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breaking news on another plane crash. this one a small medical transport jet carrying six people, including a pediatric patient. it crashed into a northeast philadelphia neighborhood last night less than a minute after takeoff. we're going to get the very latest from the crash site. we do know now that there are injuries at the crash site, people who were on the ground. plus, growing fears about air traffic around reagan national airport as the investigation continues into wednesday night's deadly mid-air collision between a passenger jet and an army blackhawk helicopter. and then we'll go live to tel aviv as a fourth hostage. prisoner exchange is taking place this morning amid a fragile ceasefire between israel and gaza and some of donald trump's most vulnerable and arguably most dangerous national security and intelligence nominees are now working their way through the senate confirmation process, just as a purge of career fbi officials appears to be underway. all of this, plus, today is day one of donald trump's tariffs on america's biggest trading partners. what

the tariffs actually mean? who is footing the bill for them and what it means for you? velshi starts now. hey. good morning. saturday, february the 1st. a massive purge of the department of justice is happening as we speak, as donald trump's new administration attempts to gut the country's top law enforcement agency, the latest in a series of alarming signs that the president and his allies are actively dismantling the doj's independence. last night featured another wave of shock dismissals, this time within the fbi. nbc news reports that the trump administration has forced out about two dozen officials across the country. that list includes six of the most senior executives at the fbi's headquarters, who oversaw important arms of the agency, like the national security branch, the intelligence branch, and the criminal and cyber response branches. all were

experienced career officials. this is an important distinction for us to make as we report on these stories. all were career officials. they had spent decades working their way up the ranks of the fbi. many were forced into retirement by this new administration. the heads of multiple fbi field offices, again, apolitical people have been terminated as well, including the special agent in charge of the washington, d.c. field office, which was heavily involved in trump's federal prosecutions. on top of that, federal prosecutors who investigated or worked on the cases involving the january 6th rioters were also among those fired from the department of justice. and many more people who worked on those prosecutions are being put on notice as well. nbc news reports that a memo was sent out to the entire fbi workforce last night, informing employees that the acting deputy attorney general, emil bove, has asked for a list of all employees who worked on january

6th cases. the memo adds that the effort will be part of a, quote, review process to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary, end quote. just sit with that for a second. think about that. this is america in which this is happening. we hear stories about this. remember soviet russia? we used to hear about that. that request by emil bove has understandably spread fear and panic through the fbi's ranks. the january 6th investigation was the largest probe in fbi history, involving more than 1500 defendants, all of whom have now been granted clemency by president trump, which means that thousands of employees within the fbi, at its headquarters and in the field offices across the country who have worked on this investigation in some shape or form over the past few years, could all end up on the list that the new administration is asking for, simply because they were doing the job to which they were assigned. i don't know how much you know about the fbi. if you like me, you know most of

it. for the movies, they don't assign themselves. they get assigned their jobs. this is an ominous sign of a possible mass purge that could upend the mission of the fbi. concerns have been raised about what implications it might have for public safety and national security. if a large number of experienced career officials whose jobs are to investigate and prosecute serious federal crimes are suddenly gone. it heightens critics worries that this administration could be taking the country back to a time of politicized justice. wasn't that long ago the era of cointelpro, when the doj and the fbi regularly spied on and harassed activists and civil rights leaders like martin luther king jr and others, they called everybody a communist back then. since trump returned to office, there have been multiple reports that people have been demoted, transferred or forced out of the department of justice. and this has all happened before trump's nominees for attorney general and fbi director have even been confirmed by the senate this week. one of those nominees,

