some of that rain, some of that lightning. and again, those tornadoes elsewhere around the country, though, as you mentioned, it is just a weather smorgasbord. you have snow, you have ice, you have mudslides. i think we have some images right now in new york, where some of that ice and snow is starting to fall right now. so that's something we're also keeping a close eye on, including the midwest right now. so really there's just no shortage of weather to talk about here. but we're going to stay focused here in the south just because, again, those storms, as we've seen time and time again, can be really deadly and catastrophic. and again, the concern here that it's going to strike here at night. so we'll of course hunker down. we'll bring you all of that reporting as this event takes place here in the evening hours. alex. >> nighttime strikes like that. very scary for tornadoes. okay. thanks so much, george. best of luck. that's going to do it for me on this edition of alex reports. see you again tomorrow at 1 p.m. eastern. up next, the beat weekend. >> we are tracking the d.o.j.

upheaval. >> a slew. >> of prosecutors resigning. one federal. prosecutor has also signed. >> now a motion to. >> go ahead and. >> request the dismissal. >> of those. corruption charges against the new. >> york mayor. >> that has been the. focal point of this. >> it took longer because of the trump. >> doj inability to get things. done in this case. >> things that their. >> own recently. >> departed aides say are wrong, improper, potentially even unconstitutional. and sullivan is the trial lawyer with the doj public integrity unit. >> who is close. >> to retirement. >> and helped this go. >> forward under serious pressure from trump officials. >> and so this is a story. >> that matters. as i said. >> this week, it's one of the stories. >> that the trump white. >> house is not promoting. and it's gotten far more difficult. messier took a much. >> longer. >> time. >> as i mentioned. >> than they intended. now, the trump doj. official here reportedly. >> gathered the lawyers. >> in a unusual morning meeting with a lot of pressure. now, again, remember, this is not how

the doj normally works. it's not even how most the federal government works, although surely sometimes there are big tough conversations. but we're talking about something far more unusual with regard to carrot and stick pressure. according to this reporting, which also matches the very whistleblowing we got from these recently departed officials, including the promise of some sort of reward for those who would sign and file this controversial motion. >> he gave them an hour deadline to decide who was going to be the person to put themselves on the chopping block. >> we'll all get fired, but. >> who's going. >> to. >> replace us? they're going to hire us with loyalists to make sure this never happens again. >> the judge, though, has to agree to drop this case officially. >> it's very inappropriate for the. >> department to. >> engage in that kind of overt political bargaining. >> danielle. >> she's a profile in. >> courage rather than having a public integrity. section with. 22 lawyers, we will now have a public lack of integrity

section. >> that is. >> just some of the concern and the reaction we've seen. you can see the story is a big one across all media. it's not like even fox news, which has been more friendly to the administration, is ignoring it. you can't ignore this many resignations. what one former fdny chief said on this program this week looked like almost a nixonian saturday night massacre. now, the lead prosecutor on the adams case resigned in protest, stating, if no one will tell the president that what they were trying to do is basically wrong, then quote, you'll eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion. no system of ordered liberty can allow the government to use the carrot of dismissing charges or the stick for a separate political agenda, the letter states. and he goes on to invoke what could be donald trump's point of view. call this a sort of more ignorant or benign friendly explanation that even if trump wants to treat this like a transaction that is wrong, he says, i can even understand how trump's

background in business and politics might enable seeing this as a good, if distasteful, deal. but any assistant u.s. attorney would know that's wrong. that is just one of the warnings from one of the several now resigned prosecutors. six in all. and this is all coming out of the s.d.n.y, where trump has had so much of a focus. the mayor was accused of offering essentially a bribery deal to trump, that he gets preferential treatment, which he otherwise wouldn't get, to dismiss this case. and then the mayor would help trump politically on immigration in new york. that is completely out of bounds. and as we've mentioned, although none of this should be very political, many of the people objecting are sympathetic to republican and donald trump policies. that's part of how they may have stayed in the administration, even for three weeks, although some of them were career level. i just quoted you from one who said he gets that trump has a business view, but this is wrong. and it's the job of the lawyers who swear

