business mobile. you could save up to an incredible 70% on your wireless bill. so you don't have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities. switch to comcast business internet and mobile and find out how to get the new samsung galaxy s25+ on us with a qualifying trade in. don't wait, call, click or visit an xfinity store today. tomorrow, so please join us. we will be joined by rhode island senator jack reed and assistant democratic leader, congressman joe neguse. that all starts tomorrow at 8 a.m. eastern. be sure to follow us on social media at the weekend, msnbc. but don't you go anywhere because velshi continues our coverage right now. good morning. ali velshi. >> i'm just taking your your admonition earlier that the news is losing. so i'm going to keep on losing for the next couple of hours. i've been enjoying your

show. i will say, sometimes i just wish for like a table and two friends i could just sit and chat with. i have a table, you know. >> i've got three friends. >> well, i do now, at least for the first minute of the show, i always do. thank you guys for an amazing, amazing three hours this morning and we'll see you tomorrow. bell starts now. good morning to you. it's saturday, february the 15th, day 26 of donald trump's second term since returning to the white house, president trump and his administration have moved aggressively to expand the powers of the executive branch and fundamentally remake the federal government. and it's putting the constitution through a stress test. in less than one month, the president has signed a number of executive orders to undo biden era actions and to enact his own policies, including some that have dubious legal merit. one such order seeks to end birthright citizenship a right embedded in the 14th amendment of the

constitution. four different federal judges have blocked it from taking effect so far, but the case could end up in the supreme court, which is likely what the trump administration wants. the administration has also taken numerous norm breaking steps in an effort to completely upend how the federal government operates, and to test the limits of the president's powers. we've seen one crucial example of this rapidly unfolding in just the last 72 hours. last night, the department of justice moved to dismiss a serious and ongoing criminal corruption case against new york city mayor eric adams. but the move was preceded by plenty of drama that resulted in at least seven resignations within the department of justice, including danielle sassoon, who was the top prosecutor at the southern district of new york. sassoon resigned on thursday after acting deputy general emile beauvais ordered her to drop the adams case earlier in the week. beauvais argued that the case interfered with adams ability to help carry out trump's

immigration crackdown. danielle sassoon refused to dismiss the case. now, the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of adams case is roiling new york politics, with a number of local leaders calling for adams to resign or for the governor of new york to use her powers to dismiss him. but perhaps more importantly than what's going on here in new york, is the battle lines that are being drawn outside of this city. the extraordinary revolt within the department of justice about the dismantling of the justice department's independence to do its job. remember, president trump ran on a campaign of retribution and promised to, quote, investigate the investigators. many are questioning whether beauvais, the president's former personal lawyer who is now the acting deputy attorney general, has the right to interfere with the work of the southern district of new york, the ny. it's often referred to jokingly as the sovereign district of new york because of the way in which it maintains its independence. and more broadly, this is a question of whether the executive is

asserting specific influence that it doesn't or shouldn't have over the department of justice, which, although it's a government agency, has historically enjoyed much more independence than other agencies. many of the men who occupied the white house before trump have redefined and expanded the powers of the presidency in various ways, and sometimes it was arguably necessary to address great upheavals in american society, like when fdr implemented his wide ranging new deal programs to claw america out of the great depression. recent presidents have also continued to push the limits of their powers, especially with their increasing reliance on executive orders that bypass congress entirely. and it's become a more common and normalized aspect of the presidency. but none of them have tried to upend the balance of power with such speed and intention as this administration has. earlier this week, a federal judge in rhode island said that the trump administration was not in full compliance with his temporary restraining order regarding the

administration's attempt to freeze the disbursement of federal funds. that appeared to be the first sign of judicial defiance by the white house. amid the dozens of lawsuits that have been filed to challenge its early actions. and it prompted some legal scholars to warn that what's unfolding is a constitutional crisis. it's provoked many questions about what would happen if the president refuses to comply with court orders or dismisses the legitimacy of one of the other co-equal branches of government the congress, congress, or the courts. members of trump's administration are also proponents of something called the unitary executive theory. they want to expand the powers of the presidency. adding to these concerns is the rhetoric coming from some government officials, like vice president jd vance, a lawyer, by the way, who has recently posted on social media, quote, judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power, and, quote, vance's post is a misdirection. the courts aren't trying to control the executive's power, but it is

