i'll be interviewing president biden in the oval office for what will be his final interview. you'll see that interview on this program thursday night. that is tonight's last word. the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts now. >> tonight, trump's controversial pick to run the pentagon is now on track for likely confirmation after being grilled at a senate hearing, then los angeles on edge as dangerous winds fuel fears of new wildfires. the latest from california's governor gavin newsom and elon musk, who already owns x and tesla, could be adding tiktok to his portfolio as the 11th hour gets underway on this tuesday night. good evening once again. i am stephanie ruhle, and today, the first of donald trump's cabinet picks for his second administration, faced questioning in a confirmation hearing. and this evening, it looks more and more likely that he's going to get confirmed.

peter hegseth, donald trump's pick for secretary of defense, took questions from the senate armed services committee. he got a warm welcome, mostly from republicans and a serious grilling from democrats over his past conduct and qualifications. but one of the most closely watched senators was iowa republican and iraq war veteran joni ernst. early on, she was very skeptical of his nomination. but tonight, somehow, voila, she says she'll support it. here's a bit of the action from the hearing. >> 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, my privilege and my answer is yes, exactly the way that you caveated it. yes, women will have access to ground combat roles, combat roles, given the standards remain high. >> will you appoint a senior

level official dedicated to sexual assault prevention and response? >> senator, as we have discussed, yes, i will. >> you said in your statement you don't want politics in the dod. everything you've said in these public statements is politics. i don't want women. i don't want moms. what's wrong with a mom? by the way, once you have babies, you therefore are no longer able to be lethal. i mean, you're basically saying women after they have children can't ever serve in the military in a combat role. it's a it's a silly thing to say. it's a silly thing to say beneath the position that you are aspiring to. >> how many genders are there? tough one. >> senator, there are two genders. >> i know that well. i'm a sheehy, so i'm on board. what is the diameter of the rifle round fired out of an m4a1 rifle. >> that's a five. five. six. >> how many push ups can you do? >> i did five sets of 47 this morning at the end of 2013.

>> shortfall of $130,000 at the end of 2014. shortfall of $428,000. you had a surplus the following year, but then another deficit of $437,000. by the time you left, that organization had deep debts, including credit card transaction debts of about $75,000. that isn't the kind of fiscal management we want at the department of defense. >> what's the largest number of people you've ever supervised or had in an organization in your career? >> not 3 million. >> so i don't expect that no one very few people have ever had that experience. but how many? it's a straight up question. >> i think we had over 100 full time staff at concerned vets for vets for america, roughly with thousands of volunteers. so 100 people was also a headquarters company commander, which would have been, okay, that's fine. a couple of hundred cops, nothing, nothing remotely near the size of the defense department. >> i would acknowledge that actually not remotely near even a medium sized company in

america, let alone a big company in america, especially a major corporation. and you're basically we're hiring you to be the ceo of one of the most complex, largest organizations in the world. we're the board of directors here. i don't know of any corporate board of directors that would hire a ceo for a major company if they came and said, you know, i supervised 100 people before. >> with that and more, let's get smarter. with the help of our leadoff panel tonight, melanie zanona is here, senior congressional reporter for punchbowl, kate kelly, new york times correspondent who covers money policy and influence. and msnbc senior political analyst matthew dowd. he is also a former george w bush strategist and founder of country over party. melanie, i turn to you first. so with joni ernst amazingly now a yes. are we looking at the next secretary of defense with his five sets of 47 push ups before his morning coffee? >> yeah, i think joni ernst was

absolutely the canary in the coal mine here. >> we kind of knew that she was ultimately going to get to. yes. there was a question, though, of how she was going to get there. right. was she going to try to show that she was being tough and she was grilling him hard, and she was really taking it to him and then felt comfortable getting to yes. or was she going to do what she ultimately did in this hearing today, which was try to sort of grease the skids for him and try to help him help himself? she was very nice to him, sort of bringing up things that he had said, reminding people what they had said in private meetings, how he had changed his mind on certain things. but i think the entire episode with joni ernst was really instructive about this entire nominee process. right? because she is someone if you built someone in a lab of a republican who was going to oppose someone like pete hegseth, it would have been her. she is a sexual assault survivor. she is a veteran, a woman in combat. he has faced assault, sexual assault allegations. he has talked about how women shouldn't serve in combat roles. and yet she was

