now, what what is happening with the fec at this point? >> well, the fec has a bare quorum. they still have four commissioners, but. and they will they will proceed to do their job. um, as i said in my in my message, this isn't the way this is supposed to happen. the fec was set up as an independent, bipartisan agency. it is unlike most other government agencies. it isn't the kind of place where the president comes in, and he gets to appoint a new chair. that just isn't the way this works. we're not subject to the the whims of the president in the same way that some other agencies are expecting to have a new head of agency appointed with a new administration. our agency, as i said, it's bipartisan by law. there are supposed to be six commissioners, no more than three from any one political party. all decisions are made on a bipartisan basis. and the chair is elected on an annual basis, and it switches back and forth from democrat to republican on an annual basis. this happens to be it happened to be my year. it was just my turn to be chair this year, and i was duly elected a

that's the way you replace fec commissioners.hing in there that says, or if the president doesn't like that particular person, they can just be fired. >> so now that the president has sent you this letter purporting to remove you, but under terms under terms in which he's not legally allowed to remove you, i imagine that you consider yourself to still be a commissioner. but how does this get how does this get settled? how do you plan to move forward here? >> well, i'm still considering all of my options at the moment, but i will tell you that my email has been turned off. my computers have been taken. my pass, i believe, no longer gets me into the building. >> when you say your computers have been taken, meaning removed from your office. >> well, i think they're still in my office, actually, but i can't get into my office anymore. >> i see. do you think it is trump's intention to dismantle the fec, in a fundamental sense, to rebuild it in his own image? i mean, we've seen him wholesale fire all all different kinds of officials th

as i understand it, the fec now has four commissioners.uorum, meaning they can proceed in doing their work technically. do you trust that the remaining four commissioners can hold the line on protecting our elections? >> well. >> i'm not going to comment on. on my colleagues and the job that they do. there is a history of commissioners leaving without replacements and or their replacements not being able to get confirmed. and the result having been that there have been three times in the commission's history where the commission ran out of quorum, it did not have the minimum four commissioners that are needed to have a quorum to do commission business. and, you know, if we have a quorum today with four, i'm not sure that means we're going to have a quorum tomorrow. what happens if somebody else leaves? what happens if somebody else gets a letter like i got? so i think the commission is in a tenuous, functional, but tenuous situation right now. but more importantly, there's a reason that congress set up the law so that commissioners can con

. >> the fec, the fec is a bipartisan by design. in an effort to reassure american voters that elections are being regulated fairly. what's your reaction to what is happening right now? >> well, i think. >> it's a really dangerous precedent, a dangerous time for our country. for leaders to use to fire people or put them on administrative leave. et cetera. for political. >> reasons. >> as you said, a lot of these entities are deliberately set up to be very bipartisan. equal democrats and republicans, like the fec. all of these groups also have regulations and bylaws, etcetera. policies around when. >> and how. >> someone can be removed. so to try to leapfrog over that process, i think it's dangerous. we saw something similar with cisa again, an agency most people haven't heard of, the cybersecurity, infrastructure and security agency. their workers were placed on administrative leave. but what this group does is make sure that states are aware of attacks on our election infrastructure. they are looking out for foreign adversaries. fo

you for your service on the commission, weintraub wrote back, quote, there is a legal way to replace fect the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. propublica investigative reporter andy kroll is here with me at the table for the hour, chief political columnist and host of the impolitic podcast for msnbc. national affairs analyst john heilemann is here. also joining us, democratic strategist, professor at columbia university, msnbc political analyst basil smikle is here. let's deal with the russ vote of it all. john heilemann, let me show you some of his questioning from from democratic senator tim kaine. >> now, i pay. >> attention to the way people say. >> things, because there's. >> a million ways. >> you. >> can make. >> a point. >> and the way. >> you choose to. >> make a point tells you something about the person. you don't want federal air. >> traffic controllers going to the airport, traumatized. >> do you? mr. >> vote no, senator. >> you don't want. >> the people inspecting our food. >> our medicine. >> our infant. >> formula as federal. you don't want them to. >

