0 so republicans backed off. if we are smart and bring to the floor serious legislation that will improve life for the working class in this country we are going to win that debate. >> i saw news today that the house freedom caucus are preparing their own budget i thought to myself, that is good. put it out there and let's debate where the priority should be. >> you got. >> it thank you, senator bernie sanders, his new book is out, it is okay to be angry about capitalism, out in book stores everywhere, thank you, senator. >> thank you. >> thank you be angry about capitalism" i alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening, alex. >> i'm really happy you're back. >> did you miss me? >> i did miss you. and it's likeid terrifying to n have you around. and ali was doing all that dangerous reporting in ukraine. >> i have to say he did absolutely incredible, incredible work as did betty and eamon, and all who sat in -- >> and i braved it all. i didn't have to do nothing. it was scary for all of us. we're glad you're back, we're glad the child is okay. >> she's good. >> and we're glad the vacation is now over. >> i'm back. >> thanks to you, chris. and thanks to all of you at home for joining us this hour. it is a rare moment when reasonable people are in agreement with my pillow ceo mike lindell, the prominent election conspiracy theorist but that is where we are. >> kevin mccarthy released 44,000 hours exclusively to fox news, well we're not going to sit back and, let that happen. >> why of all the fights we've got, why would you pick telling mccarthy he can't party with tucker? >> well, number one fox is going to siton through it and only pu out what they want. >> you heard that correctly. my pillow ceo and election denier mike lindell is furious toli speaker of the house kevin mccarthy for giving exclusive access to fox news host tucker carlson because mike lindell is worried tucker is going to cherry pick the footage to fit his own narrative, and that's absolutely a hugeiv concern. it's why several national news outlets,na including nbc news, y they've sued for access to that very footage. but getting election deniers like mike lindell, getting them mad at you and just one can of worms. tucker carlson having exclusive access to this footage is concerning because we have a pretty good idea what he might do with it and it's not great. he's already released a three part documentary series entitled patriot purge, that pushed the idea the january 6th attack was a false flag operation. if you're worried at this point who could possibly be worse to give thisly access to, well i mn probably mike lindell because he is angry at tucker carlson because lindell wants the footage for himself presumably to push whatever bonkers narrative he thinks isrs pressi. remember he once claimed he had evidence that would put $300 million in jail for life because of imagined election fraud. and he said he's going to sue kevin mccarthy for access to the footage, which is, thanks, kevin mccarthy. now, after dodging reporters interest days today speaker mdaccarthy finally agrooed to answer reporters questions about his questionable decision. >> can you explain this decision to hand over the video to tucker carlson? >> you've had videos for more than two years. i didn't hear anybody concerned about that when cnn was given exclusive. >> you have letters from all of our news organization asking for the same video. >> have you ever had an exclusive? so he'll have an exclusive. >> tucker will have an exclusive and then the rest of the country will get to see it said the speaker of the house of representatives. what's the big deal there? the number two house republican majority leader steve scalise also took questions on this topic today. his take amounted to, well, the january 6th committee released video. >> is there concern as much as there's a desire around transparency around rethis, arod security information of releasing thisor footage? >> of course if you watchas wha the january i 6th committee did under speaker pelosi they actually released a lot of video veryof sensitive. they literally released video of vice president pence exiting the capitol showing the route he takes. ultimately speaker mccarthy is talking about going through and what gets released is going to be scrutinized. >> okay, all the material shown by the january 6th committee, that was done in consultation with the u.s. capitol police. a staffer with direct knowledge of the process told nbc news that the committee worked with a capitol police representative to makee sure the surveillance footage ifur released to the public would, quote, not compromise their security posture. itur remains to be seen what sa guards house republicans put in place as far as fox news access, and we now know they have other plans for what they want to do with it. but here's the headline from kyle cheney and politico today. house gop moving to let january 6th defendants access capitol security footage. cheney writes house republicans are moving to provide defendants inov january 6th related cases access to thousands of hours of inarnl capitol security footage. according to congressman barry loudermilk, the republican who chairs the subcommittee with jurisdiction over that material, it is our intention to make availableio any relevant information. which is quite a statement of principles. first tucker carlson, then the january 6th defendants and then maybe you guys. i mean, hey, what could go wrong here? you might remember last summer "the new york times" did an incredible"t investigative vide piece showing just how instrumental the fare