healthiness again. get 50% off your first box at ollie com. >> and that does it for the weekend. this saturday morning we have a great show tomorrow starting at 8 a.m. eastern. we're going to talk with congressman ro khanna after j.d. vance attacked him for standing up to racism, and the commissioner and chair of the federal elections commission, ellen weintraub, is going to be at the table. she says trump is trying to illegally fire her. also, be sure to follow us on social media at the weekend. msnbc velshi continues our coverage. good morning ali. >> good morning. thank you again for a great show this morning. i mean, i know it was just two hours, but you had about nine hours of content in there and you helped make sense of it all. so i'm going to try and i'm going to try and emulate you for the next couple of hours, but have yourselves a great rest of your day. >> all right. take care. >> all right. velshi starts now.

hey. good morning. it's saturday, february the 8th. it's day 19 of donald trump's second term, and efforts are intensifying to fulfill the president's promise to dismantle the so-called deep state across all levels of government. many republican lawmakers have celebrated the administration's actions, calling them efforts to reduce wasteful government spending. but the ongoing purge is also in furtherance of trump's main purpose for his retribution his return to power, which is retribution. in fact, just yesterday, he reiterated his intent to fire some of the fbi agents who investigated january 6th cases. this is just a preview of what's to come. but first, trump's unprecedented attempt to drastically reduce the size of the federal government has hit some roadblocks for now. a federal judge has paused the administration's deferred resignation offer from taking effect until at least monday afternoon, when a hearing will be held. this offer is a sweeping attempt to convince federal workers to voluntarily leave their posts, as

republicans forge ahead with their plans to shrink the federal workforce. the offer was presented to more than 2 million federal workers. a senior administration official told nbc news that more than 60,000 federal workers have accepted it as of thursday. shortly before the court issued the pause. but meanwhile, the administration has taken a number of other bold steps in its attempt to upend the every facet of government. consider these recent changes. earlier in the week, more than 1000 epa employees were informed that they could be fired immediately, which a spokesperson said would be part of the agency's effort to create a more effective and efficient federal government. additionally, it also placed 168 workers on administrative leave after it announced plans to shutter the agency's office of environmental justice and external civil rights, which worked to address how pollution and other environmental factors have affected communities of color, as well as low income and rural areas. even more ambitious, however, is president

trump and elon musk's attempt to completely gut the united states agency for international development, more commonly known as usaid. yesterday, crews removed the signage from the usaid former headquarters in the ronald reagan reagan building in washington, d.c. it will now be taken over by something that's more of a trump priority. customs and border protection the trump administration also planned to place 2700 of the agency's employees on administrative leave this week, as part of its larger effort to shrink its workforce from more than 10,000 to just a few hundred. but last night, a federal judge temporarily blocked those plans after a pair of unions sued to stop the government from taking action against those workers. the radical restructuring of federal agencies and the massive purge of government employees underway right now is likely going to have many long term effects. the

dismantling of the epa, for example, could seriously set back the planet's collective effort to slow or stop the effects of climate change. meanwhile, the possible closure of usaid could damage america's relationship with other countries and diminish its reputation. its soft power influence around the world. but these are examples of the types of changes that the trump administration wants to implement, not just to shrink the government, but also in order to impose its ideology across all sectors of public life. that's exactly the kind of thing that's been supported by this man, russell vought, whom republican senators just voted to confirm as the director of the office of management and budget vote, who held this job in the past, was also one of the architects of project 2025, the policy handbook that outlined how the trump administration could wield its power to enact an ultra conservative christian nationalist agenda. both support something called the unitary executive theory, which posits

that the president has sole unchecked control over the executive branch of the government. and under that legal framework, the executive powers of the president are more expansive and absolute than they've actually ever been in practice. we're seeing a lot of that play out right now as trump tests the limits of his power over various departments under the executive branch, including the department of justice and the fbi. institutions that are supposed to operate independently of the white house. but those institutions are being taken over. they're being remade by some of trump's closest allies. they're also the primary target of trump's retribution, as he seeks to rid both agencies of people who were involved in january 6th related investigations and prosecutions. at a press conference yesterday, president trump told reporters that he will fire some of the fbi agents who worked on january 6th cases, alleging without evidence that some of them were corrupt. he made the pledge the day after the acting fbi

