>> i get it, nearly half of all used cars have been in an accident, but that's nothing to be afraid of. >> show me carfax. >> knowing how a car's accident history impacts price means, you don't have to overpay. >> way better. >> popcorn? definitely no fear. just fox. say show me a carfax com. >> at 9:44 a.m. today, the family of cecile richards, the longtime planned parenthood president and a frequent guest on this program, released this announcement saying, this morning, our beloved cecile passed away at home, surrounded by her family and her ever loyal dog, ollie. our hearts are broken today, but no words can do justice to the joy she brought to our lives. cecile richards was 67 years old. she suffered from glioblastoma, the aggressive brain cancer that took president biden's son, beau. that is tonight's last word. the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts now. >> tonight, donald trump is now

back in the white house. just hours ago, he pardoned more than a thousand january 6th rioters and signed a wave of executive orders, setting his top priorities in motion. then some of the world's richest men front and center at the inauguration. how trump's white house could deliver big for business, and what it means for the everyday voter. as the 11th hour gets underway on this monday night. good evening once again, i'm stephanie ruhle. it is day one of the second trump administration. donald trump has been president for a grand total of 11 hours, and he wasted no time imposing his will on american government. tonight, he announced he was pardoning or commuting the sentences of virtually everyone involved in the january 6th attack on the capitol. that includes stewart rhodes. remember that name, the founder of the oath keepers, and enrique tarrio, the former leader of the proud boys. both

of these men were tried in federal court and convicted of seditious conspiracy. conspiracy. donald trump also signed an order redefining birthright citizenship for more than 150 years, the 14th amendment has given american citizenship to anyone born on american soil. but donald trump is trying to restrict that, saying that will not be the case for children of undocumented immigrants. by the way, tonight, donald trump said the u.s. is the only country with birthright citizenship. well, for facts sake, that is not true. many other countries have it, including mexico and canada. donald trump signed those orders just a few hours after he was sworn in. also today, he gave multiple speeches. the first was his official scripted inaugural speech. but during the second speech, that is when trump was trump and he let it rip. >> the golden age of america begins right now. i was going to talk about the six hostages. a

tide of change is sweeping the country. sunlight is pouring over the entire world. and i was going to talk about the things that joe did today with the pardons of people like the unselect committee of political thugs. never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents. please, sir, it's such a beautiful, unifying speech. please, sir, don't say these things. my proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. why are we trying to help a guy like milley? why are we helping liz cheney? trying adam kinzinger, he's a super crying. i never saw the guy not crying. my life was saved for a reason. i was saved by god to make america great again 2020. by the way, that election was totally rigged. but these are the. that's okay for american citizens. january 20th,

2025 is liberation day, and i think this was a better speech than the one i made upstairs. >> okay, first speech, second speech. donald trump now has the first member of his cabinet also in place. the senate unanimously confirmed marco rubio as secretary of state, the nomination of pete hegseth as defense secretary was approved by committee, and that's now headed to a full senate vote. with that, let's bring in our leadoff panel on this very important night. symone sanders townsend joins us, co-host of the msnbc morning show the weekend. she's also the former chief spokesperson for vice president harris. susan glasser is here. staff writer for the new yorker. barbara mcquade, a veteran federal prosecutor and former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan. and isaac rosendorff, national political reporter for the washington post and author of the book finish what we started the maga movement's ground war to end democracy. madame sanders townsend joe biden started the day with a flurry of pardons,

including some of his own family members. but it was donald trump pardoning or commuting, commuting virtually all of the january 6th convictions, which got a whole lot more attention. what was your takeaway? >> well, look, first of all, donald trump had said that he was going to pardon the january 6th hostages, as he called them, and we know they are not hostages. these were people who went through the legal system and were convicted by a jury of their peers, many of them serving sentences. right. they they committed these acts on camera. we saw it. it's kind of crazy. but for weeks, months, even republicans have been saying that donald trump is not going to do blanket sentences. the people that harmed police officers, they are not going to get pardons. and what we saw today was a blanket sentence. pardon a pardon me, a blanket pardon. it was interesting to me. i was texting with a lot of democrats from across the country, you know, state legislative leaders, because this fight is going to be in the states. as much as we look at