these oaths to draw those lines. here's our colleague rachel maddow described it. >> so we're putting these charges. >> on ice. >> for now. so. >> eric adams. >> can run. >> his reelection. >> campaign without technically being under indictment. >> and then we'll see. >> how we feel. >> and maybe we'll bring the charges. >> back based on consideration of all. >> the relevant factors. talk about having leverage over somebody. right. >> we're taking the charges away for now, but we could put them back depending on all relevant factors. it prompted this headline from josh. marshall at his news site, tpm. quote, donald trump is now the mayor of new york. >> one reason this is all so obvious is that is meant to be obvious. these are the opening efforts in shock and awe to show they're in charge. it doesn't mean it's working perfectly. it's quite a cost to pay for the doj to lose six top people and have this kind of open revolt, to have reports about meetings where people are being

threatened or rewarded for doing things that basically they can't find doj lawyers to do. even those who clerked for scalia and are sensitive to trump, even those who would say to you if you ran into him at a dinner party, look, he's a business guy. this is why he's thinking that, right? that's starting from a place of empathy with donald trump's history and perspective. but still coming back to the point that lawyers don't do this. now, we should note that the adams officials have denied this type of deal, although there were notes from credible parties taken and then apparently seized by the doj. multiple lawyers describing this who seem credible otherwise. donald trump issued a denial and a false statement about this this week, as we fact checked. now, in a joint interview with adams on fox news this morning with a trump official, border czar tom homan said this. >> imagine him going inside saying that the only way mayor adams is going to assist in immigration, which i was calling

for since 2022, is if you drop the charges, that's quid pro quo. that's a crime. >> 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 up, up his butt saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to? >> the guy who's still defendant. it takes a judge to dismiss these charges. is issuing a denial. no such deal. and the other guy who seems like he's not worried about sticking to the official line. the trump official is blatantly saying, if we don't get what we want, we'll be back. as eric adams, the defendant and mayor of new york, laughs along. now, that resignation i mentioned said, quote, adams attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo. and during the meeting, the deputy ag, as i mentioned, then admonished a member of the doj prosecution team who was taking notes and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion. that matters because it is both unusual and

incriminating. you don't seize your own notes from your own teammates like you did something wrong. unless you're worried you did something wrong. and these are all lawyers. they all know how things work. but remember, in a proper and honest prosecution, when you have a meeting, you always take notes because you want to have very clear record evidence. they have an open case against this defendant. they have we now know a second indictment plan that was going to allege other obstruction by this defendant adams. and so you're going to be very meticulous when the doj, the people in charge start gathering up notes to, i guess, hide or destroy them, you have a problem. and remember, for all of the potential pessimism out there, there are still judges who oversee the doj. there are still laws on the books. and even if some of this takes longer in time, there will be people at the doj all the way up to the top who may start to

think about how close are they to the next election or the next one after that. why do they want those notes hidden? it's a sign of weakness. they are worried that could get them in trouble, and it's incriminating. it's a sign they think they may have done nothing wrong. i will also state that that same doj official issued a lengthy letter rebutting all of this. and as mentioned earlier, the president has denied it. so there is a swirl of different statements. there's also information about the meetings between beauvais and adam's lawyers on the dismissal. the times says it was upfront, extraordinary shattering of how these things work, with records revealing beauvais talked to adam's lawyers and wanted to, quote, refine their approach until they landed on a highly unorthodox argument. the case itself hindered his ability to address immigration. i'll tell you one thing on that before i show you more saying that a sitting politician government official is hindered in their job by a case is, duh, obvious. and that's not a democrat or republican thing here. this happens to be a democratic

mayor. you might recall senator menendez, a democratic senator. you might recall other republicans, george santos having a political job doesn't ever give you carte blanche to break the law. indeed, there's a public integrity section of the doj to deal with the public integrity of primarily public officials. so that statement right there is incriminating because it's just made up. one of the outgoing doj lawyers called it obviously pretextual, which is a fancy lawyer word for basically a lie. the problem is that the mayor can't do his job. the problem for the trump folks is that they couldn't really dream up, even with all these smart lawyers, any valid reason that this case might go away? and they had some other lawyers around who built the case. now, i'll show you more. the doj's initial memo admitted the decision was made without assessing the strength of the evidence or the case's legal theories. in other words, this is not legal. this is not about the evidence. it's an abuse of power. and if it were a movie and you say, why is it so