director, brian driscoll, confirmed that he had handed over a list of fbi employees who worked on such cases to the office of the acting deputy attorney general. emil bove, who recently accused driscoll of insubordination. if these resignations, these removals, these acts of retribution continue, the radical remaking of the federal government is going to come at a cost. decades of institutional knowledge will be lost and plenty of skilled workers. think about these fbi agents, these cia operatives. it's not easy to learn jobs, people who are trained on monitoring threats and investigations. they're going to be gone. they'll be purged. and nothing less than the national security and the public safety of the american people are at stake. joining me now is my colleague and the co-host of msnbc's the weekend, michael steele. he's also the former chairman of the republican national committee. he's an msnbc political analyst. and with us is the democratic congresswoman, debbie dingell of michigan. she's a member of the

energy and commerce and natural resources committees. welcome to both of you, my friends. michael, it feels like i was just talking to you a couple minutes ago. i know, congresswoman, let me let me start with you. we're trying to think about how we slow this roll, whether it's elon musk and his his friends getting into government agencies. it's the purge of government employees across the board. it's the retribution. there are courts involved. there are some lawsuits. there are some protests here and there. but ultimately, many of these things are responsibilities that are congress's responsibilities. determining determining how the government spends its money is a congressional responsibility. tell me what we do and how you think about this in congress, because your republican colleagues are not objecting to pretty much any of this. >> well that's accurate, ali. look, he the president is trying to cause chaos and he is causing chaos. and people don't know where vocals and don't know what to do. well, you got to focus.

you got to be targeted and we got to be effective. so we got to go in all fronts. we got to litigate because we are for covid, creating a system of checks and balances. three branches of government legislative, executive and the courts. and the courts right now are the quickest place that we can get action. because let's be honest, we don't have the votes at the moment on anything. but we also have to legislate. we're seeing the bills introduced. we've got people have to speak up, pick up the every member of congress about how you feel, and you'll start seeing to go into reconciliation, the budget, more action there. we've got to educate. we absolutely have to educate people about who is being impacted. you've been talking about it on the show. not only is our national security, they're making public people who put their lives at risk to keep us safe. but cancer trials and all kinds of health problems have just been stopped. people's medicine is being stopped. research money stopped. we've got head starts being stopped, meals on wheels and all of that. we have to advocate.

and we've got, you know, it's got to be on top. >> michael, this is an interesting point because as these cuts come across government departments, let's take usaid as an example. it's hard for like things like taking away abortion rights are tangible. you know, there are other things that are january 6th, we all saw happen. it's hard for americans to sit there and go out and protest, don't fire these usaid workers, because for so long, we've just assumed that government works as a background app, right? when it works, it works. it's doing its job. we certainly would like it to be as efficient as it can be. i think there's no argument that we can probably find efficiencies all over the place, but there are things that happen, and that's a sign of a good democracy that they happen and civil servants do it and you don't even know about it. >> that's absolutely right. and i think where you see some of that starting to play out is with what's happening with usaid. you have american farmers now in iowa and across farm country, throughout the nation,

beginning to feel the impact where you've got hundreds of millions of dollars of corn and wheat and other products that are now sitting in docks, sitting in warehouses cannot be moved. they're starting to spoil. those farmers are now realizing they may not get paid. so to the congresswoman's point where this begins to really become impactful is when the american people begin to see it and feel it hit them. farmers are already there. you will soon see that. should the process unfold with the department of education, when folks are starting to call and figure out whether or not their kid is going to get the special ed coverage that they had before and the number they called, no one's picking up. right? or those programs disappear, right? as folks begin to see and feel more of this. that's where the

