wide range of constitutional protections to avoid testifying. from claiming executive privilege to invoking their constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination. whether it is coaxing row luktant witnesses with offers of immunity or bludgeoning them with criminal contempt of congress, lawmakers say they will be ready for whatever obstacles witnesses throw their way. the goal, preventeck lengthy court battles that could derail the january 6th investigation the way trump's sometime stymy's house and senate investigators during his term. we have seen shift in investigations. the "washington post" reports today that a pair of ohio men have become the first non-violent offenders in the riot to receive jail time for their crimes on january 6th. the post adding the punishment comes after federal judges for months have questioned whether no prison plea deeld offered by the government to low level january 6th defendants are too lenient to defer future protesters from terrorizing members of congress. president trump is driling up disinformation. quote, the challenges have been clear in the eight months since the riot as trump and his allies intensified calls claims of election fraud and he has remained the gop's most popular leader. the scary part for me is in 2020 this was not a sophisticated misinformation or disinformation campaign according to matt m.a..er theson, he adds, we are talking about bamboo ballots and italian sattel lights and dead dictators. in the future, these are going to become more advanced and nuances exploiting general areas of confusion in the electoral system and thus harder to combat. the race into the investigation into the insurrection and growing threat to democracy posed by expresident and his disinformation campaign is where we start. eugene dan else are is back. also joining us, ben rhodes, former deputy national security advisory to president obama obama. and ma'am eesh al sin do, the moderator for washington week. all three are msnbc contributor. eugene, i want to hear how you are feeling and doing. i am glad to see you back on this. practice. i want to start with politico's reporting. unfortunately, these are lessons learned from trump's successful efforts to stonewall congress. but it seems that those lessons have been heeded and applied to these first subpoenas. what are you detecting? have any of these witnesses sort of shown any daylight between a strategy of obstruction that trump and his aides adhered to during the impeachment? >> at this point, we haven't. right? they are working on ways -- the panel and the committee are working on ways to make sure that they can add some daylight, they can try and figure out who are the people, the weakest links in the chain on some of this stuff because one thing that's really clear that they need to do, is one, they want to find the truth. two, they don't want to elongate this process. they want to make sure that it doesn't take an inordinate amount of time. court cases on subpoenas and who's aloud to say what and all of that takes time. we have seen that the current white house has basically said u know, we are not really going to be giving executive privilege to former trump aides in the white house. so we are not expecting them to receive any help there. and i think what's really, really interesting about this entire process, because what we know about the folks that are working on this in congress is that they are thinking about who is going to try and plead the fifth. what does that look like. >> yeah. >> used to happen -- years ago pleading the fifth was frowned upon. it made it seem like you were a liar, had something to hide and there was blowback. but when you have a party that's operating on the whims of one man that's all they have to do. that's something the committee has to battle against, figuring out how to make sure these people do the right thing, even if it means pissing off donald trump. >>s in the bubble in which they exist. i get that. in the real world these people need jobs. sure there is a chance he is president again. but i don't know anything about these men but i am sure that mark meadows needs a job at some sort of firm or company. if he is facing criminal on tempt of congress, that becomes a more challenging undertaking. i want to go through the tactics that the committee is looking at. one is this civil and criminal contempt. that's a crime. one is immunity. using them against one another. it seems to be quite effective in the criminal investigation that d.o.j. is undertaking against insurrectionists. the other is outside pressure. and the last is president biden. yamiche, let's talk about the white house and the president and -- not even the signal. they have come out and said that they will look case by case about invoking executive privilege. but i see publicly and privately that this white house views the insurrection for exactly what it was, a grave and dangerous attack against our democracy, against the seat of government that should never happen again. what is your understanding of what their guiding prince pels will be about executive privilege? >> i think what you are saying is right. i will also just say i am really happy to see eugene because i was worried about you, and i am so excited to just be on tv with you and see that you are well. i just have to say that. in what is guiding the white house is this idea that president biden sees democracy as being threatened, and january 6th, not as the ends of the trump asia but as the beginning the next scary phase of american democracy where people are wondering whether or not whether democracy can survive if republicans are tying their political success to nullifying elections, to trying to take over sort of what used to be non-partisan election offices, precincts. so the white house really sees january 6th as a deep stain on american democracy. what is guiding their use of executive privilege is making sure they are not doing anything that covers up any sort of crimes or any sort of activities that were wrong for democracy. you have already heard the white house, as well as president biden, indicate that they are not going to be invoking executive privilege to try to shield what happened in this white house. while we know a lot about january 6th, there are big things we don't know including what was president trump doing during the insurrection. other than watching tv, what was he saying? who was he contacting? what were republicans trying to talk about during the insurrection? this white house is a white house that wants to get to the bottom this and wants to see january 6th as an example of what should never happen again even of course while president trump tries to redo what happened on january 6th and tries to paint the people who are criminals who were insurrectionists, as political prisoners. >> ben rhodes, let's step back and be done with executive privilege. they were loud and proud about targeting mike pence to be hung if he didn't hear out the plot laid out in the eastman memo. they made no effort to hide the coup that they planned to carry out on january 6th. so on what planet would they try to hide their communications? >> yeah, i mean, you know, donald trump spoke at the kickoff to the coup, nicole. it is worth re-establishing basic facts and then go into these more tactical and oversight concerns. it is a fact that there was a violent insurrection at the capitol on behalf of donald trump's big lie that he won the election. full stop. we know that happened. we all saw it. people died in that violent attack at the capitol. then, if there is nothing for them to hide about their conduct on that day, this guy was still the president of the united states of america while up the street, up pennsylvania avenue someone was trying to overturn the government that he was nominally the executive of. if they had nothing to hide they should want businesses to come forward not hide documents. all of these tactics indicate the opposite. i have been on both sides of this. i worked with the co-chair of the 9/11 committee who were looking for documents from bush and daily briefings. when i was in the white house some of my emails and documents were subject to these concerns and provided to congress. but if you are not able to provide witnesses and documents to a violent insurrection to overthrow the democratic result of an american election -- that's not something that supersedes that interest, executive privilege. we are not a democracy, because the message from president trump and his lawyers is essentially, because