i wasn't cool enough to know about elliott smith in high school. definitely it was in my 20s.he first time they've ever heard of elliott smith and then they have, like, gotten into elliott smith's music. >> yep. >> what a -- a legacy for them. it's like -- if i've done one good thing, like -- >> becky, a great book. thank you for being with us. appreciate it.

i wasn't cool enough to know about elliott smith in high school. definitely it was in my 20s. but it is, like, maybe the biggest honor to have heard from teens who read simon and that's the first time they've ever heard of elliott smith and then they have, like, gotten into elliott smith's music. >> yep. >> what a -- a legacy for them. it's like -- if i've done one good thing, like -- >> becky, a great book. thank you for being with us. appreciate it. becky al albertelli. does it for me. stay where you are. "alex witt reports" starts right now. >>> welcome to a special extended hour of "alex witt reports." 15 days left to inauguration day. president-elect donald trump's cabinet and administration picks have gone from a trickle to a downpour. overnight trump announcing nearly a dozen nominations for major roles including labor, treasury and the fda, and despite the president-elect disavowing having any ties to the heritage foundation's project 2025 in the leadup to the election, nbc news has learned transition officials are using the conservative agenda's ex-tense live data bas

smith? even on southwest. elliott had specific asks. this one is kind of simple. market setup is kind of simple. >> i wanted the three -- >> you split it and benefit. whether or not they're right or wrong, but that's a simple premise. >> give us aerospace and you can have the other stuff where there's value. right now everything is -- everything is buried within the poor execution of the company. the poor execution, i don't think they would agree with my calling it poor execution but when you say the high end of the range and then you do low end of the range, that's execution. that's why the stock has been stuck. otherwise you'd be saying, this is just a home run. you have all this aerospace. i don't blame them. when we stop selling it. this is ridiculous. the stock keeps going up. it has to be an activist. bingo, they have big feed on this one. $5 billion worth of stock, people stopped selling it because they said, wait a second, yesterday it was up huge on nothing, absolutely nothing. >> that may have been a sign. >> i agree. >> ton of activity in the energy com

elliott rogers, former federal prosecutor. there is this inkling of what is coming for jack smith but this is the first time you have heard it.s he have options? what is the landscape looking like for him? >> not really. his cases are going away, right? his options are, i guess, sit back and do nothing and let it happen, let himself be fired, but he is smart i think to at least take control of it this way he can dismiss the case on his own terms and then turn to the really big item here, which is the report he is going to write from eric garland about the litigation, which is now going to be the record of this case, since the case itself -- >> i am obsessed with her being a report because i have spoken to people in trump world but they don't think that he is publishing a report. ellie, is this the mueller report? what will this look like? >> it's an odd scenario that we have not yet encountered before. galatian say at the end of the case you have to write your report. that's why we got the mueller report, the lesser-known robert her reportedly remember, this one is weird, though, because jack smith has issued two indictments,

elliott. >> yeah. like he was -- >> well -- >> marc sending emojis in the middle of the night. >> went on the board. obviously, jeff smithhe was a little blown away by marc's embrace. >> worked out well. >> yeah. >> but that's what you have to do. when elliott knocks -- >> what do you make of benioff coming after microsoft, and its copilot. >> like last night. >> every day. >> not almost every day. >> satya nadella was on with jon fortt defending copilot and what it can do for people in the enterprise and the efeshsys that it can introduce. >> i told marc that the great thing about microsoft is they pivot. it could get better. i don't want to go against microsoft. they have a lot of smart people there. it could get better. right now it does not seem to be attracting a lot of -- it seems very hot -- came out hot. >> yep. >> and now it's not hot. that's true. but then it's going to be repurposed. >> it is the laggard this year of the big seven, right. >> and the ai piece hate been a -- has turn out to be a bust. i thought it was a christmas gift. what we hear from best buy, jpmorgan reiterates best buy will have a bad quar

elliott poem today, i kept saying this is the way cases end, not with a bang, but with a whimper. this is not unexpected. jack smithlooking to dismiss the cases without prejudice, which, of course, leaves the possibility they could be reopened at another point in time. on one hand, it could be totally meaningless. one to dismiss the cases without prejudice means that you're taking a flyer on whether or not they can be told or paused while trump is in office. and, of course, there is the other possibility that could render them meaningless, that he could just pardon himself. but jack smith is saying today, i'm willing to take the possibility of a toll and you want to pardon yourself, that's on you, you have to do that. i'm not going to let you off the hook that easily, not going to absolve you as that. i'll go as far as dismissing without prejudice, because policy requires me to, but no further. >> what did you read from the without prejudice? >> i thought there was going to be no question that jack smith, because he's a member of the department of justice, was going to have to follow department of justice policy an