obvious? this isn't a mystery. we're not going to wait till later in the movie to find out the whodunit. they want it that way because as i've told you, they are pushing at every level, testing what they can get away with and trying to send a message to other political figures, especially in the democratic party, where they have less political leverage. it's not like the republicans are doing a lot of dissent here to try to set a new tone, to intimidate, and to see how much more they can get away with. interestingly, while mayor adams seems fine with all this and faces a lot of risk, if he wasn't a heck of a lot of their own team, their own lawyers, their own former scalia clerks are saying, no way. now we have a special guest who headed the entire doj criminal division on the facts when we come back. >> i feel like new sunglasses, like a brand new pair of jeans. >> oh. >> brand new. >> one. more about celebrity.

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>> you. >> it's invisible. >> on the skin. >> it works. >> like a dream. >> why didn't someone think of this sooner? >> donald trump. >> is defending the mass firings of federal watchdogs. >> our federal government. >> now can. >> discriminate against. >> the citizens of the country. >> we are all. >> watching and waiting to see who is going to hold the line. >> don't miss. >> the weekends, saturday, and sunday mornings at. >> 8:00 on msnbc. the first 100. >> days, it's a critical. time for our country. >> and rachel. >> maddow is on. >> five nights. >> a week. >> now is the time. so we're going to do it. settle in. >> the rachel maddow show weeknights at nine on msnbc. >> imagine him going inside saying that the only way mayor adams is going to assist in immigration, which i was calling for since 2022, is if you drop

the charges. that's quid pro quo. that's a crime. >> if he doesn't come through, i'll be back in your city and we won't be sitting on the couch. i'll be in his office. up, up his butt saying, where the hell is the agreement? we came to. >> a strange moment in the joint interview between the mayor of new york and a trump official on fox. that was today. amidst now the day has. after six resignations and an internal revolt, resignations and protests filed to get the case dismissed. it's still under the process. a judge that rules on that. we are joined by the former head of the doj's entire criminal division, leslie caldwell. welcome. >> thank you. >> ari. let's start with a short, factual question, and then we can build from there. in your time at the doj rising to oversee the entire criminal division, did you ever see a case where an offer was made, let alone agreed upon, to change the outcome of a criminal case because of somebody's, you know, political activities or government activities? >> well, i was there. no.

absolutely not. i never. >> saw anything. >> like this. there was. something sort of similar when michael flynn was prosecuted and pleaded guilty, and then the government did an about face and moved. >> to dismiss. >> the case. >> and you're saying in the trump era? yes. yeah. >> but other. >> than that, no. and this is far more. >> extreme even than that. >> when we look at the. >> law or the doj manual just to level set, is this a menu option? >> it is. >> absolutely not. >> so what do you see in this in this story. and what do you see in the breadth of resignations. >> so i think. >> that it's hard to it's hard to. >> tell. >> what exactly. this how this will land. but it seems that the trump doj has no, no concern about alienating and getting rid of top prosecutors. in fact, they've spoken of getting rid of more people. i don't know whether this was partly a strategy to get people to resign. i doubt that because it doesn't seem like it was that

well thought out. >> right? because it sort of blew up on them. right? and as i've mentioned, the president is running from it, not towards it. correct. >> so it'll be. >> interesting. >> i think that the attorney, ed sullivan, who i actually know because he was there when i was there, who signed who signed the motion, has said that he's done it basically to protect all the other people in the public integrity section from whatever consequences might have befallen them. >> that that there was enough resignations for the week. and you have to still go on at some point. >> right. and these people have families and they have, you know, they may be the principal breadwinners. i have no idea. they need they need their jobs. they love their jobs. he didn't want them to all be at risk of losing their jobs. so he sort of stood up. and as you mentioned in the intro, he's a senior guy who's fairly close to retirement. so unlike many of the other people in that section. >> right. >> i showed some of this interview with adams, who still remains technically a defendant, right. until this is resolved. yes. and one of the chief immigration officials in the trump administration. i asked