marrying of what the congresswoman is talking about in terms of the focus and the organizing comes into place. but i think there's got to be a little bit more urgency and proactive aspect to this. i would love to see members of congress sue under the under our under their article one powers, because their article one powers are being obliterated by the executive branch. so this question that members don't have standing to try it and push the envelope, i think the more that there's that kind of pushback across the board uniformly, the more you draw attention again, to what congresswoman dingell was saying about what exactly is not only being set up, but what actually is about to happen. and it is happening across the country. >> yeah, congresswoman, i mean, it's an interesting idea suing to protect your your article one protections hasn't been thought

of in the past because why would you it's written down in the constitution. most of what you do in congress is not written in the constitution, but the idea that you have to appropriate funds and you actually have to meet to do that. it's so clear that this is a congressional matter. i am puzzled by why there's so much silence coming out of republicans who i, by the way, thought, don't like government overreach. so i guess it's okay if you've got doge and elon musk and his minions reaching into our information, but talk to me about the range of options. you're you're you're looking at you and your colleagues and talk to me about whether in private you believe republicans are sitting there saying, this is crazy. >> so first of all, everything is on the table. and one, we got to be careful that we don't. you're hearing about the retribution that is going on out there, michael, when you talk about people last week, when they put the freeze and every meals on wheels program across the country got you have a freeze with head start programs

with daycare, where every day people in programs they take for granted didn't work. you saw the hue and cry. and by the way, that one got repealed in 36 hours, though it's still not clear what really happened. there are a lot of people working and looking at litigation. and yes, congress should be looking at that. there are very some of the brightest lawyers in the country who say there isn't standing. you saw what happened at the department of labor, a sympathetic republican judge said, this isn't right, but you don't have standing. i don't know why they didn't have standing. and i haven't been working on some other people this morning. i sure hope those people are finding someone with standing, because nobody who's personal information on their health care and everything else should be making it available to judge under any circumstances. and i don't think people understand what kind of data they're getting. they know when people have a colonoscopy, that's not somebody else's business. so i think everybody is putting everything on the table, and i

think it's really important that every member of congress understand how their district is being impacted, that people are advocating and educating and telling those members how scared they are and making sure they're holding their members account minor. i've done nothing but meet with people for the last. when i leave here. i have seven speeches in the next 2.5 hours meeting with people. everybody needs to be doing it. everybody in this country who's being impacted, who's scared, who understands what's happening. i think too many people don't understand this privacy data issue, how much data is being collected, how it can be used, how it can be manipulated. we got to put it in simple english so people understand what is happening and it's got to be enough. >> michael, i want to ask you, as a former lieutenant governor of a state, in fact, the governor of maryland has been very active in saying, we will get involved in this. we will say, we've got this lawsuit from 19 states. talk to me about the

political response that we can see. i heard that there used to be like 2 to 300 calls an hour going to congress, and that's now topped 1500. and that was being reported yesterday, which means today and tomorrow and monday. it might be more. is that effective if people call in and say, you need to stop this, you need to take a position on this and intervene at this point. >> yeah, it is very effective. and in fact, as as the congresswoman can tell you, when calls come into her office, you know, if she's averages typically, you know, maybe 15, 20 calls a day, right? we're probably a little bit more than that. but when it's 100, 150, 200, yeah, you start to take pay attention to what exactly is moving your constituents to act. i think a very important front line, with all due respect to the congress, are the governors. i think this is where we've already begun to see even republican governors, red state

governors, raise their hand and go, excuse me, you can't do that. and so that that's where i think this line is really going to set itself, because that's where people are. governors know that they, they, they are getting those phone calls to westmore here in maryland, for example, is certainly getting glenn youngkin in. virginia is getting. yes, he's probably getting reinforcing messages from his conservative flank, but he's also getting messages from northern virginia. all right. and so the reality of it is they have to contextualize all of this alley. and at the at the bottom line, it really goes to the heart of what we're talking about here, the overreach by the executive branch stripping away the rights of citizens through what they're doing in these relative, you know, agencies and cabinet positions, putting in place people who are deconstructing the administration of our