he was president, he cannot be held accountable for anything. you know -- >> right. >> -- it's kind of the richard nixon defense, the president does it, it's not illegal. that's not how the system works. this is a test of how the system can work and the questions about our democracy and the conclusions drawn about january 6 are relevant to what's playing out today. >> eugene, let's be frank. what the committee wants to understand is basically who called the code red. it is abundantly clear it was donald trump. it is abundantly clear. they are just looking for the evidence who told what what when. scavino i thought was the twitter guy. steve bannon was broadcasting to the universe. mark meadows eaps to the justice department have already been turned over to the committee. what posture do these people take if donald trump was the one? donald trump was in mike pence telling him to do the right thing. went to georgia to campaign for the two republicans who ultimately lost to the democrats. he spent time at that rally in that critical moment attacking mike pence. i mean, we know who was in charge. why would any of these people protect donald trump? >> because this party is still, for whatever reason, so completely controlled by donald trump. and we have seen what happens to people who go out and say something against donald trump, say something, you know, simply telling the truth, right. look at liz cheney literally just telling the truth about what happened on january 6th and what happened in the election, and what happened to her. i think everyone is continuing to be concerned about that. right? you are not having a lot of the members of the republican party stand up and say i am going to tell the truth, i don't care what the blowback is. i think what this committee is really really interested in is putting all this time line in a clear and cogent way that people can understand. all of us have probably read the books that have come out about that day and what happened around january 6th. we have seen other types of things come out. we have seen like you said, the emails to -- fro mark meadows come out as well. they are trying to figure out what that time line looks like. right? what the -- how you are going to say in one breath that january 6th wasn't bad, we didn't do anything wrong, and then at the same time try to say that we should have executive privilege, please, biden administration, or that i am thinking of pleading the fifth. it's hard to square those two things. right? if you didn't do anything wrong it is not hard to talk about it, give your emails, all that stuff. those are the pressure points that the committee is committed to doing. you say you have done nothing wrong, give us what you have. >> yeah. >> that's what we are going to continue to hear. but the thing that's probably most important right now is the republican party like we have all said is at the whims of donald trump. so if he doesn't want them to give over the emails they are probably not going to do so. he is probably going to publicly tell them not to do that. i think that is something that's going to be -- we should all be watching. >> yamiche, what is interesting is he is still trying to undermine the vote count. i believe donald trump sent letters to the texas and georgia secretary of state to recount their 2020 ballots over this weekend. the anti-democratic conduct, the slow motion coup attempt is ongoing. ashley parker puts it into that broader frame. she has written an incredible piece. the threat to democracy that trump critics envision are two fold. one real risk they say is four years after, they emerge in 2024 more successful in their efforts to steal an election. the second scenario is more indidious. they say a flow boiling frog of american democracy. in this case, trump or an act light with similar anti-democratic sensibilities runs and wins legitimately in 2024 emerging focused on retribution. then the president begins using legal means to consolidate power and erode democratic institutions. that's terrifying. on the one hand donald trump couldn't really pull the levers of power. he was too incompetent to pull something like in a off. but to look at what all of the policy changes republicans in every state are putting in place, and they are certainly softening the ground for something like that. >> well, that is terrifying the way ashley parker puts it. and it really reminds me of my conversations that i have with immigrants who came to the united states fleeing political turmoil thinking american democracy was very, very stable and now it's fragile. when you really look at what happened on january 6th and when it took for president biden's victory to be certified it meant that nerve the system had to go against -- when you think about vice president pence, against his will whoed aboutly wanted to give president trump when wanted but essentially figured out he could not do something to try to stop the certification because it was in the constitution. what you see here is that democracies fall apart slowly. that is the message i have been hearing from immigrants. i have to tell you, they predicted january 6th in a way that now makes me sort of have good bumps. i remember talking to a haitian immigrant saying president trumps that all of these supporters, they could get violent. that was a month before january 6th. the way in happens, democracies fall apart is just this, someone wants to do away with all the institutions they find a party, loyalists, that listen to them and then they slowly really chip away at democracy until in 2024 and 2028 we look up and say how did all of these legislators change the rules, how did they become trump loyalists. that's what steve bannon said about killing the biden presidency in its crib. he is trying to kill the democratic party in its crib. trump is fueling his party. and his party is somewhat terrified of him because he has a base of people who continue to believe his lies. >> ben rhodes you wrote the book on this. i want to read a little bit more from ashley's piece because it gets at what yamiche is describing. this is happening. we start with this every day because i think we are all going to look back and have to account for what we did while our democracy was under assault. if ashley's scenario comes to pass i think we will all have to answer for how much attention we paid to it, whether we were distracted. but this pilgrimage to hungary, this attraction to or ban is something she points out. she quotes, he stacked the courts, engaged in jerry manner diagnose, had friends and allies take over the media. while they have elections they start from a very, very stacked deck. while it is not impossible it is going to be very, very difficult for him to be dislodged in the normal democratic system. if you take those one by one, democrats will concede that donald trump has stacked the courts. he engaged in gerrymandering. that is happening right now. right now, today. right now. he had friends and allies take over the media. they have one wildly popular network. and for anyone watching this show who doesn't know, that network's ratengs are soaring, they are so animated by auto express and anti-democratic policies. all the conditions are in place. how do we get off that track, ben rhodes? >> nicole, you know, it's erie. for my book i asked a democratic activist in hungary how did you go from doing a democracy to a single party autocracy in a decade. he said it is simple, he gets elected on a right wing populous package. he enriched krenys to corruption who bought up the media and turned it into a propaganda machine and wrapped it up in a us versus them national message, the hungarians against immigrants, muslims and the other. that's what happened. it is not beginning. we are part of the way down that journey. when you see republican state legislators passing laws that allow them to overturn the results of a democratically elected democratic election we should believe they are passing those laws because they want to use them, they are not doing it as a messaging exercise. to your point, there are important things happening, important debates happening on capitol hill. this is issue one, two, three, four, and five right now. anything else that people care about in terms of policies is going to be profoundly implicated by whether we remain a democracy at all. it is incumbent on everybody else to be raising these issues and bringing them to the forefront. and it is incumbent on the january 6th committee to be about what happened on that day and part