their responsibility to ensure that everyone, including the other branches of government, are operating within legal and constitutional grounds. meanwhile, in response to the administration's early legal setbacks, white house press secretary caroline leavitt said on wednesday, quote, we believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law. end quote. that's a bit of an old saw. we'll get to that in a minute. these attacks on the judicial branch seek to neuter its power to restrain the executive branch. now, ideally, america's system of checks and balances would actually keep the president in check. but the courts don't actually have an enforcement arm to compel the executive branch to follow its orders. that work could be the responsibility of congress. as we're witnessing now, republicans have almost completely capitulated to president trump, making the legislative branch congress an ineffective check on the presidency. and that's paving the way for further consolidation of power into the executive branch. for more on

this, i'm joined by professor lawrence tribe. he's a professor emeritus at harvard law school. he's the author of the influential book american constitutional law, among many other books. professor, good to see you again. thank you for being with us. i want to start by reading a portion of the resignation letter. letter that was written by hagan scotten. now hagan scotten was an assistant u.s. attorney until yesterday for the southern district of new york. he quit over the dismissal of eric adams case. quote, no system of ordered liberty can allow the government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives. end quote. this is not actually the most exciting part of his letter. it was a pretty strong letter, but this sounds like a very important warning that people and people in the government and the department of justice and the president should heed what is scott and warning about what's happening here? >> he is warning that. >> if the.

>> president of the united states. and not just the president, but the richest man on earth who was never elected to anything, can use. the machinery. >> of american. >> government not to serve the people, but to advance their agenda, and can do it in a way that crashes through all constitutional barriers. then we will have a dangerous dictatorship. now, hagen scott is worth mentioning, is not a liberal like me. he was a law clerk to the chief justice of the united states. he was, in addition. someone who served in iraq and got two bronze stars. and incidentally, he was first in his class at harvard law school. but he said, quite rightly, that only a fool or a coward would sign this motion to dismiss a valid investigation

that emil bove, who is now in charge of the justice department temporarily, that emil bove admitted was not based on law or fact, but simply the desire to put pressure on eric adams to do the president's bidding when it comes to accelerating the deportation of people that the president thinks don't belong in the country. all of that is a long story. but to make a long story short, it is not just the unitary executive that is at stake here. it is the unitary government in the hands of unelected people. it's not as though donald trump is doing all of this. that would be bad enough. that would usurp the power of the purse. when he threatens not to spend money that congress has appropriated or insists on demolishing

agencies that congress has created, it would essentially usurp the entire government of the united states. no theory, unitary or otherwise, has ever justified that. so the question is, what can we do? and i assume that that's what you would like us to talk about. >> yeah. >> and i'm glad you made that distinction, by the way, because there there's the unitary executive theory. there has been an ongoing effort to concentrate power in the executive, but that's different from the thing that that constitutes a constitutional crisis. that's different from an independent person who's not otherwise affiliated with government doing things that congress is going to do. so i appreciate that clarity. yes. let's move on to now. what do we do when hagen scott resigned, when he said, you can you can find some fool or coward who can do this. he ended by saying, and that was never going to be me. that's like a scene from a movie. there are americans right now who are standing up in the judiciary, in the court system, in the public, in the civil service, none on the republican side of congress,

but who are standing up to this? what can we do? >> well. >> we can stand. >> up to it in a lot of ways. as it turns out, somebody was found. there were 22 career members of the justice department. they were threatened by emile bove. one of you had better sign this corrupt. and he's pretty much admitted on fox news that he didn't mean to, that it was corrupt. one of you had better sign this corrupt motion to dismiss or you're all fired. and at first they stood together and that's what they should have done. until finally, a guy named ed sullivan, edward sullivan, who was about to retire anyway, said, oh, i'll volunteer. i'll take the hit. he's no, he's no profile in courage. the fact is that to preserve his pension, purportedly to save the others, he broke ranks. they should all have insisted on being fired. make a meal. bové sign the damn

