those new new leaders might be, both in israel and both in the west bank and in gaza. it's not as if the palestinian authority is all that respected either. among palestinians. >> they're out there. but i would remind us, katie, that a month ago, no one could have imagined syria without bashar al-assad. that's a very good point. no one could have imagined the fall of the berlin wall and the raising of the soviet union, or nelson mandela becoming president of a democratic south africa. it's usually the unexpected that happens, and that's what we have to hope for. our leaders are out there, our new generation of leaders who will have the ability to look forward and understand that we need a piece of no choice. just as we fought these wars of no choice. >> gershon baskin, thank you very much for joining us. that's going to do it for me today. deadline. white house starts right now. >> hi there everyone.

>> happy thursday. it's 4:00 in new york. in the words of eminem, you only get one shot. that's how it goes with goodbye messages from outgoing presidents. and joe biden's was epic. it demands our attention in an information ecosystem designed to numb and distract. >> to really appreciate what president joe biden chose to do with his last time standing in the presidential bully pulpit. >> here's what some of his predecessors conveyed in their farewell addresses. >> staying on that course will bring lower interest rates, greater prosperity, and the opportunity to meet our big challenges. if we choose wisely, we can pay down the debt, deal with the retirement of the baby boomers, invest more in our future, and provide tax relief. >> like all who have held this office before me, i have experienced setbacks and there are things i would do differently if given the chance. >> yet, i've always acted with the best interests of our country in mind. i have followed

my conscience and done what i thought was right. >> a shrinking world, growing inequality. inequality, demographic change, and the specter of terrorism. >> these forces haven't just tested our security and our prosperity, but are testing our democracy as well. >> goodbye. we love you. we will be back in some form. >> and then came last night. >> and president biden's blunt and stark and rather dark warning. >> i want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. this is a dangerous country, and that's a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people. the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. today, an oligarchy is taking shape in

america of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy. our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead. >> there was a little bit of an echo to something president eisenhower said six decades ago about a military industrial complex that was taking on a life of its own. president biden referred to an oligarchy of extreme wealth, power and influence as the tech industrial complex, one that is eating away at our very democracy. here's more from president joe biden. >> americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power. the free press is crumbling. editors are disappearing. social media is giving up on fact checking. the truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit. we must hold the social platforms

accountable to protect our children, our families, and our very democracy from the abuse of power. >> senator bernie sanders responded almost immediately with this post, quote, thank you, president biden. >> you were absolutely right when you stated last night that an oligarchy is taking shape in america of extreme wealth, power, and influence that threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms. this is the defining issue of our time. >> and as if on cue, on stage with donald trump at his inauguration monday will be mark zuckerberg, jeff bezos and elon musk. >> that comes after their companies donated 1 million bucks each. >> google two donated $1 million, as did tim cook, the ceo of apple, who after the january 6th insurrection said the insurrection was, quote, a sad and shameful chapter in our nation's history and, quote, those responsible for this

insurrection should be held to account. don't make any mistakes about what this is. it marks a profound shift for those men, for the tech giants. tim cook didn't donate to president joe biden's inauguration or to donald trump's in 2017. neither did meta. amazon and google donated just a fraction of the $1 million they're forking over this year to trump. back in 17 and 2021, president joe biden's stark warning of an oligarchy taking shape in this country in the final days of his presidency is where we start today, washington post national investigative reporter and msnbc contributor carol leonnig is here. >> plus, the president of media matters for america, angelo carusone, is here. >> and former republican congressman. >> msnbc political analyst david jolly is here. >> carol leonnig, i start with you. >> i mean, it was such a powerful use of the bully

pulpit, such an attention grabbing assessment of where we are as a country with a whole lot of evidence that he's exactly correct. yes. and actually, it echoes a little bit of a refrain that president biden has offered in in previous departure messages. >> right. >> he's had a string of them. >> now. >> this was the darkest for sure. and you're right to fixate on that and to notice it. but he has been saying for a while, i am leaving this country with strong alliances. i am leaving this country positioned to have great national security. and he signaled that he's worried that's actually not going to be maintained. those alliances are going to be discarded. and now, last night, he took the opportunity to warn everyone that powerful people, especially in the as he described it, the tech industrial complex have gotten the memo. they have

followed the manual for what donald trump wants. and what donald trump wants is fealty and money, and that fealty and money says to him, you're on my side. and that's why mark zuckerberg and jeff bezos, who, full disclosure, owns the newspaper that i report for the washington post and elon musk, have been viewed as as following the trump manual kissing the ring in order to make sure that the government still benefits them, their companies and their plans. >> and angelo to follow up on on carl's points. i mean, trump isn't the variable, right in demanding loyalty and money. >> the tech giants are. >> let me just put up again amazon in 2017, $57,000 in donations in 2021, 276,000. in

2025, a million google and 17 285,000 google in 21 337,000 seems to be the going price for trump in 2025. $1 million meta or facebook? >> mark zuckerberg's company in 2017, $0 in 2021, $0. >> but mark has had a change of heart. along with abandoning fact checking. >> he's parting with 1 million buckaroos. >> microsoft has also doubled their contributions to presidential inaugurations from 17 and 2021, forking over $1 million to the trump inauguration in 2025. >> yeah, i mean, look, this is i mean, this is just the cost of entry, right? i mean, and one of the things that trump made very clear is that, you know, it cut both ways. on the one hand, he'd be willing to leverage government power to make people's lives and companies lives more difficult to punish,

to retaliate. on the other hand, he is open for business. it's transactional. i mean, this was something he said during the campaign when he sort of shouted out into the void that if, you know, the fossil fuel industry, put a bunch of money into some super pacs to help him, that the second he got into office, he would deregulate and eliminate a bunch of provisions that were that were undermining their financial bottom line. and he's always made it very clear that he's transactional. and that's the part where when you overlay that with what president biden said, the warning becomes very stark. because we're here, they're not just giving some money to go along, to get along, to avoid, you know, any kind of retaliation. it's much more insidious than that. and scary. what they each want is something out of it. and what they're going to get out of it isn't just more money, it's going to be more power. part of the way these oligarchical systems work is that once the oligarchs sort of have power, you know, the people in power they extract, they use that power to prop up the government or the individual in power. and as a result, they get more power and more money as a result. it's a feedback loop

that feeds on to it. so mark zuckerberg isn't just going to avoid the worst consequences. in addition to giving trump money, but we are now going to see as a landscape not just where he is laissez faire, but where he starts to slowly tip the scales in favor of the dominant narrative in favor of trump's narrative. the same way that trump works the refs in newsrooms is the way. now that he's going to work it in these technology companies, which increasingly have enormous amount of influence over, over the story that we tell ourselves every single day. so on the one hand, they'll get richer and more powerful. they'll use that power to prop up the government in place, and at the same time, they'll be polluting the very conversation that individuals get day to day, which is the one thing we need to inoculate ourselves to both preserve, strengthen and enhance our democracy moving forward. >> i mean, carol, the lens that i've tried to cover trump through isn't to compare trump to any previous republican because the voters don't, or to democrats because at the end of

the day, an election was had and they they went with trump's offerings. >> but to compare trump to trump, and if you compare this out in the open, completely mask off moment from the tech bros, if you will, to trump's russia, if you're listening, this is sort of the new. >> hey guys, i'm game if your game and there's a direct link between firing someone who was faithful to u.s. national security, which speaker johnson did in the house intelligence committee to wrapping your arms around a social media platform that says a fact check. >> we're not even going to try. >> and we should be clear, they weren't that good at it. >> but but at least they endeavored to have accurate information on the platform. no more. >> i mean, what it's what it's about at its core is what president biden talked about in the second clip to make sure that people are so disoriented and numb by the volume and flurry of information coming at

them, that there is no truth. >> well, sad to say that i think that that situation could get worse, but it's pretty bad now. and it was pretty bad in 2016 and 2017, and it was pretty bad in 2020 during the presidential campaign as well. you remember the ads that were were sculpted by essentially russia's version of the cia, the fsb, to make americans think that terrible things were being done by all sorts of democratic lawmakers, and that donald trump was the savior. there was an effort to stoke division and make people concerned that immigrants were rioting in the streets and engaging in crimes. that kind of stuff took off on facebook and it looked like it was real. it looked like it was american and domestic, and indeed it was devised by a group of russian operatives working in a bot