government. to what end? and i think i want to level up a great piece by david french that talks about the unconstitutional constitutional acts. right. in other words, what donald trump is doing is remaking the constitution right in front of us. >> yeah. and we need. >> to watch that, and we need to watch that. and that's something that governors quite honestly see and feel most quickly, because it impacts exactly how they run their states. >> but you are wonderful. thank you for kicking us off this morning. go ahead. congresswoman. >> i want to say something. michael, i don't disagree with you on the governors and phone calls matter, but get people when they're home. put that personal story, show people how they're being impacted, make the noise at home where people come from. >> that's our that's our work. michael, you and me, we're going to do more of that. thank you to both of you. michael steele is the host of msnbc's the weekend. he's former chair of the rnc, congresswoman debbie dingell of michigan. thanks to both of you. coming up, hamas has freed

another group of israeli hostages in exchange for palestinian prisoners. coming up next, we'll have a live update from tel aviv. and access denied. more than a dozen house democrats denied entry to the department of education. democrat of wisconsin congresswoman gwen moore joins me to discuss the president's plan to dismantle that critical plan to dismantle that critical agency just ahead. —hi! —hi! ♪♪ chocolate fundraiser. ♪♪ with the chase mobile app, things move a little more smoothly. ♪♪ deposit checks easily and send money quickly. [coins clinking] ♪♪ that's convenience from chase. make more of what's yours. our floors don't stay clean very long. that's why i love my swiffer wet. i pop on a pad and get a mop-like clean floor in just one swipe. wow! and for hair, try swiffer dry cloths.

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israel has released 183 palestinian prisoners, mainly into ramallah in the west bank. some have been released into gaza. you're looking at that now. this is the fifth round of hostage and prisoner exchanges since the cease fire began on january 19th, the day before the second inauguration of donald trump. joining me now from hostage square in tel aviv is nbc's yasmin vossoughian. yasmin, it's good to see you again. of course, you and i were together as this. these releases were taking place. what's happened since you and i last talked to a couple hours ago? >> it's been incredibly intense. reunions across the board in gaza and the west bank here in israel as well. we've seen the video streaming in for the three hostages, along with videos that we've been seeing of reunions in gaza and the west bank. let me let me talk you through the hostages first, and then i'll move over to gaza and the west bank. you mentioned how the three hostages were emaciated. there was kind of a lull over this crowd when we saw the images of the hostages approaching that stage, only

because it was as if they were worried, obviously, for their health, their safety, being shocked at their appearances. they had a difficult time getting up onto the stage. they were then made to say things into the microphone made by the islamic militants on that stage. it was interesting in that they said the war must end. we must abide by the cease fire deal. ellie shahabi, whose wife and children were killed in a bunker and whose brother yossi was killed in captivity, actually said it was from the israeli bombs that my brother was killed. obviously, this was all these were all statements that were made under duress. after these statements were made and the three hostages were then shuffled into the red cross vehicles and left. we got a statement, essentially from the prime minister on social media. and i'll read you just kind of a part of what he said. saying with the shocking images that we have seen today, this will not

go unnoticed. what exactly that means from prime minister benjamin netanyahu? we don't necessarily know. and then we saw the emotional reunions of these three individuals, these three hostages with their families. or levy, 34 years old, being reunited with his brother at a hospital on the outskirts of tel aviv. his brother running up and embracing him and then subsequently giving him a picture drawn for him by his very young son that he hasn't seen in 491 days. remember again, his wife was killed in that bunker after they were at the music festival on october 7th. we saw the three daughters of ohad ben ami, 56 years old, watching as their father was freed, who then crossed the border to embrace his wife. she as well was kept in captivity for 54 days and then subsequently released. an incredible family reunion for them. and then there's elie sharabi, who again, it is just this bittersweet moment who will have a reunion and has had a reunion with his brother. but

