what they want to share with us. the other thing i was trying to get at was this i need to be careful here

because of some of what i know is either from classified or from committee only materials, but i have deep concerns about his abuse of women. his drunkenness on the job, his creation of toxic work culture, the circumstances surrounding his two divorces, including multiple allegations of infidelity. and i was trying to get him to just be candid with the american public. should committing a sexual assault be disqualifying to be secretary of defense? not a hard question. should spousal abuse be disqualifying to be sexual secretary of defense? not a hard question. should drunkenness on the job be disqualifying to be secretary of defense? not a hard question. he wouldn't answer any of them. and that was very telling to me. >> i got to ask. i mean, given what you're floating here, some of it's new, some of it there's been rumors of some of it's been

reported on. it just seems like this is someone who is deserving of a really thorough fbi background check, not just for democrats, but also for republicans and the people who are hiring him, the trump administration. and yet, jane mayer reports in the new yorker, for example, the fbi's background investigation failed to interview fox news personnel who described hegseth to nbc news as smelling of alcohol on the job as recently as last fall. instead, sources say that the bureau settled for an interview with a public relations official at fox. is that unprecedented? >> it's a no. it's outrageous. alex. and i haven't even seen the fbi report. they won't give it to me. they gave it to the chairman of the committee, senator wicker, and the ranking member, senator reed. but in my discussions with senator reed, it's very plain that the fbi did not interview many people who had been directly identified in other documents that have been made available. they didn't bother to interview them. and that is just outrageous. you saw

pete hegseth in the committee hearing today, try to say all these claims were anonymous smears. these are not anonymous smears. the materials that i've read with the allegations about his behavior. each behavior is connected directly to an individual who, in many cases, i believe, was not interviewed by the vetters and the individuals named in the documents we've received even include his own mother, who wrote him a an extremely painful and blunt letter when he was under owing a second divorce, calling him a serial abuser of women. and the facts just line up one after the next, whether it's what his colleagues work colleagues in three organizations have said about him, what he has written or said about women in his own books and writings. in the circumstances of his two divorces, in the circumstances of the criminal allegation against him, which did not lead to a criminal conviction, but it

did lead to a settlement and a payment and a nondisclosure agreement. there is real investigation that needs to be done by someone here, but even on a paltry record that is largely notable for what it omits rather than what it includes, the facts are extremely troubling about the character of this individual. >> senator tim kaine, you may not have the answers under oath, but you at least are asking the question. sir. thank you so much for coming on the program tonight. really appreciate it. >> good to be with you, alex. thanks. >> in advance of today's hearing, ben rhodes, former deputy national security advisor for president obama, penned this opinion piece in the new york times. pete hegseth is dangerous, but not for the reasons you think. trump's choice of mr. hegseth is born out of right wing grievances that have been building for a long time over the failures of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. the accusations of sexual assault and excessive drinking, which mr. hegseth has denied, also converged with other maga interests, including

being unburdened by woke social mores. what kind of military emerges from this worldview? presumably one that seeks to roll back the social and cultural changes of recent decades within its ranks, disrupting cohesion and devaluing diversity as a source of strength. a maga military. joining me now is ben rhodes, of course, former deputy national security advisor under president obama. ben, i feel like this is such essential reading because we're obviously talking about one aspect of pete hegseth nomination. but you you put into context and a longer historical lens how he set this kind of the fruition of nearly 20 years of conservative grievance starting after nine over 11. can you put that into a finer point on that, on that for people who haven't yet read this great op ed? >> yeah, i mean, the quick version, alex, right, is if you're in the. pete hegseth. right. right after nine over 11, you are promised great victories in iraq and afghanistan, and you are lied to and misled by george w bush and dick cheney. and after the kind of outburst of

jingoism around those wars on the right, you know, if you're a fox news person, all you were told for the bush years is we're on the precipice of some great victory. there was a lot of anger and resentment about how those wars turned out. but importantly, and this is not unusual when superpowers fail to win wars, that anger didn't get channeled kind of at foreign policy. it got channeled at an enemy within. and if you take seriously, as i do, what pete had said, this said and written for many years, he is railing against liberals. he's railing against islam. he's railing against, you know, quote unquote woke culture. he's railing against women in combat, gays in the military. it's all these enemies within. and he shares that with trump, and he shares trump's interest in having a secretary of defense who's totally loyal. >> so i think that these allegations of personal misconduct, of course, are important. >> but i actually think that's a debate kind of that the right wing wants to have, you know, here are the democrats, you know, trying to scold somebody over their personal conduct. i think we have to look at what he