of the broader story of the playbook that has worked in other countries. it has already happened. ashley parker's article describes things that happened in many democracy, hungary, turkey, to russia to others. there is no reason it couldn't happen here. that's the sense of urgency we have to bring to democratic issues every day so long as we are living under this cloud. >> it is a terrifying proposition. we will do our part. we have all alluded to this, eugene daniels, you publicly talked about a breakthrough covid infection you had. you described it as hell. tell us about it. and tell us how you are doing. and tell us your message for anyone who's not vaccinated at this point. >> i mean, i did all the right things. i got vaccinated when i was supposed to. i kept -- you know when we were allowed to start seeing people i started to do that. i wear my mask inside following all the cdc guidelines and it still happened to me. i woke up on sunday about two weeks ago not feeling great at all. i was achy. i took the covid test and i was immediately positive. i started crying because i am a little bit dramatic but after a year and some change of dodging -- you know a year and some change of dodging the pandemic in that way it was like wow, this really sucks. and then it really started to suck. i couldn't -- i was having a hard time breathing. not so much that i needed to go to the hospital, thank god. i think that is only because i am fully vaccinated and have been. you know, i had to quarantine by myself in my apartment with my fiancee sitting outside of the door putting thing at the door so i could eat and drink. it was really just exactly what you hear from folks. but as someone who was vaccinated i didn't think it would be that bad for me, meaning if i hadn't been vaccinated i probably would have definitely ended up in the hospital. for people who aren't thinking about getting vaccinated, don't want to get vaccinated, don't want to wear masks where people are wearing masks you do not want this. get fully vaccinated as soon as you possibly can because it really, really, really, is not something -- i don't know how to tell people about it without continuing to say it was hello health and i wouldn't wish it on anyone that i know or don't know. >> eugene, i kept asking for you, day after day. i said, well, where is he? what's wrong? then you bravely tweeted about it. and i am so glad you are feeling better. i think we all at this point know people that have done all the right things and had breakthrough infections. senator angus king said he thinks if he hadn't been vaccinated his breakthrough infection would have killed him. if one person changes their mind after hearing this, or after reading your tweets my day will be made. eugene will be sticking around a little bit longer. when we come back, an announcement from matthew dowd who says the gop has pushed his home state of texas so far to the right he is left with no alternatives. plus, the shadow docket is under scrutiny today on capitol hill. the judiciary committee calling out the high court for stripping away the constitutional rights of millions of americans in the dark of night. later in the program, the nba's premier super star player, lebron james, reveals, after initial skepticism, that he has now been vaccinated. the sheer power of that same. we will talk about it. plus how some other players will be forced to miss games, lots of them, and paychecks, lots of them, because of their refusal to take the shot. all those stories and more after "deadline: white house" takes a quick break. don't go anywhere today. k. don't go anywhere today. on drugs than anyone else in the 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repeatedly lied and waged a hateful culture war against us. failed on the pandemic, electric grid, voting rights, equality for all and access to health care. joining us now, matthew dowd. i want to get to the politics and want to get to texas. i want, for people who don't know, you you have such a well-rounded life experience that i think you bring to all analysis. you certainly brought it to campaigns and you brought it to wearing your heart on your sleeve when you very publicly broke with george w. bush and you come to it as a human and a friend and a dad. i want to hear about how that drove to you do what you did today. >> i appreciate that, nicole, a lot. it was a hard decision to come to because both of us know how tough politics is, especially today. and i am sure you have. i have just by speaking out, i have gotten death threats which i'm sure will increase from the trump supporters and people that don't like the fact that i have been critical of this. i have three sons and a daughter, four kids. i am buried two in the course of this. i love this state, texas. i wasn't born here. i got here almost 40. but i hate our politics and i hate what the gop leadership is doing. it is not only the rhetoric and the tone and all that which is hateful and cruel but it is the actual policy that are hateful and cruel and undemocratic here. it is hurting people. it is hurting people every single day. it's hurting people. it's hurting women. it's hurting people of color. it's hurting people without health care. it's hurting people that depend on the energy grid. it's hurting people every single day. and texas right now is the front and center attack on our democracy. at some point in time we have to ask ourselves, don't we want integrity? don't we want public services and don't we want people serving the public good? this is not something i can do alone. it is something i have to do as a we. even though the lieutenant governor has been about me, himself, and the 5% that he appeals to. i can stand here and say i am running, which i am, i am going to -- for 405 days i am going to tell the truth about dan patrick and tell the truth about what the republicans have done. in the end i win based upon whether texans believe we can actually win the soul of our state and reengage democracy again. because right now, it's fragile. >> matthew, as a strategist with whom i worked alongside, i understood this about voters. one they don't like to be lied to. two, they want to see government deliver. the current republican party breaks those rules. the republicans lie to them all the time. it would seem donald trump was a big, fat liar. they stayed with him. many are still with him. in terms of delivering i mean texas has delivered gun laws that endanger all texans. it has been awol on covid protections. it killed texans. it has taken away reproductive frees which has women and couples in some instances fleeing the state for health care. how do you undo what is really an upside down dine hillary clinton in terms of how traumatic advertised and stockholm syndrome republican leaders feel about their failed leaders. >> you can't do a lot about republicans. as i say, that's what the governor and this lieutenant governor -- actually, i believe lieutenant governor -- so people understand, lieutenant governor in texas basically run the legislature. dan patrick has run it like a dictator. all the things that have gone flew and things they haven't done are in his hands. he forced senators to do exactly what he wants to do. again, i think the only way we can start speaking to people authentically. i am going to tell people the truth. some people may not like imt but i am going to tell the truth. i am going to show my values. why i loved raising my children here. why i live here, what is fundamental about this state that i love, one of the things is diversity of the state. every i think issel step of the way as we watch this -- again, if you had had asked me this question on january 1st was i going to run statewide i would have said no way. but after what happened on january 6th and after what's gone on the last nine months in texas the me i feel i have no choice but to go out there and spend every day telling the folks, telling voters, talking to them about we don't have to put up with this anymore, we don't have to put up with this anymore. the way to end it is engage and vote these people out of office who don't stand for what we stand for. >> matthew, what is it about sort of your life in texas politics -- and explain how you came to work for george bush. you worked for the democratic lieutenant governor in the state, right? talk about that. and talk about recicely what the issues are that you are going to go out and talk to texas voters about. >> sure. so just so people have a sort of history lesson. i came here -- one of the first jobs i