congress, america's policy is made in the state legislatures. and one senior dem state legislator from out west texted me and said, you know, he he literally just let his private militia out of jail. he said he's instilled a sense of loyalty. these are these people feel loyal to him and their lawlessness is now going, is now going to go unchecked. and he can now call on them again to do what they would like. so i know a lot of democrats have mixed feelings about the president's preemptive pardon of his family, specifically president biden. president biden, you know, a lot of presidents around here said, we got to be specific now. and i understand the concerns that people had. but i also understand what the president said is that that, you know, the incoming president, president trump has promised a special prosecutor to go after look into the biden family. and so what he did is respond to the climate. if the lawmakers don't like it, put a check on the president and pass a bill, okay, and curb the pardon powers. but until that happens, this is where we are. >> all right. bar back in 2020, president trump told groups like

the oath keepers, like the proud boys, stand back and stand by. i guess he kept his word. they all got pardoned tonight. >> yeah, he really did. and you know what is so disturbing about this is this effort to rewrite history, referring to them as hostages and letting them all out of prison. what they engaged in was political violence. they tried to use brute force to achieve what they could not at the ballot box. and today, donald trump releases all of them, which i fear is an effort to condone vigilante violence as long as it is committed in service of the leader. now, maybe some of those people genuinely believe that donald trump had won the election, had been stolen, and what they were doing was a righteous cause, but they still were engaging in illegal means to do it. if you believe, stephanie, that your bank owes you money, you can write a letter to the bank president. you can demand that

they treat you fairly. you can file a lawsuit against them. but what you can't do is go into the bank and just take the money out of a teller drawer. and these people use brute force to achieve their political goals. today, they are all free. that is a terrible message for the rule of law. >> susan donald trump said the plan today was to be the unifier, to talk about unification. but i read your piece and you talked about how what donald trump's real theme has been is about talking about his personal grievances between speech one, speech two, and also speaking at the capitol arena tonight. what stuck out to you in terms of the grievances rally? >> yeah. >> look, i mean, donald trump's favorite subject, really the great subject of his life is himself. and, you know, this whole show today is a story, as he tells it, of personal vindication and redemption. i mean, this is in the history of our country, the only inaugural address in which the incoming

president of the united states says that god himself literally saved him and installed him as president. and it's the conflation between the country and his own causes and concerns that i think makes trump stand out from from any other leader of the united states. you know, they all have very, very outsized egos or they wouldn't be in that line of work stuff. but donald trump stands alone in his willingness to essentially have no ideology beyond the pursuit of his own causes and grievances. and i think that really came out so clearly today. it was it was remarkable to see. his basic message was, hey, you tried to get me, but here i am. >> but but that's the thing, sort of life is not fair to me, is the common thread. right, right. that's where trump's base is. if you think about the tech ceos at the inauguration, one

common link between them, the richest guys in the world and donald trump's actual blue collar base is anger. both groups are angry that they are not being treated fairly. but here's the thing, isaac. when push comes to shove and donald trump serves, let's say one group, i.e. the ceos, the things that they want are going to hurt those blue collar workers. when is that going to get realized? and maybe that base will realize, i don't know, maybe they've been duped. >> well, the shared interest right now is in opposing the world as it has been in in the institutions and the establishment, as we're familiar with. and, you know, that alliance could take them. you know, there are scenarios where they they could both, you know, like a lot of trump supporters are fine with trump profiting from his time in office. as long as you know, their objectives are met as well. so, you know,

you could see them both benefiting and kind of looking the other way at at the top executives making themselves richer as well. you know, that's not necessarily a conflict that is going to become come to the fore immediately, except with the possible exception of what elon musk is talking about, you know, cutting government programs in ways that trump has very clearly departed from republican orthodoxy. you know, don't touch the entitlements. we can have big government instead of small government that is more likely to be a collision course that is already taking shape. with the debt ceiling fight coming up very soon. >> susan, you have been covering donald trump for a decade. you have heard speech after speech on the campaign trail at rallies. we heard him all day today. what stuck out to you? what was the window for you where you saw this is where we're headed for the next four years.