actually wants to do. if he gets in this position. it's an immensely powerful position of secretary of defense. and i think what he wants to do is shaped by the same grievance mindset that donald trump has given voice to over the course of the last decade. >> yeah, he's an expression of that and what he practically wants or could do. you also outline in the piece what happens if the military is asked to support the political interests of the president, or participate in mass deportations or suppress political protests? the united states would struggle to return to an apolitical military serving a constitutional citizenry rather than an individual or ideology. i mean, then there's some caveats in the piece, but that seems like a very real possibility. and reversing that would be equally difficult. >> yeah. if you look at what hegseth has said, he he has advocated for the pardon of service members that were convicted of war crimes. he's, you know, essentially said that the u.s. should not follow the laws of war. the geneva conventions that were arrived at after the painful experiences of

world war one and world war two. he said he doesn't think women should serve in combat. he said that gays shouldn't serve in the military. he's lamented so-called diversity hires, in his words, that include, by the way, the current chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who is black, who he said should be fired. right. he has embraced the big lie of donald trump. we know that donald trump wanted to use the military to quash protests after george floyd in 2020. we know that there's a potential that some people around trump have talked about using the u.s. military in the mass deportation plans that they have. these are very substantive questions about what the makeup and mission and nature of the united states military is, which is an apolitical institution that is supposed to serve all americans and abide by the law. that, to me, is the real story of what is happening here with this nomination and seemingly imminent confirmation. and i think that's what we have to be focused on. >> yeah, i think what needs to happen is the linkage between pete hegseth past and what it

could portend for his future. and yes, both are very alarming. ben rhodes, an excellent op ed in the new york times. thank you for your time tonight, my friend. thanks, alex. we have much more to get to tonight, including republicans playing politics with disaster aid as the southern california fires continue to rage. but first, how many of you have ever shown up to work drunk? that was a real question that a real united states senator asked his colleagues today in defense of donald trump's pick to lead the department of defense. we're going to have more on the rise of maga masculinity coming up next. >> machine learning is advancing, but businesses wonder if some machines can keep up. >> let's welcome our new coworker, jeff. >> copier has a great idea. >> i wonder if it's the same idea as yesterday. >> it's a performance issue.

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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. >> what if you showed up drunk to your job? how many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night? have any of you guys asked them to step down and resign from their job? and don't tell me you haven't seen it because i know you have. and then how many senators do you know have gotten a divorce before cheating on their wives? did you ask them to step down? no, but it's for show. you guys make sure you make a big show and point out the hypocrisy. because the man's made a mistake, and you want to sit there and say that he's not qualified. give me a joke. >> give me a break. i mean, who among us hasn't arrived to vote drunk? pete says confirmation is

not just about republicans handling handing donald trump his first nomination win. it is also about the resurgence of patriarchal political power, something donald trump ran on explicitly. and this highly retrograde traditionalism for pete hegseth is rooted in a growing right wing evangelical movement, one that seeks a theocratic state in which traditionalist christian men lead the military and other essential government institutions. joining me now is michelle goldberg, who's an opinion columnist for the new york times. michelle, thank you for being here this evening. so, first of all, markwayne mullin, just i guess everyone shows up to drunk on the senate floor, which tells you a lot. it's astonishing that this isn't a matter of controversy. right? that when mark kelly asked him over and over again, it wasn't no, this is false. it was. these are smears. and so sort of no one's denying this. and also who doesn't cheat on their wives before asking for a divorce? i think he actually got the timeline inaccurate wrong in that. but that i think was the essence of it. and it goes to this notion that, like

republicans sanction the bad behavior and now are openly, openly embracing it. and it has become sort of like a foundational value in this neo sort of trad family structure that they seem to be embracing. right. i think part of the promise of donald trump, and it wasn't even that much. it wasn't even that subtextual was the promise of impunity was the promise that, you know, after the metoo era, we're going to go back to a time where this behavior won't be punished, where it won't be an impediment to your career. >> and so and what's interesting is that on the one hand, you know, pete hegseth is this avatar of christian nationalism from this extremely right wing church. >> but i think the innovation here, the part that makes it that neo is that it's kind of all of the sanctimonious force of religious fundamentalism with none of the expected constraints. yes. right. you know, show up drunk, have affairs, but also be the patriarch. i mean, i want to play a little bit of sound from this podcast that pete hegseth

