the trump tax cuts.porate rate went to 14% as high as 39% depending on taxable income to a flat 21% that was in 2017. if you now extend that the trump 2025 tax cuts would increase taxes on anyone making less than $360,000 a year. and it would drop the taxes of people like elon musk down to the basement. musk is focused he wants that money. trump is not going to stand in his way. how could he? >> yeah. here is the deal. donald trump never spent money on anybody but himself. he is the head grifter in our history. the history books will be written about all of the grift that trump, from tennis shoes to bibles to his son getting billions from saudis 10 minutes after he left the white house. it is a long list of grift. and, elon musk is kind of the opposite. he just spend $250 million to put trump in the white house. trump loves him because he is the richest man in america because he wants to be around people like that. but he will not stand for being minid. he is now mini-me to musk. trump will not stand for

trump still faces a number of civil cases and financial penalties but at least criminally donald trumpthis year stronger than ever. as we head into 2025, as trump is openly threatening retribution against perceived enemies, how should we think about our nation's legal system? where do things stand now? joining me now is joyce vance, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama, kristi greenberg who served for over a decade in the u.s. attorney's office in the southern district of new york and alyssa murray, a professor of law at nyu and cohost of the strict scrutiny broadcast. thank you for being here with me. i can't believe my fortune and having you guys to talk about this. in terms of how we should be thinking about the federal courts and what the supreme court did in its decision in and around trump's election interference case should we be left to believe future prosecution of presidents or ex- president is all but impossible at the federal level at this point? >> so, i think we have to set the table 1st and say that donald trump did to the courts what he has done con

it was perceived inside trump world.t's why he's engendered so much trust with trump. it goes the other way, that trump did talk to kash and continues to talk to kash. i think the situation where we are now is if trump wants something done, then kash would be more than willing to do it because that is the role he has assumed for himself. not only because trump is saying it because because he's buying into it. he is idealogically aligned person with trump, he is a believer, so to speak. so it's difficult to know exactly how trump's leadership always works here, but i think it would be a pretty safe bet to say, if trump wanted jack smith investigated, you know, we need to go after the investigators, kash patel has said by himself, of his own volition, he needs to bring the intelligence agencies to heel. so i don't think it would be a particularly big surprise if kash went and did that, using the powers he would have as fbi director. >> christopher, the current fbi director, christopher wray, he was nominated by donald trum

just to be clear leer, donald trump -- clear here, donald trump will become president at 12:00 p.m. eastern time on january 20th of 2025. that is when he will take the oath of office standing in front of the u.s. capitol building. nine minutes later he will presumably just be delivering the opening lines of his inaugural address. you probably remember the images of january 6th rioters scaling the scaffolding at the capitol on january 6th. the reason -- not scaffolding, it was there because of preparation for the 2020 inauguration. it is from that very spot that donald trump is now suggesting he will pardon the criminals who violently tried to keep him in power just four years ago. if trump does follow through, it will be a remarkable display of authoritarian-style leadership in his first nine minutes as president. that will not be the only bit of authoritarianism creeping onto the stage on inauguration day. >> i was even thinking about inviting certain people to the inauguration, and some people say, wow, that's risky, isn't it? i said, maybe it is. we'll see. we'll see what happens

trump makes news.ase right now because we've seen such a vacuum on the other side from the actual president because there's nothing really coming off the current administration. where is biden? what's kamala harris doing other than putting out laughable videos that get mocked right across the internet? if there's no other game in town other than what's coming out of mar-a-lago and anything connected to it. howard: in media terms, you are right. joe biden did, however, manage to arrange a ceasefire between israel and hezbollah in lebanon. how much of a role have the media played, in your view, in exacerbating the divisions in this 50-50 country? >> well, look, i think that tha- [laughter] it's very easy to blame the media. i'm not sure that, actually, that represents the full truth the here because in the end, this is normal. this is partisan politics. i'm very used to it. you see it in the u.k., raucous debates in the british parliament and so on. and that is where we are. and of course you could say t

because trump loves deficits. he loves debt. trump loves debt. his entire career has been about debt. and musk is busy acting like some richest man in the world from the sidelines is going to somehow dictate to the members of congress what they do. there will be a blow up there, and i can't wait to watch it. that's what i'm looking forward to. >> you're already popping the jiffy pop. to that point, john, it's such an unusual arrangement, because elon musk in many ways in the closing days of the biden presidency and the sort of dawn of the second trump term, elon musk has a more prominent role than even jd vance, the former senator. elon musk has no governing experience. he's interfaced with the federal government through his companies but i guess i wonder from your vantage point how long you think that lasts, and what you see in the strange, for lack of a better term, love triangle of jd vance, donald trump, and elon musk. >> a couple things. one, when president trump realizes that elon musk thinks he is president musk, that's going to be a probl