this guy kash patel, trump's choice for fbi director, faced the senate judiciary committee for his confirmation hearing. patel is known to be among trump's staunchest allies. he once pleaded the fifth in front of the grand jury that was investigating trump's classified documents case. patel was ultimately compelled to testify, and it was one of a number of contentious topics that senators brought up during his hearing on thursday. during that hearing, patel also said that, quote, all fbi employees will be protected against political retribution. i can't even say it without laughing. all fbi employees will be protected against political retribution. it's not it's not remotely funny. i just can't say it without laughing because it's such bs. and those words ring hollow to many, many members of the fbi workforce who are following the latest news of terminations and deepening investigations that are occurring within the bureau. in addition to that, by the way, kash patel has said and written numerous controversial things, including a series of children's books featuring an embattled main character named king

donald. i'm not making this stuff up about the agency and the people that he's been nominated to lead. he's been vocally supportive of trump's plans and promises for retribution against his perceived political enemies, which patel has tried to downplay. but the democratic senator, amy klobuchar, an experienced prosecutor herself, made it the main focus of her line of questioning. watch this as she effectively made her point by entering patel's own words into the record and not allowing him to obfuscate. >> did you. >> say this when trump wins in 2024 and is in power in 2025, we can prosecute them. referring to justice department officials for an actual rico statute violation for criminally. >> organizing the united. >> states government to break the law. >> to rig. presidential elections. >> did you say. >> that yes or no? >> again. >> senator, you're reading a partial. >> statement. >> so i'm unable to. >> fully respond.

>> okay. again, we'll put it on the record. have you referred to the media as the most powerful enemy of the united states that they have ever seen? is that right? >> again, you're reading. >> a quote i take it you're reading. >> it accurately. two 2324 you said. >> we're. >> going to come after the people in the media who lied about american citizens who helped joe biden rig the elections. we're going to come after you, whether it's criminally or civilly. is that something you said? >> that's a partial statement of what i said. >> steve bannon's. >> podcast. >> that's how a prosecutor rolls. following yesterday's fbi firings, the top democrat on the house intelligence committee, senator jim himes, said that patel had, quote, misled the senate on his answers regarding the administration's plans for weaponizing the federal government. while there have been reports that some republican senators have privately expressed concerns about patel's fitness to head and head the fbi. no republican senator, unless this has happened in the last ten minutes, not one has publicly opposed his nomination yet. and

as such. as of now, patel appears to be on track to be confirmed for the position of director of the fbi. for more on this, i'm joined by joyce vance, former united states attorney for the northern district of alabama. she's also a senior fellow at the brennan center for justice, co-host of the sisters in law podcast, and an msnbc contributor and columnist. tim weiner joins me, too. he's a pulitzer prize winning reporter and the award winning author of the books enemies a history of the fbi and legacy of ashes the history of the cia. he's got a book coming out as well, called the mission the cia in the 20th century. welcome to both of you. thank you for being with us. joyce, as a as a former prosecutor, i wanted to play what amy klobuchar did there, because we all know now with some of these candidates that they are going to use whatever words you want. i'll choose obfuscate for now. she knows that he was going to do it, so she read it. she said when he said it, she entered it into the record. i don't know that that helps. it was effective for her

job, but i don't know that it will help those republicans who are sitting on their hands and saying, this guy doesn't tell the truth. he's written these things. he said them in podcasts, he's written books about it, and yet he will not say it publicly in the united states senate, that the press is the enemy of the people, that they're going after their their enemies, that there will be retribution. >> senator klobuchar did what she could do right with the material in front of her. and it's what every good prosecutor does in cross-examination. you confront the witness with the lie. she did it effectively. and something that may resonate even in this senate over time is the fact that if you're pam bondi, the attorney general nominee, or if you're kash patel, after this president undercuts your testimony in front of the senate, where you have said that there will not be revenge prosecutions or retaliatory actions against personnel, and that president proceeds to do that literally in kash patel's case, while you're sitting in front of the senate, the only