facing so much pressure when she first started expressing skepticism about his nominee from the maga wing, she was facing primary threats that she ultimately caved to that pressure. and so that pressure to oppose him versus the pressure to support him, ultimately, it became too great for her. and she got to. yes. but i think the fact that she is now in the yes column is a signal of what is to come, not just with pete hegseth, but i think with all of these nominees going forward. melanie, i had a follow up question to you, but unless you turn around and put that adorable dog on your lap for the rest of this segment, i am not going to speak to you. instead, i'm going to turn to kate. kelly, kate, explain to us what happened behind the scenes. okay? joni ernst, understandably, was an early skeptic of this guy. and what many of us, if we're in new york or in dc, have no idea about the gargantuan pressure campaign joni ernst faced, both in d.c. but also back in her home congressional district. explain this to us. >> yeah, that's a really good

point, stef. >> so what i reported on the other day, which seems to be a sort of an unseen below the radar element of the campaign to get that confirmed is large and small, well-financed, well-organized, outside groups that support president elect trump and his agenda. >> and along with that, pete hegseth and some of his other cabinet picks are putting large amounts of money, millions of dollars into ads and awareness campaigns, are doing take action campaigns. there's a group called the article three project that i wrote about. this was founded by mike davis, a sort of pugnacious right wing lawyer who helped shepherd brett kavanaugh through his confirmation hearings in 2018 as senior counsel for nominations to chuck grassley, who then ran the judiciary committee that was considering kavanaugh's nomination. he started this group. they have marshaled their followers through appearances on steve bannon's podcast or

talking with other right wing influencers, talking with kimberly guilfoyle to have people go to their website, click through to call message or social media, you know, post at their republican senator charlie kirk has done something similar. the idea is to pressure gop senators into voting for hegseth or bear the consequences be primaried. that was one of the threats made very directly by charlie kirk to joni ernst on x, and it's been repeated by many others. kirk said he was going to start what he called an encouragement campaign, having live rallies in various states with senators that he thought maybe couldn't be counted on to support trump's cabinet. these are places like utah with john curtis. >> but why are they so hot specifically on hegseth? right. these are major gop donors, right? you've got bill koch in here. what's so special about this guy that they want to go all in and back him? he's a guy with a military background who talks on tv for a living, right?

that's like huge people in finance, right? right. putting a zillion dollars behind me, being the treasury secretary, like it makes absolutely no sense. why do they like this guy so much? >> i mean, i think it started off as sort of a timing issue. right? so back to early december, i think it was december 4th, where some of those initial really damaging allegations were made against hegseth about his past conduct, drinking, infidelity and of course, an accusation of rape. and within a few days, the trump apparatus realized they were going to have to either replace him. remember those those rumors about ron desantis being considered or stand behind him? now, of course, trump stood behind him, which was the critical piece, but he also sort of directly or indirectly encouraged and marshaled all these other forces to rally behind hegseth. so that take action campaign i mentioned started. then others started exhorting their followers, their listeners, to take action and get involved with hegseth then. and, you know, even today, i

went to the vietnam memorial first thing this morning where there was a group of scores of ex navy seals, at least three congressmen that i encountered, including morgan luttrell and derek van orden, who are veterans themselves, navy seals, arguing that hegseth is the guy he's going to defend war fighters, and they're serious about it. i talked to women. i talked to men. they actually feel, first of all, they think that hegseth is being smeared and that these stories about his problematic conduct aren't true. but even if they were, i've heard people say, look, this is relatable. you know, we come home from war and we're not treated well. our families break up. a lot of guys and gals have drinking problems. i've talked to a lot of people who told me they quit drinking after having problematic drinking after fighting in a war. so in a certain way, i don't think anybody is endorsing sexual violence. i mean, there are issues here that are, you know, universally of concern. but i think on things like the drinking or going through a divorce or multiple divorces, a