the fec is not great, it's not everything, but it's about 90% of what we do.hink we should comment on that 90% and not just hide behind the fact that budget transparency is not 100%. symone: mr. martin, talk to us about the budget. mr. martin: this is important, and i think most of us agree there needs to be greater transparency in the budget. i have been an officer for the last eight years and i don't recall ever seeing the budget. i don't serve on the finance committee, so that's probably part of the reason. i would say this. we need to make sure that every dollar we spend is not only going to the places we needed to be spent, but there needs to be transparency in that. john, specifically to your point, i want to expand the committee from 10 to 25. i want to turn the finance and budget committee to an audit committee to make sure we are going over every contract, make sure we are looking at the financial statements, make sure we know how our money is being spent so we know it is spent by our values. i want to make sure -- make sure that we are spending it wi

. >> what is interesting the precedent we are following is the precedent that the fec set when it cameey opened up a public proceeding on that. we are simply applying that precedent. look, there is a lot of people in this country right now on the radical left that are upset about this investigation into the cbs and the work doing on brawforts. thomas seoul when the government has been weaponized in your favor it feels like discrimination in when all of a sudden therein is even handed treatment. a lot of people been on that upper road of the two tiered system of government and what i'm here to do is apply the law evenly. >> this is a rare situation where we had extrinsic evidence that cbs had played one answer or one set of words and swapped in another set and cbs's conduct through, this frankly, has been concerning. you know, look, they just did an interview with vice president vance and immediately fully disclosed the unedited transcript. for some reason they decided not to do that in this case and so we have now opened a proceeding. we think it's in the public interest to allow peopl

we might also look at the fec. why would excuse me, the fcc, the federal communications organization, why is musk taking that on? does that have something to do with x? the former twitter program? probably. so we do know that elon musk is working in areas that are clearly a conflict of interest to him. and this is a major problem. we could talk about the treasury and giving musk the keys to the treasury. why would he want to have information on every single american, all of our social security, all of our addresses? so what would it mean? well, it means it's the beach. it is the biggest data breach ever. china would certainly be looking at this and going, well, if only they could do it. but trump and musk have managed an extraordinary data breach. >> and it's not it's not reassuring when he has one of his employees who already is alleged to have stolen company secrets. so not a reassuring situation at all. congressman john garamendi, greatly appreciate your time as always, sir. thank you. next up, we're going to di

so the cfpb is funded directly from the fec. and so they have been trying to undo that.g to undo the way the makeup of the cfpb is in law. and we've won in the supreme court on these issues. but now they're coming back, you know, to get it. they're using the president's authority to knock it out. >> congresswoman, moving from cfpb, you were among the members of congress who went down to the department of education to try to go inside. you were denied entry. president trump was asked about it and listen to what he had to say. >> the democrats have lost their minds and they've lost their confidence. they have very little confidence. they are different people and they look foolish. today they tried to break into the department of education just because we want to go and check the books. maxine waters is a lunatic. and, you know, they're they're all lunatics, frankly. >> congresswoman waters, that was friday night at mar-a-lago. your reaction to president trump talking about y'all trying to go to the department of education, but also his personal attack on you? >> oh, he's b

weintraub, writing a statement on x that says this in part, quote, there's a legal way to replace fecmissioners. this isn't it. end quote. weintraub was first appointed to serve on the commission by president george w. bush in 2002, and this. >> i know this is an individual award, and it says most valuable player on it, but i think it's derived from team success. and i love my team. we've got such a great locker room in buffalo. and it takes everybody. >> buffalo bills quarterback josh allen, with all the class winning nfl's mvp award last night, it was a major upset over lamar jackson of the baltimore ravens. allen was just one win shy of bringing his team to the super bowl this year, but of course, they fell to the chiefs in the afc championship game. and this. >> rapper kendrick lamar, is set to perform this sunday at the super bowl halftime show. damn, that is gonna that is going to be drake's worst sunday since. well, i guess last sunday. so yeah. >> kendrick lamar gearing up for the biggest performance of his career this coming sunday. the grammy award winning rapper telling fan