thing that you can do is withdraw your name from consideration. and if you won't do that, you're signing on to what donald trump has done. so kash patel has now lied in front of the senate. it's up to senators to decide whether to hold him accountable. frankly, they have a constitutional duty to engage in advice and consent, whether they'll bend the knee to donald trump or not is something i think we all have opinions on at this point, but it will be up to them in these upcoming votes to do their job. >> kim, there are you've written a lot about this, whether it's the intelligence community, the fbi. no question that there are conversations to be had about reforming these and every other government agency. well, we should be we should be having these conversations in a democracy. that's not what this is about. this is not the normal shifting of political leadership at the top of the doj or the fbi, fbi agents, where they've asked for this list of everybody involved in these prosecutions. fbi agents are like reporters. they do not assign themselves their jobs. they are told to investigate something, and they do what they're they're asked to

do. >> we're witnessing the. decapitation of america's. >> foremost law enforcement agency. it's happening in real time. >> there are. >> three lines of defense here. one is the acting. >> fbi director, brian driscoll. >> will he. >> execute the order. >> that has been commanded? the second line of defense and the third line are, unfortunately. >> the senate republicans and the supreme. >> court of the united states. >> when trump took the oath. >> of office. only 13 days ago, he swore. >> an oath. >> to uphold the constitution and the laws of the united states. >> that was a lie. >> under oath. >> patel's testimony. >> that there would be no. >> political retribution. >> at the fbi does not have the. >> odor of truth. >> if the senate will confirm someone who lies under oath about his legal.

>> duties. >> there is no defense. if trump can impound congressionally appropriated funds, abrogate the constitution. by abolishing birthright citizenship. we are. >> in an. >> autocracy, and. >> it is the goal of the autocrat. >> to convince the people that there are no facts and there is no truth. joyce. >> talk to me about the connection between these two stories. they're not unrelated. the decapitation of the department of justice and the fbi. as a former prosecutor, you you had to work with the fbi. tim and i were talking before the show started. that. what do you do if you if you if you punish prosecutors and fbi agents for pursuing the cases that the nation and society determines are important, what's left? what does the fbi and the doj do if they can't actually prosecute cases? in the case of january 6th, the biggest investigation in the history of the fbi. >> yes. so the fbi is a

component of the justice department. it's one of the four law enforcement agencies that reports to the deputy attorney general and to the attorney general and the independence of law enforcement of the justice department when it comes to criminal prosecutions, is what's important here. it's pretty easy to understand that the president shouldn't have access to the power of prosecution as a political tool. and that's why, as a matter of history and tradition, if not law, the attorney general has maintained a position of independence from the white house comes to deciding who gets prosecuted and who doesn't get prosecuted. and that's what donald trump. and let's be clear, ali, because we talked about this during the campaign, that is what trump has been crystal clear. he means to do away with. he means for that apparatus to be at his disposal, not to be based on the facts and the law, but to be based on his personal whim. so we know what the fate of the justice department is. it's going to be all immigration, all the time.

we're going to be deporting people and prosecuting people who are in this country without legal status, without regard to whether they're a danger to their communities or whether they're hardworking, want to be citizens. that's a real misallocation of law enforcement priorities. it is within donald trump's ability to do that. elections have consequences. one is that this sort of policy is appropriate to set inside of the white house and for the president to deliver these sorts of priorities to the justice department, how the individual cases are conducted is where independence comes into play. but donald trump has now made it clear, don't do public corruption prosecutions, because if you do, you do it at the risk of your job, whether you're an agent or a prosecutor. and that's the final step he's taking here. it's not just about revenge against these individuals. it's also a warning to the work that's done in all of the justice department agencies and across the

executive branch going forward. loyalty matters more than principle. >> tim, you are an expert, having written about national security and security functions. and you know what what law enforcement does to joyce's point, something suffers as a result of this, right? the, the things that we don't think about with the average person doesn't think about the fbi or the justice department outside of cable tv or movies, but we depend on them working a certain way. and what we're watching here is the reallocation of resources in the government that actually could affect our our national security and our personal security. >> it's important to. >> remember that. >> the fbi. >> is not merely. a law enforcement agency, but also a national. security and intelligence agency. what you are seeing is the attempted destruction of the national security and intelligence functions of the fbi. why? because those divisions were the ones that went. after trump in the stolen documents case. cases