having lost one brother and returning to a family now gone, a wife and children now gone. we saw a report. we got a report from the hospitals here saying they are incredibly emaciated. they have not had they are malnutrition and have been so for quite some time. and then we shift over to gaza and the west bank. i talked about 183 palestinian prisoners who in fact were released. seven of them went directly to the hospitals in the west bank for treatment. we also have prisoners that went directly to hospitals in the south of gaza, to a european hospital in the south of gaza, and images streaming in from there as well, them also facing malnutrition and dire medical straits. and as you can understand, and as we've heard repeatedly, they do not have the supplies necessarily, both in gaza and the west bank, to treat some of these medical ailments that these prisoners are facing at the moment. but nonetheless, really mixed emotions here, ali, across the board with these three hostages released here in israel. >> yasmin, thank you for your

excellent reporting, as always. there. this is a complex, tough day. happy for some people. very sad for others. we'll keep on covering it with you. yasmin vossoughian in tel aviv for us. all right. still to come on, velshi in case you haven't heard, elon musk and his doge operatives have gained access to critical it systems and databases belonging to the federal government. what exactly are they looking for? and who's behind this effort? you're not going to like the answers. i'm going to speak with someone who's done extensive reporting on elon musk's efforts. >> whether you're. >> a. >> professional driver. >> or just a fan. >> vehicle breakdowns are costly. >> it started tugging. >> it started. >> making some really weird noises. >> the last thing i remember is just the engine cut out. >> if your. >> check engine light comes on tomorrow, the repair could easily. >> cost thousands. >> if that transmission. >> it's an. >> exhaust leak. >> broken axle. >> but with. >> endurance. >> you could never pay out of. >> pocket for. >> a costly.

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opposition and the public with so much information that they struggled to mount a swift and effective response. don moynihan is a professor of public policy at the university of michigan. he says, quote, the purpose of shock and awe is to bewilder and overwhelm. it's important not to look away or get discouraged. try to discern the what is a big what is a big and real threat. the usual adage in these things is to follow the money and see who benefits. but we should also watch for control over data. for tech bros, data is the means of control. end quote. trump reportedly authorized elon musk's doge the department of government efficiency, which, for the record, is not a real governmental department to root out governmental waste. or at least that's the claim. but observers argue that's not what's actually been happening for the last week. in their crusade against federal agencies, trump and musk have been targeting those whom they ideological ideologically opposed, including the so-called woke department of education and

usaid, which musk has described as a quote, quote, viper's nest of radical left marxists. end quote. teams of current and former musk employees have locked civil servants out of their computer systems, according to reuters, and gained access to it systems containing vast troves of sensitive data, including social security, social security numbers, banking details, emails and home addresses of american citizens. and they've done it all with the tacit approval of republicans in congress who actually have control over these things. in fact, moynihan tells wired, what americans are witnessing is, quote, an extraordinary centralization of power in someone who lacks a top level security clearance and has not been subject to any senate confirmation process. end quote. not even really a basic hr process, let alone a senate confirmation process. so this current crisis that i'm talking about, in case you need the distinction, this one began unfolding last friday when doge

operatives gained access to the treasury department's payment systems. now, this system processes trillions of dollars annually, including social security and medicare payments. historically, it's been insulated from political interference. it's literally a government mechanism simply disbursing congressionally authorized funds. it makes no decisions about those funds. it disperses them in the wrong hands, though the treasury payment system becomes a dangerous choke point. it's a single point of control that allows the trump administration to bypass congress and block funding to programs that it ideologically opposes. while the white house insists that doge staffers only have read only access and can't make changes to the underlying system or its contents, multiple media outlets, including wired and talking points memo, directly contradict those claims in their reporting. their sources indicate that doge staffers have