had here when i came to texas, i worked for the texas afl-cio in texas on behalf of workers. my second job was for the texas democratic party. then i worked for texas senator lloyd benson who was picked on the ticket with mike dukakis. then i got to know bob bollic. i ran his first and second campaign for lieutenant governor. he was the last democratic lieutenant governor in texas. i also helped in that '90 race ann richards win the race for govern oosh, somebody we all look back on fondly in this. i was for years in that -- i got to usual bush personally. i liked what bush had done. he worked with bob bullic, who is a democratic. he worked with a democratic speaker. my thought was if we could do what we did in texas in the '90s up in washington, it would be a better place. it didn't turn out that way. as you know i had a public break with the president over the war and some other issues. it became very public on the front page of the "new york times." so my movement has always been -- i always pride myself, i think, on -- no matter the consequences, trying to tell the truth and trying to relate to people what's going on regardless of your party affiliation. as i said, i think the only vehicle today to save the republic is the democrats. in my view, i think campaigns are always about values. campaigns are won and lost around values. i think democrats sometimes make the mistake of putting out ten-point policy positions on x, y, and z, and i will have many different policy positions. i'm prochoice, i'm progun reform, i'm provoting rights. i'm all of those things. in the end, voters want to know what your values are. in my view, it's about reinstating theed in of public service and servant leadership and the idea of telling the truth and being honest with each other and looking out for everyone. though i might disagree with a number of people looking out for every single person in the course of this and doing the job government should do like in the midst of a pandemic whereas you know i lost water, i lost power for eight days, had to move into a hotel, move into a guest bedroom and the government didn't recare. do you know what they did? the only thing they passed made it easier for corporations to charge their consumers more. that's the ends result. i am going to show people who i am. it is going to be up to the democrats if i am the nominee. even if i am not the democratic nominee, i am going to spend the next whatever amount of days, 200 days after that saying the exact same thing. because this is about removing this cruel and craven leadership starting with dan pat trick, the republican lieutenant governor and i will go all the way through the next 400 days doing it. >> as someone who has been in the room when you delivered difficult truths to people in power i can attest to your ability the lay it out straight no matter the consequences. matt dowd lucky for us you will continue to weigh in on the day's events. we ask you to stick around. congratulations on your announce mountain. senate democrats are pushing back on the texas abortion ban and on the conservative united states supreme court controversial late night ruling that allowed it to happen. that story is next. happen. that story is next is now a good time for a flare-up? enough, crohn's! for adults with moderate to severe crohn's or ulcerative colitis, stelara® can provide relief, and is the first approved medication to reduce inflammation on and below the surface of the intestine in uc. you, getting on that flight? back off, uc! stelara® may increase your risk of infections, some serious, and cancer. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, sores, new skin growths, have had cancer, or if you need a vaccine. pres, a rare, potentially fatal brain condition, may be possible. some serious allergic reactions and lung inflammation can occur. lasting remission can start with stelara®. janssen can help you explore cost support options. sb 8 was the culmination of a decade of erosion of access to abortion health care with the intent of creating a de facto ban without actually calling it a ban. as someone who came of agepry roe v wade i am concerned about going back and erasing the progress we have made over the past century. women's ability to pursue education and employment opportunities over that time has been greatly enhanced by the ability to have autonomy over their own bodies. this is about personal freedom and respecting women know what is best for them their family. this is about giving women control of their lives without government interference. >> that was texas state representative donna howard today slamming her state's near total ban on apportion at a senate judiciary hearing on that law and on the controversial use of the supreme court's shadow docket. it was the shadow docket that allowed the texas law to go into the books depriving texas women of their reproductive liberties. the court's use of the shadow docket has raised concerns over the politicization of the court even among some republicans. lisa murkowski saying quoegs i worry a great deal about it. the world needs to trust that the judiciary will be that independent unbiased check. joining us senator mazie hirono of hawaii. matt dowd is still here. you have had a busy week. tell me about this hearing. >> it was to shine a light on the weaponization of the shadow docket by this supreme court, the majority conservative supreme court that's using the shadow docket to basically push their ideaio logical agenda as exemplified by what they do in allowing the texas six-week abortion ban to take affect. >> senator, can you explain to people who maybe doesn't understand exactly how it works or why something this consequential ended up being put on the shadow docket. the me it seems like chief justice roberts has been the most vocal about not wanting the court to be dragged into politics. he did actually side with the conservatives on this. give us some of that background. >> i know that justice roberts cares about how the public perceives the court and its ability to be objective and fair. and i think this is one of the reasons that he issue a dissent in the court's decision regarding the six-we can ban. meanwhile the rest of the justices are very conservative justices, they are proceeding using the shadow docket in too many instances. the shadow docket is supposed to be emergency relief. it usual arose in death penalty cases and it usually was to set like when a hearing should occur, et cetera. it is not supposed to be used to make substantive kinds of decisions as what we are seeing more and more from this majority conservative court. >> senator -- >> this is why -- the chief justice is concerned because the public's view of the court is going down. they do not see this court as an objective arbiter of what the law is. >> senator, cecile richards who ran planned parenthood for many years says what the supreme court has green lit is overturning roe v wade. >> yes. >> in texas as a starting point. if it is not political tell me why they left on the books vigilante enforcement and whether it opens the door for vigilante gun law enforcement in the past they haven't held to be constitutional or vaccine mandates. do you think the supreme court has green lit overturning roe v wade or do you think the supreme court has green lit vigilante enforcement? >> i would say both. because, let's face it, this kind of law that texas passed is very bizarre. if fact, i asked representative howard whether texas had any other kind of law like this where they expect vigilantes not the government to enforce the law with a $10,000 bounty. his answer, no. i asked well do you think the texas legislature will ever do that with gun ownership for example, so you can go after gun owners with a bounty? you know, this is texas going way beyond -- well, they have been wanting to get rid of rorks roe v wade along with many other states for a long time. nicole, last year, 56,000 women in texas got abortions. if this law were in effect almost 50,000 of them would not have been able to get abortions. can you imagine doing that to their own constituent women? it boggles the mind. >> boggles the mind. matthew dowd, i want to bring you into this. do you have thoughts about whether the united states supreme court is at this crisis point in terms of their credibility? they let stay on the books a vigilanty enforcement system in a law that overturns roe v wade. >> what we have seen from this court is they have got a problem with the court looking political they invited the problem in. i