thing himself. but in any event, there's a lot anybody can do on monday, which is nominally president's day. a lot of people, including me, have kind of reconceived it as take back our flag day. there are going to be protests, peaceful protests in every capital in the country, in every city around the city hall, protests of people who say, this is not what we voted for. we did not vote to destroy the constitution of the united states and the rule of law. anybody, whether you're a lawyer or something else, can join. local groups can form peaceful resistance. and it's happened in other countries. i mean, when democracies have devolved into dictatorships, people have pushed back in chile, in poland, in the czech republic, in other

places, it's taken war. spain, germany pushed back. hopefully we won't end up in violence or in war, but it is necessary not to simply lie down and say, okay, you got me. we don't have anything we can do. there's plenty we can do. and i am encouraged that people are doing it. >> yeah. and each time they do it, we need to also, you know, make sure that the country knows that there are people taking those risks. professor, stand by for a second. i'm going to take a quick break. let's continue this conversation on the other side. laurence tribe. we'll be side. laurence tribe. we'll be right back. (♪♪) (♪♪) voltaren... for long lasting arthritis pain relief. (♪♪) the itch and rash of moderate to severe eczema disrupts my skin, night and day. despite treatment, it's still not under control.

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ask how to get up to one thousand dollars off the new samsung galaxy s25 ultra with xfinity mobile. me is the esteemed laurence tribe, constitutional scholar and professor emeritus at harvard law school. professor tribe, we've discussed a little about creating executive power and these various theses. we've

discussed checks and balances in the government being out of whack as a result. but you've gone further, and many legal experts have gone further, saying this is a constitutional crisis. tell me, is that a line or is that a process? at what point is it an actual constitutional crisis in your opinion? >> i think it's been an ongoing constitutional crisis for a while, but we shouldn't really waste a lot of time on nomenclature, crisis, catastrophe. chaotic overturning, hostile takeover. it's all of those things, but it's real. it's not just an organization chart that he's messing around with. it's your social security check. it's your right to get paid through medicare. all of those systems are now in the grasp of the guy with his hand in the cookie jar. that is, judges have said, get your paws out of the private data of all american citizens. and he and he basically said,

okay, you caught me. we're going to pause doing all of that. but in fact, judges have said no. they are still all of these young guys, the ai people and so on who are part of elon musk's cadre. they're they're all hooking their mainframe computers into the treasury system of the united states. it's every one who's listening to this broadcast who's life can be upended. you may not get your next social security check. if these guys aren't stopped and they dangle the possibility of continuing to defy judges. i don't think even the us supreme court far right, though it is, is going to take very well to being treated as just a clown show on the side. those nine justices, including the chief justice of the united states, are going to draw a line. they'll probably draw it in terms of the power of the purse.

they'll say, you can't put your hands on the power of the purse that belongs to congress. and even though congress, the republicans in congress are shamefully just sitting there while their prerogatives are being usurped, the country is not going to stand for it. that's the basis for hope. >> i'm with you on the idea that there's no point in getting caught up in the nomenclature, because we can actually see what's happening, and we can know that it is illegal. however, no less a person than the vice president of the united states, jd vance, a lawyer no less, has said he posted this. he said if a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. if a judge tried to command the attorney general into how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate, legitimate power. end quote. professor. that's just misdirection, because that's not what the courts in any of these cases that have imposed temporary restraining

orders or anything like that have have said they are not. no one is trying to control the executive. they're trying to say what you're doing is not within your own powers. >> well, the word legitimate in the quote you read, judges can't prevent the executive from exercising their power legitimately. that's the whole ballgame. the question is, who decides if an action by elon musk or some young lawyer on his team, or donald trump is legitimate? those guys are saying, we decide ourselves, right? we are the, you know, both the chickens and the ducks and the hen house. that's not the way the system works. it's an independent judge who has to decide if it's legitimate. if you don't agree, then you appeal. finally, that goes to the supreme court. the supreme court has the last word. it may not, in fact, be the last word forever. its judgments can be overturned by constitutional