you the question. i'll answer this part. i've never seen an interview or public appearance like this ever in government. and i'll i'll play a little bit more of the new york mayor here on on the chosen outlet of fox. >> you said something that's very interesting. you said that elected officials who are standing in the way like me. let's be clear. i'm not standing in the way. i'm collaborating against so many others that don't want to collaborate. >> well. >> now you're collaborating. >> what do you think is happening there? those are both government officials who wield power against what is a scandal, a controversy, and the some takeaway from the interview, as i as i see it, as i heard mr. homan say, is, yep, this is what we got out of this. >> yeah, i think that's exactly right. and i think that is what they got. and that's certainly what the prosecutor, the southern district u.s. attorney, said in her resignation letter. and i think that the things that were said by emile beauvais in his letter basically confirm that as well.

>> and this is how the times put it. if this is the operating procedure, if this is how they're going to approach these cases, the times says it now sends a message that, quote, under the trump administration, doj will make prosecutorial decisions based not on the merits of a case, but on purely political concerns. so the two other things i wanted to go over with you is one, is there a remedy for this, even in the long term? in other words, if there is a miscarriage of justice, are there remedies later? and then second, is it as easy to do this with new cases as the ones that are already on the books? in other words, there was a case against adams. he's legally presumed innocent. it was supposed to play out. now it's depending on what the judge does. it's very likely not. but will it be as easy for them with this approach to then start new cases to do the weaponization, which they say is what they're against? >> so i think one of the big ironies of all this is that

they've talked about weaponization to the point where that's become part of the vernacular that people who aren't the trump people use. but what they're really trying to do is to weaponize the department. >> we have a lot coming up by the end of the hour. we have some fun, including a star of snl moments like this. >> baby, don't hurt me. do you think three. >> 00000 snl chris kattan is >> 00000 snl chris kattan is here by baby: liberty! mom: liberty mutual is all she talks about since we saved hundreds by bundling our home and auto insurance. baby: liberty! biberty: hey kid, it's pronounced "biberty." baby: liberty! biberty: biberty! baby: liberty! biberty: biberty! baby: liberty! biberty: bi-be-rty! baby: biberty! biberty: and now she's mocking me. very mature. mom: hey, that's enough you two! biberty: hey, i'm not the one acting like a total baby. results. you can see mom: she's two. only pay for what you need ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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grant musk powers that few others have in government, the courts will be the last word on that. but to broaden out right now, how did elon musk get here? he is famously wealthy, but there is a lot of evidence that it is not money alone. and think about all the other loud, super rich billionaire types who would love to wield this power in the us and who are not. there are other differences about him. musk has proven to be a bold, sometimes crass attention seeker at all costs, and there's no obvious reason to completely neglect someone wielding this level of power. indeed, the story you see on your screen is about his attention, the new yorker joking that he's pushing aside the cartoon visage of donald trump, the tuft of yellow hair at the very swearing in time, more recently this week saying musk is practically at the desk like a president himself. critics say musk's

approach to the government right now is like his shredding of twitter then x, and there are criticisms there. but i want to be clear with you, because we are always as factual as possible. while people have launched many understandable criticisms of this when it comes to understanding how things are working, there are actually two sides to how musk used twitter now x that are relevant right now. one is the obvious total failure from a business perspective. he is supposed to be a business guy. he got a lot of money from banks on the principle and the expectation that he would be good at business, but he lost a ton of money. >> elon musk has struck a deal to buy twitter for $44 billion. >> twitter shareholders. >> are making a. >> lot of money on this deal. >> elon musk. >> is forking over a ton of money. >> it's a very dicey financial proposition. >> for him. >> even as the richest man in the. >> world. >> x is worth. >> 71.5% less than it was at the

time. >> that. >> elon musk. >> bought it. >> the social media. platform is still seeing a negative cash flow because of a 50% drop in ad revenue. >> numbers don't lie. that crash was the brutal economic reality. so musk lost the company a lot of money. ultimately, there are debts to pay even when you're that rich. so his partners, his business loans, whatever collateral he puts up on that he is way down. but in terms of raw attention, it was a different story. musk used x to make himself far more interesting and relevant and controversial. he won the attention war in 2024, as axios put it, and the site under his management, while it lost all that money, remember which all of his bank investors are mad about also got 30 times the daily traffic than many rivals. now our colleague chris hayes has his eye on exactly this battle to control attention. and if you've noticed