and donald trump. elon musk is the richest man in the world, and he also has billions and billions and billions in government contracts. and he's also been appointed to a huge position in donald trump's government. and when and he also is willing to say his mind, donald trump is to what happens when they disagree. and we actually don't know how this you know, you said actor we don't know how this bromance is going to play out. >> we kind of do know i would say this, you know, the chinese have a saying, you can't have two tigers live on one mountain top. so we do know how this is going to end. at some point there's going to be a conflict and there's one executive producer and there's one president and that's donald trump. and elon wasn't always with trump from the very beginning. elon is a new factor in the trump space, probably less than two and a half years, maybe two years into it. he's he's a bit character. >> we're getting more reaction from lawmakers up on capitol hill. let me play some clips for

trump, and often lavished him with praise. trump challenging the press is not anything new.dency his administration secretly obtain phone records and emails from journalists at the new york times, the washington post, and cnn. on the campaign trail this year he threatened to revoke broadcast licenses and throw journalists he did not like in jail. but this week's developments suggest donald trump has graduated to the next phase. elevating media figures who he expects to be mouthpieces for his administration and shutting out journalists who publish consequential or even unflattering pieces about the president-elect and his loyalists. hayes and april are still with me, and joining us now, somehow, we let them through. max tony, media reporter at semaphore. april, let's start with you. in april 2010, trump told you, infamously, i would say, to sit down during a press conference after you asked a question about voter suppression. look, what did the moment reveal for you, not only about how trump views journalists, but also about the crucial topics that journalists investigate, li

-elect donald trump. the new york times report that's the trump organization is planning to operate under a different set of ethics rules than it did during first term in the white house. specifically the trump organization plans to continue making foreign deals despite the fact that trump will be the president of the united states. the times reports that in the months leading up to election day, the trump organization's de facto leader eric trump was busy striking up real estate deals in vietnam and saudi arabia and united arab emirates. now he has his eyes on more deals in more countries. what could go wrong? i know we are in a slowly boiling pot here. trump is selling guitars and bibles. and gold sneakers. and silver coins and $10,000 watching and nft trading cards. and crypto currency. and, and, and, and, and, and. the list of ways to funnel money into donald trump's pockets just goes on and on and on. but this new reporting for the times shows that even though trump is about to become the most powerf

what my sources from trump world say, this is exactly what trump promised. it was to go and read out the deep state -- >> remember, he appointed chris wray. >> you are not wrong at all but this is a second go at it. this is a second go at backfilling actual loyalists. he did take chris wray in 2017 had impeccable financials, that was donald trump's own terminology. this go around he is going in and picking somebody with questionable credentials but somebody who is going to go and undo what he says. >> during the trump transition, howard lutnick did not say the top qualification to be part of the trump administration is impeccable credentials, number one was loyalty to trump. is this, christopher wray stepping down and kash patel moving in, the framed portrait of trump 2.0 dj t first? >> yes. i do want to point out, trump did say that kash patel is the most qualified nominee to leave the fbi in history. so, i think that is true. i think it is very much the case that we have seen this pattern across the proposed nominations and across all the decisions he is m

trump -- >> donald j.ential election could determine his political and legal future. >> they want to put me in jail. >> reporter: trump using his potential imprisonment to rally supporters around his defense. >> our enemies want to take away my freedom because i will never let them take away your freedom. >> reporter: as a candidate, arraigned on criminal charges in new york city, washington, d.c., florida, and atlanta, where a local fulton county jail booked, fingerprinted and photographed him for a mug shot he capitalized on. >> that mug shot is number one. >> reporter: trump turned it into a symbol of his fight for tree dom, freedom. >> every time the communists and fascists indict me, i consider it a great badge of honor. indictments come in rapid succession. >> i never got arrested before. >> reporter: some trying to benefit from the cases. >> we can't keep living with indictments and court cases and the past. we have to go forward. >> that conduct is indefensible. >> reporter: instead, as trump made

trump knows it.this and it will be played out by the 435 representatives or how many show up for the vote tonight. and i don't think that trump can win this one. it is shocking that he has not even taken office yet. right, a completely unforced error. even having the bad headline which is we know trump cares about and the chaos and i mentioned some of this could have real would impacts as well, you know, the democrats are facing a very transparent process. the view, your opinion of musk, what i will say in terms of following the evidence is, this is a guy who constantly publicizing everything because that appears to be important to him. that includes publicizing things that later undercut his claims, contradict what he said was going to happen. so i want to show briefly jeffries said i don't need to say much yet because it is a bad look to have a, chaos, and b, nonpresident-elect calling the shots and elon musk. this was a brief exchanging >> what do you make of the role that musk is playing here? i

comes in and what trump can do. there are a lot of questions as to what the democrats can do given the fact that they will be in a minority position both in the house and the senate. you interviewed chuck schumer about how he is preparing for a second trump administration. they see the judiciary as the strongest check against him. joe biden has confirmed or appointed more judges than anybody in recent memory. so certainly leaving his imprint and his legacy on the judiciary as well. what is chuck schumer worried about the most, how confident is he that his judiciary or the judiciary that will be in place once biden leaves office will be able to be a bull work to trump's second term? >> the thing he is worried the most about with what donald trump is going to do, he listed basically everything. he listed everything that you could possibly think of that democrats would want to defend and protect. he is worried about any rollbacks to the legislation that they pass over the last four years. really in the first two years.