amendment. we've got a system that if you replace the system with whoever gets there first, wins. whoever has the most money, whoever has the most power wins, then those of us who don't have the most power, who are not the richest people on the planet, we can get crushed. that is not the system that we established 230 years ago or so, when we rebelled against having a monarch. and now not only a monarch, we're told, guess what? you voted for a dictator. and it wasn't the dictator you thought you voted for. it was a guy named elon musk who wasn't the adult in the room, by the way. it was his four year old son named x, who was the adult in the room when musk and trump were basically outdoing each other in that oval office. entertainment. when musk was standing up explaining why everything he was doing was right and trump was looking up at him worshipfully the way he

looks at nobody on the planet except maybe vladimir putin. the whole thing is disgusting. and we do have the means to fight back. and i think monday, when there are going to be rallies and peaceful protests around the country, people have to stand up and begin to take ownership. it is we, the people who will take our country back. >> as we say, the most important person in the united states is not the american president. it is the american citizen. i needed this conversation. thank you professor, i needed some clarity around how to think about this and what we do next. laurence tribe is a professor emeritus at harvard law school. he's the author of multiple important books, including american constitutional law. all right. up next, more on the rift erupting in the justice department following the trump administration's move to dismiss charges against the new york charges against the new york cwhen you really need to sleep. you reach for the really good stuff. zzzquil ultra helps you sleep better and longer when you need it most. its non-habit forming and powered by the makers of nyquil.

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a u.s. judge to dismiss criminal corruption charges against new york city mayor eric adams. now, if you're from a different part of the country and you're asking, why should i care about the mayor of new york city, the answer is that what has happened in the last 48 hours or so has wide ranging implications for the justice department and the rule of law across this country. in recent days, we've seen an extraordinary revolt from career federal prosecutors. in response to the doj's push to dismiss the adams case, leading to seven of them resigning in protest. let's just start from the beginning of the week. forget about the whole eric adams story. on monday, the acting u.s. deputy attorney general ordered danielle sassoon, the acting u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, whom trump appointed to drop the federal charges against adams. the new york city mayor was indicted last fall. he's been accused of fraud, soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals and bribery, including accepting $100,000 worth of free plane tickets and luxury hotel stays from wealthy turkish nationals and at least one

government official, the one government official. adams has maintained his innocence and there has been no trial yet. beauvais is ordered to dismiss the charges, did not call into question the actual strength of the evidence against adams, or the process by which a federal grand jury handed down their indictment. instead, he argued that the case was interfering with adams reelection campaign, and that the case was politically motivated and perhaps most importantly, that it was getting in the way of adams ability to help president trump tackle illegal immigration in new york city. sassoon refused to dismiss the charges and instead resigned. in a scathing eight page letter to the attorney general, pam bondi, saying she believed adams had, quote, committed the crimes with which he was charged, end quote. she added adams attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that adams would be in a position to assist with the department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed. end

quote. now, again, it's worth noting sassoon is a registered republican, a member of the right leaning federalist society, and clerked for the late conservative supreme court justice antonin scalia. adams denies the dismissal for his charges were in exchange for his cooperation with the trump administration's immigration enforcement. but on friday morning, adams sat right next to the trump border czar, tom homan, for an interview on fox news where homan said this. >> if he doesn't come through, i'll be back in. >> new york city. >> and we won't be sitting on a couch. i'll be in his office. i'll be up his butt saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to? >> that was a short clip, but boy said a lot got said there, including adams body language and the fact that he's yucking it up next to the border czar after the department of justice has canceled his prosecution. adams is both denying that this is a quid pro quo, and then sitting alongside someone who basically just admitted it. our

agreement, tom homan called it didn't take long for six other federal prosecutors, by the way, to follow danielle sassoon's lead and to resign on friday. hagan scotten, one of the lead prosecutor on the case against adams, also quit over the order to dismiss the case. now scotten, who previously clerked for chief justice john roberts and then judge brett kavanaugh, had this to say in his resignation letter, quote, any assistant u.s. attorney would know that our laws and our traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way. if no lawyer within earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, then i expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion. but it was never going to be me. end quote. but it was never going to be me. beauvais was intent on it being