where it took top secret and code word documents and hid them in the bathroom at mar-a-lago. >> these were the divisions. >> that also investigated the links between russian intelligence and the trump campaign. in the 2016 election. trump's vengeance on those specific divisions is a direct threat to the national security of the united states. >> we'll have more to discuss on this as this as these confirmations go ahead. thanks to both of you for being with us. u.s. attorney, former u.s. attorney joyce vance, pulitzer prize winning reporter tim weiner. coming up, two of president trump's other cabinet picks face senate scrutiny this week tulsi gabbard and rfk jr, both facing tough questions about whether they're fit to run two crucial agencies that also keep americans safe. plus, we'll turn to the middle east, where three more hostages have been released by hamas today, including the american dual citizen keith siegel. a live citizen keith siegel. a live report from tel aviv next.

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quick hit slots for free and get. >> a. >> 6 million. >> coin bonus. make every. >> day a winning day. >> let's turn now to the middle east, where the fourth hostage prisoner exchange between israel and hamas began in gaza early this morning. three hostages have now been released today, including one american with dual israeli citizenship. hamas turned over yarden bibas and ofir calderon in an orderly exchange that took place in the gazan city of khan younis. later in the morning at the port of gaza, hamas handed over 65 year old keith segal in another orderly transfer, the american israeli arrived in tel aviv by helicopter a little before 7:30 a.m. eastern on october 7th. he was kidnaped from his home in kfar aza with his wife aviva, who was released in november 2023 after 51 days in captivity. meanwhile, 183 palestinian prisoners and detainees were also released from israeli custody today as they returned to ramallah in the occupied west

bank. they returned home to celebrations in the streets, a total of 18 hostages and nearly 600 palestinians have been set free since the exchanges began on january the 19th. joining me now from tel aviv is my colleague, nbc news correspondent yasmin vossoughian. yasmin, good afternoon to you in tel aviv. keith segal is the first american to be released in this particular cease fire agreement. what's the significance of that? and has have you heard from his family? >> incredibly significant, ali, to say the least. i mean, the first israeli american dual citizen to be released in this stage. i should be clear in this stage of the hostage negotiations of the cease fire. i was with his family this morning. ali. as keith segal, was walked across by hamas, by islamic jihad and handed over to the red cross and driven out into israel across the border and reunited with his family. we were sitting in a kibbutz about 35 minutes or so away from tel

aviv, and there was cautious optimism leading up to his release, obviously hoping and praying that that he would be okay, he would be safe wondering what he looked like, having not seen him for 484 days. ali. and then the moment in which he emerged from the truck and it was definitely extended, as you mentioned, two other hostages were released this morning, about two hours before keith segal was in fact released at a different location. and the moment in which he he emerged from that truck and was handed over to the red cross was an emotional moment. there were tears shed. there were folks clapping. they were screaming. they were hugging each other, patting each other on the back. a moment that so many of them had been waiting for. this was friends and family of keith segal, but i think also ali. it was combined with also a kind of a solemn moment and understanding that so many lives have been lost in the lead up to this and the hostages, ali, that still remain in gaza.

>> the on the palestinian side, this has been marked with violence a few times. the israeli military continuing its its offensive in the west bank today, has seemed calmer than the last couple of weeks. >> today has seemed calmer in the last couple of weeks. absolutely. even the prisoner exchange and the hostage exchange seemed much calmer than it had been in the lead up to today, i will say that you mentioned the numbers of individuals that were exchanged from the palestinian side, 184 palestinian prisoners, 50 plus palestinian children today for the first time, were also brought out of gaza to seek international health care. young children that had either been caught in the crossfire that were injured during the war, finally being able to seek international health and help, i should say, coming out of gaza. and so that in and of itself was a celebration for palestinians