don't think they think they need to be consistent on any of this. it is a right-ring element of -- right-wing element. this didn't just green light overturning roe versus wade. what happened in texas overturned roe versus wade because the law and the way it was done is you basically have six weeks. most women don't know they are pregnant for four or five weeks or even after six weeks, what they did is completely ban abortion in texas no matter what, including rape and incest. including rape and incest. we are in that place. i don't think the court -- the court acts like they care that they look political but they created this problem and the idea that they allowed texas clearly violate constitutional rights of women in this country. clear violation of constitutional rights of women in this country. i am a person of faith, a person of great faith and deep faith in this. but i am very, very prochoice because the decision should be made by nine people in robes in washington, d.c. or a state rep that lives out in a remote part of texas. the decision should be made by a women and in consultation with her doctor. that's the problem who is in the room making the decision. the republicans want some unknown state rep in the room take making the decision. i think most americans believe roe versus wade has been not perfect but worked well over the last 50 years but texas leaders decided, we are going to throw that out and they basically have an accomplice with the united states supreme court. >> they want the state rep in the room and then they want the neighbor on the phone telling them about the uber driver. senator hirono, it is nice to get to talk to you. this hearing is important. >> same here. >> thank you for spending time with us. matt is sticking around. a warning of catastrophic consequences if lawmakers fail to act. one of the many things on their plate this week. we will talk about what's at stake next. now, we all know progressive offers 24/7 protection, but we also bundle outdoor vehicles with home and auto to help people save more! 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senators, the debt ceiling has been raised or suspended 78 times since 1960, almost always on a bipartisan basis. this would be a manufactured crisis we impose on this country, which has been going through a very difficult period, is on the road to recovery and it would be a self-inflicted wound of enormous proportions. >> and because manufactured crisis is the gop brand these days, you hear alarm bells being rung by janet yellen, who yesterday issued that warning to leave politics out of the conversation in the debate about raising the debt ceiling. speaker nancy pelosi is at the white house along with senator leader chuck schumer and says the white house plans to pass legislation to suspend the debt limit today. the reason we're here is because of the gop's resistance to averting economic catastrophe. 97% of the debt was accrued under the republican led house, white house and senate. just take people who don't watch every moment and second of this through where we are today and what happens as the week goes on. >> they want to left the debt limit. that is something that republicans know if they continue to fight, it looks good for the midterms. that is something that you're continuing to see. they said over and over they want democrats to do this on their own, go for it and do it on your own. in the senate they ask for unanimous consent to be able to do so. go ahead, you'll only need a simple majority to do so. republicans stopped that. we should continue to remind people what janet yellen said, but also most importantly, that's exactly what mitch mcconnell said when the debt limit had to be raised during the trump years. this is not something that has been partisan, but what we know about especially this republican party right now is they're not looking to give anyone any wins even though this has nothing to do with politics, but they're playing politics and kind of playing chicken with the american economy. you see it on every level of government where they don't want to give joe biden and folks in the house and the senate any kind of leeway to do things, even though democrats have worked with republicans to do something about the debt limit. >> there are so many people who have made these same points that eugene is making. senator klobuchar said this would be a shutdown of stupidity, talking about playing politics in the midst of a pandemic. yesterday every single republican senator voted to shut down the u.s. government and provoke a global crisis. mitch mcconnell portrayed the vote against raising the debt limit as a test of democrats' ability to govern. some of his colleagues claim to be taking a stand for fiscal responsibility but everyone involved understood this was an act of political sabotage. >> yeah, they're playing politics, but people's lives are at stake. it's not just people that consider themselves democrats in the midst of this. republicans use roads, republicans drive over bridges, republicans use public water systems, republicans use every part of the infrastructure. so like covid, they seem, the republicans in washington seem completely willing for what i guess they think is a political advantage to basically endanger lives, not only endanger the economy, which is awful enough, but actually endanger lives. every day that goes on where a bridge or a road or a water system isn't fixed and all of the things related to our infrastructure means another day closer that something bad happens to a democrat, independent or a republican. but just like covid, they don't seem to care at all. >> we'll stay on it. thank you both so much for spending time with us this hour. the next hour starts after a quick break. the next hour starts aerft a quick break. your eyes. beautiful on the outside, but if you have diabetes, there can be some not-so-pretty stuff going on, on the inside. it's true, if you have diabetes, you know high blood sugar is the root of the problem. but that excess sugar can cause the blood 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capitol building where multiple people have died and the lives of your colleagues were in danger. it examined ways to combat domestic extremism and white supremacy. >> domestic terrorism threats, currently we're investigating 2700 threats. for the international terrorism threats, we are under a thousand surface international related terrorism death from 2015 to 2020 there were 80 reported deaths in the homeland. for that same time period for dt attacks, there were 83 deaths. >> when it comes to specific threats against elected officials like on january 6th, that danger is also intensifying. the a.p. spoke with capitol police chief tom manger who said, quote, his force is seeing a historically high number of threats against lawmakers, thousands more than just a few years ago. he predicts authorities will respond to close to 9,000 threats against members of congress in 2021. quote, we have never had the level of threats against members of congress that we're seeing today, manger said. his job only made harder by gop attempts to rewrite the events of january 6th. new polling shows their efforts might be working. a decline since march in the percentage of americans who say it is very or somewhat important to find or prosecute those involved in the capitol riot, but declined seemed sharpest among republicans. the diminishment of concern over the capitol riot on the right also creates space for trump and his allies to amplify the idea that it's all political. trump has multiple motives to doing so. by diminishing the importance of the riot, he also diminishes his culpability. he reenforces the us against them version of politics that defined his ascent to the presidency. i want to start with you, clint, on the threat. i have asked this question of lawmakers. i wonder what your view is on it. can you fight the single greatest threat to the homeland, domestic violent extremism with one of the two political parties distorting the threat, lying about the threat or making the threat worse? >> you can, but it won't go very well. you'll probably always be taking one step forward, two steps back. there are several reasons for that. first off, people respond to what they see their leaders saying and doing. what the republican party has messaged to the people on january 6th and anyone that supported them was it's perfectly fine to storm into the capitol and stop the wheels of democracy if you don't like the outcome of it. the second part, which is