it, from the tech inaugural to the way tech has been a central feature of our politics, hayes argues it's the defining battle right now. younger people, sometimes called gen z, are all over social media. many stay up late just to check their feeds, and it goes beyond just your friends or youthful things. this type of internet, always online, always something new and digital. attention merchants using a business model to make young people and everyone else continue to feel that way. this is affecting not only how we live and how people are raised, and how we communicate with each other. it's become a kind of a baseline of our life and politics. it's not a coincidence that this election cycle, if you noticed, had a heck of a lot more tech during the campaign and all the way up to the inauguration, and all those tech billionaires and this sort of constant internet life is something that not only hayes diagnoses in this smart new

book. i finished it, but it's also something comic bo burnham explored in a streaming netflix special inside. >> welcome to the internet. what would you prefer? would you like to fight. >> for civil. >> rights or tweet a racial slur? be happy. be be bursting with rage. we got a million. different ways to engage. >> could i. >> interest you in. >> everything? >> all of the time. a little bit of everything. all of the time. >> everything all the time. the joke is on us and the joke is familiar because we're living through it. and if you are of a certain age, i will tell you i am. you might remember talking about online and offline. that very distinction doesn't exist for many anymore, certainly not for musk and some of these followers. and the idea that we could ever hold this at bay in our life and politics, an

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but before them, tell us what's important about your book right now for viewers? >> well, i think people right now, over the last few weeks have been struggling with how to stay focused and how to deal with the onslaught of pulls on their attention from the news. and we've ended up in a scenario where the kind of private. >> life. >> experience of these constant siren calls, these constant compelled forms of attention on us with the buzz of the phone and the incoming, is now being mirrored in public discourse between trump and musk, who are doing the exact same thing at the macro level. and in the case of musk, with the platform that he bought, it's like the venn diagram of both of them. and the whole book is about the fact that attention is the most is the defining resource of our time, that it's finite, that it's powerful, and that there is an incredibly sophisticated world of attention, capitalism built to extract it from us, often essentially against our will. >> so briefly. >> and then i want to play something. does attention capitalism success, which we see

in what the most valuable companies are in the world? it's inarguable, require politics to be this way, because that operates in many countries. >> well, i think we've seen much of what's happening in our country mirrored in other places. i mean, the kind of discourse that. attention, attention, capitalism platform select for is a discourse that is maximally attentionally salient and has no other value. it's pursuing other than that, right, that the platform only exists for one purpose to maximize the number and hours of eyeballs on the site so as to monetize it with selling ads against it. right? and there's nothing else that's trying to do that you and i are trying to do or that, you know, people who are making a movie or trying to do, right, tell a story, get a message out, inform people the pureness of that distillation of it selects for lots of stuff lies, conspiracy theories that can be really, really toxic in aggregate.

>> yeah. and your book does a very precise job with the political context. i think people will find interesting of showing how that is baked in. yeah. so if that's completely baked in to most of those tools, there's no way to protest it within those tools, right? it's like a black mirror episode. i want to show how this evolved over time. you write in the book about how politicians used to speak, how some things in the world have gotten better and others have gotten worse. and so in that spirit, we are about to show a lengthier history lesson that fits with your book that we think is interesting, but starts with the first part is the slowest. how politicians used to speak to the country on a national basis and then out from there. let's take a look. >> we discussed tonight domestic. >> issues. >> but i would not. >> want that to be any implication to be given that this. >> does not involve. >> directly our struggle. >> with mr. khrushchev. >> for survival. >> mr. khrushchev. >> is in new york and he.