>> well, first of all, we are in for a lot of words. i think donald trump today may have spoken more words to the public and to journalists than joe biden in the entire last year of his presidency. you know, there is a sort of a, you know, logorrhea that we are going to expect from donald trump. and, you know, again, he is the oldest man now to ever be inaugurated as president at age 78. you know, do you know a lot of 78 year old men who change? trump is going to be an amplified, distilled version of himself in this second term as president. and i think that, you know, when you hear him talk about being a unifier while at the same time promoting the most extreme and divisive day one agenda that that we can ever imagine from a us president of any party, you get a sense that, you know, this willful

recreation and distortion of reality and truth will be the thing that marks out this trump presidency from all the presidencies that preceded it, including, quite possibly, donald trump's first presidency, when he had people around him who were not as willing to go along with the edifice of lies and fantasy that he sought to construct. >> and now he has men who control information businesses around the world who could potentially help distort information and amplify mistruths. simone, what stuck out to you today? what was your wow? >> my wow was well, my wow was really when he went into the to address the over the crowd that could not physically be there in the rotunda to watch the inauguration be sworn in and the inauguration. and he went to address them in the overflow crowd. i would like to note that while, you know, some of the business leaders were in the

rotunda, governor youngkin was in the overflow room. okay. he was watching on the screen. >> let me be clear. those ceos, some of whom didn't support donald trump in the campaign, were seated closer than his incoming secretary of state, marco rubio. take note, right. some a ceo once said to me, you know, a president's priorities based on whose calls they take, donald trump does not need to get elected again. what he would like to get is richer, and it's happening. >> and as you said earlier today, very specific business leaders and ceos. right. this isn't the ceo of walmart wasn't there. i didn't see the ceo of gap sitting behind the president. okay. the people that control how we perceive and how we review information, those are the folks that are behind the president. but what stuck out to me is what he said when he went into the overflow crowd. and he it was what he really wanted to say. he was not on a teleprompter. he was unscripted, unfettered, and he was mean. he was vindictive. he was clear about what his priorities are. and for months on end, people had told us, well, this is just donald trump's rhetoric. you have to watch what he is saying. but he's the president of the united states of america. his

his his words carry, carry weight. now, this was not a campaign rally he was at. and he made good on the promises that he made in that overflow crowd when he went. and he signed these executive orders, some memorandums and some orders specifically. people have talked a lot about the pardoning of the january 6th insurrectionists and the birthright citizenship, birthright citizenship, and what he and what he signed and said about tiktok those matter to me, because that is the constitution. so how in law? so how are the lawmakers going to respond to the president of the united states blatantly giving them the proverbial middle finger today? that is actually what happened. and that's not hyperbole. that is, in fact, the truth. and if we gloss over that and get too mired down and like, oh, he's telling people to go back to work. well, to be clear, the mayor of washington, d.c, believes that the federal government needs to go back to work. i think the restaurant owners and the business owners in the district for two years would like people to go back to work. exactly. so that's not controversial. but what is? i think what is concerning is a rewriting and attempted rewriting of the constitution

from the oval office. what are you going to do about that america for weigh in on this? >> because donald trump says over and over he's going to follow the constitution. but look at this signing an executive order restricting birthright citizenship. we could all weigh in on how we feel about birthright citizenship, but it's enshrined in the 14th amendment of the constitution, right? that's the issue there. >> yeah. this is simply not an issue that a president can change. he can't wave a magic wand and say, just because i want it to be so i can do it. and yet he has signed an executive order today saying that he will end birthright citizenship for people who are born of parents who are not in the country lawfully, they will no longer have birthright citizenship. and he is directing federal agencies to refuse to provide vital documents or services to any of those children who are born. this is in direct violation of the 14th amendment to the constitution, which has been interpreted by the supreme court to mean that