lot of people find that relatable. >> well, his personal issues were on full display today. i want to play a little bit more of that. >> 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. again, how do you explain your false charges against me? the incident in monterey led to a criminal charge, a criminal investigation, a private settlement and a cash payment to the woman who filed the complaint. and there was also a nondisclosure agreement, correct. >> it was a confidential, confidential settlement agreement off of a nuisance lawsuit. right. >> during an interview, you claimed that you settled the matter because you were worried that if it became public, it might hurt your career. many of your work colleagues have said that you show up for work under the influence of alcohol or drunk. i know you've denied that, but you would agree with

me, right? that if that was the case, that would be disqualifying for somebody to be secretary of defense. >> senator, those are all anonymous false claims. and the totality, they're not they're not anonymous. the letters on the record, of course, he has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct. >> mr. dowd, what does this tell you about this moment in america? this kind of baggage is relatable. i'm pretty sure you remember when a nominee got nabbed for not paying his nanny's taxes. >> yeah. and a nominee for the innocent days of john tower in 1989, who was a senator from here in texas who was wasn't given his nomination because of drinking and some womanizing. he was never a sexual assault. he was refused by the senate, nominated by herbert walker bush. and so, i mean, i think i come away from this with two big, i guess, i mean, two big takeaways, one abroad and one sort of more specific. the big takeaway is i don't actually know what republicans in the

senate what's their standard for advice and consent? i mean, it seems as though they don't view their role any more than just as cogs in the donald trump wheel. and my view is, if he gets through, which as of today, looks like. but with this kind of guy, you never know. there's many a slip between the cup and the lip with this kind of thing. so you never know that something could come out tomorrow or the next day, or that causes maybe 1 or 2 people to pause. but it seems like if he gets through, then they're all going to get through. and then at that point there is no standard because by anyone's calculation, this guy is not competent to run the defense department. his personal life is a mess, which leads to a lot of problems that you could be compromised by foreign governments in the course of this. i mean, you can say to the womanizing and the drinking is a personal problem, but it's also a problem for the for the defense to the guy that runs the military to be in that position, which is compromised in this.

and so i don't know what the standard is anymore for a cabinet nominee. that's the one big thing. the other thing is to me as a christian, and this is this has happened over and over and over, but it was highlighted today every time he seemed to get into some trouble that would come. jesus, jesus, jesus, jesus. when it's offensive to use faith as as some kind of hocus pocus magic trick to sort of don't pay attention over there. pay attention over here. in the course of this. and the second thing after the word, jesus would come. we need a lethal flight fighting force. and we need we shouldn't pay attention to the geneva convention. and oh, by the way, it's okay if we pardon people in the military who are convicted of war crimes. to me, it's such a commentary on what's happened, in my view, in our country today. one, the republican party abdicating their responsibility as, as as vice and consent. but two, the use of faith today not to sort of reform your behavior and to take responsibility for

your actions, but is used as a cover all to sort of get away with whatever possible you want to get away with, as long as you say, jesus, after two paragraphs. >> all right, melanie, even if republicans all get on the same page and they all vote to confirm all of these nominees, the hearings have to actually happen. and that's not happening outside hegseth. tulsi gabbard is delayed. kristi noem is delayed. and they're saying it's a paperwork problem. i cannot imagine. it's a paper jam and a printer on the hill. what's going on? yeah. so there is this process. right. so they have to the presidential transition has to submit the paperwork to the office, the office of government ethics. so what happened this time around is that the trump transition did not submit that paperwork as early as past presidential transition. so that is delaying a lot of the paperwork here. in some cases, you don't know exactly what's happening with some of these, but in some cases, perhaps the

initial information wasn't full enough. they have to go back and get more information. they have to add some things so that could be contributing to the delays as well. but really remember it was the trump transition who was refusing at the outset of this entire process to play by the traditional rules to submit this paperwork. they were not submitting to the traditional fbi background checks on the front end. they were using their own private vetting companies. and even republicans warned at the time, if you do this, this is going to cause delays on the back end because it has to get done either way. and so part of it is trump's own making here and his transition team's own making while we're seeing these delays. and so that is causing a holdup. that being said, they are really trying to blitz through as many of these as possible. and they're also trying to get some of these actual committee meetings on the books, including headsets. we're going to see that on day one of january 20th. so it's really not a question of if these folks are going to get confirmed. it's just a matter of how quickly are there any day ones that can get confirmed, like a marco rubio who can get a lot of democratic