a secondary effect of what you hear the republicans doing with those talking points is who is going to work with or be an informant for the fbi when they're being told what those individuals did is not a crime? you are creating an insurgency in this country that is working against federal law enforcement. those two things alone make it much more difficult. the only reason the fbi has made so much progress and those case numbers are so high that you hear about right now is there was a january 6th which gave them probable cause, gave them an overt act which they could ramp up the aggressiveness of their investigation and to keep this going and protect against the next wave republicans need to get on board with the country over their party. >> let me show you, tim miller, new comments from congressman jamie raskin about the effect of the kind of things elected officials in the republican party say. >> we're facing an unprecedented situation in which political leaders, up to and including a former president, have been actively promoting corrosive anti-democratic messages that circulate paranoia, cynicism and violence. this cesspool of conspiracy thinking is activating unstable individuals predisposed because of a mixture of idealogical grievances and personal disappointments to commit violence. this is a problem that demands the attention of all of us and indeed everyone in the country who believes in the institutional order. on january 6th we saw a glimpse of a post democratic chaotic america. >> tim, what i find haunting there is that what we've learned from covering and talking and trying to understand in the aftermath that violence is always this mix of what he lists here. it's a cesspool of conspiracy thinking, activating unstable individual predisposed because of a mixture of idealogical grievances and personal disappointments to commit violence. that's a threat to all of them. that individual that jamie raskin describes is a threat to everybody, to democrats and republicans. you've spent some time with the republicans who are sort of existing at the edge of the party, who were disappointed and speaking out about their disappointments, one resigning. just talk about that reality that they understand they live with that threat of violence. >> the threat is so real. it is why you mentioned earlier gonzalez who has dropped out of his seat in ohio. he was a party line voter with trump up until his effort to overturn the election. then up until his incitement of the violence we saw on january 6th. he voted to impeach and now at the ripe old age of 36 he's retiring, because in large part, not entirely, but in large part because of the threats. he no longer wants to have to walk through the airport with security with his young kids. i talked to the lieutenant governor of georgia, jeff duncan, who told a similar story. during the period between november and january 5th, the georgia runoff, he was one of the few georgia republicans speaking truth that the threat was credible. he needed excess security at his home. he was receiving phone calls. these are our people doing this. we need to put a stop to this. we all saw this in the leadup to january 6th. we all saw it coming and it happened. i feel like we are going through this deja vu where folks like the never trumpers are saying it's happening again, you can see all the signs again. and once again, the same people who know better, who went along with it like mitch mcconnell are not talking about it anymore. it's going to take unfortunately another precipitating event to get some of them to speak up again. we're in a vicious cycle. >> betsy, for those of us who see this happening again, it is this refusal to accept the credibility of previously unimpeachable sources, like the fbi, like law enforcement, like the intel assessments which describe the single gravest threat to the home land as this domestic violence extremist threat, like the ex-republican president who said on 9/11 that they are of the same foul ideology as the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. we love the police, trump said repeatedly during his time in office and his campaigns. according to the justice department, 140 police officers were assaulted during the riot. in this case trump sees it as politically useful to say those who face criminal charges for those acts are being persecuted. republicans increasingly seem to agree. nothing is permanent. everything is fleeting, everything something trump said for four years, we love the police. >> trump and his supporters like to say they love the police. the reality is they only love police unless those police are keeping them from committing crimes. in addition to the preponderance of evidence about the fact that domestic terrorism has become a significant lethal threat to safety in this country, people can also just trust their own eyes. there's so much video, so many photos of what happened at january 6th they anyone who's remotely connected to reality can look at the pictures and the video and see that is absolutely lunacy and denialism to suggest that what happened on that day is anything other than a violent attack on american democracy. it's just wacky. the next new line we're hearing from republicans regarding this objection attack is this idea since there was an fbi informant among the group of people who were at the capitol on january 6th, somehow this entire thing must have been orchestrated by the puppet masters at the fbi. first, it wasn't a particularly good fbi informant because law enforcement didn't know what they needed to know and that day played out the way they did. second, having informants at the sites of crimes is part of the way the law enforcement works. it's the very basic blocking and tackling of law enforcement. now republicans are arguing first january 6th wasn't that bad and if it was, it's because the fbi was responsible for it. it shows the absolute delusion and detachment from reality that we're hearing. >> that's such a good point. i saw reporting over the weekend. you have some new reporting that i'm going to read from some of it and ask you to expand on it. you report on january 6th more than 30 minutes after the first attackers breached barricades erected to protect the capitol, the department of home land security said there are no major incidents of illegal activity at this time, referring to an update the service had just received from dhs's national operations center. explain. >> when i saw this document, sometimes you look at a piece of paper and you go what! that's what i did when i saw this e-mail. the dhs's national operations center exists because of 9/11. it exists as a hub so that everyone throughout the federal government can know what's going on the there's a crazy violent attack on the country, like perhaps the crazy violent attack that happened on january 6th. the big question is where was dhs on january 4th, 5th and the morning of january 6th? why wasn't this massive department set up to protect our homeland from major threats playing a role in protecting americans from the major threat that this country faced that day? i think part of the answer to that without question is that during the trump administration, the trump white house and senior trump political officials at dhs went out of their way to keep their subordinates from increasing the focus that department wanted to put on domestic terrorism. there was a clear message from the top down that domestic terrorism was not something that the department of home land security was going to be working on. this e-mail that we've reported on is just sort of the perfect ugly microcosm of what happened when there's four years of absolute neglect to a major threat. you get stupid e-mails like that sent out as protesters are slamming through barricades and as the chief of the u.s. capitol police is begging for the national guard to come and help. it captures the extent to which dhs over four years during the trump administration failed to take seriously the threat that domestic terrorism poses. >> tim, i think we can be blunter because we know some of these people and some of them have come out and you've been part of the effort to help donald trump be held accountable. people like miles taylor who were part of that department, people like elizabeth newman, people like brian murphy, the whistleblower who's our next guest. do you think the train has left the station in a way that it can't simply be reversed by new leadership? >> just to be blunt, i think chad wolf, who was the political hack running dhs at