anyone born in this country is thereby a citizen. they try to play around with some of the language about being subject to the jurisdiction of the united states, but just by interpreting it themselves does not change the language of the constitution. i imagine this will be very quickly the subject of a lawsuit. and i imagine, i think even the supreme court, as constituted, will reject donald trump's plan to try to defeat birthright citizenship. but it just demonstrates the lawlessness with which donald trump operates. he has ideas and many of them are popular, but you have to use the parameters of the law to effectuate your policies. and i think i will be very curious to see how congress responds to him and how the courts respond to him. >> or do you? because isn't donald trump isaac going to say, this is what the american people want? i'm the president. i'm going to do it. if you don't like it, sue me. and we all know the long arm of the law takes a

long time to actually happen. >> well, that's how he got got elected without ever standing trial on january 6th case or the or the documents case by drawing those out. and that's exactly right. they expect to draw a legal challenge on birthright citizenship. they want to draw a legal challenge on birthright citizenship. they want to have that fight. they expect to get challenged on whether they can unilaterally refuse to spend money that congress appropriated. they want to test that. they want to test the civil service protections. they want to bring that to the civil court, to the supreme court. that's part of the strategy of making this transformational change. and, you know, you didn't hear thinking about the president's speech today. it sounded like a little bit like a state of the union, except you didn't hear anything about landmark legislative plans. it wasn't anything about things he wanted to do with congress. there wasn't anything about outreach to americans who didn't

vote for him or don't agree with him. it was all about things that he's going to do immediately, unilaterally invoking emergency powers. we've already got two national emergencies that he declared today on the border and on energy, and that's definitely an indication of how he plans to use executive authority in the second term. >> drill, baby. drill, i heard it. i'm just wondering if someone is going to tell him we're already drilling record amounts. simone. thank you so much. susan. barbara. isaac. thank you. before we go to break, though, i just want to take a moment to honor someone who spent her entire life fighting for others, fighting for women's rights. it's cecile richards, former president of planned parenthood. she died at the young age of 67. she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer in 2023. and today, her family shared one of her most notable quotes. it is not hard to imagine future generations one day asking when there was so much at stake for our country, what did you do?

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power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy. >> that's a stark warning. an oligarchy, a small group of rich and powerful people with their own self-interests, often corrupt, could take control and run our government. well, that made me think about who donald trump has appointed to his administration. and it's over a dozen billionaires. then there's the biggest names in the tech world who had the best seats in the house at the inauguration today elon musk, jeff bezos, mark zuckerberg, the number one, two and three wealthiest people in the whole wide world. and here comes donald john trump, the most transactional president in modern history. he is in the white house for the next four years. and on many of those guys top issues, he appears to not have a position where he's malleable. so that means we, all of us need to pay attention to the decisions that are getting made. and that's what we're going to do. look at the people making those decisions, why and how they're going to affect all of us. the question is this

white house for sale? because this time around, it appears to be built to deliver for corporations and the wealthiest. let's start with his cabinet commerce secretary, the person who will lead the way on a key trump promise, tariffs what he calls the most beautiful word in the dictionary. well, his nominee is howard lutnick, who's got no government experience, but he definitely knows business. ceo of the wall street investment firm cantor fitzgerald, a really big backer of trump's tariffs plans and an even bigger supporter of cryptocurrencies, especially the world's most traded one, tether. tether is also under investigation by the federal government. but according to the wall street journal, tether's owner also expects lutnick will help with any issues the company might face with the government. if lutnick is confirmed. he said he will step down as ceo and divest his interests so he can meet ethics rules. well, we'll be watching, but it's not just who he's picked for his cabinet. it's also some key roles in the administration. you know, like