was on. he is on the podcast. it is being hosted by a member of pete hegseth. s church. the church is called pilgrim hill, and this is kind of how they explain their theology. >> and then the father is given the authority of the home. >> so in the family. so the father has a actual authority over his wife and children, and then the wife has authority over the children too. but ultimately it's a patriarchal vision. and then the state god has given authority, primarily the tool that god has given the state is the sword. we see this in romans 13. >> they are to execute justice, to protect the righteous from the wicked. >> so two things are interesting. first of all, the patriarchy is outlined explicitly, but also it's the embedded sort of violence or punitive streak to this new form of sort of traditional christianity, neo traditional christianity that strikes me as almost a playbook for people like pete hegseth, right? if

they come at you and they say you're unqualified, hit them back with your proverbial sword, fight back. i mean, there's you know, i've been writing about christian nationalism for a long time. this rhetoric is super familiar. it's kind of almost standard, i think. what's what's different is that the movement that he's part of used to be at least the very explicit theocratic vision, used to maybe be more on the fringes of the conservative movement. now it's at the dead center of the republican party. but and it's also interesting the way, like, as you said, every time pete hegseth had to answer for the many, many sins, frankly, you know, mistakes, catastrophes, debacles that he's been involved in, he would talk about being saved by jesus christ. right. but at no point did he talk about that, instilling any sort of new, you know, either or either figurative or literal sobriety. right, right. his alleged, his alleged controversies are met with just a fierce zealotry. the

proclamation of the, you know, jesus christ being his lessons being visited upon him, but no sort of moral reexamination or reexamination of his own morals. there are a lot of comparisons being drawn to the sort of playbook that's being run with pete hegseth and that of brett kavanaugh, not just in terms of the outside conservative money that's flooded this zone, but just in terms of, well, i'd ask you what you see as the sort of the thread that ties these two particular men together. well, i wouldn't compare these two because, i mean, you know, brett kavanaugh, although i wish he hadn't been confirmed he was a plausible nominee. he wasn't a preposterous nominee. i mean, any and he wasn't. i don't think that republicans in their heart of hearts, saw brett kavanaugh as a joke, that they were sort of being forced to condone as a test of loyalty, whereas this is just such a farce. but i think that what you see is that what happened to christine blasey ford was a very powerful demonstration for anyone else

who would come forward. and so when you think about the republican organizer who filed this police report accusing pete hegseth of sexual assault, you know, there is a i would assume that she looks at what's happened to women like christine blasey ford and thinks, no, thank you. and so there's a reason i would assume that she has not come forward. well, and i would say that same pressure campaign in a different way is being exerted upon republicans who might stand in line and potentially talk to that victim. you know, it is it is worth noting that the drivers behind this kind of neo, neo, neo traditionalist christianity that people like pete hegseth are a part of is the drivers are really interesting and they are cultural. the usa today reports that the founder of pete hegseth church, pilgrim hill, said that one of the main drivers for enrollment in his church was the black lives matter protests, which pottinger characterized as a huge satanic tactic to corrupt

the gospel. he also mentioned that covid 19 and the related lockdowns were also part of it. and i wonder, you know, sort of what that tells you about the political aspirations or the political implications of this kind of christianity being embraced by so many people who are at the top echelons of the trump administration. well, i mean, i think that there is there's been there's a kind of broader cultural turn towards the manosphere among at least a lot of powerful men. you know, you see mark zuckerberg talking about how they need to bring more masculine energy to corporate america. there's just this unbelievable backlash to the efflorescence of feminist activism that we saw during trump's first term, and what this form of christian nationalist nationalism does is it gives it a kind of theological scaffolding. yeah, it does absolutely. to battle against literally any social sociocultural progress or inclusivity that might be a hallmark of the 21st century. here we go. buckle up, michelle

goldberg. inauguration day is on monday. it's great to see you. thank you for your time tonight. still to come this evening, even as deadly wildfires continue to rage through southern california, republicans are looking for ways to capitalize on tragedy politically. we'll on tragedy politically. we'll have more on that next. ♪ who knows what tomorrow will bring ♪ (dog whines) ♪ but as for me ♪ (knock at door) ♪ i'll wait and see ♪ ♪ and maybe it'll bring my love to me ♪ ♪ who knows ♪ ♪ who knows ♪ dexcom g7 sends your glucose numbers to your phone and watch, so you can always see where you're heading without fingersticks. dexcom g7 is the most accurate cgm, so you can manage your diabetes with confidence. ♪♪ dramatically reduces redness in