and it is bad for trump.moting lies and not the truth. >> there are so many things that trump says and does that are confounding right? but to use the week of christmas and the christmas holiday to launch sort of his plans for territorial expansion. going after green land. does one of these rise in your mind to the wackiest idea? secondly, what do you think is behind the new imperialism this week in particular? this is south park level foreign policy. they controlled green land for 700 years. they said we are going promote panamanian inpen den and our claims to the canal over the course of the century that we were there were very weak. this will not materialize into anything. except alienating our allies. and making the president of the united states look like a buffoon. >> yeah. i mean, it must have been some christmas ham i guess if that is what it led into. i mean, part of me want to try it myself. what would happen? david, thank you for taking time. i appreciate the wisdom and thoughts. >> my pleasure. >>

of president trump.t is a moment i hope we have a moment right now that is very much like the end of the jimmy carter administration, right before ronald reagan came in. we saw on january 20th our hostages in iran released, i think in significant part because the ayatollah was afraid of reagan. i think a similar dynamic is playing out. if we can see more hostages come home, that would be cause for enormous celebration. >> republican senator ted cruz of texas. thank you. good morning. >>> we will be back. with "face the nation" in just one moment. please stay with us. empowers post-9/11 veterans and their families with life-changing programs and services. i realized i could be successful in a civilian career. we stand by warriors and advocate for their needs going forward. they were by my side in the hospital, and they're still with me today. through our programs, community and advocacy, we're proving anything is possible. learn more at wounded warriorproject.org/connect (husband) we just want to have eno

trump to arrive.on invited trump to the reopening ceremony of notre dame cathedral and now there is much fanfare around his arrival. as you can see president-elect trump shaking macron's hand there. let's listen in beaucoup j'arrive and there it was. >> the handshake between president-elect trump and the president. president emmanuel macron there an informal, very tight grip, which they have shared before, which we have covered when they have met the president of france. president macron has been critical of president elect trump during the biden administration. but he is, if not a 180, making a significant adjustment now that trump will be returning to power with this invitation. with the first call after the election congratulating donald trump on the win. of course, they'll go in and we will see them again at the beginning of their conversation. let's go to cnn reporter alayna treene, who is, of course, watching everything that's happening. and the expectation of what happens now. i'm sure macron w

again, guying trump's demand. trump had very good reason to insist on raising or eliminating the debt ceiling. the government is on pace to hit the limit on how much it can borrow next spring, and if it is not raised, the government faces default with dire consequences for the economy and for the trump agenda. this week proved he won't be able to count on republicans alone to avert that disaster. one casualty of this shutdown mess may be the speaker of the house, mike johnson. he tried to do trump's bidding, and he failed, hurting his standing with the president-elect and with at least some of his republican colleagues. will he be re-elected as speaker when congress reconvenes on january 3rd? with a minuscule republican majority, that could take a minor miracle. on the show this morning, we'll hear from a republican who defied trump on the debt ceiling and it will take the seat held by mitt romney in the senate come january. we'll also hear from the man who may well become donald trump's only democratic friend in

the lawsuit filed by trump against an iowa pollster, and a decision by abc to pay trump $50 million toet rid of a bogus lawsuit. host: now we are ready to hear your perspectives on how you're feeling about the incoming trump administration. some comments we have already received, sandy in indiana says i am pesmiic regarding trump's presidency, beginning with his picks for cabinet members. on x, deb johnso says, i'm optimistic our future is in the best hands. however, the current administration is doing everything it can to take our country down before he leaves. another comment from x, i am optimistic that trump will bankrupt our nation. now to your calls. james is in florida and is pessimistic about the incoming administration. good morning. caller: i am quite pessimistic. i am one of these poor people out here trying to make a living and trying to live my life and be as objective and fair as i can be about things, but i will tell you? this day, that two years from now he will be impeached. he will be lucky to make it two years. host: what has you pessimistic about the incoming trump