the people who oversee medicare, nasa, social security. how about who's going to lead the securities and exchange commission? that's the agency in charge of regulating financial markets. well, for that one, trump has nominated a guy named paul atkins. he definitely has the credentials. he was a former commissioner for the sec when he was there. he showed a pro-business bent, which is okay, but pay closer attention, because in recent years he's been a big advocate of, you guessed it, cryptocurrencies. that would be a huge change from the outgoing chair, gary gensler, who regularly fought with the industry. many believed he was downright unfriendly to crypto, simply not open for business. but with atkins, this is about as far as the pendulum can possibly swing to the other side. and crypto is happy, happy, happy. after trump made the announcement, bitcoin surged past 100,000. donald trump, no surprise, took credit posting on social media you are welcome. don't forget this one. trump now has his own crypto exchange

world liberty financial. and just this weekend in the last three days, he and incoming first lady melania trump launched their own meme coin cryptocurrencies, which you will not be surprised. sword. that is another area we are going to watch. and how about this one? lobbyists. donald trump highly criticized them in the past, saying leaders in washington should not answer to them. do you remember drain the swamp well after winning? who was the first white house hire? his campaign manager and former lobbyist, siouxsie wiles, to be his chief of staff during the first trump administration lobbying firm where she worked, ballard partners. they brought in more than 70 million bucks in fees. and since her appointment this time around, it has reportedly signed up at least 28 new clients. and one of them is the crypto firm ripple. ripple gave 5 million of its cryptocurrency to the trump inauguration, and they are also fighting a lawsuit from the sec. there is so much enthusiasm from

the crypto world that they hosted their own crypto ball to kick off the inauguration weekend. now, some might say that's just how dc works. president biden, he had all sorts of lobbyists in his administration or lobbyists advising him former ones. but what i am trying to say is what is happening in this administration is massive. it is something we need to focus on. but finally, before we change focus, let us not forget the donors. why are they there? especially those huge tech executives i mentioned who are brazenly courting trump? and boy, is it working. elon musk, of course, spent more than a quarter of $1 billion to help him get elected. and there are the million dollar donations for the inauguration from the likes of amazon and meta. i mean, mark zuckerberg even co-hosted the big reception tonight to celebrate the inauguration. and of course, zuckerberg has a lot on the line. a possible federal antitrust lawsuit against facebook could go to trial this

year. plus, he wants the u.s. government to help him fight attempts by foreign governments to regulate meta. you can be sure we are going to keep a very close eye on what zuckerberg gets for those donations. and the second, as this second trump administration takes shape, the american people, all of us need to realize what exactly we are in for more and more corporate dollars going into politics. and in return, those corporations getting unprecedented influence in the laws and regulations that favor their interests, and maybe not ours. we must pay attention. and that's going to be our goal this year to help all of us get (vo 1) about 1 in 5 people with fatty liver disease have nash which can lead to cirrhosis. (man) i thought i had fatty liver disease but it's actually nash and it's scarring my liver. ♪ rezdiffra ♪ (vo 1) rezdiffra is the first and only treatment for nash with moderate to advanced liver scarring without cirrhosis.

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1-800-403-7539. that's one (800) 403-7539. >> we just talked about following the money. case in point, president trump and first lady melania trump both launched their own meme coins this weekend. and i know you might be thinking, i don't know anything about crypto. i don't care, but maybe you should. so let's discuss it with ron and sonya. senior cnbc senior analyst and ceo of effeot ai, and jeff stein, white house economics reporter for the washington post. let's start right there, because lots of people don't pay attention. but here we are. we're on the eve of the inauguration. donald trump and the first lady launch their own crypto coins that then, on paper, they're pocketing billions of dollars. why is this important to the average