someone. sources tell reuters, quote, acting deputy attorney general beauvais told the department's career public integrity prosecutors in a meeting on friday that they had an hour to decide among themselves who would file the motion, end quote. that motion was in fact filed by the department of justice last night. the prosecutor who eventually signed the order, a senior litigation counsel in the public integrity section named ed sullivan, is reportedly nearing retirement. and according to reuters, he did sign the order to, quote, spare other career staff from potentially being fired for refusing to do so. end quote. >> ooh. >> joining me now, joyce vance, she's a former united states attorney for the northern district of alabama and msnbc contributor, a senior fellow at the brennan center for justice and co-host of the sisters in law podcast. joyce, i will say i have managed to make it through the entire eric adams saga without really talking about it. it's mostly been a local news story. it's remarkably interesting, but it wasn't generally going to be. a thing

we talked about in the last 48 hours has completely upended that. let's start with this case. mayor adams denies the charges, as we said. but his original memo doesn't actually call into question the facts of the case. it does not call into question the investigation or the evidence. so tell me how this how this played out. if the facts are not in question, the ability to possibly get a conviction is not in question. the evidence and the process are not in question. what else could it be? >> well. >> i mean, i think that that's a question that. >> we all know the answer to. right. and we. >> saw. >> tom homan. >> deliver the answer. >> on that. >> fox news. >> clip that you. >> just played. >> this was about. >> having mayor. >> adams as a willing political ally. >> for. the trump administration. >> it wasn't about. >> the case. and i. >> think when. >> danielle sassoon. >> resigned from her. >> position, she. >> really put that issue front and center. we heard yesterday. >> in the. second letter that we saw. >> from hagan. >> scotten that this was.

>> a. >> case that had been investigated through the tenure of four. >> different united states attorneys. and that's significant because it really minimizes. >> any possibility that there was. >> political animus behind the prosecution. that's one. >> of the things that. >> beauvais has said. >> this is. >> a. >> straight up the middle. case of. >> bribery. and the. >> supreme court. >> has really. >> narrowed the ability. >> of. >> prosecutors to. >> go after bribery. >> in. >> the last decade or so. that's what makes it really. important that sassoon. >> was a. >> former law clerk on the. >> supreme court. >> that she would have. >> watched the trajectory of those developments. >> in the law. >> and yet she. >> was confident that both the facts and the law. >> were there and. >> that crimes. >> had. been committed. >> what do you make of the way this has unfolded? emil beauvais wrote this letter. danielle sassoon writes a nine page letter back refuting the evidence. hagen scott writes this letter, and then it is reported that beauvais tells the public integrity unit, the department of justice, you've

got an hour for somebody to do this. talk to me about that. that way of doing business and how that fits into the department of justice and what, if anything, that says to you. >> well, i mean. >> it's. >> all highly. objectionable conduct from. mr. beauvais. >> and if we were in a normal, functioning. >> justice department. >> there would be an internal inquiry into the. >> way he. >> behaved and treated these prosecutors. >> i would just highlight two things that happened here. >> when mr. >> scott resigned. >> he made it very. >> clear that. >> the only reason. >> that. >> he had not directly. >> refused an. >> order to dismiss the. >> prosecution was because one was never. >> given to him. >> in other words, his boss, the then united. >> states attorney. >> didn't think. >> it. >> was appropriate for her. >> to force the people that worked for her to engage. >> in. >> this. >> sort of. >> misconduct and corruption. >> and so she took it all on herself. that's the best tradition. of the justice department. >> and we saw. >> that again in public integrity. when the motion. to dismiss was filed. the public

integrity section. >> is part. >> of the. justice department's criminal division. there in washington. but they do a lot of work in the 94 u.s. attorneys offices across the country, helping to prosecute public corruption cases. so these are people who really understand what's at. >> stake here. >> and the real risk here would have been that if everyone in public integrity had been fired, then emil beauvais would have been free to repopulate public integrity with much more compliant, less experienced people. and so having mr. sullivan, this sort of. senior close to retirement guy. decide that he. >> would. >> take the. rap to protect the division. i think that speaks volumes about how people. inside of the justice department think. >> he he. >> filed that motion to dismiss. >> knowing that. >> he would be the subject of criticism and that many people would not understand what he. >> was doing. >> but he protected the department in that unit specifically. >> i wouldn't. >> have thought, given the last eight years, that there is still