on behalf of donald trump himself. throughout his first presidency, trump repeatedly showed affection for america's autocratic adversaries while shunning our allies and the inescapable conclusion for that is trump wants to be liked by those guys and actually just be like those guys. he wants america to be like the cleptocratic governments of china and russia where people suck up to the leaders just to enrich themselves. and america's rich and powerful appear pretty ready to indulge in that impulse this time around. the wall street journal reports that mark zuckerberg's meta has donated $1 million to donald trump's inauguration. that comes two weeks after he dined with trump at mar-a-lago. to be clear, this is not normal. neither meta nor amazon have ever donated anywhere near this much money to an inauguration before. it comes after bezos who owns the washington post scuttled his papers endorsement of kamala harris ahead of this year's election and after bezos offered trump these words of praise just last week. >> he h

and the trump allies.y're plan during the campaign was that our biggest international competitor is china, we're pushing other countries into the hands of china but doing this kind of ridiculous and absurd and overreaching set of posturing that will not happen. you know, trump likes to flood the zone with you know what, but this idea that we're going to invade canada or invade mexico or seize the panama canal, none of it is serious. none of this is a serious proposition, but it is a dangerous one because it shows that trump thinks that the -- all the alliances and the friendships and the economic relationships that we have with these nations and mexico and canada, biggest trading partners, are there to be toyed with. it's an insulting and foolish behavior, but i'm not surprised. >> trump may have these grandiose ideas to expand america but on the domestic front he is going after woke, he announce head would stop transgender lunacy and make two genders the official u.s. policy. take a listen. >> under the t

trump himself. throughout his first presidency, trump repeatedly showed affection for trump's autocratic adversaries while shunning our allies, and the inescapable conclusion from all of that is that trump really wants to be liked by those guys, and actually, just be like those guys point he wants america to be like the kleptocratic governments of russia and china were powerful interests suck up to the leaders, and then lavished them with praise and gifts, all just to enrich themselves. and america's rich and powerful are pretty ready to indulge in the impulse this time around. the wall street journal is now reporting that mark zuckerberg's meta, formerly facebook, has donated $1 million to donald trump's inaugoration. that comes just two weeks after zuckerberg reportedly dined with trump at mar-a-lago. all this despite the fact that trump and his allies spent the last four years accusing zuckerberg and his company is of conspiring to steal the 2020 election. meanwhile, amazon, the company founded a

chair code, if you wanted to, or if trump directed him to -- trump's a new s.e.c. chair could dismiss the investigation into justin sun entirely. now, whether or not sun offered trump $22 million in profit will actually influence anything or even help justin sun at all, that is unknowable at this point. le but these kinds of conflicts are precisely why presidents do not do business like this. it is impossible to know where e trump the business ends and where trump the president begins. and this one chinese billionaire buying trump's cryptocurrency is just the example we have today. next week, eric trump, who k, again is now the de facto leader of trump's businesses, he is headed to abu dhabi to headline a cryptocurrency conference. eric trump is literally traveling to another country to pitch the trump cryptocurrency to international investors. are you a rich person from a foreign country? would you like the opportunity to put a lot of money into the pockets of the american president? well, you're in the right place. trump's second term is looking very much like a

really were the ones ending up pushing donald trump on or kash patel on donald trump. and that essentially they thought patel was really the only person who would be able to disrupt the agency in the way that donald trump has been talking about for several weeks now. >> and elena how are lawmakers reacting to this pick well we heard a lot of lawmakers say similar things. >> we know we saw, you know in the aftermath of donald trump making this announcement about patel, there was a flurry of posts from people like miller but also mike waltz his national security advisor selection as well as senator mike lee. but then we heard a number of republican senators and those really the fiercest loyal republican senators, i would say defend patel on the sunday morning shows. take a listen. >> donald trump campaigned on reforming the fbi and the department of justice. so i don't know why any of this is frankly surprising to people. >> there are serious problems that the fbi, the american public knows. it they expect to see sweeping change in kash patel is just the type of person t

ambassador under donald trump.resign her seat when she's confirmed by -- or if and when she's confirmed by the senate. that leaves just a two-seat margin, 217-215. that means just one defection can sink any bill or two vacancies and almost nothing would be able to get done with that kind of margin. >> jonathan: on any given vote if all the democrats show up, one republican misses a vote or votes the other way, no majority. so look. presidents, democrat, republican, always face tough votes early on. how does this margin compare to what we have seen with other recent incoming presidents? >> yeah. congress rarely makes it easy for a brand-new president, but if you look back just at the last couple of presidents, an unthinkable margin that barack obama had, 79 votes-plus for the democrats. you could lose almost 40 votes an an individual piece of legislation, and he needed those for obama cacare, and trump, th first time around, he was able to spare 20-something republicans on any individual vote and he had a plus four