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>> los angeles is now entering its second week of fighting the largest fires the city has ever seen. the fires have already collectively burned an area more than two and a half times the size of manhattan, displacing more than 100,000 people and killing at least 25. so while those fires are still actively burning, while authorities are literally still searching burned out houses for the dead, how is the republican leader of the house, mike johnson? how is he responding? he's threatening to hold hostage federal disaster aid. >> i think there should probably be conditions on that aid. >> that's my personal view. we'll see what the consensus is. >> i haven't had a chance to socialize that with any of the members over the weekend, because we've all been very busy, but it'll be part of the discussion for sure. >> that was the speaker of the house saying that federal aid for these wildfires in california should have conditions. mind you, speaker johnson represents the disaster prone state of louisiana. and for the last year, we have data 2022 louisiana received $34

billion more from the federal government than the state paid the federal government. in that same year, california paid $83 billion more to the federal government than the state got in return. 2022 isn't an anomaly. california is the fifth biggest economy in the world on its own. the state literally subsidizes the rest of this country year after year. but because california is a blue state, republicans want it to have california bend to the will of the gop in order to get disaster relief. >> do you expect, though, that congress and republicans will still help these americans in need, even if they don't like their local politics in the party? >> i expect that there will be strings attached to money that is ultimately approved. >> we will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who have been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior. >> they don't deserve anything, to be honest with you, unless

they show us they're going to make some changes. >> not to belabor the point here, but the republicans you just heard there were senator john barrasso of wyoming, representative zach nunn of iowa, and senator tommy tuberville of alabama, all representatives of red states that receive far more money from the federal government than they give the federal government. well, again, the blue state of california literally subsidizes their existence. just last month, congress allocated $100 billion in disaster relief to help the six states impacted by hurricanes helene and milton. all but one of those states is led by a republican governor, and that aid did not have conditions. apparently, the moral calculus was very clear. but now that the blue state of california needs help, while republicans think disaster relief should be a bargaining chip. dan pfeiffer, former white house senior advisor to president barack obama and co-host of pod save america, joins me to discuss how joins me to discuss how democrattype 2 diabetes? discover the ozempic® tri-zone.

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be in the hands of president elect donald trump, house speaker mike johnson, and even some republican members of california's own congressional delegation have signaled that they may demand conditions before sending any more relief money to california. conditions that, at least according to speaker johnson, reportedly may include tying recovery money to one of donald trump's key political demands, raising the debt ceiling. joining me now is dan pfeiffer, former white house senior adviser to president obama and co-host of pod save america. dan, thank you for being here. i have a lot of strategy questions to ask you because, i mean, first, what's the right? what is the right response from gavin, governor newsom on down? i mean, when republicans say you can't have money to rebuild your burned down city and help people find homes again unless you raise the debt ceiling. should they play ball? >> absolutely not. >> look, let's start with how you respond to this. and that begins with pointing out very clearly and very forthrightly that what the republicans are

doing is they're playing politics with people's lives. right. california is a blue state, but there are 6 million people in the state who voted for donald trump. those are the people they are denying aid to as well. and so we should call that out. we should point out that every other time strings have not been put on aid for states, because that is what we do in this country, because the fires may be in california, but the impact of that is felt across the country, just like with hurricanes in north carolina and hurricanes in florida. so making that we just have to call out what they're doing here. and then you get to the specific point of the debt ceiling. right. that is an absurd idea. i'm not sure that idea is going to fly. i don't know that the freedom caucus is going to fall for that. i don't think the senate's going to fall for that. but we should call that out again, right? this is about people's lives. people need help now. and trying to use the lives and livelihoods of people suffering from one of the worst wildfires in this country's history. to solve a political problem for donald trump is ridiculous, but we have to be vocal about that fact. >> i'm all. i'm with you. i mean, it's if past is prolog.

you know, trump was convinced to release disaster aid when his aides pointed out, like, oh, orange county was affected and they voted for you. but you now have members, as politico is reporting, of california's republican congressional delegation saying, yeah, no, you should tie disaster relief to a debt ceiling raise, or you should establish preconditions before you release the funds. i mean, it seems like trump's and his allies, the misinformation they've been spinning about democratic mismanagement of the state has caused even republicans in the state to believe the lies enough so that they're willing to sort of sacrifice the immediate release of relief aid, i guess. i wonder how much you think misinformation is giving republicans a leg to stand on here. the suggestion that governor newsom didn't like, you know, let enough water into the state because he was protecting smelt, roe or whatever, all of which governor newsom has set up a website to debunk. but like, how critical is that as a kind of foundational aspect to the denial of aid? >> well, misinformation is a