factory with some pretty good ideas. i think. what is something we should all take into consideration is how much ai is a part of, you know, its rockets for jeff bezos and its ai for other tech bros who want to make amazing profits on platforms that they are busy creating right now, and they got a kind of a taser shock from the biden white house. as marc andreessen, a member of this group, has been very, very frank about in interviews in which he said, i saw the biden white house saying they were going to control this. the government is going to be managing and monitoring ai. and i said, you know what? i'm going to start donating to donald trump because that's where all the money started to shift. very soon after, there was an effort to try to try to protect the public essentially from the manipulations and the

exploitation of ai. >> so, david jolly, what is the only one among us who's been a policy maker? >> what's the solution? >> elect democrats? and here's what i mean by that. >> i realize that sounds really simple, but i think the reason joe biden's remarks last night really landed with such a darkness to it, is that these challenges, come monday, will now go unresolved and unattended to if you consider among the laundry list, you know, joe biden expressed his concern about the rise of disinformation. he expressed his concern about the supreme court's granting of presidential immunity for criminal acts. he expressed his concern about oligarchies that now consolidate profit and power. those are the dark concerns of an outgoing president and should be the concerns of a nation. but on monday, those three things are going to be celebrated. celebrated by donald trump and

republicans. the rise and use of disinformation is part of donald trump's rise to political power. the grant of presidential immunity is one of the reasons he can be inaugurated. on monday. the oligarchy that is consolidated, profit and power that will be there in attendance. celebrating donald trump is one of the reasons that the republican party has the power they have today. so unlike outgoing messages of former presidents, where perhaps there was a baton handed to the incoming president, whether there was a true partizan agreement or disagreement, at least the challenges of the nation were somewhat nonpartisan, and we're going to be received by the next president and attended to either similarly or somehow with different strategy. but that's not the case right now. in 2024, 2025, what will happen is the incoming president will embrace these challenges as now part of the ethos of his new administration and his ability to hold on to power. these are very tough challenges. i think what is remarkable about what

joe biden did last night is he offered a perfect reflection of where we are, and the lament that many people feel is that it may be four years before any of these issues now get attended to. and how much worse might they be four years from now than they were last night when joe biden was warning about them? >> it's just so interesting that we've been celebrating the life and the warnings issued by president jimmy carter this month. and i wondered, listening to this last night, if this might be one of those speeches that we'll look at for a long time. let me play for all of you a little bit more of it with, with with some echoes to history from president biden. >> we see the consequences all across america. and we've seen it before. more than a century ago. but the american people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trusts. they didn't punish the wealthy. they just made the wealthy pay to play by the rules everybody else had to. workers won rights

to earn their fair share. you know, they were dealt into the deal, and it helped put us on a path to building the largest middle class and the most prosperous century any nation in the world has ever seen. we've got to do that again. >> let me apologize in advance, angelo, for the little dotted lines in my brain. but that refrain brought me straight back to the all out war between elon musk and steve bannon. for the heart and soul of the maga movement, because it seems that what steve bannon's political antenna detects is goes beyond personal hatred for elon musk and the issue they're fighting about, which is the h-1b visas. but but the words he uses to attack elon musk are about pure evil. and they seem to include some sort of threat or warning to trump that this this handing over of the entire movement, which i find dark and sinister and, and brutal and

anti-democratic and autocratic. i appreciate why the country moves in terms of the pendulum. i don't agree with any of it, but i have tried to understand it and study it. and as a student of it, my sense is that bannon views himself of the keeper of the concerns and pain and grievances of the working class, and that perhaps there's some warning he's trying to offer the whole movement in his very public fight with elon musk. and it and it doesn't seem to far distance from this warning from president biden about what a complete capitulation of the government and the power and the benefits of our society to the ultra wealthy. what has happened in terms of pendulum swings in the past? >> i think that's a good point. >> and, you know, steve bannon is a bona fide populist. >> he's not someone, you know, when you look at right wing populist movements currently and historically, you know, you sort of have these bona fide populist movements, whether they come from the right or the left, they

are genuinely about giving power back to people in some way and upending the status quo. but then a lot of times, you also have these moments where sort of the right wing or the extreme sort of co-opts populism for its own self-interest. >> and it's not really a populist movement. it just has the veneer of that. and that's what it uses to sort of catapult catapult itself into power. and then they don't end up following through on any of their real populist sort of ideals. >> and that's what bannon is picking up on, is that he that that, you know, from his perspective, musk's interests are about musk's power, that it's not actually a populist movement, that he is not sort of sincere in his efforts for free speech, as reflected in the fact that he's censored a whole bunch of conservatives that criticized him, took away their ability to monetize their platform, and also that bannon is deeply concerned about america's posture vis a vis the ccp, and is concerned about the entanglements that musk has there. and i think your point about sort of that contrast is significant because that battle is playing out right now. and in a weird way, there are strange bedfellows here. i think that

bannon, you know, i don't agree with him on just about anything. but the two things i do agree with him on are one, that we are involved in a massive information war. he knows that. and that's what he considers himself a part of. and that the second part of this is that there's a bunch of really rich, entrenched interests, you know, burgeoning wannabe oligarchs or current oligarchs that are going to use trump's sort of instincts to be transactional, to make deals and to sort of just go along here with those power bases, to sort of enrich themselves in a way that you can never come back from. and so for somebody like bannon, who's been working as a transformative figure himself, this is a moment of transformation. and he's he's he's about to lose it to the very powers that he's been fighting all this time for. but instead of them coming from the left, they're going to be from the right now. >> that's so interesting, caroline, we are going to need you. i appreciate you making yourself available to lead us off today. thank you so much. angela and david, stick around a little bit longer. when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about what the tech leaders are actually forking over millions of dollars

in hopes to get from their new bestie in the white house. >> we'll work to understand how donald trump can help them and what exactly it is that they want. plus, the purge is underway. >> the new republican party is starting to take shape in washington, steered by speaker mike johnson, with the strings being pulled from the guy down in mar-a-lago. >> we'll show you what that looks like today. >> and later in the broadcast, questions about pam bondi and her close relationship with donald trump. senator adam schiff joins us on why her loyalty to one man could make her a danger. as the head of the department of justice, if confirmed. all those stories and confirmed. all those stories and more when deadline. w what the biggest companies deliver is an exceptional customer experience. what makes it possible is unmatched connectivity and 5g solutions from t-mobile for business. t-mobile connects 100,000 delta airlines employees, powers tractor supply's stores nationwide with reliable 5g business internet,

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right to the bone of what we're seeing in washington that day. joining our conversation in progress, new york times correspondent teddy schleifer, whose beat whose focus there is on billionaires and their influence in american politics and what exactly they're up to in seeking behind the scenes. thank you so much for joining us. let me start with a new story you have, and let me read from it a little bit. as a jumping off point, you report this, trump picks a jet setting pal of elon musk to go get greenland. ken howery is a quiet, unassuming tech investor who prioritizes discretion, and yet he has ended up in the middle of two of the noisiest storylines of the incoming trump administration. one is the expanding ambition of elon musk, mr. howard's close friend and fellow party scene fixture since the two helped run paypal 25 years ago. the other is the expansionist ambition of musk's boss, president elect donald j. trump, who has set his sights on buying greenland, the world's

largest island, as mr. trump's pick for ambassador to denmark. howery is expected to be central to what trump hopes will be a real estate deal of epic proportions. the only hitch is that denmark, which counts greenland as its autonomous territory, says the island is not for sale. take us inside this. unbelievably, i don't know. it feels demented. >> that's the first word i can come up with this demented approach to trying to seize another country's autonomous territory. >> well, ken howery is an example. >> as you're pointing out, nicole, of all the tech executives who are coming to washington right now who believe they can do things differently, right? i mean, this is deal making, right? which is, you know, the day job of so many of the venture capitalists and private equity folks and tech executives and bankers who are coming to washington thinking