that much more to learn about the internal workings of the department of justice and some of the people therein, but we're learning more. thank you as always, joyce, i really appreciate your time. joyce vance is a former united states attorney and msnbc contributor, and the co-host of the sisters in law podcast. all right. straight ahead. are elon musk and his business empire benefiting from doj's efforts to dismantle the government? i'll talk to two new york times investigative reporters who can bring us some context. and three hostages have been reunited with their families and are recovering in israeli hospitals after getting freed by hamas this morning. israel has also released 369 palestinian prisoners will go live to the region for the latest on the fragile ceasefire deal. you're watching msnbc. >> and stay tuned to get an all new bell. >> and. >> howell bionic floodlight for 50% off. last year, over 100 million packages were stolen. worse yet, over 500,000 homes were broken into. the party's over. porch. pirates and prowlers. this is the bionic solar floodlight from bell and howell. it showers a massive

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become such a cultural touchstone that many velshi banned book club members wrote us to express their shock that it's been removed from numerous shelves across the country. like james v, who wrote i read the novel some time ago, but i remember being very taken with not only the story, but the brilliant structure of the book. what possible reason could there be for applying a ban to a book like this, and when did critical opinion get substituted with moral judgment? a very good question indeed. we'll dig into that and a whole lot more with the author, gillian flynn. that's next hour on the banned that's next hour on the banned book club. we'll be right back. with fatigue and light-headedness, i knew something was wrong. then i saw my doctor and found out i have afib, and that means there's about a 5 times greater risk of stroke. symptoms like irregular heartbeat, heart racing, chest pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, or light-headedness, can come and go. but if you have afib, the risk of stroke is always there. if you have one or more symptoms, get checked out. making that appointment can help you get

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vist bombas.com and get 20% off your first order >> if you. >> browse over to w-w-w dot gov, a website that bills itself as an official website of the united states government, you might expect to find information about its work and across the government effort that is supposedly being waged on your behalf to prevent waste, fraud and abuse. instead, what you'll find is little more than a repackaged feed from musk's own x social media platform. and according to wired's latest reporting, if you share a link to doge.gov, it sends users straight to x.com. as one engineer put it bluntly, quote, it is promoting the x account as the main source. it indicates that the x account is taking priority over the actual website itself. remember this is a.gov website. this is what a conflict of interest looks like. a

private company masquerading as an official government body, with the trust and responsibilities that a government body has to congress or to you. now, if you haven't noticed, trump, the first convicted felon to ever be elected president, and billionaire elon musk have been portraying themselves as anti-corruption crusaders, claiming to root out fraud and abuse from every corner of the federal bureaucracy. but behind the scenes, they appear to be actively working to cripple the very tools and mechanisms that combat corruption and protect american consumers from predatory behavior. so lots of questions are being raised seemingly hourly on why doge, which is not an actual government department run by musk, who is now called a special government employee, has his hands in all sorts of super sensitive information that voters probably didn't plan for him to control. but in and amongst all the noise and valid outrage, questions are also being raised over the entanglements between our democratic institutions and the business interests of one single

unelected billionaire. and the comparisons to the gilded age abound, during which the so-called robber barons controlled vast wealth, faced minimal regulation, and exploited america's workers. but things are a little different today. the robber barons bought their influence from the outside. they weren't the ones actually wielding the gavel or holding the keys to the vaults. there has perhaps been no other moment in our nation's history when a company owner with billions of his own dollars already seemingly has access to government resources, your money, and has some sort of control over billions and trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. you may be wondering how and why this is all happening. and here's one theory of the game. according to a new report by the new york times, the world's richest man may already be reaping the benefits from his made up position at doge. musk currently controls six companies. now, the ones you most heard of are tesla, spacex and x, formerly twitter. collectively, musk musk's

companies have $20 billion in either government contracts or subsidies with the united states government, according to the financial times. which means that he's got business or interactions with several different government agencies, some of which he has direct access to. now, and according to the new york times, at least 11 federal agencies that have been affected by doge or by resignations by biden era regulators have more than 32 continuing investigations, pending complaints or enforcement actions into musk's six companies. take a look at the federal aviation administration, for example. last september, the faa proposed $633,000 in civil fines against spacex for safety violations. musk, in response, said he would sue the faa for regulatory overreach. that same month, the faa administrator, michael g. whitaker, a lawyer with decades of aviation experience, testified before the house