donald trump enables donald trump. >> susan, right or wrong, joe biden is the president. he has the right to do it. but does it hurt -- does he cede the moral high ground because president biden and democrats have been making the argument for the last six years that it's donald trump who lives outside the law or gets special treatment for himself or his family? >> stuff, i thought that you laid it out really clearly in the opening here. let's be clear that the issue with joe biden is not that he doesn't have the right. it's not that donald trump is a flagrant maximizer of this use of the power. it's that joe biden didn't level with the american people, and not only that, not only did he himself said he wasn't going to issue this pardon, have his white house press secretary said he wasn't going to issue this pardon at a time when it politically benefited him to say so. look at the statement that he put out. to me, that's really where we should be having a conversation. it's a very sanctimonious statement, frankly, in which joe biden claims to be leveling and telling the tr

trump loves winners, but the one thing trump loves more than twiners or anything else in the world isd so he's hiring people who will be utmost loyalist to him and he's hiring people who will commit acts of revenge and retribution for him. rev, that's the other common denominator here. he's putting people in charge of these government agencies because trump believes he's been wronged and he wants these people to use these agencies to get back at these agencies who he believes wronged him. that's what he cares about more than anything else. >> all right. thank you to former congresswoman donna edwards and joe walsh. >>> next on "politics nation" we'll speak to a man who was pardoned by president trump this week. he's already giving back to his community and he'll be here to tell us all about it. >>> welcome back to "politics nation." >>> on thursday president biden carried out the largest single- day act of clemency by pardoning 39 people and commuting roughly 1,500 sentences. among those pardoned by biden is 58-year-old johnny earl williams of denver who was convicted of a nonviolent

trump. and include that along with his other key promises to end the crime ridden wave of illegal immigration. putting that to a cre creatively out outsided fiscal reconciliation bill, the center piece of his first weeks in office, already american business and consumer confidence soared in anticipation of creative destruction. national mood is turning positive. trump's win is reviving america's lost energy. and culturally, a collective sigh of relief, that the yoke of woke mind virus will be removed, merit w will replace d.e.i., deri religion and fake faith of return. mr. trump told them in "time" magazine assassination attempt in pennsylvania changed a lot of people, he said a lot of people became more religious including members of his own family. he reiterated his thought all the way back to the rnc convention in milwaukee, he came to believe that god spared his life for a reason. it is as though mr. trump has captured a new american zeitgeist, that is the riff. i rail liked it. joining

donald trump. trump prepares to be sworn in again.t to expect and who will be in attendance for the ceremonies? - i had health insurance before. (discouraged) so expensive. i mean, i'm helping my mom out, i don't have that kinda cash. - ugh, i know. but you can get financial help now through covered california. it's totally affordable. you'd be surprised. they've got this calculator thing that shows how much you'll pay. - for real? - yeah! what are you doing not having health insurance, man? - hey, i know, i know... - here, let me show you... - we all have questions. covered california has answers and can find a health plan that's right for you. covered california. this way to health insurance. >> i, donald john trump we are transferring power from washington, d.c. and giving it back to you, the people. >> scenes from donald trump's inauguration in 2016. then he was sworn in as the nation's 45th president. during that speech, he called for unity while attacking the washington establishment on january 20th. mr. trump will be sworn in a

president trump has made that promise.e concentrating on them right out of the gatement them, ms-13 and other criminal elements. maria: tell me how you're going to do this, tom. what's the plan? if are you expecting to use the military to round up these people? how will you get them out of the country? >> well, look, first of all, i want the make something clear exactly what we're going to do. for all these sanctuary cities, san diego's writing legislation, colorado and other states and cities going they're going to fight what i'm to doing. i want the send a clear merge we can arrest bad guy in jail. the safety and security of the jail. one officer can do that. but when you release a public safety back into the community, you put the community, my officers, the alien at risk. because here is what's to going to happen. you're going to release that kauai in the community, i'm going to send an entire team to go look for the guy in your community. and what's going to happen? if we'll find that guy, and hen he -- when we find h

president trump in paris today. french president macron invited trump to the celebration. president biden was also invited to attend but he declined due to scheduling conflicts. earlier today trump was greeted in grand style at the palace, the official residence of the french president, by macron. then trump sat down for talks with macron and volodymyr zelenskyy. we have reporters and analysts in place covering all of this new developing news. let's start with msnbc news's vaughn hilliard in paris. a tough assignment for you. we knew president-elect trump would be meeting with macron. how unexpected was zelenskyy being added to this meeting? what more do we know about what's happening right now? >> reporter: this is a significant geopolitical day here. this is donald trump's first trip out of the country since election day and you're watching this feed come in in real-time as we are watching the president-elect. he just entered the notre dame cathedral here in the last two minutes. we're told by our reporter colleague inside that upon the face of president-elect trump bein