>> maintains the communist. >> offensive throughout. >> the world. >> because of the productive power. >> of the soviet union itself. >> the things that. >> senator kennedy has said. many of us can agree with, there is no question but that we cannot discuss our internal. >> affairs in the united. states without. recognizing that. >> they have a tremendous. >> bearing on our international position. >> there is no question. >> but that this nation cannot. stand still. >> taxes have. >> been cut. >> and yet. >> income is up to the federal government. >> by 25%. >> in the. last three years. and so what i. >> want. >> to do is. >> keep this. >> expansion going. >> you mentioned the navy, for example. >> and that we have. >> fewer ships than we did. >> in 1916. >> well. >> governor, we also have fewer horses. >> and. >> bayonets because. >> the. >> nature of our military's changed. you defrauded. >> the people. >> on a point. >> you defrauded? >> you can't be for the mob on

january. >> 6th. >> and for the officers you can't. and it's not funny. when that mob came. >> senator. >> cruz. >> was hiding. >> in. >> a. >> supply closet. >> so one of the things i think you see there, and i write in the book about the lincoln-douglas debates, a debate is what i call in the book an intentional regime. and this is really an important concept because all human endeavors. this interview we're having right now, your first day in preschool, the floor of the united states senate, a business meeting with an agenda, have some attention regime to guide the flow of attention. a debate is an attention regime created for the purpose of civic public life. and one of the things we've seen down is a total breakdown of these debates. i mean, when you get to the cross shouting of donald trump and little marco, or when you think about donald trump doing a debate he doesn't actually debate, like compare nixon and kennedy to the way that trump conducts himself. he basically yells over everyone. he interrupts. he avoids the topic that is endemic. now to our politics. this breakdown of attentional regimes, which then means that the most important

thing is just to get attention and put attention on what you want, as opposed to genuinely engage with the other person. >> here's something i couldn't tell from reading your book, but i get to ask you. you know, sometimes you finish the book and you have. >> a. >> question, but you don't have the author. does this problem happen basically this way without phones, meaning you have laptops. we have a shortening of political discourse. we just saw even pre phone. does it happen without the computer going in your pocket and your kids pocket. >> oh man that's a great question i think i think the platforms are a little more important than the phones like the, the, the scale of the platform, the fact that it's so hyper individuated, the fact that it has an algorithmic machine learning model being run over billions of users, that's only selecting to maximize attention, is the issue more than it's in your phone. but the phone, of course, is what gives it the ubiquity. that means people spend 5 to 6 hours a day on it, you know? so and that is increasingly one of the things that happened is whatever dividing line there used to be

between journalism as content and other stuff, forget it. completely gone well. and we like we are doing something. we're trying to keep people looking like we need to get people's attention, but we really are trying to do a different thing. yes. and what the algorithm is. >> and your conclusion of the book, you wrestle with this idea that in the old days, raising awareness and attention was something that was seen as a positive, like attention on this issue, this famine abroad. >> famine in ethiopia. right? we are the world. >> but implied in that was a certain quality of attention. yes. not just saying, oh, something funny or outrageous happened. let me look at it for those eight seconds and then leave the family. yes. right. the we have one lyric for your book. okay. >> oh, good. i was hoping we. >> were jadakiss. right, in the famous song y, which asks all these questions. at one point he says, y'all let the terminator win the election. come on, pay attention. >> that's very good. >> and i think he means yes.

that outcome is silly. you let an actor man imagine if he got to trump. but this was a pre trump song. you let an actor take over the california governor's race. et cetera. and so he's saying like you would say, pay better attention. >> and pay attention to you know, walter lippmann has this line in the phantom public. he writes in the 1920s, he's covering the treaty of versailles, and he knows that americans are not paying that much attention to it. and he says the american public have a great interest in what happens in versailles, but they're not interested in it. love that far from lip bars. and that point is that's replicable. that was true back then. but this this gap between what's interesting and what we have an interest in, between what grabs our attention and what we should be paying attention to. yeah. the thing that we, you and i, work very hard every day to kind of bring those close together that in the gap is where i think democracy is in a lot of trouble right now. right. >> and then you go to the fact that we in the press and you are you are pretty blunt about this. i think this and your last book

has criticisms of the press, even amidst the challenges we face. and there's so much bad faith criticism that it's easy to get defensive. but when we overdo it and become clickbaity. >> yes. >> then we are a part of the problem rather than the alternative. and just saying this can't be simplified any more than this, so take it or leave it. portlandia has the ultimate comedic commentary on this. take a look. >> did you read that. >> thing in pace? >> it was about the national. >> oh, i saw that is the thing about all the. >> mid-century houses. >> yeah. >> did you. >> read the. >> new york times? >> yes. new york observer, yes. washington post, wall street journal. did you read that steampunk article in boing boing? >> i did not. >> like the end of it. >> did you read that. >> skywriting over. >> the. >> willamette river? yes. you read a fortune cookie? yes. from last night? yes. did you read it? yes. there were two. >> yes. did you read that. >> thing that guy wrote. >> in the sand on the beach? >> yeah. >> i love that. by the way, that show was great. incredible jam. so we love that. >> you can't tackle this without also confronting some of the press's issues and challenges in