that they can use their private sector chops to make a difference. >> this this particular deal. >> i think the reason it interested me is because i thought people weren't connecting. >> the fact that the guy leading this deal is one of musk's closest friends. >> and, you know, elon, i think like lots of people in tech, a lot of people like to pretend they're close with elon musk. you know, people love to tell me, you know, they were just texting with elon. >> or here's a screenshot of my message to elon. >> ken howery is actually very, very close with elon musk. and he is going to be very involved in the greenland purchase, which of course means that elon musk is going to be at least somewhat involved in the greenland purchase. >> you describe it as a greenland purchase. >> do they talk amongst themselves as though it's a foregone conclusion that greenland is for sale? >> they talk about amongst themselves like they're going to try. you know, i definitely think the silicon valley set is serious about this, you know, to the extent that it is actually for sale or it is actually

achievable, who knows? >> i mean, you know, the danes obviously are saying that it's not and, you know, people in tech or people who do m&a for a living would say that things aren't for sale until they are right. >> and of course it's just posturing, yada yada, yada. we'll see. >> i have no i have no inside intel about whether or not the danger is serious or not. >> but i do think that the musk crew is absolutely dead serious about trying. >> i'm from northern california, and i sort of grew up with the cultural influences of the tech industry. what i find amazing, i then my career took me to washington and now new york. what i find interesting is that there's no evidence of any patriotism or philanthropy that improves communities, right? like san francisco and los angeles are cities that could have really benefited and still can from the brilliance and the minds and the deal making and the problem solving that you're describing and that you cover. why do they say they've never turned their wisdom and brilliance in deal making to the

cities in their home states? >> that's a great point. i mean, i've covered a lot of this trend. i mean, the fact that people who make this enormous amount of money in the bay area, very little of that is spent on kind of local charitable causes. >> and frankly, when you when you talk with philanthropic advisors or non-profits in silicon valley or family offices that kind of make these decisions themselves, the answer you get is they're thinking bigger. you know, they're thinking more globally. >> they're why focus on, you know, making the bay area 5% better when you can make the world 80% better? i'm exaggerating, but, you know, lots of wealthy tech executives, when they approach their charitable giving, they think, you know, let's solve hunger. let's, you know, invent a new technology that can, you know, make climate change go more slowly rather than trying to just kind of prevent the effects of climate change in the san francisco bay area, for instance. >> that's the charitable version of it. >> i mean, obviously, there's a

lot of gumption and arrogance that is true of anyone who makes that much money so quickly. and, you know, oftentimes these massive plays fail. and a lot of philanthropists, i think, have done a lot of the most, have accomplished the most in the tech industry, are the people who actually try to do the smallest things, people who try to make, you know, one difference in one school rather than like, you know, fix american education. >> i read your recent stories. let me read a little bit more from them, actually, to let the example make itself. you report this, elon musk put the lion's share of the money he donated toward his main super pac, america pac, cutting three checks for 25 million each in the final weeks of the race. musk also spent $40 million on legally controversial checks written to voters in swing states, who signed a petition in support of the constitution. you're reporting, i think, paints a really accurate and important picture of musk's ambition to be on a winning side. why did musk want to be on

a winning side? what does musk need from donald trump? >> you know, i think for elon and sort of his orbit, a lot of this is about being liked. you know, this is a very simple kind of explanation of why musk allied so much with trump. but when you talk about what happened between elon musk and joe biden over the course of the four years during his presidency, and frankly, with the democratic party, you know, ever since obama left office in 2016, elon musk was tired of being, you know, vilified, you know, and it's not it's not as if aoc is president of united states or even that, you know, the warren wing of the party is that empowered? but in musk's view, he wants to be with people who like him. right. and, you know, it was interesting at the rnc this summer, you know, like people were like mad about elon musk. is he going to speak? is he going to be there? and elon was, you know, very miffed by kind of his treatment by liberals that he used to be close to, you know, elon musk

also, i think a key point in his political evolution to this point, nicole, is he now lives in texas, where he's surrounded by a much more conservative social circle than he was surrounded by from 2000 to 2020 or so. and so what he wants from from trump, i don't think it's really that narrowly about, you know, this subsidy for electric vehicles or not. i think he's just liking being liked in a way that the trump orbit has been very welcoming to him. obviously, he's putting a ton of money in, of course. of course they'd like someone who gives them a ton of money. but i think for elon, it's pretty it's not that complicated. he's enjoying the access. he's enjoying the ability to be well liked by his peers. and he's having a fun time. by all accounts. >> angelo, there's so much ther. and i don't know that i have the requisite skill set to analyze whether or not $100 million and people liking you really are plus, plus and equal. but i do

want to i do want to ask you about the symmetry of the journey these two men have been on. donald trump gave a lot of money to democrats, and a lot of his family members, fred trump, mary trump have written that he really just always wanted to be accepted and celebrated in the pages of the new york times, that that's really at the core of his beef with that institution, that after giving checks to democrats, he ran as a republican and surprised himself by winning in 16. but it was it was it was the affection and the crowd that he could win over. it seems that musk's journey is exactly the same. and i wonder what happens to the government run by two men, really, in the middle of a big self-esteem project? >> yeah, i mean, i think that, you know, it's you pointed out you hit the nail on the head. i mean, there isn't there isn't something at its core that is tethering or grounding them. and that's a parallel, i think, with a lot of these individuals, you know, obviously ego are all factors. but to me, i look at, okay, well, what is the through

line? what is the thing that actually seems to be that i can say, okay, that's it. that's consistent. and the things that are consistent, regardless of where they were on that time spectrum is that might makes right. and that's a scary thing, because when you ask about what that means for the government, it opens up a whole range of possibilities that were previously unthinkable. right? because if you have that sort of power or influence or the influence and the combination of power, you can do an awful lot because the idea is that i can i can do whatever i want if i can get away with it. and to an extent, that's part of the connection you're starting to see with all these other oligarchs or people like zuckerberg. glomming on is, you know, even in his whole conversion conversation, he talked about the fact that he thought and was excited about the possibility that trump would use the united states government and power and position globally to put pressure on europe to stop regulating them and others in the tech industry. right. so i think that, to me, sort of opens up the whole range of what becomes possible. is that the one thing that seems to be guiding them is might makes right. >> it's just so amazing. for all the brilliance of our founders, there don't seem to be a lot of

checks for people like donald trump or elon musk in the system. teddy, we we're going to be consuming all your reporting. please come back early and often with all of it. angelo. thank you. we're going to continue to need you all these days. please stay free between 4 and 6. david sticks around because he already knows all of this. up next for us. we are learning more about speaker mike johnson's decision to remove the head of the powerful house intel committee. you won't be surprised to learn where the marching orders may have come from. we'll bring you that story next. >> no young person should ever have to worry about having a safe place to sleep at night, or a warm meal to eat, or whether anyone cares about them. >> i grew up in poverty and i actually became physically homeless right after i had turned 16. i didn't have anywhere to sleep, and i didn't really have friends or family that could support me to be homeless as a teen. >> i didn't ask for that.

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shorten it with zicam (revere: hyah) member, democratic congressman jim himes of connecticut, about the person who was the ranking member of that committee or the leader of that committee, ohio republican congressman mike turner. he was removed. he was ousted as the chair of the house intel committee. while we were on the air when that happened, turner told cbs news that house speaker mike johnson fired him, citing, quote, concerns from mar-a-lago, end quote. republican congressman turner also confirmed wednesday night that he had been removed from the intelligence committee entirely. now, who is he? not a democrat, not a republican like liz cheney, who turned on donald trump. simply one of the few voices in the house gop who's advocated for ukraine funding

and has called out his republican colleagues only when they spread russian disinformation about the war in ukraine. the atlantic's david frum summed up turner's removal this way, quote knew too much, too patriotic. had to go. now trump ousting someone he deems as insufficiently loyal doesn't surprise anyone anymore. but this particular ouster from the house intel committee is instructive and should show all of us what trump expects to be able to do as he prepares to return to the white house next week. the bulwark writes it like this the need for a competent and independent oversight committee during trump's second term may be obvious, but also it is unacceptable to trump. trump demands personal loyalty to him. he wants lackeys. joining our conversation, new york times congressional reporter luke broadwater is here. david is also back. luke, let me turner may not be a household name. let