mike johnson reposted trump donald trump's endorsement.en posted i feel the same way, you have my full support. there's an interesting line with musk and republicans and trump and we're not quite sure where this is all settling in. >> i think musk and trump now are tied to each other. i think they cut a deal halfway through this campaign, and elon musk said i'm going to help get you elected, and these are the two or three things i care about. and donald trump, i think, is beholden to musk. and donald trump will abuse and use his base because that's what he's done for seven or eight years. and they will smile and take it. and i don't think his base really realizes what's coming when we talk about elon musk and a number of these oligarchs who are going to hold real sway over trump in this second term. >> it's kind of amazing, april, that's it's happening. we talk about other countries where it's sort of entrenched and institutionalized. it's happening here in america because elon musk tweets out what he thinks. you're actually seeing this re

the trump transition team does. they believe time is in their favor as long as they can keep grinding the clock. on december 20 republican senators leave town for winter break or holiday break. if there is one thing senators hate it is republicans -- asking about controversial nominations and whether they will confirm them and that goes away december 20. that span of time with pete hegseth does not withdraw and there are four no votes in the republican conference, then the chances increase closer and closer. the bottom line is the trump transition team, the trump base believes he has a mandate, he won the popular vote for the first time for republican since 2004. he won a majority of the electoral college vote. there republican majorities in the senate and house and they expect his nominees get confirmed by the republican senate. it is an understandable position. host: if the nomination falls apart for whatever reason, is ron desantis the next man up? guest: it looks that way where we stand now. one of the dangerous

trump has donated to her while she was considering an investigation into trump university.staffing a lot of these potential government posts for trump, they are from new york. trump's other state. is it just that, is it familiarity? >> it is familiarity mixed with how much are you going to do the thing i want you to do? and matt gaetz was, in trump my in mind, even though it was apparently reportedly cited on a whim on a flight, that matt gaetz is the kind of person who would be the kind of attorney general who would do whatever trump says is the law. not worry about what is actually legal or not. in the same way, pam bondi has shown herself to be someone who trump can rely on to do what is in her best interest. especially if that aligns with him. so i think, in trying to put pam bondi, i think also there is no one else that really comes to mind who fits those two frameworks. someone who has been the ag of estate, who has held that role, who has been someone who is the chief law enforcement officer of a full state in the executive branch of that state. and is also willing t

they touted the iowa poll as the end of trump right before trump won a massive victory. tonight, new details on trump suing "the des moines register" and that pollster, ann seltzer, over, quote, brazen election interference. first, let's get to this story. the news coming in, trump's nominee for pentagon chief, pete hegseth, was back on capitol hill today to. democrat john fetterman will not rule out backing hegseth. he likes him. and trump's hhs secretary nominee rfk jr. back on capitol hill too. aishah hasnie's got the details in washington with more. great to to see you again. >> reporter: elizabeth, good to see you with. rfk jr. just ducked into a meeting with senator john barrasso of wyoming. he is really having some back to back meetings today, nine in total. he started at 10 a.m., and he is still going. and so far he says it's going pretty well. watch. how are the meetings going? any comment? >> really productive. really good. >> reporter: really productive, really good, he says. and just got some photos of his meeting with senator tuberville earlier today. so far

think trump went too far who privately who worked under trump who really felt like that trump had a chance. yeah, that that he like was immediately attacked the media and they saw the mueller investigation as a way to block him from carrying out his agenda and i'm not saying they're right or wrong but it's again this danger of our norms like we won the election. you get chance and it blows off like, you know, your side to run the government for four years. and then maybe the other does. and it's a miracle that we, you know, have the have had the peaceful transfer of power not totally in 2020. and i'll leave just with a sort of contradiction. i for this. but it's something involving garland who who's so utterly believes in the need to be nonpartisan and the importance of enforcing the law equally upholding the rule of law so merrick garland, his grandparents, nazi germany survived the holocaust. they came to united states. he grew up in suburban chicago and he as a child just was you know, he revered the american legal system and upholding the rule of law and his very existence on this plan

trump is corrupt and he loves money."aff writer at the atlantic. charlie, i am such a fan of your writing, and this piece in particular was very helpful for me, and i'm sure many other people who read it, to understand the handshake between maga and crypto. can you elaborate more on the sort of anti-institutional band that unites these two subgroups of people and why there's so much kinship in these two worlds? >> yeah, there's a lot of synergy here, and a lot of it is probably cynical, right? as i wrote in the piece, there is crypto -- kind of seems like a technology that was in some ways built for the way donald trump likes to conduct business, which is like off the books and, you know, sort of nakedly financial, like greed is good in that crypto ecosystem, that is a very trumpian thing. but perhaps more important is the ego's of cryptocurrency, especially bitcoin and this idea of blockchains that technology is built off of which is an anti-institutional technology, that's the way it was created, to take the middleman o