the ability to rewrite code or change information inside of those systems. nbc news has not independently confirmed that reporting. the entrepreneur and tech writer mike masnick explains why this is so dangerous. quote. let's be clear about what we're seeing. deliberately obscured payment blocking capabilities being added to absolutely critical government infrastructure by an inexperienced developer with minimal oversight. in cybersecurity terms, that's not just a back door. it's flashing warning lights of an approaching catastrophe. end quote. so, along with the treasury department, doge operatives have also gained access to systems within multiple other agencies, including veterans affairs, cfpb, centers for medicare and medicaid services, and the office of personnel management, which operates sort of like the government's hr department. critics say without oversight, access to this agency's records opens up the possibilities of intimidation or political retribution. so who are these

musk operatives who have infiltrated our federal bureaucracy? the trump administration has offered little information about their identities, with most details coming from wired's extensive reporting, which found that musk has assembled a team of 19 year old and some 20 somethings, including at least one self-professed racist and at least one individual with business ties to russia and links to criminal hackers. the teenager is a 19 year old known online as big balls. big balls was previously fired from a cybersecurity firm for leaking company data. he now has access to yours. there's also the 25 year old with a history of racist tweets, including one which read, quote, i was racist before it was cool. end quote, normalize indian hate, which is an apparent reference to the number of indians who work as engineers in silicon valley after he resigned. musk and vice president j.d. vance, whose wife is of indian descent, both personally pushed for his

rehiring. remarkably, on thursday, a threat intelligence team within the treasury department designated doge staff as an insider threat. an internal treasury email reviewed by wire calls doge, quote, the single greatest insider threat risk that the bureau has ever faced, end quote. the assessment read in part if doge members have any access to payment systems, we recommend suspending that access immediately and conducting a comprehensive review of all actions they may have taken on these systems. we further recommend that doge members be placed under insider threat monitoring and alerting after their access to payment systems is revoked, end quote. now, bloomberg is reporting that the government subcontractor who drafted the warning has since been terminated. after a quick break, i'll talk to wired's director of business and director of business and industry. we'll be right back. here's to getting better with age.

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p.m. eastern five nights a week, monday through friday. we will watch what they do and not just what they say from now on. and for the first 100 days and for the duration. but what they are saying thus far, and what they are doing thus far, have both been utterly shambolic. and none of us should be afraid to say so. and none of us here are so for these first 100 days, you and i, we are going to spend a lot of time together. >> before the break, i told you about doj's sweeping and dangerous access to critical it systems and databases belonging to at least 14 different federal agencies. wired has been covering the story with truly brilliant reporting. i'm now joined by wired's director of business and industry, zoe schiffer. schiffer is also the author of extremely hard core inside elon musk's twitter, which kind of gives you makes you the perfect person for this.

zoe, thank you for this and congratulations to you and your colleagues for remarkable reporting. and the reason i emphasize that is because this is a hard topic for most people to understand. they are involved. doge and musk's minions are involved in dealing with systems that most of us don't know exist, and never would have needed to know exist, but it's super serious the kind of stuff they have access to. we've just assumed congress has control over, and they work. some have argued that this is like a hack. this is very, very serious. and it's a bell that can't be unrung they're in there. and despite court orders to not have certain information, who knows? >> yeah, i think. >> the. >> issue is. >> exactly what you're saying. >> we just don't know what they will do with this information. >> they have access. >> to extremely sensitive data and in some cases, the collection of that data is a goal in and of itself. they want

information on federal employees, but this information could be used against musk's competitors, against his enemies. and we really don't have control over it right now, which is part of the problem. >> yeah. >> this is important because there are a lot of hot takes as to what it's for, right? maybe they're doing this to get rid of a department or stop payments or do whatever the case, but we don't know enough about it and it could be multiple things. what we do know is that if you were going to make these things more efficient and everybody wants their tax dollars spent as well as possible, there are processes to do this. and generally speaking, those processes would start with a discussion or hearings or testimony at congress about how you would fix usaid or how you would do something of that nature. the question of who's involved in this becomes very tricky, whether or not you like elon musk, he happens to have a bunch of minions on here who, it's not clear, should be authorized to be anywhere near your data. >> yeah. >> as you. >> said, these are very young people. most of them do not have