as well. ali. >> yasmin, thank you for your reporting and we will talk to you soon. yasmin vossoughian in tel aviv. all right. coming up, congress is weighing president trump's more controversial cabinet picks as some republicans express doubts over tulsi gabbard's fitness to lead the top intelligence agency in the top intelligence agency in the united states. [monologue] i got somebody for that! ♪♪ i got somebody for that. ♪♪ i got somebody for that! you guys got somebody for peyronie's disease? ♪♪ there's hope for the estimated 1 in 10 men who may have peyronie's disease, or pd. a urology specialist who treats pd can help you create a plan— including nonsurgical options. find somebody today at gogetsomebody.com

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president receives on a daily basis, and to fill that very important role. donald trump has nominated someone with no previous significant experience in the intelligence community. i wouldn't even say insignificant experience in the in the intelligence community, who in fact has a history of undermining american intelligence and foreign policy goals. on thursday, tulsi gabbard, trump's nominee for dni, faced a series of tough questions from senators from both parties during her confirmation hearing. gabbard, a former congresswoman who began her political career as a democrat and is now a member of the republican party and an avid trump supporter, has bucked the trend on a number of occasions and broken with both parties over some core issues over the years. members of both sides of the aisle have criticized gabbard for a trip that she took to syria in 2017, during which she secretly met with the country's then dictator, bashar al-assad, an ally of iran and russia who had credibly been accused of war crimes and human rights abuses. two months after that visit, when dozens of

people were killed in a chemical weapons attack in rebel held territory in syria, and the u.s. government held the assad regime responsible, gabbard said she was skeptical that assad was behind it. in addition to that, there are concerns regarding her possible ties to russia, or at least her affinity for russia. gabbard has been accused of echoing kremlin propaganda in the past, most notably in 2022, shortly after russia invaded ukraine. gabbard promoted the idea that there were dozens of american funded bio labs in ukraine, which is a baseless claim that russia promoted as one of its justifications for launching its attack on ukraine. perhaps more importantly, she echoed the stance that the dismissal of russia's concerns regarding ukraine possibly being a member of nato, or even the expansion of nato toward russian borders, was part of the reason russia had to invade the expansion of nato, and america's role in that was the reason why russia had to invade ukraine.

that's just some stupid stuff. joining me now is tom nichols, staff writer for the atlantic, author of the atlantic daily newsletter. he's the author of several books, including our own worst enemy, the assault from within on modern democracy. and i know that he got exactly as much sleep as i did because we were talking late last night. tom, thanks for being here. the there were some skepticism on the part of some republicans in in the testimony. i guess i'm curious. does it matter? did the testimony help or hurt her, or does it not matter? or do you think there are enough republicans who will say, you got weird views on, on in particular on, on russia and that you're not capable of doing this job. >> you know. >> i hate to predict it looks like this nomination is in trouble when you've got senior republicans saying, you know, i have a real problem. i have real heartburn here. it could also be that the committee will just decide not to report out a recommendation. but interestingly enough, gabbard,

more than all of the other unbelievably unqualified nominations, only rfk is getting as much pushback. i think gabbard is being singled out here. i think, as particularly worrisome, because i think these senators know even the ones that aren't speaking up. gabbard with her views and her background, she would have a hard time getting a security clearance. you know, in in most parts of the executive branch, i know she's a lieutenant colonel in the guard. you know, that's a different kind of animal. for military folks who are active duty, but for the kind of job she's talking about, she would be tough to clear with some of with some of those views. so i think it does matter. ali i think they may there could actually be i mean, it only takes four republicans to, to end this nomination and they may. and i'll just say one last