american? who could say, i'm not involved in crypto? what do i care? >> well, it is a way for anyone to funnel money to anyone else, whether it is the president of the united states who has a meme coin, one of which was called trump, one of which was called melania. and if you own the wallet, or 80% of the wallet in which this meme coin functions, you get 80% of the value, the market value of that meme coin, which at its peak for president trump, was $72 billion. stake was worth over $50 billion, which put him among the top 25 wealthiest people in the world for the time that it was held. at that value, it promptly fell 40% after the melania coin came out, which was then okay, but just stop. >> so again, for the average person, they're saying, why is this happening? why is it legal? and also what if they say, well, let him make all the money in the world, why should it matter to me? >> well, i think it should matter because again, it's a way to potentially at least curry favor with with someone in power. i happen to not believe

that that crypto has has a functional value, whether it's bitcoin or whether it's a meme coin. and so to me, it's all part of a speculative frenzy that has now reached its zenith. but another reason why people might want to pay attention to it. because to me, it does seem like a speculative mania, the likes of which we've not seen in financial market history. >> but of course, if it gets large enough, it could end up too big to fail, which would be stunning for a purely speculative medium. jeff, let's talk about doge, the department of government efficiency. you have been covering it since its inception, since donald trump created it made elon musk and vivek ramaswamy the co heads. vivek has now exited stage left even before donald trump was sworn in. but now it's go time. what should we expect? >> well, we got our first doge executive order tonight from the trump white house. and i think the thing that i'm really paying attention to that i've been really interested in, among many other parts of this debate, is

what is elon's role exactly? because when this was first announced, remember they said this was going to operate, that musk and ramaswamy would be giving advice to the government, which is pretty normal, right? we have lots of think tanks. we have lots of, you know, apparatuses in washington that say you should cut this or that or regulation or spending program. but today, what we learned is that musk is going to be operating from inside the white house. and yet, despite being a government official, it seems like for all intents and purposes, sounds like from my reporting that they're going to have access to sort of privileged information, classified information within the government. musk is not going through the normal procedures of disclosure and other things that you would have to do normally to get there, and i empathize with your question, stephanie, because it's like we've been doing this for so long now that i think people are like, does anyone care? does this matter? you know, and i think we're all kind of

wrestling with that sort of uncertainty and that sort of doubt. but we're still at the very, very, very, very beginning, of this. and the country may have elected trump, but are they going to be supportive or is there going to be mass levels of discontent over this degree of a billionaire who helped, you know, influence the election with his private money, using it for his personal gain? just because trump won the election doesn't mean that we should, you know, let that go or stop paying attention. >> but that's the thing. people don't care or don't pay attention when they don't think it impacts their life. when they think, fine, if he wants to do something, what do i care? what could the impact be? because. right. so donald trump is out there saying we need to actually no, let me change the question. he actually signed an executive order today that says he wants agencies to take emergency measures to reduce the cost of living for americans. right. and that headline is one that will be met with huge support and applause from the american people. like, yes, i want that big, fat government to stop spending so much to make my life

more affordable. but how does that actually happen besides donald trump signing his name on a piece of paper? >> i have no idea. i mean, there is no executive order that can roll back prices. i mean, if that were possible, president biden would have done it when inflation was, you know, one juncture, over 9% for consumer prices. i don't know that there's a mechanism in place in which businesses would roll back their prices based on an executive order. i don't know how you get egg prices down. with the bird flu expanding around the united states and chickens being called and reducing the available supply of eggs in the united states, or any other product that may be in short supply. i don't know how you do that. i don't know what agency is actually tasked or could be tasked with doing that. it's never i mean, we president nixon, imposed wage and price controls in the early 1970s when inflation was raging, didn't work. and in fact, when they were lifted, inflation accelerated, didn't decelerate. so i have no idea how that would work. >> okay, but could donald trump influence businesses? right.