government experience. they're between the ages of 19, and we believe about 25. and they're going in sometimes they're being added to sensitive meetings with gmail addresses because they don't even have official government email addresses yet. and again, they have access to extremely sensitive information, extremely private information. and we don't right now know what they're going to do with it. >> there are two, two, two acronyms that people may or may not be so familiar with. opm, the office of personnel management and gsa general services administration. opm is like the, i guess, the hr of the government, and gsa is the thing that the department that runs the government, they have leases, they buy land, they they do all that. you wrote some of the same people who helped musk take over twitter more than two years ago are now registered as official gsa employees. this this fuzzy line between who they are, what their clearances are using, gmail addresses, where they're on calls with engineers and employees who don't really know who they are and why they're on on these calls and

what information they should be entitled to is part of the problem here. we just we don't even know who who some of these people are. we got little snippets about them so far. none of it's pretty good, but we don't really know why these people are involved in our government systems. >> no. and the federal employees they're interacting with in many cases don't know. they have talked about wanting to implement an ai first agenda. there's been some talk internally about trying to replace some of the functions that were previously done by federal workers with artificial intelligence, with maybe even chatbots. we reported that they're building a custom chatbot, but again, we don't know a lot of what they're doing, and they're kind of seemingly purposefully obfuscating or keeping a bit mysterious. their intentions. >> talk to me about, from a technical perspective for, you know, when you think about hacking and you think about the dangers of these things, we've we've just jumped the shark on this one. there is now information out there that's out there. and these are engineers. so they, they they have some

ability to handle this information. it might be a crime for them to do anything with it after a court has said don't. but how big a deal is this that there's information i don't people don't think about. they just assume that's not going to get hacked. or at least that kind of personal information is not going to get hacked. how serious is this that? it's already somebody's already in our systems now. >> it's extremely serious. i believe we quote someone in one of the wired articles saying you could do anything with this information, some of that information that they have access to at the treasury department. it's like the level of social security numbers and bank account numbers. and so, again, the fact that these are young men who are in government for a limited period of time will be returning to the private sector. same with elon musk. he's a special government employee. he will be returning to running his companies, and we don't know what will be done with all of the information that they are currently accessing. if twitter is anything to go by, what they did with the information there, i think should give us all a bit of pause.

>> so thank you again for your great reporting and your team's great reporting. the story is director of business and industry at wired. she's the author of the book extremely hardcore inside elon musk's twitter. all right. coming up, a group of house democrats were blocked from entering the department of education this week. congresswoman gwen moore of wisconsin, who was there, of wisconsin, who was there, joins me next. i'm thinking of updating my kitchen... —yeah? —yes! ...this year, we are finally updating our kitchen... ...doing subway tile in an ivory, or eggshell... —cream?... —maybe bone?... don't get me started on quartz. a big big island... you ever heard of a waterfall counter?... for everyone who talks about doing that thing, and, over there. but never does that thing... a sweet little breakfast nook. chase has financial guidance. let's see how you can start saving to make this happen. —really? —really? really. at home or in-person. you could also check out a chase money skills workshop. that's guidance from chase. make more of what's yours. for more than a decade farxiga has been trusted again and again, and again. ♪far-xi-ga♪ ♪far-xi-ga♪

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>> president trump is expected to sign an executive order this month, demanding that the department of education wind itself down with questions over the legality and practicality of such an order. more than a dozen house democrats headed to the department's offices on friday afternoon to meet with the acting secretary, denise carter, but they were denied entry. while employees of elon musk's non-department department of government efficiency worked inside. and this morning, nbc has learned that 222 year old doge employees have obtained administrator email accounts at the department of education, allowing them to access emails and other sensitive information. joining me now is a democrat who was denied access at the department of education, has been demanding answers over elon musk's actions across government all week. congresswoman, congresswoman gwen gwen moore of wisconsin. congresswoman, nice to see you. thank you for being with us. this is an important moment to just understand the distinction. the department of education is a is a government