support. so we're just keeping an eye on all of those dynamics here on capitol hill. matt, much of kate's reporting is about this public pressure campaign that these senators, these republican senators are under, and now they have to vote publicly to confirm these nominees. do you believe if it was a secret ballot vote, pete hegseth and others would get this kind of the kind of support from republicans they'll likely get? >> no, it'd be overwhelming rejection of his nomination. because not only is it not only would they would they not have to be responsive to the public information campaign that's being done in this, they also wouldn't have to be responsive to their biggest fear, which is donald trump getting angry at them and somehow hurting their political future. the fact that you answered asked that question and that any rational person would answer it the same way i did, which is the senate would reject him. and probably the majority other nominees in this is such a awful place we are in as a democracy, because you would think we were electing representatives in our government into the congress

that actually would take responsibility of their actions and do the right thing. regardless. it doesn't have to be a secret from everyone. but as i said earlier, and i think this is this has become, you know, a virus in all of society that i think donald trump has unleashed in the course of this is i fear that once these standards, once you allow somebody like pete hegseth through in the course of this, then it sets a new a new low. and i didn't think we could go this low, a new low. and then how are future administrations going to respond to this? is, is this now setting a bar so low that anybody, no matter who they are, it doesn't even matter. so why have a senate responsible anymore for advice and consent if all they're going to do is rubber stamp the president's choice in this, regardless of how qualified or what kind of personal life they have, they're just going to rubber stamp it. it's a fear i have both for republicans, which is taking place in and i think democrats would reject this nominee if

biden had put somebody to this. but my fear is we're going to get to the point where democrats are going to say at some point, listen, they pushed through this guy. we can push through this guy. and it just keeps lowering it and lowering it and lowering it. that's the problem. one of the biggest problems of donald trump in our society today is he's obliterating any standards of morality that we have, any standards of professionalism in our government. >> but then, of course, maybe they rubber stamp him through matt and he gets the job, and if he fails at it spectacularly, they'll all have to live with the fact that they voted to confirm him. matthew, kate, melanie and melanie's dog. thank you for joining us. when we return, we're going to get a california wildfire update from governor newsom himself. and later, a tiktok ban in the u.s. goes into effect in just a few days. but there's a new report suggesting that china might be willing to sell to one particular buyer. his name rhymes with musk. the 11th hour

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moments of the day, followed by analysis from our prime time anchors as the new term begins monday, beginning at six on msnbc. stay up to date on the biggest issues of the day with the msnbc daily newsletter. sign up for msnbc daily at msnbc.com. >> we are, of course, still tracking the horrific wildfires in southern california. 25 people have died and 88,000 still under evacuation orders, with two of the largest fires barely contained. tonight, my colleague jen psaki spoke with governor gavin newsom to get an update on the devastation. >> this is already going to be the most costly outbreak of wildfires in american history, and you're going to need a tremendous amount of resources. you called a special session of

the legislature back in yesterday to hopefully sign into law new funding, additional funding for wildfires in the next couple of days. and just to be clear, because this is an area where there's been a little bit of misinformation, you want that wildfire disaster relief funding to go forward on its own as quickly as possible? >> 100%. yeah, i unlike what's happening in the federal government where they're trying to condition the debt ceiling to disaster recovery for americans in the state of california will never condition any of that. it has to be cleaned $2.5 billion. let it go. and that's just a down payment. that's just an immediate down payment. with all the other support from the sba and fema and philanthropy and of course, all the work that we're doing to hold insurance companies accountable to moving claims forward. i just met with 40 plus leaders in the insurance industry, ceos and presidents. we just had to come to jesus on making sure it's a transparent process, a responsible process. we're going to hold folks accountable to actually getting checks in people's hands. at the same time, we also talked about