maybe. you know, i wasn't talking about the he didn't have the ceo of kroger sitting next to him today. but but we have been talking about all these big business people that are cozying up to donald trump because they want to curry favors from him. what about what favors he wants besides getting big, big donations? is there anything he could get right? he had he had ceos of google and apple at the inauguration today. could he turn around to them and say, i'd like you to change the wording on your maps. i'd like it to now say gulf of america, not gulf of mexico. could he ask that of sundar pichai, of tim cook? >> sure. it doesn't reduce consumer prices, though. it doesn't do anything for anybody. i mean, he could could he ask tim cook of apple to lower the price of an iphone? i doubt that's going to happen. or if he's going to impose, as he said on february 1st, 25% tariffs on canada and mexico that will make consumer prices go up from everything from oil to lumber to avocados to agricultural goods. and so we're working at cross purposes here. if on the one hand, you have a mandate or i

should say a dictate to lower prices, and on the other hand, you're slapping taxes or tariffs on incoming imports, that's not going to work out the way you want it to, jeff. >> the president cares about the gulf of mexico, and he cares about the panama canal so much that he thinks we should buy it because he's concerned that china has control of it yet. let's just talk for a moment about what has happened with tiktok. donald trump is so interested in tiktok staying as an app, working, operating in the united states of america. this is a company that is chinese based, and what we saw happen over the last four days, joe biden punted on this. joe biden didn't shut tiktok down. democrats and republicans voted on it. they voted to ban it. the supreme court upheld it. joe biden said it's on donald trump's lap. tiktok then put on a show for all the world to see and went dark, made no money for a day so they could then gift donald trump with the ability to say, america, i'm going to be the outlaw president who's going to fix this for you and bring

this app back. what does this tell us about his priorities when it comes to national security and anything else? because there was a reason, whether i like it or not, that tiktok was banned and donald trump has a problem, has no problem with that. but he's got a problem with china when it comes to the panama canal, which isn't which isn't very popular with the youngs. >> i'm not sure i totally agree with your characterization there. i think democrats made a conscious choice to prioritize national security over app that is quite popular, and that was a decision that they are now living with. and in some instances, i think, ruben, you know, on your point about what trump wants to do with it, i think his answer here, you know, it's the kind of thing that trump does that a traditional republican would definitely not. but, you know, today from the oval office, he said, i'm thinking that if this company needs the us president's approval to survive, why don't we get a chunk of it? and some

people might look at that and say, you know, that sounds like a mob boss shakedown. like, that's no way to treat fdii that you'd see in a textbook about how government relations should work. but at the same time, you know, if the us government could recoup billions of dollars as a precondition for keeping this app alive, i mean, who knows? it's the kind of thing, though, that that is more, you know, you would normally see like a norway or sweden try to do instead of a, of a us president or a conservative or a republican. >> well, we'll be watching. gentlemen, thank you so much. when we return, we're going to break down this historic day on capitol hill. donald trump, a convicted felon, retakes our white house. we're going to get into it next. >> matt torello has organic broccoli, blueberries and carrots. >> ours has polyethylene glycol, vitamin e from sunflowers, red 40 lake, which is another way of saying artificial coloring. >> natural whole food multivitamins available on amazon and naturalizer.com.

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>> donald trump is officially the first convicted felon to be sworn in as president of the united states. for more on this day, i want to bring in my dear friend john meacham, historian and occasional adviser to former president biden. john, a lot to take in today. what's your takeaway? >> well, you know, one of the things about the united states of america is it's never boring. we have at least we have that. when winston churchill proposed to clementine churchill, he said, we may not always be happy, but we'll never be bored. and so i think we're seeing that, i think, as so many of us try to figure out what's the way forward here. i think one idea i would offer is perhaps the lesson of the last ten years, and it's been ten years now since donald trump has been the