he's going to need donald trump to lean in and right now, trump is not doing that.will say one more thing. i wo if we see mike johnson down at mar-a-lago before friday. he's going to need him and he knows it and he has to be in person to make that case. >> and he's going in with a republican house and a republican senate. he's got a limited amount of time to get a legislative agenda together. he needs the speaker not just on his side, but in his pocket in a lot of ways, and so he wants johnson to owe him or whoever the speaker ends up being, fully on board with trump's agenda and that's what it looks like he's going to get with such a narrow margin. >> jonathan: what he doesn't want is 15 rounds of not knowing who the speaker is. they need to get a speaker before they can count and certify the election. >> that's right. before january 6th, if nothing else, to even get the work done. you can't do anything in the house legislatively, anything at all, any business until you have a speaker of the house. so certainly he wants it wrapped up at some point, and i think also

and newspaper, and the decision by trump -- by abc to pay trump $-15 million to get rid of a bogus lau lawsuit. first, that liz cheapy be -- that liz cheaney be prosecuted. liz cheney was part of the january 6 commission, that tried to find accountability for the assault on this capitol, that resulted in people dying, with an officer with blood running down his face, trying to rescue us before the violent rioters got ahold of us. donald trump did not like that narrative, that he had something to do with, that he inspired the january 6 riot. he doesn't even like the narrative that january 6 was a riot. his events are opened by the january 6 choir, in commemoration of the events of that day. what happened this week is that donald trump made good on his promise. he said during the campaign that he was going to use the military, law enforcement, the national guard to deal with the enemy within, and when asked who the enemy within was he said nancy pelosi, adam schiff, democrats. people laughed it off during the campaign because that doesn't happen in america. we don't use law enforcement t

she's the ninth major trump donor to land a top spot in the new trump administration. to put all of this in speck, president biden's -- speck, president biden's cabinet had a net worth of $120 million. nothing sneeze at but $120 million. just kelly loeffler and her husband alone are worth about $1.1 billion, and had is billion with a b. if you just count positions that need senate confirmation, trump's cabinet is worth about $10 billion. again, president biden's cabinet worth $120 million. if you include roles that don't require senate confirmation like elon musk's role leading the department of government efficiency, if you include those positions, well, the net worth of trump's cabinet skyrockets to more than $340 billion. donald trump is setting up a government quite literally run by billionaires. and today two of those billionaires, elon musk and vivek ramaswamy, went to capitol hill to meet with republicans in congress about their new department of government efficiency. republican speaker of the house mike johnson described the meeting as a brainstorming session,

[laughter] >> media and trump critics looking to compare trump to a mobster and claim trump is assemblinginet like mafia with under buses go what our real mob tactics like? many think the expertise to answer for sure first-hand experience. michael, great to see you again. i wanted to play the clips for you because they are claiming they understand the mob and donald trump is one of them. what is the truth? >> i think they watched too many movies. they called him hitler, fascist, dictator. the threat to democracy. calling him a mob boss is a compliment because we are all about family. as far as him hiring loyal people, what has biden done? everybody has lied for him and supported him in every way that was detrimental to the american public so what trump is doing in no way resembles a model boss. they get shot, they go undercover and they don't say fight fight fight and do good for the american people. in mob boss wouldn't give up their salary as president, they take more. pupil so the got it wrong. >> is insulting? your dad went to jail 50 years, you are born into it, you're part of it, he

trump had with mr. zelenskyy in paris last week and do you support putting nato member states as peacekeepers in ukraine? >> well, you know what's been so interesting, margaret, is just since the election everyone coming to us, our european allies, president zelenskyy in that meeting and others have shifted to that framework i just talked about. how do we end this conflict? how do we do it in a way that restores stability, stops the carnage and hopefully, you know, makes this a permanent end, not just -- not just a pause. those are all things that we're thinking through. and in terms of, you know, the question you just asked, the nato secretary general came here to mar-a-lago. he's talking about the europeans taking a bigger role, whether that's on the ground or otherwise, after this conflict is over, and that's exactly what president trump has been asking for. >> i have to quickly ask you about the middle east. during the last trump administration donald trump pulled some u.s. troops out of syria. does

here with me now is a close ally of donald trump. senator bill hagerty of tennessee, thank you so much for being here, sir. first question is, have you spoken with president elect trump about what occurred and is he happy in the end with how it played out and as i mentioned a bit ago, when we were talking before the set started, i just walked off the floor of the senate at 2 a.m. >> yesterday morning. i'm fortunate to have gotten back home to tennessee, but i have not had a chance to speak with president trump at this point. >> uh, understandable, given what you just described and what we all witnessed. but also given the fact that you know him well and you understand what he was going for, the final spending bill that you all approved did not have any new spending cuts. it didn't include the debt limit increase that donald trump was demanding. so what did he accomplish with all of this? >> well, the main thing and i can share with you my perspective on it, dana, is this. we were we have had our appropriations bills on the floor of t