agency. a federal government agency technically falls under the executive branch, but like all government operations, is funded through appropriations at congress. so ultimately, the buck stops with you and your colleagues. a number of your republican colleagues seem to have no issue with this region, with a bunch of random people having access to all of our payment systems and our information. so it does fall to you as democrats to say, what's going on here? what were you trying to establish, and what do you know about what's going on with the department of education? >> well, thank. >> you for having me, ali. this is my 20th anniversary in congress, and i've tried so hard to establish the reputation of being the gentle lady from wisconsin. but this has been a very, very difficult week for me. and the department of education was just yet another trigger for me. as you know, i'm a member of the ways and means committee, right? and so what i saw happening at the treasury department, i mean, those were not power grabs as someone misquoted me. those were crimes

that were being committed accessing people's social security and tax forms and private information. with regard to the department of education, the question that i had was, even though the department of education is under the rubric of the administration, there are statutory requirements. title one are disabled children. our low income students, title seven civil rights promises that we're making to students. title nine who and what entity was going to administer those mandates? the higher education act, under the rubric of the department of education and all that demanded, was a simple answer. ironically, we were standing in front of doors that said public access, and we were denied public access.

>> the irony of what you're talking about, all the things you just mentioned, the department of education does, donald trump says he wants to give education, quote, back to the states. we need to understand this. states already set their own curriculum. the department of federal department of education does not set curriculum for schools. they do these other things that that are the responsibility of the federal government. it's been a pet project of republicans for a long time to get rid of it. but part of the problem here is we may not have a good enough understanding of what it does, what the cfpb does, what usaid does. and so congresswoman debbie dingell was on earlier with me. and she said, right now half the job is fighting back. and the other half is educating people on why these departments do what they do. >> absolutely. you know, one of the things that people are now learning is that members of congress don't have standing in court. and right now, the court is the only thing that's stopping some of this criminal activity. i'm so pleased that my attorney general of wisconsin,

josh collins, joined in with 2120 other states, letitia james being one of them, to really call out the crimes that are being committed with regard to the treasury department, for example. but we don't have standing. it's only the people out there, the you know, and i've been saying to people, it's time to join the pta. there's strength in numbers to call out the dismantling of educational opportunity grants, to call out the, you know, the disassembling of monies for disabled children and to create the curriculum that the states don't have the money on their, you know, off their property tax bases to pay for special programing like that. and there's so much talk about protecting gender identity and gender equality in women's

sports. well, that's also under the rubric of the department of education. and so, you know, when you talk about just, you know, disrupting and disassembling government, there are real life consequences to it. you know, there are people who are affected, and you out there are the people who have the power. it's now time to pay your union dues, go to your union meetings, you know, join the naacp, pay your aclu dues. there's strength in numbers, congresswoman. >> the gentlelady from wisconsin. >> debbie dingell, was talking. >> about the gentlewoman, the gentlelady from wisconsin, being a little less gentle this week because because it's time to it's time to speak up. it's time to get stuff done. thank you for being with us, as always. congresswoman gwen moore, great to see you again. we got another hour of velshi coming up. but a quick note, i you know, i kind of joke about this, but i want you to scan this barcode on your screen. i'm going to keep it up

for a few seconds, because it always takes me a little while. you can follow me on blue sky. i've been posting there probably for more than a year now. i bet. velshi, bsky social again. all you have to do, though, is scan this barcode with your phone and it'll take you right to my page. another hour of velshi starts after a quick break. >> after homoglaea cleaned our place for $19, we fired our old housekeeper. homoglaea tackled everything from our kitchen to our bathroom, all our laundry. you just pick a date, pick a you just pick a date, pick a cleaner, we shall overcome. we shall overcome. the struggle for equal rights in the united states has been hard fought, but even today, we're still fighting for racial justice, for voting rights, and against hate and extremism. you can help us win the fight

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