me play a little bit of him in his own voice on some of these issues. here he is talking about the threat that vladimir putin represents. >> right now. today, putin has told us straight up he wants to move the line of authoritarianism back. he wants to reclaim that land, not just ukraine, but poland, romania, latvia, lithuania, eastern europe and the baltics. we must support democracy or freedom or yes, if we don't, ours is at risk. ronald reagan's words are meaningless if we allow russia to reestablish authoritarianism and move that line of democracy back to where the soviet union had had claimed eastern europe and had imposed authoritarianism on people's lives. >> those were not even controversial statements, not just from a republican, but from anyone. but now disqualifying. >> yeah. >> so obviously, this has been a very chaotic situation on capitol hill. mike turner

emerged from the meeting yesterday with speaker johnson very frustrated and upset. he was blindsided by this decision to remove him as the chairman of the intelligence committee. he says he was told by johnson that this was coming from mar-a-lago. now, johnson is denying that the trump team is denying that. johnson is saying, this was my decision and my decision alone, regardless of whether there was a direct order or not. it does seem that the trump folks, the trump organization down in mar-a-lago, had concerns about mike turner. they didn't like the direction he was leading the intelligence committee in. and they whether there was direct order or not, let that be known to speaker johnson, who also wanted mike turner removed. so in his place, rick crawford has been put in. he's seen as more aligned with the maga wing of the party. >> he voted to overturn the

results of the 2020 election. >> mike turner had voted to certify them. he has voted against ukraine aid in the past. crawford has. so i think within the republican party, this is seen as a win, a win for the maga wing today. >> one of the sort of ironic twists of fate is that the most brutal assessment of trump's ties to putin and russia came from marco rubio, when he led the senate intel committee after richard burr left. and the most stinging sort of allegations or questions about kompromat and whatnot came from the republican led senate intelligence committee. what is it that they would want from intelligence committees that have no teeth, or no people who still see russia as the threat to american national security is the goal? >> so i'm not sure. >> in trump's view, it's all

that strategic. >> it's a lot of times about who who, who like kisses up to him the most or is the most flattering to him. >> as as you mentioned, marco rubio at one time was obviously a critic and a rival of donald trump, but over time worked to ingratiate himself again to trump. >> j.d. vance was once a very harsh critic of donald trump and worked to ingratiate himself. donald, donald trump will take republicans back if they if they bend the knee and kiss, kiss the ring. turner's criticism of trump over the years has been quite mild. i mean, a couple of times he has said things critical of donald trump. obviously he didn't. he he didn't vote to overturn the election, which is seen as a scarlet letter among some in trump world. >> but i'm not sure if he ever properly, in trump's view, you know, kissed the ring enough. he was among the republicans who went down to mar a lago last weekend. >> actually, trump's team baked him a birthday cake and brought

it out to him. i mean, just days before he was about to be kicked out of his job. but if you listen to speaker johnson, he's saying this is his call. >> he wanted his own team, and he viewed turner as someone who was loyal to a previous speaker, kevin mccarthy, and not to himself. >> so i'm not exactly sure who ordered what here, but it does seem that, you know, the traditional establishment wing of the party lost. >> and we'll talk about the overton window and what that what that sentence even means here as we gather in 2025, no one's going anywhere. we'll bring david jolly in on the other side of the break. stay with us. >> tonight, 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 tonight at ten on msnbc. donald trump plans to reshape the u.s. government. >> democrats have wasted no time

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donation at helpfeedingamerica.org. and your gift can double in impact. attempts to mask communications that are anti ukraine and pro-russian messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the house floor. >> i mean, there are members of congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between russia and ukraine is over nato, which of course it is not. >> we're back with luke and david, david jolly. >> i take all of luke's reporting at face value, and it is also true that the nominee to be dni is one such person who has parroted russian propaganda and, oddly, syrian propaganda. where are your thoughts on this move today? >> yeah, i so appreciate luke kind of keeping his comments within the bounds of journalism. i don't have to do that. i can

speak as a former member and as an analyst, and i think this goes very likely a lot deeper than we're being told. sure. mike turner was a stalwart defender of ukraine, a promoter of aid to ukraine that is now out of step with republicans. he also defended the use of fisa and the need for certain surveillance authorities of the federal government, because he sees the way they can be used as a tool to really go after bad guys. many republicans don't want to see fisa renewed. but i think where it goes deeper than this is, mike turner also knew all of the secrets of the past several years. he probably knows more about the mar-a-lago case than even the prosecutors in the mar-a-lago case. he probably knows more about donald trump's abuse of classified information than virtually anybody in the country. he is a member of the gang of eight. as the intel chairman, who received a briefing on some of the nation's most highly classified information, including any malfeasance or misconduct by executive, by the executive branch. and so he knows a lot. but i think what is also disconcerting about his removal

is should mike turner had remained in that chairmanship, he would also have access to any malfeasance now about to occur in the next four years. and i think where donald trump and his team, together with mike johnson, likely wanted mike turner out is indeed, as david frum said, he knew too much. but also he was in a position to know even more going forward. and you have to look at the pattern here of mike johnson. this is really one of the dirtiest parts of mike johnson's brief tenure. consider who else he has put on the intel committee. he sent shockwaves by putting scott perry of pennsylvania on the intel committee, a member of congress who had his phone seized after january 6th. his text messages seized to find information about his coordination with some of the january 6th activities. mike johnson also put ronny jackson, donald trump's former white house physician who faced a number of ethical allegations himself, including significant drinking on the job and other ethical issues. he is now also

on the ethics committee and, as luke points out, mark crawford, the new chairman, has been seen more willing to play ball with johnson and trump. so all of this lines up to make perfect sense. if you're donald trump and mike johnson wanting to reset the table for a new administration, eliminate the chairman who knew everything and was in a position to know even more going forward and begin to consolidate. consolidate the team around the nation's secrets that will ultimately protect the malfeasance of the president going forward. >> yeah, i mean, we throw around gang of eight. what it means is that the democratic and republican leaders of the intelligence committees and leadership have access to a lot more classified and intelligence and law enforcement information than anyone else. we should watch this space to see if that continues to be the tradition in the second trump presidency. luke broadwater, it's wonderful to see you, my friend. thank you for joining us and sharing your reporting, david jolly. thank you for spending the hour with us. we're going to sneak in a break. we'll be right back. >> just because it's wet

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>> optima tax relief. >> the president has a right to choose people who he believes will be loyal to him. >> our concern comes when that loyalty to the president conflicts with your duty, conflicts with the constitution, conflicts with your oath. you may say that you believe that

conflict will never come, but every day, week, month, and year of the first trump administration demonstrated that conflict will come. jeff sessions may not have believed it will come to him. it came to him. bill barr may not have believed it would come to him. it came to him. >> it came to everyone. >> it will come to you. and what you do in that moment will will define your attorney general, ship your public service, everything you've done up to that moment will be judged by what you do in that moment. >> hi again everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. it is the essential question when it comes to those who will soon be working in a new trump administration. what will you do? not if, but when the incoming president asks you to do something unlawful, something unconstitutional. that was senator adam schiff yesterday when questioning donald trump's choice for his

next attorney general, pam bondi, reiterating the big looming concern as we are on the precipice of a second trump term in any other normal administration, this wouldn't necessarily be a line of questioning or concern. but as we all know, this is far from any other normal administration, and trump has shown with his picks, especially those in the justice department. in his view, they have to have a proven track record of defending him. usa today outlines it like this quote pam bondi, his choice for attorney general, represented trump at his first senate impeachment trial. todd blanche and emil bove, who were named for deputy attorney general and principal associate deputy attorney general, respectively, defended him in multiple criminal cases. john sauer, who represented trump at the supreme court, was picked for solicitor general to argue government cases before the high court. ty

cobb, a former white house counsel during trump's first term, said this, quote, there's really no pretense of independence. throughout trump's choices for leadership positions, it is much more about fealty than independence, experience or previous leadership. as we were just discussing in our last hour, we're seeing that fealty seep into the legislative branch of government as well. chairman of the house intelligence committee, mike turner, a republican, is being ousted by republican speaker johnson over, quote, concerns from mar-a-lago. yet another example in the books of republicans placing one man above every other consideration. merrick garland, who is currently in the role. pam bondi, if confirmed, will take over, gave his farewell speech to the department of justice earlier today with this warning. >> the same powers that enable the federal prosecutor to pursue justice also create the