the stress on the insurance market, not just the insurance market where the private insurers, but the fair plan in california, which is not a government plan, but it is a syndicate pool where the exposure obviously is going to be profound and significant. and we're making a determination, stress testing, the ability to pay those claims as well. >> can the people, the fair plan, can the people of california who are going to have to rebuild their homes, can they be confident that there's going to be enough funding in there? it's not a government program, but it does come from insurance companies. >> well, we're going to be yeah, we're going to be accountable to the claims. we're going to follow through on the commitments and the provisions of those requirements. and now the fair plan to be fair. and by the way, my family is on the fair plan in california. i'm intimately aware of its benefits and its shortcomings. it's about caps at $3 million. it's got a reinsurance component on the back end of it, but those claims sometimes only go 30 to 90% of the full value. we have a backup to the backup as well as it relates to recent legislation, i

just signed on the payer plan, and the insurance commissioner advanced that we supported. and so we're stress testing that, and we should, within the next 48 hours, have a deeper understanding as we inspection teams out here today, which will hopefully come back within the next week, week and a half, finishing up all of the individual home assessments. we'll have a much deeper understanding in the total needs, and i think this is important for people to understand the scope of what is needed to recover. >> and i know you're not going to have a total number, but president biden said tens of billions, some estimates have been 50 billion. do you have a ballpark? >> i mean, some of those estimates were aerial estimates that were based on. and they're they're relatively serious assessments because they look at the fair market value of particular assets. but look, no one has that answer yet. period. full stop, tens of billions. president biden's right. that's the estimate. this will be, if not the most costly among the most costly disasters in u.s.

history. the scale and scope of the structures 12 plus thousand between the two major fires. of course, those are structures. and that's a whole determination that's done in the individual inspection. is the structure just an adu unit or is it the actual home? some structures that structure number will dramatically change or at least marginally change by the end of the assessment. but this this is not just about homes. this is about community. this is about churches that have burned down. this is about schools that have burned down playgrounds and of course, commercial corridors here in altadena, a historic, extraordinary, beautiful commercial corridors, iconic that are lost as well. >> jen psaki joins us now. jen, you're obviously in la. help us understand what has stood out to you today, both what you've seen and with what the governor told you. >> well, steph, this won't surprise you. you've been on the ground in so many ways and disasters and other and other news events, and there's such a difference between seeing images

on television and seeing it in person. and you can drive around parts of la and the houses are completely intact and restaurants are functioning, and then you move into a neighborhood and all of a sudden it is three houses that are completely flattened to the ground, cars that have been burned to shreds, and then a house that might be standing. and so it is just incredibly jarring to see it in person. and one of the things that is not talked about enough is the impact on the leveling of schools of religious institutions. so the community gathering places altadena, where we were today, and that for people, is so obviously upsetting, devastating. they don't have a home in so many ways. >> unfortunately, one of the things officials are having to deal with is misinformation. misinformation spreading. i don't want to say pun intended like wildfire, but all over social media, into mainstream media and it's taking a huge

amount of resources away. they have to focus on this to get the truth to the public. and i want to share a bit of what the governor said about this misinformation that's specifically coming from elon musk, former california businessman. >> elon knows what he's doing and he knows how to do it. >> and he knows he's pushing inaccurate information. >> i don't think, you know, come on, why is he doing that? there's a you know, i'll leave that to more objective minds, but it's, you know, a lot of mutual friends and a lot of folks that don't know what the hell has happened either, and a lot of folks that are part of that train. >> that is pretty stunning, right? so the governor is dealing with a misinformation mach from elon musk and potentially a visit from incoming president donald trump, who also has pushed quite a bit of misinformation. how does the government, how does the government, governor, plan to

handle that? because he certainly needs support from the federal government. >> he does. and tens of billions of dollars, if not more. and as you know, there are so many levers of assistance they're going to need in the recovery stage of this, which is going to be months and years. look, as you've noted here, steph, i mean, they're dealing with not only the worst wildfires of in american history, they're dealing with the worst disinformation apparatus, the worst disinformation environment, perhaps, in american history. and they're dealing with a congress that wants to condition aid, which is not something that typically happens in federal disasters. so i think for the governor, he we talked a bit about trump. he has not heard back from him. that's something he's asked on a regular basis. he has not heard back from him. he's tried to be in touch with him, tried to provide a briefing to him, of course, but he does want him to come and he welcomes his visit. and he says that if he comes, it's not that he wants him to just see the flattened neighborhoods. he wants him to meet the people who have been impacted, the families who have