a commercial marketplace. yeah. how do you deal with that? >> i mean, what you know, what that speaks to there. what's great about that? i actually have used that in the book. it illustrates the fact that when there's more attention, when there's more information, there's more competition for your attention, that information consumes attention. and that part of our job, part of what we're doing, if we're doing things usefully for people, is screening things and focusing things. and one of the criticisms i think, that you can make of the media is that we have a hard time focusing that there's this sense, particularly with trump in the first term, and i think we're all dealing with it now where it's like a six, six year olds playing soccer, where someone kicks the ball and everyone runs after it. and what we're struggling with right now, i'm struggling with a day to day, and i know all of us are, is how do we cover and follow what is genuinely newsworthy and genuinely important without the sensation of overwhelm, distraction and chasing the ball? yeah. >> really, really interesting. congratulations on the book. thanks. we gave extra time for it. thanks for the question from portlandia was did you read it?

and we're going to leave this up on the screen. did you read it? the siren's call we did here at the beat. we recommend it. with all full disclosure, it's a colleague's book, but you can get the siren's call online right now. look it up, get it right now. look it up, get it wherever books are sold. when you live with diabetes, progress is... having your coffee like you like it without an audience. ♪♪ [silence] the freestyle libre 3 plus sensor tracks your glucose in real time so everyone else doesn't have to, and over time it can help lower your a1c confident choices for more control of your life. this is progress. learn more and try for free at freestylelibre.us ♪♪ free. >> and. >> clinically tested. >> my hair. >> is longer. >> is longer. >> thicker i told myself i was ok with my moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis symptoms...

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>> an enduring comedy institution across american culture has a special birthday, and you can usually tell how politics is going by how it's being covered on saturday night live, a show that has been really defining the way we think about not only our politics, but our political leaders across the parties. sometimes you remember their impression as well, or better than the people themselves, and it's been happening for decades. >> let's take a look at the recent popularity polls, shall we? >> look. >> i'm a uniter, not a divider. >> i'm a uniter, not a divider. snap out of it. >> i have read this thing.

>> cover to. >> cover. >> and. >> folks. >> it's good stuff. >> i can see. >> russia from. >> my house. >> a lot of people. >> forget i'm president. including me. >> anyone can manipulate. >> him simply. >> through flattery. >> that's simply not true. >> it's not true. >> okay. >> you look handsome tonight. >> i love her. >> we know all those moments. now, saturday night live is part of our sister company, nbc, celebrating 50 years. most shows don't make it that long, let alone as such a big cultural hit. so this show was created all the way back in 1975 by the legendary lorne michaels, who pitched an idea for something that really hadn't been done quite in this form a late night variety show with musical guests that would be live. 50 years later, it's been dubbed the bar for modern comedy, the kind of rare institution that gets to reinvent itself every year. >> anybody can do comedy. i can teach all of y'all in here how

to tell. >> jokes and be comedy. >> but are you funny? >> this was the biggest show ever. >> there was nothing like it. >> and that is. >> a guy in. >> a van down by. >> the river. >> it's an. >> american institution. >> superstars. >> i got. >> a fever. >> and the only. >> prescription is more cowbell. >> it's a real dream come true. >> it was everything. i loved that show. i was on it. >> live from. >> new york. >> live from new york. >> live from. >> new york. >> live from new york. >> the america continues to mark what i mentioned. saturday night live's 50th anniversary. we are joined by a legend, the comedian and actor chris kattan, who was on snl for eight seasons. that's basically 20% of the lifetime of this long running show. and you probably remember his iconic and hilarious characters from the roxbury guys, mr. peepers, and of course, mango. >> what is going, baby? >> stop everything. >> baby, don't hurt me. keep it.