thing. they may be saying, look, we had to swallow hegseth. we're going to have to swallow patel. we might be able to get rid of rfk, but but somewhere in there, we have to show that we're willing to get rid of someone who is completely unqualified. and by by law, she's supposed to be qualified. the law creating that position says that the dni should have extensive intelligence experience. right. and that's not that's not. >> a matter of like, that's a real thing. intelligence gathering is a real thing. and there's a there's a presidential daily brief. we know from trump, 1.0 wasn't a big reader of these things. so it needs to be curated uniquely well in large font and all these kinds of things. she's going to be making those decisions. so she's got unorthodox views on things that could get to trump. and as it relates to russia and ukraine, this is a serious matter because while it while donald trump may not be in the right place on russia and ukraine, lots of republicans are. lots of republicans believe that that america should be supporting its ally, ukraine, against an

expansionist russia. we're not. she echoes other sentiments. and those could make it to donald trump. >> they could. and it would be interesting to see what happens. normally, there's a fair amount of tension between the cia director and dni, because, of course, cia has a lot of operational responsibilities. so it'd be interesting to see who wins that fight every day. talking to donald trump. but, you know, as we were discussing last night, she's not really going to be there to produce quality intelligence because, as you pointed out, donald trump is not a big reader. she's going to be there to sow chaos in the intelligence community. she's going to harm links we have with other intelligence organizations. i mean, in a way, this is another one of donald trump's very trolly kind of let's see how much i can make republicans and the public put up with in a, in a nomination.

so, i mean, she's it's a dangerous nomination. and if it's approved, there's going to be chaos in the intelligence community. >> yeah. these these three rfk gabbard and kash patel, people have to remember, these are not obscure policies that don't have an actual effect on people's lives and livelihoods. this needs to be taken seriously. tom, thanks as always. tom nicholls, staff writer for the atlantic, author of the book our own worst enemy the assault from within on modern democracy. all right. coming up, where the ongoing investigation into the tragedy in the potomac river, the nation's worst air incident since 2001, now stands. a live report from ronald reagan national airport right after this. >> remove. >> and doug. >> you'll be back. emus can't. help people. >> customize and. save hundreds on car insurance. with liberty mutual. >> you're just. >> a flightless bird. >> no. he's a. >> dreamer, frank.

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assist in the search and recovery efforts. wednesday night's mid-air collision between an american airlines passenger plane and an army blackhawk helicopter killed all 67 people aboard both aircraft near ronald reagan washington national airport. so far, 41 bodies have been recovered. officials say they expect all the victims bodies to be recovered. publicly available data reviewed by nbc news suggests that the army helicopter, a blackhawk, may have been flying too high at the time of the crash, but investigators cautioned against drawing conclusions before they're actually able to analyze official flight data. investigators have recovered a flight data recorder or a black box from the american eagle jet and a device from the helicopter, which should provide the exact altitude at the point of impact and other important details. all right. still to come, lawmakers press rfk jr on where he really stands on vaccines as he attempts to distance himself from a very long history of pushing an anti-vaccine agenda. we'll talk about the record he's running from and how likely seems to

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nurses who botched the doses were eventually found guilty of manslaughter and were sentenced to prison. all of that caused public confidence in the vaccine to crater. now, following those tragedies, the samoan government suspended measles vaccinations for months. by the time the vaccinations resumed, many patients still were not. many parents were not convinced that they were safe. as nbc's brandy zadrozny reported, quote, with fewer than a third of samoa's babies, vaccinated, experts and officials feared for the pacific island nation. but kennedy saw an opportunity, end quote. now, at the time, kennedy was running the children's health defense, which is an anti-vaccine nonprofit, that he founded. the organization and his partner, its partners, had been posting online about the two babies that died falsely blaming the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine itself for their deaths, not the botched vaccine. before it was fully clear what had happened. that campaign then caught on with other anti-vaccine activists. rfk

would later recount that government officials, including samoa's prime minister, were curious to measure health outcomes following the natural experiment that was created by the respite from vaccines, end quote. so while sitting at dinner with the samoan government officials, kennedy pitched the prime minister of samoa and the minister of health on a health surveillance system that would track the impact of medical interventions, including vaccines, on that nation's approximately 200,000 citizens. but the government chose to reject kennedy's pitch. the prime minister told nbc news, quote, i was not interested in his ideas. he was not a medical doctor, end quote. in the following months, however, that natural experiment that kennedy wanted to explore did occur as a result of the widespread public panic that was caused by the deaths of those two infants, and with fewer than a third of the country's babies vaccinated against measles, an outbreak swept the country. thousands