potential for grave injustice. >> although our constitution and laws include important constraints on law enforcement, they nonetheless grant law enforcement considerable discretion to determine when, whom, how, and even whether to investigate or prosecute for apparent violations of federal criminal law. >> we must understand that there is a difference between what we can do and what we should do. >> if we start the hour with democratic senator adam schiff of california, thank you so much for being here. >> great to be with you. >> i want to start with some news that broke about 24 hours ago about mike turner, who was the republican chair of the house intelligence committee. you sort of take everything you contended with in the first trump presidency, including the first impeachment, and dealing with sensitivities around whistleblowers. you take the tradition of the gang of eight

access to classified materials, and you take the kinds of people trump has nominated in tulsi gabbard and other places. why do you believe mike turner was fired? >> well, i think he didn't pass the test at mar-a-lago. >> and look, this is someone i served with on the intelligence committee. >> he was a vast improvement on devin nunes. but at the same time, even while he was willing to carry a lot of water for donald trump, particularly during that first impeachment, he wasn't willing to carry enough, apparently. and so johnson is here doing the bidding of donald trump, removes mike turner. we already saw in some of the other choices for appointment to the intelligence committee that the speaker made last session, putting people like scott perry on the committee, like ronny jackson on the committee, not folks that we can have a lot of confidence in upholding that responsibility on that committee, that trump is really already had his way in

choosing to change the character of that committee. so i think we're seeing donald trump both as president elect and in some sense as a alter ego for speaker exerting extraordinary influence over the house. >> why does that matter? >> well, because if the intelligence committee isn't willing to ask hard questions of the agencies of the administration, we can't do our job. and because the intelligence committee deals in classified information, you don't have the outside external validators who are listening to the testimony, who can challenge assertions being made by the administration. so you have to do that yourselves as members of that committee. you have to be willing to push back and probe. if you have nothing but sycophants for the administration on that committee, it can't do its job. and what's more, if people are put on as partizans or that are not trustworthy on that committee, it means that foreign

intelligence partners are going to be less likely to share. >> they're already less likely to share key information because they have some distrust of the incoming president. >> senator, i want to come back to pam bondi's confirmation hearing yesterday and show a little bit more of your questioning of her. >> are you aware of a factual predicate to investigate jack smith, yes or no? >> senator, what i'm hearing on the news. are you aware of a do i know you seem reluctant, i have not. >> you seem reluctant to answer a simple question. let me ask you a different, simple question. the president also wants to jail liz cheney sitting here today. are you aware of any factual basis to investigate liz cheney, yes or no? >> senator, that's a hypothetical, and i'm not going to answer that. >> no, it's not a hypothetical. i'm asking you sitting here today whether you are aware of a factual predicate to investigate liz cheney. >> senator, no one has asked me to investigate liz cheney. that is, the president has called for it publicly. >> you are aware of that, aren't

you? >> no one has asked me to investigate. >> the president has also worried president liz cheney. the president has called for him to be worried about miss bondi. >> please answer my questions right now. >> you are aware the truth. miss bondi. >> you're robberies 87% higher than the national average. is this that's what i my question is this, senator, do you have even if she's not telling the truth, why? >> if you're about to go lead the department of justice. and if you're again i take her at her word that she cares about crime in california and other places. why not affirm that she has that? there's no predicate to investigate jack smith or liz cheney? i mean that that feels like a really a distant leap that she's asking again, not democratic senators, but the doj workforce to take before she's even there. >> it really wasn't a hard question to answer. >> she could have simply said, no, i'm aware of no factual predicate. i'm not a member of the justice department. i wouldn't have access to

information, so it wouldn't be hard to answer that question. it shouldn't have been hard to answer that question. what made it difficult for her is she was terrified, i think, of contradicting donald trump in any way, saying anything to displease donald trump. and the problem with all of that is if she doesn't have the independence even before she's in that job. to answer a simple question to congress, as the questions i asked, or another question i asked her about whether she'll commit to preserving the evidence of the january 6th investigation if she can't answer those questions for fear of donald trump, what will she do when she's being pressed by him? and of course, none of this is in a vacuum. it all takes place in the context of a supreme court decision that gave donald trump absolute immunity to commit crimes using the department of justice. so more than ever, you need an attorney general willing to say no to an unlawful or immoral request to the president. she did not demonstrate yesterday any

willingness or ability to do so. >> well, there's a real parallel between your questioning of her and the clip i came in on. it's not a matter of if, but when you're asked to do something unlawful, as jim comey was, as bill barr was with the election denialism that trump trafficked in at the end of his term, what does it say to you that in relative terms, pam bondi is viewed as a sure thing for confirmation? >> well, yeah, it tells us how the bar has so dramatically changed that that someone who can't even vouch for the independence of that office in any meaningful way is considered a shoo in. >> and people that are so plainly disqualified from from high office, like kash patel, would be even under consideration. someone who has said they want to shut down the fbi headquarters in oakland museum to the deep state. how is it possible that that someone who is kind of internet trollish like that, someone of poor

judgment or poor character could be considered like kash patel? >> but we are where we are. there is, you know, i think such fealty to donald trump, not just among these nominees, but among many in the senate. >> i hope i'm wrong about that. i hope we see some vigorous questioning, and not just from democrats of these nominees. >> what do you do as a body if you can't make the other party care about or even view it as a as a crisis, that you have a nominee to lead the department who won't pledge that the department will make prosecutorial decisions just based on the facts? >> well, it's very hard to persuade folks if they don't want to see it or if they have their own concerns about crossing donald trump. it may not happen. it may not come to fruition. that is the realization of the danger that someone like patel in particular poses, until they're the subject

of scrutiny by the president. and, you know, we've seen he'll turn on people in his own party in a heartbeat, whether they're in the senate or the house, in his own administration. in the last trump administration, not a week seemed to go by where he wasn't throwing someone under the bus for insufficient fealty. so it may not happen. >> they may not recognize the danger until it confronts them. >> personally, i would urge that we not wait till that point. >> you're new to the senate. i've never worked on capitol hill, but can you help me and our viewers understand how tommy tuberville was able to hold up very well qualified generals and appointees to the department of defense and the pentagon and throughout the military. and the democrats can't stop folks like kash patel, who you've mentioned twice. >> well, it's a good question. i'm not sure that i'm the best party to answer that question, as i'm still learning the kind of arcane rules of procedure in

the senate. but the senate does operate very significantly on a basis of unanimous consent, in which a single member can really stop a lot of things from happening. on the positive side, it forces people to work across the aisle to get things done. sometimes to get anything done. but with these cabinet nominees, it is a majority vote. i'm not sure why the same opportunity to try to slow down what seems like inevitable confirmation of some folks who are not fit for their nominated office. >> i'm not sure why that is not an option. >> why? >> why that's not an option here. >> some of your former colleagues in the house, folks you've worked closely with over the last eight years, have written to outgoing attorney general merrick garland about dropping the cases against walt nauta and francisco de oliveira to limit any ongoing proceedings and usher in the release of jack

smith's second volume. do you support that effort, and would you like to see the special counsel report into donald trump's mishandling of classified documents, including national defense information made public? >> i don't support that. >> and frankly, i didn't think the department should have dismissed the case against donald trump either. i think those proceedings should have been essentially postponed until he was no longer in office. i understand why that decision was made, but nonetheless, i don't think these other cases should be dismissed either. i would simply await the resolution of those cases, and then that report should be published. now, i realize that may very well not happen. in fact, the trump administration may make those two cases go away. but if they do, let it be on their hands that the justice process is subverted, i would not do them the favor of making that problem go away for them.