lost their homes, the religious leaders, the teachers, the schools. because it's hard to see that and not recognize the needs here. now, trump is obviously not a not a normal person. there's lots of ways to define him, but he's certainly not a normal guy. but i think he is going to he made pretty clear he wants to welcome him with open arms. he wants to work with him, even as he's been incredibly frustrated by the spread of disinformation, by trump, by musk, by so many of these social media platforms. that makes it difficult to manage a disaster of this kind. >> sure does. jen, thank you so much for bringing that to us tonight. get home safe when we return china. guess who china has its eye on yet again, we're talking elon musk. why the owner of x and tesla could soon have another social media app under another social media app under his (sneeze) (hooves approaching) not again. your cold is coming! your cold is coming!

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1-800-290-7477 now or visit us at mso fund.com. >> in just five days, tiktok faces a complete ban in the u.s. i do not know where people will learn to put makeup on, dance or cook food, but today bloomberg is reporting that china is now weighing a new plan to save the platform by potentially selling its u.s. operations to one particular buyer, elon musk. multiple sources tell bloomberg that chinese officials strongly prefer that tiktok remains owned by bytedance, a chinese company,

but a possible high profile deal with, of course, one of trump's closest allies does hold some appeal to the chinese government. now, a representative for bytedance has called the report pure fiction, and elon musk and his team have said absolutely nothing. so let's discuss back with us. ron insana, cnbc senior analyst and ceo of. i fi dot i and max chafkin joins us, bloomberg businessweek journalist and co-host of the podcast elon musk. okay, max, it is bloomberg reporting. explain this. despite a denial from bytedance, nothing from musk. could he actually buy tiktok? >> well, we should say these are this is chinese officials. this is not bytedance necessarily doing the talking. you could kind of understand why they might be talking about this. this ban is coming down the pipe unless the supreme court intervenes, which it doesn't appear they will. and tiktok is a strategic asset to the chinese government. so if they're trying to preserve this, you know, a little bit of potential influence anyway that they have

in the united states, you know, who better than elon musk? and when you start thinking about who the other potential acquirers here, who would be acceptable to the chinese government and acceptable to the trump administration, it's sort of hard to think of a lot of other candidates. elon musk, you know, for better or worse. and he gets criticized a lot by both democrats and republicans, has a very, very good relationship with the chinese government. and so you can see why they would like this. you can also see why trump might go along with it. >> i don't know, i got three letters that keep coming to mind. the fcc antitrust regulations that we once had write antitrust regulations that are focused on making sure no one individual, no one company, has a monopoly on a specific industry. right. if this were to happen, would this not be like case number one of the mergers and acquisitions bonanza we're about to head into for the next four years, 100% listen to think that there's going to be any

deal. >> now, the supreme court obviously can still block the deal from happening. i don't know that there's any injunction you can get against the supreme court that would would reverse their decision. having said that, though, stuff you hit at the point, which is it's going to be an m&a bonanza, there's nothing to block any deals that are in the pipeline. once we change administrations. as much as president biden tried to block the nippon us steel deal, and president trump may do that for the same reason when it comes to mergers and acquisitions going forward. we're already seeing deals in the pipeline. we're already seeing companies anticipate very little regulatory regulatory scrutiny, whether it's monopolistic behavior, whether it's consumer protection, you name it. >> and we should remind our audience, right, that the reason antitrust regulations are in place are not to be anti-business. it's to protect consumers, it's to make sure things are still competitive. >> but it's also not 1974 anymore. and they've been gone for a long time. i mean, there have been attempts to enforce what used to be called the sherman antitrust act, which goes back to the early 20th

century. and over the course of the last several decades, each and every one of these laws, rules, regulations has been watered down. and we're seeing more and more concentration in business. >> okay. but i just want to talk about what we're seeing this week, because if people out there are not already worried or on high alert, that the kind of capitalism this country has been practicing for decades is slipping into kleptocracy, just look at what we're looking at this week, right? that elon musk, who already controls teslas over here, already controls twitter x now could control a tiktok, but put that in one corner and then the other corner. you've got mark zuckerberg in the last week doing cartwheels, turning himself inside out, pretending to be some sort of alpha male, pounding his chest, changing the rules of his company to curry favor with donald trump for all sorts of things he wants, like making sure the tiktok ban holds. because what does zuckerberg not want? tiktok