central political force of a lot of people have defined themselves in favor of him. a lot of people have defined themselves against him, but he has been the constant in the same way we had the age of jackson and the age of roosevelt, we may someday talk about this era as the age of trump. and i think that historians may end up debating that for a long time. it seems to me the way forward is to assess not only what he says, but what he does, and then speak your mind with a certain measure of grace, because we're all called on to do that. but don't be intimidated from speaking truth because of the result of a single election. that, to me is democracy, lowercase d inaction. and i think a lot of people are

preemptively surrendering, surrendering their agency, putting very narrow interests ahead of what i would think of as the constitutional order. and, look, a dispositive number of american voters rejected that view of things. i did not think that it was worth risking a second trump presidency, given how the last one ended. that was my opinion. 49.9% of the voters who went to the polls disagreed, and so they win, i lose. and now, for my friends and yours who are in that sort of maga adjacent group, i sometimes call them the peter miller republicans. right. they're the people who wear, you know, pretty $175 golf shirts. exactly. but you know exactly who i'm talking about, right? and that's the delta. that's the delta in this, right? 35% of the

country is full on maga. 35% of the country. you can get to do almost anything that 14 or 15% is the reason president trump is president trump again and what they want. and you've had this conversation a thousand times. i've had it a thousand times is they want to say, look, you all set your hair on fire. you all go crazy about this. he doesn't really mean all of it. well, you kind of can't have it both ways, right? so what i would say to them is prove me wrong. you now have ultimate power in the greatest republic in the history of the world. prove me wrong to prove that i've been hysterical and hyperbolic. prove to me that january 6th was an aberration and not a feature of a trump way of being, where power is so important that he'll hold on to

it at any cost, including the cost of the constitution. >> but john, where do people find the strength to speak truth to power right now? you've got an administration. you've got a president ready, willing and able to take legal action against people doing their jobs. you've got a former president who's so panicked by what donald trump can do. on the last thing he did before he packed a suitcase was pre pardoned. his whole family. >> yeah, it's very hard. we have lived out of compliance more often for more years. we've lived out of compliance with the declaration of independence than we've lived in compliance with it. so what would have happened if the abolitionists. let's go. let's go back to the colonists. what? you know, what if the continental congress had said, you know, the king is going to come after us? well, they did think that we must. surely we must all hang together or we will hang separately. they said the abolitionists, the. you know, frederick douglass. in 1857, dred scott is handed down.

the supreme court declares that black people are not included in the declaration of independence. a lot of white liberals wanted to break away at that point. they denounced the constitution as a covenant with death and an agreement with hell. frederick douglass, born into enslavement, says no, that the fiat of the almighty, let there be light, has not yet spent its force, and there is no soil more conducive to the growth of reform than american soil. if a man born into enslavement can find that energy, i think in 2025, politically engaged people can find the strength to make their voices heard and try to help create a climate of opinion that enables these institutions, these people who run these institutions, to do the right thing. >> well, john meacham, you are certainly my light tonight. thank you for joining me. thanks, jeff. when we return, mlk day meets the presidential inauguration, the one day celebration of two very, very

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1-800-403-7539. that's one (800) 403-7539. >> and the last thing before we go tonight honoring doctor king with everything going on, we did not want to leave you this evening without reminding ourselves that today is doctor martin luther king junior day. in his short but extraordinary life, he said many things about how we should treat one another. but one of his most notable sayings seems more relevant than ever right now, and i wanted to share it. darkness cannot drive out darkness. only light can do that. hate cannot drive out hate. only love can do that. so today, tonight and always, let's remember the wise words of doctor king. let us be the light. let's radiate love. and on that note, i wish you a very good night. woof! day one is done from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news.

thanks for staying up late with me. i'll see you at the end of tomorrow. and probably pretty early on morning joe. >> okay, let this sink in for a second. today started with the outgoing president, joe biden, who's still president at the time, obviously preemptively pardoning the people who investigated the january 6th attack on the capitol and the officers who defended the capitol that day. now, just a few hours later, the person who incited that attack took the oath of office for the second time in the very same building, the capitol where the attack took place. and just moments ago, literally in the last 15 minute