>> you've been the subject of threats of retribution. the kash patel is the nominee for fbi director. i think you're on. i think if you cross all the lists, you make all of them. trump's his, bannon's, everyone who's threatening retribution. are you doing anything to protect yourself? >> well, you know, i'm frankly more concerned about my personal security than i am about my legal liability as a member of the january 6th committee, i'm enormously proud of the work that we've done. i think all of us feel that way. i have no concerns about that work, and i stand behind it. but, you know, i think we've all seen in this environment and i'm not alone in this. >> the level of personal threats has really exploded beyond, i think, anything we've seen before. >> that's a dangerous trend affecting people on both sides of the aisle. and that is something that we should all condemn and do our best to move

away from. >> officer fanone was on the show on january 6th, talking about his mother being swatted and someone coming along and dumping feces on her property. the harassment obviously intended to send a message to her that she would. i guess the thinking goes, pass along to her son to silence him as a critic or even an eyewitness to january 6th. is there anything democrats can do in the minority to protect the harassment of, i guess what in struggling democracies or autocracies you would call political dissidents? >> well, we have limited ability to do that in the minority. >> we can certainly call on law enforcement to make sure that law enforcement is taking every step it can to protect people. >> we can help make people aware of their rights. we can also put pressure on the majority to take steps to reduce the risk to witnesses, to police officers, to their families, to their own colleagues. but a lot of it is,

frankly, using the bully pulpit. and i think we also have to attack the amplification of these threats, which happens online. i think a big part of the challenge that we're facing, and the reason for the explosion in the volume of threats, is the extraordinary amplification of vile and violent content online, and we all can play a role in trying to curb that. >> i want to ask you about matters closer to home, your district, your former district, very close to and impacted by the fires. what are you hearing from your constituents in california, and what are your questions as to how much of this was an unstoppable act of god and calamitous, tragic weather event, and how much needs to be evaluated and examined and improved upon in this sort of

changing climate environment. >> what i'm hearing from constituents is both heartbreaking and at the same time, heartwarming. the heartbreaking aspect is all around us people who have lost their homes, some have lost family members. >> they've lost all their cherished memories that were in those homes. >> they lost their pets. they lost their neighborhood, their church, their synagogue, their local grocery store. they are living in hotels. they are surfing on friends couches. that is all so very heartbreaking. and the scope of it is beyond anything i've ever seen. and we are not unaccustomed to fire in los angeles. but at the same time, i have been really inspired by the firefighters and the risks they're taking by their inexhaustible energy to keep up the fight. and those fires are still not out. the degree to which people who have lost everything are nonetheless very positive about their own

future, their plans to rebuild. we're going to have to move with urgency on that rebuilding process. there are a lot of questions about how these fires became so severe. i think, you know, at its very base, we had 100 mile an hour winds accompanied by fire. so essentially we had a hurricane and fire instead of a hurricane and rain that is beyond anybody's capacity to deal with. at the same time, some of those fires might have been preventable. we have to find out. and some of the response could be improved. we have to be willing to ask the tough questions. i think we ought to have an independent commission to look at everything from start to finish, to essentially get to the ground. truth of this, but i think we also need to think big picture about the impacts of climate change, about the increasing prevalence of these mega fires, and what that means about urban planning and resilience, and how we need to

think about living differently. >> senator adam schiff, in the middle of all sorts of crosscurrents up there, thank you for taking the time to start us off today. it's nice to see you. stay safe. >> thank you. >> when we come back, we'll get reaction to what we just heard from senator schiff about the vulnerability of the rule of law in this country at this moment. with days to go before the start of donald trump's second term as president and the dangers that lie ahead, that's next. later in the hour, the modern day phenomenon that helps explain a lot about our politics and our society and our neighbors and the lives we live. the epidemic of isolation and loneliness. how self-imposed solitude is dramatically changing the way we live, breathe, consume just about everything. and what is being called the antisocial century, that epic piece of writing and reporting in that very important conversation coming up. deadline. white house coming up. deadline. white house continues after a quick the average dog only lives to be ten. that's ten birthdays, ten first summer swims,

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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 tonight at ten on msnbc. >> what we do is try to cut right to the bone of what we're seeing in washington that day. joining our conversation, former chairman of the rnc, now the co-host of msnbc's the weekend, michael steele, is here with me at the table, former federal prosecutor, msnbc legal analyst christie greenberg is here. christie, i know you disagree with the senator on the walton doordash de oliveira case. make your argument. make your case. >> look, i respect where the senator is coming from. in a perfect world, yes, the trump administration would do the right thing. >> their doj would come in and let those cases against those codefendants proceed. >> but we all know that's not going to happen. >> we all know things are going to be turned upside down come monday. d.o.j. we know those cases are going away. and so really at that point, you have to weigh the public interest.

>> here is the public interest in these cases that are completely, you know, are not going to continue, or is there a real significant public interest to the public seeing what is in that classified documents report, seeing the other people like kash patel, that may have been put in there, seeing what it says about them, seeing what it says about donald trump and why he had these documents piled up all throughout mar-a-lago. >> what was he planning to do with them? >> i mean, don't we deserve to know that, given his role coming in to protect the nation's secrets? like, it seems like a no brainer. and yet, once again, like there's going to be a hearing tomorrow before judge cannon and the justice department is put in its position that they do not intend for the public to see this, that all they're debating before judge cannon is whether or not certain members of congress get to see it in camera, which means they don't get a copy, they just get to go in a room, take a look at it and leave. and they have to be subject to confidentiality. so we will never know. is the justice department's position and that's just wrong. >> michael steele i think we see

a lot of these things the same way. and we stare at the sun. that is the former republican party right now supposed to look at the eclipse where donald trump looked without his glasses on. right. i feel like sometimes that's us on the politics. and donald trump will warrant a lot of our attention and our scrutiny and our coverage for the things he does to weaken our democracy, to lurch toward an oligarchy, something that president joe biden warned of last night in the most stunning departure message i've certainly ever, ever heard or read. it is also true that democrats, who have justifiably and righteously and honorably sought to defend the democracy for eight years, are not acting like their warnings meant what they said they meant in the final three days of what if you believe? everything the democrats have said for eight years could be the last three days of american democracy as we know it. why not take the tools that allow democrats to hold every tommy tuberville held up every general their combat missions impacted?

why can't the democrats pick 1 or 2 nominees that truly jeopardize the country? maybe it's hejsek, maybe it's gabbard, maybe it's why can't they get together and draw a line somewhere and at least slow down what they've described for nine years as a slow roll toward autocracy? >> nicole, right now i just i'm like, boiling inside listening to you describe the reality of this, this political moment, because that's what it is. the thing that i find so stunning is that democrats have never realized that this is a political moment. they think that somehow we're still playing the 1980s. you know, ronald reagan and, you know, a tip o'neill kind of kumbaya moment. yeah, we skirmish here and there. but in the end, we're going to have a little toast

with some bourbon or some good whiskey and call it and call it even. no, that's not what this is. christie is exactly right. i don't understand what the what the d.o.j. is going to be arguing. you will never see. never see what jack smith wrote in second volume. you will never hear it. you will never see it. why? because it all goes away on january 20th. you know you've got the senate. yes, the number even 50 with 56 senators being republican. you know, you got at least 2 or 3 that you can work with and move the needle to sort of get some things done. number one. number two, use the system. you know the rules. i mean, you watch mitch mcconnell slap you around every time he's been majority leader, just without hesitation, just go and say, no, we're not doing that. oh, you want you want that appointee.

guess what? not getting it right. we're going to hold it up. we're going to make you pay a political price for it. and yet we're sitting here i mean, again, i very much respect the king. jeffries very much excited about his leadership. but you do not hand over the gavel and say, oh, yeah, we're putting down our swords and picking up our bipartisan plowshares. they're going to shove those plowshares up your behind. that's the goal here. that's the politics. these republicans are not designed to work with you. they have spent a generation plotting for this moment. they've spent a generation trying to upend the work that a lot of us worked very hard to put in place to try to govern why we never came up to a repeal and replace solution. all we could do was the slogan, because it was enough to move the political needle the way where we wanted it to move. then the policy

requirement that you actually do something, whatever, oh, infrastructure. every day for four years. that wasn't the goal. it was the narrative. it was the politics of making everyone else jump through hoops. so i don't i don't know what to tell you next. i don't know what i don't know what the democrats are going to do because they don't know what they're going to do. i mean, adam schiff, you know, seriously, that's your response? well, i really don't think we should, you know, expose the system in any way that could, you know, be detrimental to the system. you know, the guys on the other side want to blow the system up, and you're worried about your actions being detrimental. that's not how you protect the system. so i don't know, nicole. these guys, i've never seen anything like it. a political operation that is oxymoronic in its term because they are they're not an operation and they're not political. i don't get it.