transportation committee about spacex's fines. elon musk then publicly called for whitaker's resignation with a post on x. whitaker, who was unanimously confirmed by the senate in 2023 with bipartisan support, unanimously. he resigned on the last day of the biden administration, three years before his term was set to end. and with trump back in power, republicans are now calling for those fines against spacex to be dropped. during the confirmation hearing for transportation secretary sean duffy last month. the republican senator ted cruz, openly asked the nominee whether he would ensure that the faa, which is tasked with prioritizing public safety, would withdraw the fines and expedite spacex's approvals. essentially, it was a request to protect the fortunes of the richest man in the world at the expense of addressing safety violations that put the american public at risk. duffy, who has since been confirmed, committed to reviewing the fines fines

which have already been approved after those violations had been determined. and on monday, trump wasted no time in firing the head of the office of government ethics, an independent agency. that firing came after the agency received requests last week from congressional democrats to investigate musk's specific conflict of interest. a letter signed by 12 house democrats stated, quote, the american people deserve assurances that no individual, regardless of stature, is permitted to influence policy for personal gain. end quote. all right. after the break, i'm going to talk to the two new york times reporters who wrote the story on musk's business empire and how it might be benefiting from his role in the benefiting from his role in the trump administration. experience advanced technology in the buick envision. (♪♪) equipped with the largest-in-class ultrawide 30-inch diagonal display and google built-in compatibility, innovation is at your fingertips. buick. exceptional by design. for more than a decade farxiga has been trusted again and again, and again.

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just take. my hand. darling. >> before the break, i told you about an important and detailed new report from the new york times laying out how elon musk's private venture stand to gain from his expanding political reach. joining us now are the

two authors of that times piece, the investigative reporters kirsten grind and eric lipton. good morning to both of you. thank you for your reporting and for being with us this morning. kirsten, let me start with you. what's the what's the thrust of the main findings that you, you, you, you established in your story? >> sure. so eric and. >> i. have really. >> been focused. >> on the. >> conflicts across. >> elon musk's huge business. >> empire, which. >> encompasses. >> by the way, six. >> companies. one tesla. >> that everyone. >> knows, spacex, which is private. >> but for others. and so. we started noticing. >> early on. this year, you know, we're sort of. >> less than. >> a month. >> into the trump administration. >> now that already. >> there seem to be some. >> effect on. his empire. insofar as. that a lot of this giant federal. agency shake up. >> that was. >> happening seemed to be. >> affecting the very. >> agencies that had. >> been looking into musk's businesses. >> for many. >> years. >> and that ranged.

>> from all. >> kinds of. >> investigations. >> you know. >> the securities. >> and. >> exchange commission. >> was looking into how elon musk. >> bought twitter and when he bought shares, the. usda inspector general. >> was looking into his brain implant company, neuralink. >> so we. >> were very. focused on how this was affecting all of his many businesses. >> so, eric, without speculating, what can you tell us about the fact that elon musk and his his his doge team have access to at least some of the government agencies that had complaints or investigations into into his businesses? what, if anything, can they do by having that access? what are the important influences that he can have over people who are either investigating or have dealings with him? >> i mean, one of the most instructive. >> things is to look at musk's. >> own words. and if. >> you look at his social media postings in the lead up to the election, he was very explicit that how frustrated he was with

the regulators, both, you know, at the securities exchange. >> commission. >> at the faa, at the department of interior, and just how knuckleheaded he considered them and how they were restraining his businesses. and how. how much of a desire he had to quash their powers. so he he laid it out very clearly in his own social media postings. and to some extent, that's. >> what's happening now. we don't have. >> insight into. >> whether or not. >> he personally is reaching in and shutting down investigations. what we can see is that there are, you know, more than two dozen. different investigative matters at 11 different federal agencies that have been either shut down or affected or slowed by actions that have taken taken place during the trump administration so far. and he's benefiting from them. but, you know, we there's so little transparency with what doge is doing that we really cannot see him personally reaching in. >> so this is really interesting. kirsten, let's explore this because companies or governments that have conflict of interest laws are there so that, you know, we don't people don't say, nbc