the time was sympathetic to at minimum the protesters who were there at the mall on january 6th. the dhs after miles left, after elizabeth left and blew the whistle and the remaining decisionmakers at dhs were maga hacks. so they were sympathetic with what was happening on the day of january 6th. i don't know who sent that e-mail exactly, but we certainly do know who was at the top of dhs. as far as whether that can be fixed going forward, i think joe biden is not getting as many appointees through as he should be. we have a leadership now that wants to protect the homeland from domestic terrorists rather than leadership that wants to play footsie with domestic terrorist groups. >> if you read what's happening on social media among the domestic violence extremists who certainly traffic in the rhetoric, it's anti-afghan refugee, it's anti-immigrant, it's anti-covid restrictions. it's this sort of braid of toxic anti-government, anti-immigrant sentiment. it is all in line with the mainstream gop messaging and the messaging that you hear on right wing media. i just wonder how does law enforcement go about trying to untangle the stuff echoing what they hear from that strain of republicanism and that which could lead to violence? >> that's the challenge, nicole. i've worked with law enforcement, i've been a trainer for over 15 years with them. we're always trying to talk about domestic terrorism. the problem is when did they cross the threshold from protected free speech to violence? sometimes it's straightforward. when they yell "let's kill mike pence" that's pretty straightforward. you have to educate the workforce. you can't educate the workforce because much of what's being said is being said by those that approve their budget. i think moving forward i'm thrilled you have brian coming on next. there wasn't really anyone at the wheel that was left that could be responsible to dhs when it came to january 6th. it wasn't that people didn't pick up on it or report it. there just wasn't anyone there. that's what we've got to fix moving forward. >> thank you all. when we come back, the former department of home land security intelligence official who filed a report alleging he was forced to sensor and manipulate intelligence that made the twice-impeached ex-president look bad. lebron james speaks out about his decision to get vaccinated, but other star players are facing criticism for their decision to remain unvaccinated. that's making for a very messy start to the nba season. and so much losing. the ex-president loses a case meant to silence whiz one time aide omarosa. time aide omarosa ♪ ♪ mom! mom! every day can be extraordinary with rich, creamy, delicious fage total yogurt. one of my favorite supplements is qunol turmeric. turmeric helps with healthy joints every day can be extraordinary with rich, and inflammation support. 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[woof] i'm telling y'all there's no place like wayfair to make your home totally you. ooh! i want that. every day in business brings something new. so get the flexibility of the new mobile service designed for your small business. introducing comcast business mobile. you get the most reliable network with nationwide 5g included. and you can get unlimited data for just $30 per line per month when you get four lines or mix and match data options. available now for comcast business internet customers with no line-activation fees or term contract required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. the whole world watched the storm troopers of violent white supremacy act as the vanguard of a massive violent political insurrection against the government of the united states that smashed our windows, invaded our capitol, wounded and injured more than 140 capital police officers and metropolitan police department officers and left several dead. the most dangerous threat facing america today come from the forces that attacked our government on january 6th. >> that was democratic congressman jamie raskin pointing out the government's failure in handling what is now the biggest national security threat facing our country today. domestic extremism fuelled by disinformation and the disgraced ex-president's lies about the insurrection. federal agencies under donald trump down played right wing extremism in order to avoid embarrassing donald trump. as we reported earlier this week a career public servant and whistleblower is able to speak out now about the pressure he faced inside donald trump's dhs from his political appointees to bend the truth, hide the truth. brian murphy filed a whistleblower complaint last september alleging he was punished for refusing to manipulate intelligence on three politically sensitive issues, white nationalism, election interference by russia and the situation on the southern border. a spokesperson for the department of homeland security denied the allegations when the complaint was first revealed. joining us is the department of national security whistleblower brian murphy. it is a pleasure to get to talk to you. thank you for joining us today. >> thanks for having me. >> let's take these one at a time. i want to start with russia. there was a sense after the mueller investigation ended that donald trump acted, conducted himself in a more emboldened manner. but what's amazing about your complaint is the effort to suppress anything bad about russia seemed to intensify and especially as it pertained to the 2020 election. could you tell us what that was like and what exactly they didn't want to get out? >> so thanks for the question. i think what's important to add is a little context to the details and the nuances. i filed my first complaint in 2008 after i got to the department. the second one i filed was in march of 2019. by the time september of 2020 when i filed my third one, the pressure hit a tipping point. question you're asking is really important. it's got to be put in the context where there was pressure on a number of fronts to suppress intelligence. russia was probably the biggest of them as we get closer to the election, but it wasn't just russian information. it was all of those threats happening at the same time. >> so what happened to the information that you had? did it make its way to local law enforcement? did it die inside the intelligence community? did we sit on it? >> some we were able to get out and a lot of it we weren't. there's a couple of reasons for that. part of that was the structure. the second part of it was they didn't build on those parts of the intelligence communities that could have done a better job to combat the threats. russian disinformation, for example, we had virtually no technology to capture what the russians were doing and report on it at scale. that's one of the reasons why when i retired from dhs, i'm now fortunate to work for a company that works on disinformation at scale. we didn't have the resources. they were denied by officials. >> can you tell me what a day of the suppressing of the intel looked like? you had intel you collected from a variety of sources. you went to put it in an assessment and you gave it to who and what happened next? >> there was literally nobody collecting on russian disinformation. there was tremendous headwinds not to get anything out. every obstacle you could think of was put in the way. as we found it, we were able to put things down. initially because of sensitivities around, we could only put it out so far. so those that had the access to get it. moving forward in 2020, at that time we knew full well that putin had identified president trump as someone to denigrate the democratic candidates who were out there. trying to get that information out across the intelligence community and law enforcement, there were systemic barriers. people were intimidated. they knew that a target was going to be on their back. >> i want to read this from the complaint. in mid may 2020, mr. wolf instructed you to cease provide ing intelligence assessments and instead start reporting on interference activities by china and iran. mr. wolf stated these instructions specifically originated from white house national security advisor robert o'brien. we know a couple days before the election, mr. radcliff did just that, the head of d.n.i. what did you do when you were asked to report on election interference activities from china and iran and suppress the ones on russia? >> sure. they presented a small threat. there were others present at the department that heard the same thing at different times or when we were together. it's