>> i want to i want to let these days unfold and not get ahead of it. i do i do see it as you do, michael. but i want to ask you, christie, just on the positive side of the ledger, what can be done? i mean, joe biden is still the president. merrick garland is still the attorney general. it's thursday. they've got till noon on monday. what can be done to protect the rule of law in those three days? >> well, joe biden and nobody really agrees with this, but i'm going to say it anyway. >> joe biden still has the power to pardon people. >> and we have heard from pam bondi. now, we heard from her saying in that there's a lot she didn't say. >> there's a lot she refused to say. >> right. things like refusing to even commit to preserve records. i mean, these are not gotcha questions. these were very these were softball questions, but there was a lot, she said. >> she said doj is weaponized. >> she said the special prosecutors are abused. she said trump has been targeted since 2016. and then she didn't recant

or back away at all from that comment of prosecutors, the bad ones being prosecuted and investigate the investigators. so you have somebody who's coming into doj and, you know, far from being somebody to say, i'm going to lead you and have your back, you've got a target on your back. >> so, you know, with somebody coming in like that. >> yeah. if that doesn't justify a pardon from the president in the few days, we have to say, hey, we know you're going to go after and have some vindictive prosecutions against people like jack smith, like merrick garland, like liz cheney, who did nothing wrong. >> and we know you're going to do it. >> now, look, maybe they don't want one, and that's fine, but we know what's coming. >> she was very clear about it for anybody that watched it. >> so if you know that that's wrong, why not use the tools that you have available to you? >> why not use that pardon power? and i hear people say, well, you know, that's against the norms, but but there are no norms. >> they're going to shatter the norms. >> the whole thing is. i'll give

you a quick last word, michael, if you can promise me to be quick. the sixth sense is one of my favorite movies, and it's encapsulated our politics for so long. you know, the norms are dead, and you've got one party that's proud of it. and that is in and of itself, norm busting on the right. but you go to the other party that still doesn't know it. and that is in some moments, also a threat that you just summed up the 2024 election and, and how voters feel at that at that moment then, and how a lot of us are going to feel going forward, is you. >> the reality is in front of you. just see it for what it is. and to christie's point, if you have tools to confront that reality, use them. it's okay. the norms have been reduced to rubble in many cases. look at our judicial system and how it was manipulated and delayed and used against itself to keep donald trump from being held

accountable in the face of a supreme court that has given him absolute power. the only tool you have left is your ingenuity and your political gumption. and if you lack either one of those and in this case, i think the democrats lack both. that's why pam bondi can sit there in that hearing and absolutely ignore and refuse to answer and just pretend. and there was no outcry. there was no calling out her behavior. the same with what we saw in the other hearing with what's his name? i'm blanking right now, for attorney general has said so. the reality of it is these guys know how to come at the game because they know there's not going to be the pushback. and that's the problem. >> michael steele and rusty greenberg, to be continued. thank you both so much for spending time for having this candid conversation. these aren't always comfortable conversations these days, either. thank you to both of you. when we come back, it is

being called the anti-social century, ushered in in part by the same tech oligarchs president joe biden warned about last night, how self-imposed solitude is reshaping american politics and american life, oftentimes for the worse. we'll oftentimes for the worse. we'll have that conversatio okay everyone, our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition for strength and energy. yay - woo hoo! ensure, with 27 vitamins and minerals, nutrients for immune health. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. (♪♪) when you really need to sleep. you reach for the really good stuff.0 grams of protein. zzzquil ultra helps you sleep better and longer when you need it most. its non-habit forming and powered by the makers of nyquil. you are not hitting. >> has never been a moment you

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is corrosive. and three, it is getting worse. by no means are the tech oligarchs we've been covering on today's broadcast solely responsible for creating or furthering the environment, but many of them have, without question, contributed to it. we're talking about what writer derek thompson identifies in the atlantic the anti-social century. he says he spent months speaking to psychologists, political scientists, sociologists and technologists and writes this quote, although the particulars of these conversations differed, a theme emerged the individual preference for solitude scaled up across society and exercised repeatedly over time, is rewiring america's civic and psychic identity, and the consequences are far reaching for our happiness, our communities, our politics, and even our understanding of reality. joining us now, staff writer for the atlantic, derek thompson is here. he's bylined on that piece with me at the table, new york times editorial

board member and msnbc political analyst mara gay is here. derek, we've been talking about the piece. i've been talking about it since i read it, since i first saw it on social media. i saw it online. i saw it on instagram. take our viewers who may not have been through it yet, through the reporting at the beginning of it, the reporting that i think really pulls you in in restaurants, in movie theaters, in in sort of the things we touch every day. sure. >> so i was at a restaurant here in north carolina where i live with my wife and daughter, and we were there pretty early, like 445, 5:00. >> you know, our daughter is 17 months old. >> she has to be kind of early. there's no one in the restaurant. >> and i look at the bar of this restaurant and it's entirely filled with brown paper bags. >> and over the next half hour or 45 minutes, i'd say ten, 12 people walk into this restaurant, don't say a word to anybody, pick up a paper bag and leave the restaurant. >> and i was like, this is so bizarre because business is booming here, but no one's sitting down. and so i called

the owner of the restaurant. i said, what's going on here? she said, the bar at this restaurant used to be like the most happening place, but you had to shut it down to reserve room for people to take their to go mexican food to eat at home. >> she put up a sign that said bar seating closed. >> and i thought, what an unbelievable metaphor for our times that this place that used to be the seat of community, of hanging out as a local community or village has been closed so that people can use it in order to take the food back home where they could spend more time alone. >> and truly, i think that the sign on the bar is a sign of the times not only for the restaurant industry, but for america. you know, 74% of traffic to restaurants in this country is for off premises business, that is to say, takeaway bags, delivery food. in many ways, the restaurant industry which we've thought of is like the definition of social has moved from table service to takeaway. >> the same thing you could say has sort of happened to hollywood, where we used to have to leave our homes to go to movies. the average american in 1940 saw about or bought about

35 movie tickets a year. >> now we watch the equivalent of about 7 or 8 movies every weekend at home, through netflix or max or any other television. so in restaurants to movies, to every other station, it seems in human life we spend a record amount of time alone. a record amount of time in our homes. we're more alone than we've ever been in recorded history. and i do think, as i said in in the open and the kind words that you read, i think it's affecting everything from our personality to our politics and help our, our viewers understand, help us understand if the loneliness causes the behavior of ordering takeout instead of the social experience of sitting amid your neighbors, your community members, or if it's the other way around. >> do we know yet? chicken or egg? >> yeah. this is a really, really wonderful question. i think what's really happening, to be honest, you know, we've talked a lot about phones on this on this show recently. >> i think one thing that's happening is that people are spending a ton of time on their phone, and they're feeling exhausted by their relationship

with their phone. >> and ironically, this is leisure time. >> it should be time that should be making them feel very relaxed, like they should really want to spend time, you know, reading a book and then go out to see friends. but they're so exhausted by the time that they spend in their leisure time and looking at their phones that when a friend calls and says, hey, do you want to hang out? do you want to get on a subway or get in a car and come meet me, have a drink? we think, oh my god, no, i'm exhausted. that sounds like a bunch of misadventures to have to meet you. and so we pulled back ironically. and this is what's so ironic, i think, about this moment in history from a social standpoint, is that the time that we spend in leisure is exhausting us rather than replenishing us. and that's why i think so many people are canceling plans, refusing to go out with people because the leisure time that should be making them feel more rejuvenated is instead making them feel like they want to be alone even more. >> oh, it's so amazing. i want to get to what you write about. it's overlay with our politics, which obviously we spend a lot of time on. here. let me read this from your piece. home base, phone based culture has arguably

solidified our closest and most distant connections. the inner ring of family and best friends, bound by blood and intimacy, and the outer ring of tribe linked by shared affinities. but it's wreaking havoc on the middle ring of familiar but not intimate relationships with the people who live around us, which dunkleman calls the village. these are your neighbors, the people in your town. we used to know them well. now we do not. donald trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election had many causes, including inflation and frustration with joe biden's leadership. but one source of trump's success may be that he is an avatar of the all tribe, no village style of performative confrontation. he stokes outgroup animosity and speaks to voters who are furiously intolerant of political difference. this is certainly, i think, rings true with people's lived experience and why i think people recoil at the idea of trying to bridge bridge the divide right between the two. we literally have a country broken in half. half voted for half of