doesn't say, hey, you're not allowed to steal from someone else. you're not allowed to bribe someone, but they talk about things that you can't do so that you don't get to that point. do we have existing conflict of interest laws in the government that should prevent any of this from happening, that somebody who's got business before the government or investigations into their businesses by the government cannot have access and control to certain information. >> we do. >> of. >> course, have those. >> rules. >> and they're very important, and. >> they apply to everyone in the. >> government for the most part. >> i think. >> you can't. >> even think of the normal rules in this. >> situation. >> though, because. >> they almost. >> don't apply. elon musk's. >> business holdings. are so. >> widespread and he touches. >> every single. agency in. >> some way. >> through contracts. through regulatory investigations. through other business dealings that even if we. >> were to apply those normal. >> rules, which, by the. >> way. >> it's unclear if they

actually. >> are being applied. >> it's almost antiquated. >> because there's never really. >> been a situation like this. >> in the government. >> so of. >> course. >> at this point. democrats are very concerned and they are trying to look at this conflict of interest issue. you know, one one representative is trying to pass the elon. musk act, which would make it so. >> that elon. >> couldn't have government contracts like other federal employees. >> but listen. >> i mean, that's going to be a. >> hard row to. >> yeah. they don't. >> they don't control any any part of the government. >> exactly. >> there are institutions within government in addition to conflict of interest rules. there are inspectors general. there's the office of personnel management, there's the general services agency, there's the office of government ethics. donald trump's decision to fire the head of the office of government ethics, in fact, came after something that kirsten was just describing. it was a letter that was sent to the agency to investigate elon musk's

conflicts. and then suddenly the head of that department is fired. is that a logical connection to make to your story? >> i don't know. >> that you can directly correlate that letter with the firing, but there has been a kind of across the entire landscape of the federal government. trump has dismantled a kind of an accountability and ethics. system that was really built up after watergate. i mean, just about every aspect of that. >> system has. >> been eradicated in the last. >> month. >> not only the inspectors general and the head of the office of government, you know, government ethics, but the special the office of special counsel. and then you've got, you know, a deputy attorney general who was his former, you know, defense attorney and the members of the office of public integrity, as you spoke about in your last segment. >> are resigning. >> so just about every aspect of accountability outside of the federal court system is gone. and you have a congress controlled by republicans that are pliant to him. so there is no really system of accountability and ethics. monitoring left in the federal

government. >> at the. >> moment, unfortunately. >> kirsten, obviously, the reason we report these things is that it's out there and people think about it. there is an answer to a lot of this, and that is congress asserting its actual power over, over the purse and over these, these agencies and how money is disbursed. we're not seeing a lot of republicans who do control both houses of congress doing that right now. is there any sense that that may come as a result of public pressure and people understanding, including in your article, the remarkable graphics you make between government departments and elon musk's companies? i mean, it's not it's not good reporting on your part, but it's not super complicated to understand. >> it's not complicated. >> to. >> understand. >> but it's. >> it's really a hot. >> button issue. >> and i. >> mean, it will be interesting to. >> see what happens. right. >> again, we're still. very much in the early. >> days of this. >> we haven't seen. >> how all these. >> conflicts are going to play out. >> we haven't. seen what's going. >> to happen. with his. >> numerous contracts. >> with the federal. government through spacex. >> so as. >> this continues to build,

we'll see what happens next. but, you know, the white house itself is saying that elon musk is going to basically. police his own contracts, right? >> so i. >> think that republicans. are sort of. >> in this tough spot. >> here, and it will be interesting to see what. >> they do. >> thank you. >> for your incredible reporting, because we're getting nowhere unless people report the stories that you report and that we can discuss them. we appreciate that. kirsten grind and eric lipton are investigative reporters for the new york times. if you haven't read their story on elon musk's connections to the government, you should. all right, straight ahead. former u.s. treasury secretary larry summers joins me to discuss the trump administration's potential constitutional overreach with the efforts to meddle in the department that he used to lead treasury. and a quick note scan this qr code on your screen to follow me on blue sky. you can find me at social, but all you actually have to do is scan the qr code. is that a qr code? yeah, that's. i never get this right. i've been calling it a barcode. scan the qr code with your phone and it'll take you right to my page. another hour of el sheik