became sick. 83 people died, many of them young children. after having left samoa, kennedy remained in touch with the people on the island. he even wrote the prime minister during the measles outbreak that the deaths could be, quote, casualties of merck's vaccine, end quote, as opposed to actual death from measles. he also gave medical guidance to a local anti-vaccine activist who routinely posted false claims about the vaccine and promoted unproven alternative cures for measles. kennedy denies that his visit to samoa in 2019 made the island's outbreak worse by fueling anti-vaccine rhetoric and increasing public fear. but during his confirmation hearings this week, senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts grilled him about the saga. launched the idea that a measles vaccine caused. >> these deaths. >> you are a very influential man. the world health organization investigated this. they say the claims are false. it is not biologically possible

what you claimed. >> and yet. >> ultimately, more than 70. >> people died. >> because they didn't get vaccines. so my question is, do you accept even a scintilla, just even a sliver of responsibility for the drop in vaccinations and the subsequent deaths of more than. >> 70 people? >> anything you do differently? >> oh, absolutely not. >> to be sure, the government rejected his proposal in samoa, so kennedy's ideas were never implemented. but kennedy's time in samoa serves as a microcosm for his stance on vaccines. according to the world health organization. herd immunity against measles. you probably remember this conversation from the covid days requires 95% of the population to be vaccinated against it, which means that even a hint of lower confidence in vaccines could lead to outbreaks. and in the case of measles deaths. republican senator bill cassidy of louisiana, who is also a doctor,

made clear the stakes of discrediting safe and effective vaccines. >> whether it's justified or not. and you may not want this to be the case, but i have constituents who partly credit you for their decision to not vaccinate their child. so your past of undermining confidence in vaccines with unfounded or misleading arguments concerns me. can i trust that that is now in the past? can data and information change your opinion, or will you only look for data supporting a predetermined conclusion? >> well, since being tapped by donald trump to run the department of health and human services, kennedy has tried to soften his prior skepticism of vaccines. but he's leaving something to be desired for senators like cassidy. >> will you reassure mothers unequivocally and without qualification, that the measles and hepatitis b vaccines do not

cause autism? >> senator, i am not going into the agency with any. >> kind of a yes or no question because. so if you're because the data is there and that's kind of a yes or no. and i don't mean to cut you off, but that really is a yes or no. >> if that. >> is there, i. will absolutely do that. >> now there is the data. just because i used to i used to do hepatitis b, as. >> i. >> said, i know the data is there. >> i guess sometimes it's handy to have a doctor in congress. so even as kennedy attempts to distance himself from his long history of anti-vaccination advocacy, it is not entirely working even with those in his own party. senator cassidy could prove to be a crucial swing vote for rfk jr, who can only afford to lose three republican votes in order to get confirmed. >> this is, poof, the. >> fastest growing pet odor eliminator in the world. >> oh, it's safe for people, pets. >> and the. planet's powerful.

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at ro covid day. >> before the break, i told you about robert f kennedy jr. s confirmation hearings this week and his troubling time in samoa, which preceded a measles outbreak. joining me now is anna merlan, senior reporter at mother jones and author of the book republic of lies american conspiracy theorists and their surprising rise to power, which anna is a suitable book title for. what's going on? the idea that robert f kennedy jr is sitting before the united states senate millimeters away from being recommended to become the health and human services secretary, is a little hard to imagine, given his own words