the voting public voted for trump. half of the voting public voted for harris. but this feels like it. it explains a lot of what's going on. are there any bright spots to that dynamic in our politics? >> well, let me talk about the dark spirits and then the dark spots. >> i'm talking about the bright spots. >> i think what you said is really it's deeply true that in many ways we are closer with the people who we are intimate with because of our ability to stay in constant connection with them. >> and that ability of constant connection allows us to stay in touch with, say, the tribe of people that share our affinities. but if families teach us love and tribes teach us ideology or loyalty, i think the village teaches us tolerance. and i think a world in which we have weaker village connections, we're less tolerant of each other. and this is true, as you said, at the broadest, political, broadest political level, political polarization is very high. >> it's also true at the social level. >> if you poll teenagers who identify as republican or democrat and say, would you date someone from the opposite political tribe? about half of republicans say they'd never date a democrat. about two

thirds of democrats say they would never date a republican. and so our our ideologies are creeping down into our identities in a way that i do think is historically unusual. the bright side is that if the anti-social century is a disease, this is a disease that has a well known and frankly, quite cheap cure. it's called hanging out with people. it's called leaving your house, right? this is not something that has to be invented. we don't need pfizer or moderna to come in and like take something through phase three clinical trials to see if, like the medicine works, the medicine works, you leave your front door, you get in a car and you go somewhere that you don't live. and so i think that it's very easy, in fact, to fix the problem from an individual standpoint. but makes it a little bit complicated, is that it's easier to leave your house and hang out with a friend. if your friend is willing to hang out, it's easier to have a dinner party. if the folks that you know around you already go to dinner parties. so i do think that we can solve this problem as individuals, but it would be a lot easier to solve collectively. >> i mean, this is so i think this is so groundbreaking. i

need you to stick around. i need mara, and i talk about this all the time. just anecdotally, i think in our lives on and off tv. i'm going to ask you to stick around. i'm going to ask you to jump in on this on the other side of a very short break. stay with us. >> it's important to remember that for all the statistics and square mileage and square footage and number of people displaced, they're all individual people with their homes, with their lives driving around, there's almost nothing left standing. >> occasionally you'll see a house that's okay or a street that's okay. but that's occasional. >> i continue to see, and i want to shout out one more time, the first responders who are responding in this mutual aid effort from all over southern california. >> it really has brought out the best and most inspiring part about human beings. >> why is navajos trusted by millions? >> before navajo, i was not living my best life because i could not breathe. constant nasal congestion, constant blowing of the nose. the huge difference is the fact that navajo pulls it out. it's very gentle in the sense of when that suction happens, it's literally

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>> i know that it's up to all of us to get out the door, but i think one bright spot is, you know, here in new york city where we like to think of ourselves as trendsetters. you know, we really did adhere to social distancing protocols in the pandemic, and there was a deep and obvious sense of loneliness. and there's some, i would say, exciting trends afoot in new york city that may take hold elsewhere. >> i'm sure you're trendier than me. tell me, tell me, i mean, so what we're seeing is, you know, new yorkers are starting to gather at coffee shops and linger even in the cold. >> we're starting to ask, hey, what's your name? something we never would have done before the pandemic. there are running clubs that have replaced dating apps. there are, i think, just people having mixers and talking to strangers in a way that that we wouldn't have. so i think that's an exciting trend. but i think one question i had in reading derek's piece, which was really awesome, was what the opportunities are to kind of

address the social infrastructure at the heart of this. yes, there's individual agency, of course. at the same time, you know, i've written a lot, for example, about building public pools in america because so many americans can't swim. but you think about public pools, public libraries, public parks, even public schools. these are kind of opportunities for connection and community. and maybe we need to start revisiting, strengthening some of these institutions and public spaces. you know, what happened to summer camp? i mean, there's also a loneliness epidemic among adolescents. there's a depression epidemic among adolescents. and it's really understandable. everybody's on their phones, their parents are on their phones. so, you know, maybe there's an opportunity to bring people together in national parks, too. i mean, there's we have the infrastructure. i think we've forgotten how to engage with it in a way. and so there might be something bipartisan, even there. every community needs

these things to function properly. this is not a republican or a democratic issue. and so that's where i find the hope. >> what is the fear? i mean, i guess the first step is always admitting you have a problem. you write in the piece about the surgeon general's warning about loneliness. i think senator chris murphy has also written about an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. other than the simplicity of the solutions, where does sort of the inertia come from to solve the problem? >> well, i think that over the last 50 years, to connect a theme of this show with mara's comments, ironically, the digital world has been enriched at the same time that the physical world, i think, has been impoverished. >> we used to build this country, not just public pools and public schools, but public infrastructure. we built public infrastructure an extraordinary pace up until the 1950s, 1960s, and really since the 1970s, the rate of social infrastructure growth in this country has

atrophied. >> and i think it speaks to the fact that, you know, in this country we like it's easy to talk about infrastructure and analysis. >> donald trump has an infinity number of times infrastructure week. it's harder to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill. and my hope is that over the next few years in this country, we do build more infrastructure. we do make it easier for people to live out to, to spend time outside of their homes. and we inject the physical world with the same kind of ingenuity that we pooled into our digital spaces. i mean, how many billions of dollars are spent making our phones addictive, making games a little bit more catchy, making advertisements a little bit more efficient in terms of reaching our eyeballs in that next millisecond. how many billions of dollars would you compare that to? the decline of spending on physical world infrastructure, the sort of which mara just said? i think there's an enormous gap here between digital progress and physical regress. and i absolutely agree that while individuals always have the choice to, as i said, leave the front door, get in the car,

enter the subway. politicians also have a choice to give them something to go to. and i hope that just as the last 50 years were a kind of physical world recession in terms of building, i hope that the next few years can be a resurgence of physical world building. >> derek, i want to ask you to come back on a regular basis. i feel like this is such an important conversation that gets at the sort of the whys of the things we bemoan, right? we bemoan the weakness of republican politicians to a mean tweet from donald trump. but the phenomenon isn't the meanness of our politics. frankly, the phenomenon is the power of the digital attack. and i wonder if you lay over some of what you're saying over our politics. how do you fix that? >> well, yeah, in a way, sorry to use a sort of economic jargon here, but you're talking about, you know, why is there all of this supply of meanness in our politics? >> and maybe it's because there's a great demand for meanness in our politics. you know, some people said when i

published this article, well, what's the difference between talking to somebody in the physical world and talking to somebody over your phone? but there's an nyu sociologist named jay van bavel who's pointed out that online conversations about politics tend to be much more extreme, tend to be much more angry, tend to be much more emotional, and they tend to be infused with outgroup animosity. if you sit down at a dinner table with people down the street from you or friends in the area, and they're always extreme, always angry, always outraged, and always screaming about somebody, you're like, i don't want to go out to dinner with these people. but on the internet, we go out to these dinner with these people, so to speak, all the time. we can't leave the dinner table with these people because they're always there. that's who's at the proverbial digital table, talking to us and screaming at us and tweeting us. et cetera. and so i do think the fact that as our politics has been funneled into digital spaces, it's not just the place that's changed, it's the tenor of our conversations that's changed. it's increased a demand for meanness. and that's why politicians who can supply meanness have been so popular. >> derek, i hogged all of your time. i meant to get in on this,

but can we do this again? maybe regularly. it feels like a really important conversation. happily for you in. >> absolutely. derek and i started our careers together. >> it's great to see him and that makes sense to me. thank you both so much. i want to remind all of you that tonight, president joe biden will sit down with my colleague lawrence o'donnell in the final exclusive oval office interview of his presidency that airs tonight at 10 p.m. eastern on the last word here on msnbc. another quick break for us. we'll be right back. >> no young person should ever have to worry about having a safe place to sleep at night, or a warm meal to eat, or whether anyone cares about them. >> i grew up in poverty and i actually became physically homeless right after i had turned 16. i didn't have anywhere to sleep, and i didn't really have friends or family that could support me. >> to be homeless as a teen, i didn't ask for that.

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for all those making it big out there... ...shouldn't your mobile service be able to keep up with you? get wifi speeds up to a gig at home and on the go. introducing powerboost, only from xfinity mobile. now that's big. grateful to beat with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. >> hi, nicole. >> thank you so much. welcome to the beat. >> i'm ari melber, and thank you for joining us tonight. we have a lot planned. there is a lot going on this week, and we have some very special guests, including a view from a cultural perspective on climate change