here? because tiktok has been eating the lunch of an industry he once dominated. >> yeah, absolutely. and trump has said, like the reason that trump gave for switching his position on the tiktok ban was that he wanted to hurt facebook. you know, we just saw this report from nbc that zuckerberg, musk and bezos are all going to be sitting together, you know, at the inauguration. and it really feels like, yeah, like we're just seeing this kind of closing in of these tech ceos and they're all jockeying for position. and, you know, right now you got to say that musk is in the lead as the biggest spender. you know, the $250 million compared to zuckerberg's 1 million okay. >> but even if he's in the lead let's just talk about that right. you can say lots of companies, you know, give to politicians on both sides of the aisle. they go to inaugurations. but let's really talk about who's going and where we are. elon musk, jeff bezos, mark zuckerberg given a ton of money. they're going don't forget him. yes, but but but these three guys are going to the inauguration. they are sitting together and they're even sitting with trump's cabinet

picks. right. so the vip seats okay. what are these three people have in common? they all are masters of industry in tech, right? industries like social media platforms. they care a lot about artificial intelligence. you can throw crypto in there. these are all industries that face potential huge regulatory changes in the next four years. right? these are all industries that donald trump does not have specific ideology on. and if these men can control or influence regulation there, they will end up wealthier. in the next four years, there will be more zeros next to their names than any one of us can even count. do people realize that? >> i don't know, there does not seem to be any pushback. and you and i talked about this off camera whatsoever to what's going on at this point in time. i mean, these single most conflicted individual at the moment is elon musk. i mean, you mentioned the companies that he has twitter ex tesla, but there's also starlink and spacex, which are defense contractors. and so here's a man

worth $400 billion who is going to the inauguration, who, one report suggests may have an office in the old executive office building where the vice president sits on a daily basis and have unfettered access to the president of the united states as a private citizen, not as a government employee. so where the outrage would normally reside is totally absent here. >> if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it count? if a conflict of interest prevails and everyone keeps saying keep on trucking, will it matter now? >> i think there will be pushback. and i think we're actually already seeing it, you know, on on social media over the last couple of days, you've seen a lot of zoomers, you know, kind of jokingly signing up for these chinese competitors, sort of like almost trying to make the point that, like, we're not going to be pushed around by people. >> what if chinese competitors, what if he owns all the platforms? where is the pushback going to happen? >> i mean, i think there are there is competition, right? >> there's elon musk and mark zuckerberg. and people can also just tune out, you know, and i think we're starting to see in the electric car market, you're

starting to see tesla sales like not looking as great. it's hard to know exactly why that's happening. it may have nothing to do with politics, but it may have a lot to do with politics. >> okay, i've run out of time, but the point i did want to make, you know, i don't know if you saw jamie dimon did an interview on cbs this weekend, right? jamie dimon has not been super critical of donald trump. he's he's been somewhat complimentary. he said he's open to doing business with him. but you don't see jamie dimon racing on down to mar-a-lago. you don't see jamie dimon sitting next to him at the inauguration. there's a difference between being a ceo and having to do business with the white house. i'm sure once trump is president, if jamie dimon gets called down to the white house, he will show up. he'll he will obviously work with or meet with the treasury secretary. that is different from mark zuckerberg, who i'm going to say i'm more of an alpha male than he is, is now saying, this company, you're going to bring some more masculine energy to msnbc. i'm going to bring some more masculine. his company needs more masculine energy. my question is sheryl sandberg, guess you ain't leaning in now that you're just sitting on the

board. all right, gentlemen, thank you so much. when we return donald trump's picks for defense secretary dodges questions that could involve our military, like trump's plan to take greenland over or the panama canal. and our next guest has a lot to say about it. as a veteran. and former congressman. max rose joins me next. >> if you have high blood pressure or diabetes and get a cough, cold or flu safe tussin is specially formulated for you. >> powerful, safe and effective cough, cold and flu relief that's formulated so it won't raise your blood pressure or impact your blood sugar. >> play it safe with safe tussin klein. >> inspector has five doctor lawyers, the most of any law firm in america. and maybe that's why the new york times calls klein inspector a powerhouse law firm. so if wrongful conduct caused a catastrophic injury or death, call klein. inspector. >> i'm certain it's level five. >> are you for imprint? certainty. >> certainty matters for imprint. is your home for promo