that have been stated to him this week. >> yeah. it's surprising. >> let's talk about this this situation. i don't know if a lot of people knew about the samoa story, and it may not feel important to a whole lot of people, but it is. it's instructive. right. you had you had the senator cassidy, who's an actual doctor, saying, i know the data. the data exists, the real data about vaccinations and mmr exist. we had senator maggie hassan saying, we want to know about autism. we want to know about what causes autism. and people like rfk who peddle these conspiracy theories literally stand in the way of getting to the bottom of what causes certain certain diseases. what's your take on how this is proceeding so far? >> yeah. >> it's been really. >> interesting because essentially. mr. kennedy is having to recast the statements he's made for friendlier audiences. >> you know. >> in the. >> anti-vaccine world and on. >> podcasts towards. >> a, you know, these.

>> senators and assure them that despite his. >> very long. >> track. >> record of. questioning the. >> safety of vaccines, that he's not going to go. >> into hhs. as an. >> anti-vaccine critic. >> intent on dismantling. >> a core piece of the. >> public health system. >> yeah. and as. >> senator hassan pointed out. every time. we go back to the. >> debunked. >> thoroughly debunked link between vaccines and autism, it. >> prevents us. >> from. doing actual. >> research on. >> the causes and. >> treatment of autism. so it's. >> it's fascinating to watch this playing out. >> what how much damage can he do in other words. and i think covid gave us a sense of it. right. because we started spreading vaccine skepticism and people did die. we have we have generally accepted that children are vaccinated against certain diseases, communicable diseases, in order to be allowed to go to school doesn't happen in certain places. that's why some people homeschool in places where they don't vaccinate. in america, you do see outbreaks of these diseases. we generally, as a

society, have accepted vaccination against certain things. how much damage can a guy like robert f kennedy do if he continues to be a vaccine skeptic? >> so there's two separate things. the first is obviously his stance towards vaccines, which is extremely critical. the second is the fact that hhs is an enormous department. >> with a ton. >> of agencies. >> beneath it. he would control a. $1.7 trillion. >> budget. >> and he wouldn't. >> just be in charge of things like cdc, nih, and fda, the three agencies that he's focused a lot of criticism on. he would also be in charge of things like medicare and medicaid, which he. struggled to clearly define. for instance, during these hearings, the differences between medicare part a and part b, but if we're just talking about vaccines, he could do damage there. he could make it harder to access certain vaccines. he could redirect funding priorities. you know, when he was first nominated for this position of hhs secretary, the public health experts and the scientists i spoke to were

uniformly horrified. one of them described it to me as a genuine catastrophe. >> let's talk a little. you said something about when he sings, he says to friendlier audiences. i heard a term i hadn't heard before. my mom's make america healthier again moms. a lot of rfk's junior supporters are mothers whose children had infant illnesses or other health problems. these are often audiences that are truly susceptible to misinformation, and in fact, health misinformation may be as big or bigger than political misinformation on the internet. >> yes. i mean, as many as 1 in 3 americans hold what some folks would consider to be a conspiracy theory around health, and there is a great deal, especially among parents whose children have been diagnosed with autism or other childhood conditions. there's a great deal of concern about the cause of these illnesses. you know, i've covered mr. kennedy for a

decade. i've seen him speak in front of these audiences many times at conferences like autism one, which is pretty much solely devoted to vaccine skepticism. he has a huge following in these worlds. there are a lot of mothers and families who feel that he really understands them, that he's really speaking to them. but the fact is, he has been part of an ecosystem that peddles doubt, that peddles ideas about the causes of things like autism that are just simply not scientifically possible or accurate. and he has done it for years. >> anna, thank you for joining us this morning. we appreciate it. anna merlin is a senior reporter for mother jones. all right. coming up in another hour of velshi, the latest on the investigation into the deadliest aviation disaster on u.s. soil since 2001, and why donald trump's false scapegoating of initiatives of. diversity initiatives in the wake of this catastrophic crash is actually undermining efforts to keep the skies safe. plus, donald trump's tariffs are here with a brand new levy on our biggest trading partners is going to mean for you. another hour of