right mulegsa group the proud boys were in breaching the capitol on january 6th. it showed not only were they organized and using predetermined strategies to use access points to break t into t capitol, but "the times" also showed hundreds of proud boys had met at the capitol in the early morning hours on january 6th to get a lay of the land. can you imagine what a group like that might do with footage like this, security footage from every camera in the capitol. politico reports today that a liar for one of the proud boys who is by the way charged can seditious conspiracy in the attack, his lawyer has asked prosecutors to determineed whetr they will also be able to access this footage. joining us now is kyle cheney, senior legal affairs committee for politico. kyle, thanks for being here. we're talking by current estimation 44,000 hours of footage. is this a feasible plan to give the defendants in the january 6th i trials access to this footage? >> well, look, the january 6th defendants have had access to about 14,000 of these hours for almost aes couple years now. that's important for the defense. they should have accessor to footage that's relevant to the riot and what the capitol police has said is that the is footage relevant to the riot. the other 30,000 hours is basically the rest of the security footage from that entire day including from locations that have nothing to do what happened at the capitol. it remains to be seen there's anything remotely relevant to january 6vath in that footage. all told that's 4 1/2 years of footage. you can watch it end to end before you can see it all. once you have it, it's a whole different ball game to go through it and find relevant material. that's why you're seeing a certain push for just having kevin mccarthyor release it all wholesale to the public so you can crowd source it, have thousands of people, at home detectives go thru and try and find ndsomething, but that open up as you pointed out a different can ofu worms, whichs the security riskms that might present. >> what doesth the just departmt think of all this, because they're involved in all these january 6th cases. they then would have to presumably comb through the same footage given to the defendants, right? >> they've been relatively silent. the justice department attorneys inde that case said we're takin this seriously because they have obligations under the law to provideve defendants with anythg relevant to their cases. now, they think they've done that, but when there's another 30,000 hours of footage out there they may not have seen, they don't know what they don't about, so they're trying to wrap their head around what is in this footage and do we have to do anythingo with it in these cases? defense attorneys are still goings? to make a big fuss abou trying to access it and see it in ways that could disrupt a lot of the ongoing prosecutions. >> you mentioned the capitol police haded vetted the first traunch, 14,000t hours of this footage and said t this is the part that concerns these cases. to what degree do capitol police in consultation with capitol leadership as they make these decisions that could have dire consequences. >> they won't show exit routes for when an evacuation, emergencies, they won't show that sensitive degree of footage. they won't allowed that to be aired on fox news. the issue is if a defense attorney reviewing the footage says i need that sensitive footage for my trial upcoming, we need to get that out there, when those interests compete ans conflict how the house is going to handle that. i think they're still figuring that particular part out. >> that would sort of be where the rubber meet the road. they would have on one hand law enforcement making its case and on the other hand january 6th defendants making their case. is that right? is that the choice they'd have to make? >> essentially. and there are ways -- the 14,000 hours out there includes some of the sensitive footage and defendants have access to it, and a lot of that you can't go out and reletes it all. they're under strict order by the courts how they can handle that material. i assume anything they could get from the house would come with similar strings attached. for exactly what you said, it could help plan an attack, a futurean attack. >> right now we're talking about tucker carlson having access to this, january 6th having access to this. house republican leadership doesn't seem concerned about the optics of that. when does the rest of the world for example media companies who asked for this, do we have a time line might be for other people asking for this footage? >> he says he intends to make this footage available possibly as much possible to the media immediately. letdi everyone see it and mccary said barring that really sensitive stuff i want it out there as quickly as possible. it's going to take some time to vet. he was asked if it's going to take months, and he said i hope not. i think he said in a matter of weeks he can get the cache of information published in a way that's safe. >> thanks for your great reporting andfo thanks for your time tonight. here with me now is my dear friend andme colleague jen psak and host of the upcoming show inside with jen psaki. great to see you. >> great to see you. what a story, wild. >> you're a s communications person. the idea you're out there defending the release of this footage to fox news and also arguing about what the january 6t th defendants should have access to seems like not a great place to be in terms of messaging. >> washington that great clip speaking to garret haake, an nbc news reporter asking him as he