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takeover of greenland and the panama canal. and he has refused to rule out using military force to do so. that came up in today's confirmation hearing for his pick to run the department of defense. watch this exchange between pete hegseth and hawaii senator mazie hirono. >> would you carry out an order from president trump to seize greenland, a territory of our nato ally denmark, by force? or would you comply with an order to take over the panama canal? >> senator, i will emphasize that president trump received 77 million votes to be the lawful commander. >> we're not talking about the election. my question is, would you use our military to take over greenland or an ally of denmark? >> senator, one of the things that president trump is so good at is never strategically tipping his hand. >> oh, heavens. let's get a veteran's view on all of this. former democratic senator, excuse me, new york congressman

and friend of mine, max rose, was an army platoon leader in afghanistan. he is now a senior advisor to votevets. what is your take on what we just heard? she asks him a real world question and he says, well, that trump, he's so darn good, right? >> no, exactly. look, the pentagon is a planning organization. donald trump has already established that greenland, canada, panama canal, these are priorities. he can't stop talking about it. so any responsible secretary of defense who would actually want to fulfill the objectives of their president would first, on day one, say, let me see the plans to invade greenland because we got to update that puppy. but pete hegseth has no concern with the actual job. what so ever. this guy is a culture warrior, which is ironic and fascinating because all he does is say the military is so weak today because all they care about is culture. all they care about is die. whatever, whatever that means. but never once did they did he talk about war fighting.

never once today did he talk about anything substantive whatsoever. >> then did your former colleagues in the senate make a mistake in asking him questions about his drinking, his misogyny, his his infidelity? did they make a mistake? i mean, republicans don't care about infidelity. that's not the gym. should they should those senators have been asking him questions specifically about what would you do in this world? >> event today was an opening salvo. let's be let's be clear here. donald trump could have nominated a wet noodle, and republican senators would have immediately supported that because they're fully owned subsidiaries of trump, plain and simple. so what we saw today was the first stage in how do we hold the trump administration accountable in regards to its foreign policy. and that's what was so unimpressive about it all, because pete hegseth once again did not show that he has actually any substantive

thoughts about how to assume this job on day one. that's the lane for these senators. >> why aren't these senators worried about that? right. let's say they all rubber stamp the guy and he goes through and all of the other nominees go through. then they have to fulfill these roles in complicated, hugely important jobs. and it will be on full display for all the country to see. >> well, i guess you can't take the politics out of politics. and they saw trump win and they would rather not face the maga base with that. maga base covers their primary and they're obviously worried about their next reelection. but what they're failing to see here is losing a primary is not the worstld happen. worst thing that could happen to you is that you have dereliction of duty. you fail to actually do your job, which is to properly hold the administration accountable irrespective of their political affiliation. and, you know, donald trump,

what pete hegseth has said over and over again, it was almost like this crutch that he had is i'm going to return the department to warfighting. you notice how he said that over and over and over again? >> and i got to tell you, i don't even know. stephanie. >> what the hell does that mean? oh, great. >> i'm so glad you don't know. >> because i don't either, because last i checked, we have the best military in the history of the world. that doesn't is irrespective of who the political leadership is. they were the best military in the history of the world under trump and the same under biden. but somehow he thinks that because they see a slide deck every three months that for 20 minutes reaffirms the importance of understanding culture and diversity, thinks that that is the reason why this military isn't great, the military is great, and it can be even better. and the military deserves a leader who says that, who believes in these men and women and also believes that there's strength in the in their diversity and their cultural

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1-800-290-7477 now or visit us at mso fund.com. >> 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. >> tonight on all in. >> so are you saying that you would stand in the breach and push back if you were given an illegal order? >> i start by saying i reject the premise that. >> president, i understand you've done your jen psaki illegal orders at all. >> donald trump's