huge problem, and it's one that, as mark zuckerberg made clear the other day, is going to get much worse as time goes on here. i think what it what is causing problems with these republican members of congress is as much as their attempt to be as loyal to donald trump as humanly possible, to be as obsequious to donald trump as humanly possible as it is misinformation. because what? so there are two issues here. there are strings on the aid, and then there's a debt ceiling. let's put the debt ceiling aside for one second. what strings are they talking about? none of these people have mentioned them. they just keep saying strings. what is it they actually want? what do they think is going to help here? what is going to solve there? what is the problem they are trying to solve? we should push back on that and call that out. what is it? what are they actually talking about? because there are answers to this, right? the smelt issue is an absurd issue. the water from north from northern california doesn't go to southern california. it's not where the water comes from, the reservoirs. there are answers to all these things, but we have to push the republicans, and specifically the republican members of congress from california on what it is they're actually talking about here. so they're not just vomiting up talking points in the hope of getting invited to a white house

reception in two weeks. >> no comment on that, the vomit or the reception, but i wonder what you think the road ahead looks like for blue state governors independent of, you know, for this particular disaster in california, as trump tries to use the federal government to tries to weaponize the federal government to enact his political agenda. you know, if you're a blue state governor and trump wants to conduct federal mass deportation or deport workplace raids in your state, and you want to stand against it, but you also need help from the federal government or at least cooperation on urgent matters, whether it's disaster aid or something like that. you know, is there a calibration? is there a choreography here? can you do both? can you both be an adversary to trump and serve your state in a time of need? do you think such a thing is possible knowing what you know about donald trump? >> it's a tricky balancing act, and governor newsom is in a very challenging position here. he has been aggressive about pushing back on some of the misinformation for calling out, as in the clip you played the previous time. donald trump has played politics with disaster aid, but he also has trump

coming to a state next week. and he knows that, unlike in any previous presidency other than trump's previous one, politics are going to play a role here. and you have to sort of walk that fine line. ultimately, i think democrats cannot. we cannot, you know, avoid calling out trump for what he is doing when it's wrong. right. you're going to have to you have to do your politics. we saw a lot of people doing this during covid, unfortunately, with about whether you're going to get ppe or masks or whatever else from the federal government when trump was president, but you're going to have to walk a fine line. one thing i think democratic governors can do here. i think newsom has done a pretty good job of this is in times of crisis, when there is misinformation flying at you at all times. the way to respond to that is to overcommunicate to be out all the time, as much as you possibly can, to grab every single microphone and bullhorn you can find and shout out the truth. it's not always going to work. there are going to be people who are have motivated reasoning to believe what they want to believe. you have members of congress who will say what will get them in good favor with trump, but be out there all

the time. newsom has done a very good job of that. i think some other california officials, particularly down in la, have done a less good job of that. but that is the model for how you communicate, especially when you have a president, united states, who is using his microphone or an incoming president, united states, to push that very same misinformation. >> everything everywhere, all at once. that's the new playbook. both sides of the aisle. dan pfeiffer, thank you for joining me tonight, my friend. appreciate you. thank you. still to come this evening, a view of the vast devastation left behind by wildfires in los angeles. nbc correspondent ellison barber joins me to discuss what she saw joins me to discuss what she saw and what is expected next. let's monopoly go! hehe. chris! keke! ready tycoons? it's go time! cash grab! keke, i won again? ow! daddy will be back soon. [cries] -ha ha! -boom! we're swimming in it now. -rent's due. -toodle-oo!

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alex. yeah. so we moved and we're actually in an area. >> we're in malibu, and it's just because this is where we got off of a helicopter that we flew on with cal poly. cal fire looking at some of the damage. but we have spent most of our time since we've been here reporting this team in altadena, near the eaton fire. i mean, the expectation heading into tonight is still the concern about those high winds right there was they weren't as high as expected today and that is good. but fire officials have been very clear weather forecasters. that threat is not over. the high risk warnings for wind. it continues until tomorrow. the fire officials, they have said they have pre-positioned fire engines and patrol all across the la region, particularly in unimpacted high risk fire areas, because the concern is the possibility still for new fires. but they say they are ready for them and they have pre-positioned to be in a position to be able to respond. but when you look at the toll here, and that's what we saw today when we were flying with cal fire, of how hard this

community has been hit. we talked so much in numbers, right. 12,000 over 12,000 structures have been destroyed, mostly in the eaton and palisades fire and structures. sounds so bland. but when you go and look in these communities, when you fly above them, you are reminded that we are talking about homes, we are talking about businesses, we are talking about familiar sites that have been integral parts of these communities for years, decades, generations even now, entirely gone. and for so many people, alex, they're trying to get through tonight worried about what could happen in other parts of los angeles and the los angeles county region, and also trying to just process how they pick up their lives because they have nothing left here. >> alex, a staggering amount of destruction that video footage from helicopter gives you a sense of those wind gusts. nbc news correspondent ellison barber doing some real essential reporting on the ground. thank you for hanging late tonight. i appreciate it. that is our show for tonight. now it's time for the l