should what about us, and he's saying haven't i given you exclusives, as if it was it's who his chief of staff was going to be. the only reason i can think of, that he would have provided this unfettered access to tucker carlson is curry favor with somebody who he has not had favorha with, somebody who has enormous audience with the exact faction ofie the party that kev mccarthy needs to curry favor with. it's also completely perplexing listening to your interview with kyle that it would take him weeks toe vet it or months. he needs weeks and months to vet it but he's going to hand it over toin tucker carlson who's advocate and booster of the insurrection. >> exactly. >> there's a lot of hypocrisy and gaslighting going on here with hissl argument. >> and i just think it also reflects upon the republican party so poorly that the fact republicany leadership -- i kn everything has become l partisa. he's the speaker of the house ande purportedly represents th american people. >> and he wasen trying to get trump not to do this, let's remember that. he had a moment of sanity in leadership. this is about his own desperate attempt tos hold onto power. >> at all costs. >> exactly. >> literally just fulfilling his end i suppose of the devil's bargain. how should d democrats talk abo this because the biden administration isis not going t come out and talk about tucker carlson's access to this. the relationship between fox re news, the sort of dog leading its owner to borrow the metaphor,w the idea the dog ha caught the car, let's use that one, and fox news is basically issuing tiktoks to the republicanto speaker of the hou. >> i think it's important for democrats not to get too in the weeds between kevin mccarthy and fox news. it's important to keep a it focused on what happened on january 6th which is there was anar insurrection at our capito no matter what political party you belong to or maybe you don't belong to anyone. you should find that outrageous. and rightd now there's one par, a few from one party but most democrats who are saying that's wrong and we need to stand up for democracy, we need to get to the bottom of what happened. there's only a handful of republicans who believe that. keep it focused on what happened on january 6th, how we have to prevent that from happening again and who represents standing up for democracy in the country. >> are you at all concerned this seems like a very concerted effort to reframe what happened on january 6th? >> i can just see his show now where there's so many ways to play it and we're just giving advice to his producers at this point in time where they can play hours of tape. they could play tape of the protesters -- the insurrectionists peacefully walking for a few seconds. there's a lot of ways to frame this. and remember a majority of republicans still think joe biden wasn't the legitimately elected president. so there's an audience out there for this. that's exactly the kind of thing he could do with it. >> and i mean that's deeply problematic, is it not? the idea as you point out there's disagreement among republicans and democrats largely about what happened in the 2020 elections, whether or notth joe biden fairly won, thoh we know he did, but january 6th has proveb to be a bit of a third rail, the republicans who sort of abide by the facts and figures that the rest of the world does don't say, you know, that was antifa fueled or the opposite, don't suggest it was a benign event. >> that's true. there is a dividing line there. >> and if carlson who has a mess of audience is able to muddy the waters and able to manipulate the footage in a way that undermines the gravity -- you were in a transition period in the biden white house. if they undermine that, i mean what does that suggest about future transfers of power? what does that suggest about the threshold we have for democracy and the preservation of it? >> i think the trump period of transfer of power or the lack thereof in that period of time was so -- it was outrageous, but it was also a uniquely horrible moment in history. i mean i was there when president obama came in and george bush was leaving. different parties, disagreement on at lot of issues including e iraq war, which was almost the biggest issue at theh time. theyt treated us with grace. they provided us briefing materials. they worked together to deal with ake financial crisis. that is normal, and that's what it's supposed to be, so this to your point, alex, is throwing into disarray what actually should happen with the continuity of power inll the country, and adding more fuel to the fire of people in this country who don't believe joe biden was legitimately elected, who believe a lot of these conspiracy theories which frankly tucker carlson and others are guilty of pushing even if we know they don't believe them. >> yes, the hypocrisy, the pedaling of lies, the destruction of democracy, full stop. and we'll leave itfu there. i know you're going to be talking about all thisin and so much more on the upcoming show. i'll be watching. thank you for coming and visiting on the set. we have lots of stories to bring you tonight including new revelations in a lawsuit against yes you guessed it fox news over the coverage of its big lie. plus what huge crowds of protesters at the supreme court today a had in common with juste clarence thomas. we'll tell you about it coming up next. we'll tell you about it coming up next. (psst psst) ahhhh... with flonase, allergies don't have to be scary. spray flonase sensimist daily for non-drowsy, long lasting relief in a scent-free, gentle mist. (psst psst) flonase. all good.