is it donald trump or is it elon musk? is donald trump just elon musk's puppet? elon musk has been down at mar- a-lago the entire time. obviously, you put $300 million into donald trump's campaign, stands to benefit tremendously from donald trump's tax cuts, and from all of the various government contracts that musk has as well. i think we need to have a real evaluation, and i think it is incumbent upon house republicans, senate republicans, who will be in the majority, to stand up for the american people , not to just do the bidding of donald trump. and right now, the american people are going to suffer because of donald trump's incompetence and elon musk's inexperience and dangerousness. >> congressman dan goldman, thank you very much for joining us in this breaking news environment on capitol hill tonight, really appreciate it. >> thank you. >>> and the chairman of the senate budget committee, rhode island democratic senator sheldon whitehouse will join us next with the senate prospective on this ongoing budget crisis now on capitol hill, that is next. >> [ mu

president trump? vice _ elon musk? president trump?imes on sociai— vice president vance, sometimes on social media but hasn't been spotted — on social media but hasn't been spotted much recently? he said they would try, i think that is doing — they would try, i think that is doing a — they would try, i think that is doing a lot of work in the sentence. it is reasonable people _ sentence. it is reasonable people for an incoming administration to try to build administration to try to build a relationship with the people coming — a relationship with the people coming in. i don't know how successful_ coming in. i don't know how successful it is going to be, i think— successful it is going to be, i think it — successful it is going to be, i think it will be an open question, a lot of helping there _ question, a lot of helping there are what many people would — there are what many people would see as a best case scenario— would see as a best case scenario of a trump presidency, deregulation but not too much other— deregulation but not too mu

trump wants a lackey, a man whose sole qualification is his extreme loyalty to trump. and the one person who could have had a safe about it, he is to stepping aside. he is accepting trump's wishes. joining me now is ryan riley. i know you do a lot of reporting at the department of justice, is this as surprising to you as it was to me? >> it was surprising in some ways. we knew he would be leaving in some way. but obviously when you saw that trump interview and we know kash patel has been nominated for this position that has not been opened yet, we sort of knew something could be coming along. i think the timing of it today was a little bit of a surprise. there had been this town hall scheduled, on the books for a few days, but it was not until today that we really realized there would be rumblings of chris wray announcing his resignation. people within the bureau are very concerned. but that is also if you are looking at mostly just management. the fbi is a very ideological place, conservative even. i don't think it is universally condemnation of christopher wray exiti

even more were filed under trump. in many cities police refused to transfer any migrants to ice no matter how bad the crime. state sanctuary laws like california also shield the most violent criminal aliens, putting shifts and sworn to protect public safety in a rock and a hard spot, facing federal prosecution if they don't cooperate and estate if they do. >> currently not specifically waive any d.a. or sheriff planning to violate sb54. i don't recommend they do. >> here is the rub. federal losses if you are here illegally, you are to portable crime or not. congress come through 1986 immigration control act, requires that criminal aliens be deported "as soon as possible after the date of their conviction." that will be hard to do for ice if governors and mayors interfere. >> thank you very much. >> it's brandon paul perez, the president of the national border patrol union. paul, thank you. you just heard what was said in california. this comes after governor gavin newsom is asking for tens of millions of dollars to pr

this say guy who was selling trump steaks and trump water and trump perfumes and trump jewelry.p himself. he is interested in making money. he wants to make sure that people are buying not only what he's selling in the white house as a policy position, but the merchandising that he's selling and he wants to make sure that he continues to fill his coffers as he's serving which traditionally most president-elects would step back and focus on rung ning the country, but donald trump is always paying attention to the bottom line, alex. >> here is one last question for you. were you surprised that trump would pick former apprentice producer mark burnett to be special uk envoy. he wasn't a supporter when trump ran for president. >> i'm not really surprised. i have to say, just being fully transparent, mark burnett is a friend, obviously, he cast me on the show and he saw something in me to be a part of "the apprentice." one thing i will tell you about mark burnett, he's always been candid and honest with donald. when he's for him, he'll tell him. when he's against it he'll tell it and

people were talking about donald trump. how about donald trump as a private citizen.ould have no bastion for the position. >> neither does johnson. why would elon musk want to be speaker of the house. he's not doing any work and getting everything he wants. if he doesn't like what's going on, he gets on his rocket ship and leaves. >> he wouldn't be very good at it. but he would be third to the power. >> right now i think he's closer in line to the presidency than mike johnson in. not in name but in influence. >> this is a guy remember that he believes his charging style is focus on outcome not process. can win at anything. nobody who believed in the limits of their ability would have taken up with twitter. not in a million years. >> he didn't want to take it over remember in the end. he had to take it over in the end. >> this is a cultural clash. someone that believes if you're aggress i enough as an entrepreneur. he's focused on outcomes. the end justifies the means. you move fast. break things, you do whatever it takes to build a company. whatever it takes. he think