>> what is the color. >> of. >> a stop sign? >> excellent. >> i am the prince of sorrow. >> shut up! >> you're supposed to be dead. >> sorry. >> sweet cheeks, but divas can't be rushed. >> you are no diva. >> oh, yeah? >> well, we'll see who the real diva is. >> mango. j.lo. mango. hey, love. >> chris kattan is part of so many of our lives through that show, as well as all of his other work, his movies, his comedy. he's on tour. he also hosts the podcast idiotically speaking with chris kattan. welcome. >> hey. thank you. >> thank you for having me. >> i like your set. >> oh. what do you like about it? >> it's fun. >> does it feel like you're on the news? >> it feels. >> like i'm in washington. >> there you go. well, that's sort of what part of what we're going. >> what are these? >> why are there lighters? >> those are beat lighters. and these come out for the fun segments that, like. >> pretend we're at a concert. >> yeah. concert music vibe. now you know. >> the lighters.

>> this is big. >> yes. >> you are such a great guest for this because so many of us grew up on your comedy as part of what makes snl funny. so let's start there. zany. i know it's harder to talk about zany. yeah. >> being i heard. >> that word in years. >> and how do you feel about it? >> i feel awkward. >> you really capture something i don't want to, like, go overboard, but being as zany and independent and iconoclastic as your characters were. thank you. it made it feel like, wait, this is not normal tv. >> yeah, i guess i guess. >> that's a. >> good thing. >> yeah. >> i mean, i think so. but again, the zany word is thrown me off. but i guess i could be. yeah, i, you know, it. >> is. >> it is. you know, it is. it is great to be part of something as iconic as snl. >> and during my time. >> in the cast that i was brought up with and, you know, it was i was very fortunate to be part of that. >> what is it about snl that brings, brings all these people

together? and then you make something every week that's lasted this long. shows never last this long. >> well. >> i mean, there is a turnover. >> of cast members. i mean. >> that is that. >> is part of it. >> and i think. >> that, you know. >> culture. >> culture just changes, you know, and comedy itself changes with culture. and i think that's part of it. that's that's really the crux of it. is that a word? >> crux. >> crux is a. >> word. >> correct word. zany is to. but yeah, i think i think that's part of it. you know, we just without without the news, without without what's going on in the world, we wouldn't have anything to make fun of. or poke fun at or mock or or, you know, just parody or, you know, and people change, you know, and that way people can come up with new characters and people have and but but again, you know, the change of the cast is always important. >> so you're saying satire is this conversation. that's what keeps it fresh. we saw earlier

some of the political satire which everybody knows snl for. right. but you also hit the culture. so there was a certain moment in time where there was a certain type of person who was going to the club. yeah. and this was part of urban culture in america. and you guys spoofed it in a way that became a culture unto itself. so the satire became its own thing. people joked about it in clubs. my family, we grew up on it. it became a movie. let's look a little bit at roxbury. >> okay. >> you still can't come in? >> well. >> that's not what a friend. >> of. >> mine told me. >> maybe you know. his name is abraham. >> well, there. you want. >> the real thing? do you want the people that do stop talking to me? i broke the window again. >> i will say abraham's a little lonely. he wants to hang out with his friend. >> yeah, i know. >> george washington. >> george washington. i know. that's his best friend. but we like that. that. case in point,

that's the character that we all know and all. >> you know. >> grew up doing. we actually that person still exists. you know, that person that goes to a club. i don't go to the clubs anymore, but i'm sure that. >> the type of person that goes to a club that you were impersonating, impersonating. yeah. >> yeah, that's what we saw. we saw that originally, you know, will and i went to a to a bar. we saw this guy at the bar and he was just drinking, you know, having a drink like this. and then he turned around and then asked some girls to dance. and he was panama. >> did he do what you do? >> yeah. he was like, do you want to dance? but he didn't say it. he was like, you want to dance? do you, don't you don't you do you do you do don't don't. do you do don't. oh never mind. don't worry about it. and then he just kept drinking and just looked. kept looking for another person to dance with. wow. and that's what we saw. >> is there something almost poignant there? >> yeah, there's something poignant. there's something real and something likable and sweet. you know, something very human. you know that we all want someone to dance with.

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