not just me that was hearing this from chad wolf, was that we were going to amplify on china and russia and exaggerate the threat they posd simply because they were more aggressive on trump. there was no comparison to the scale of the russian effort. i find that ludicrous, quite frankly. i do not believe that a rational professional would have reached a similar conclusion. that is political manipulation at its highest levels. >> was he lying? >> i don't know what's in his head. i can unequivocally tell you from the information that i saw over 25 plus years of dedicated service having access to the top tier intelligence this country has and leading into the election, unless something came in after i was relieved, there's just no way that stands the test of time. there's no agency or people that i know about that would agree with that statement. i know that statement got a lot of internal concerns expressed to them. i was listening to my good friend trent watts. intimidation by people that did not have the capacity of the job that they had from a political appointee perspective had seeped down pretty far into the ranks of government. it really was at the point where people couldn't get the truth out because of the acolytes that believed in the politics for a benefits of a certain person or category or whatever it is of politics versus doing the right things for the right reasons. >> i asked colonel vindman this question and i ask you this because i really want to know what people from inside the national security apparatus believed, because everything you describe -- and you're correct to put them back together. they are this toxic blend of disinformation and the russian disinformation and the enabling of white supremacy, but it feels like the disinformation side is winning. what do you think? >> absolutely. disinformation is not a threat where the adversary is intentional. this is not misinformation where somebody makes a mistake. this is an intentional effort by nation states and people within our own downtown shape a narrative to create polarization within our society. from the intelligence perspective, the threat of disinformation is here to stay and it's just getting worse. it affects businesses in ways i don't think they fully understand yet. i encourage the audience to look at the 2044 threat prediction by the director of national intelligence put out a couple of weeks ago, talks about the threat of disinformation and it's getting worse across the globe and it's going to continue to run in that direction unless we put the resources in place and take the technology that's out there and do something about it. >> can you put that threat in the context of the last threat we faced through the homeland that we really understood and that was the threat of foreign terrorism? is disinformation a threat along the same level as that? >> this is a slower-moving threat that's hard to realize. at least from al qaeda or isis, there's a clear enemy even though they're not always easy to find. domestic terrorism, you know, people break the law and you can see the violence. what we have with the disinformation threat is a much more subtle threat that is hard for people to generally initially grasp. once you kind of understand the threat, the resiliency, there are similar parallel to extremism out there and similar programs to how you counteract it. government needs to be given the tools and resources and money to invest in the technology that does exist to show what's happening at scale and build resources within our schools, in our communities so that people understand and be very careful about what they believe on the internet. >> brian murphy, it is great to get to talk to you. i hope it's a conversation we can continue. thank you. >> thanks for having me. when we come back, lebron james says he got over his skepticism and got the covid vaccine. but unvaccinated nba players are making things complicated as the league season begins. that story is next. league season begins that story is next it's where people meet people. where cultures and bonds are made between us. where we create things together. open each other's minds. raise each other's ambitions. and do together, what we can't do apart. this is space for dreams. loopnet. the most popular place to find a space. ♪ i'm a reporter for the new york times. if you just hold it like this. yeah. ♪ i love finding out things that other people don't want me to know. mm-hmm. [beep] i just wanted to say... ♪ find yourself in these situations and see who you are. and that's just part of the bargain. ♪ what happens when we welcome change? we can make emergency medicine possible at 40,000 feet. instead of burning our past for power, we can harness the energy of the tiny electron. we can create new ways to connect. rethinking how we communicate to be more inclusive than ever. with app, cloud and anywhere workspace solutions, vmware helps companies navigate change. faster. vmware. welcome change. so, you have diabetes, here are some easy rules. no sugar. no pizza. no foods you love. stressed? no stress. exercise. but no days off! easy, no? no. no. no. no. but with freestyle libre 14 day, you can take the mystery out of your diabetes. now you know. sir, do you know what you want to order? yes. freestyle libre 14 day. try it for free. by most metrics the nba is a covid vaccine success story. nine out of ten players are vaccinated, a figure far and away better than the general public. and a number of teams including the knicks and lakers are fully vaccinated or they will be when the season starts. that includes lebron james. at the nba's media day he revealed he was initially skeptical. >> after doing my research and things of that nature, i felt like it was best for not only me but for my family and my friend. that's why i decided to do it. >> it's a good thing for basketball, good thing for public health. there are other big stars maintaining public skepticism about the covid vaccine. some of them accused of spreading disinformation. as the league deals with those players, some major companies are tackling the larger issue at hand. youtube today announcing a broad crackdown not just on covid misinformation but on all vaccine misinformation including a total ban on content that falsely claims vaccines are dangerous or ineffective. thank you so much for being here. i have watched this as a basketball fan. i was really happy to see lebron james not just get vaccinated but say that he'd been vaccinated. but i wonder about the players who aren't vaccinated, who are going to have the sanction of not being able to play games in cities where there's a vaccine mandate. do they sit out a season? what happens? >> well, i mean, the nba said today that they would miss pay if, in fact, they refused to get vaccinated and can't play in cities where vaccination is required for you to participate in indoor activities. so that's the penalty they're going to have to pay. i have to say, nicole, as you pointed out at the beginning of the show, in most of the nba just like the nfl, nhl, wnba, most of the players, most of the athletes are, in fact, vaccinated. but unfortunately, you know, we are giving more oxygen, it seems to me, to those few players who, for whatever reasons, are not vaccinated. i would say to some of those players who in previous months in the aftermath of the george floyd murder and have cloaked themselves in slogans of the black lives matter movement and social justice causes in this country began to look at this issue as a social justice cause. because disproportionately it is the disadvantaged, less wealthy communities of people of color in this country who are not getting vaccinated at rates as high as everyone else, who are suffering the worst effects of covid in terms of hospitalizations, illness and death. so this is not, as lebron james said, a personal decision. this is, in fact, a public decision and public responsibility. this is, in fact, a social justice issue. >> well, look, i want to hear you say more because i think that is not going at them from a place of shaming them, but you're right. i mean, no league embraced their opportunity and their responsibility around social justice issues like the nba, no league. and their vaccine story is a success story. but the reason i think some oxygen is given to the ones who haven't been vaccinated is it's players like kyrie irving who -- he can't play a home game this year. so i wonder what you think the private conversations are with some that haven't been vaccinated around the point you're making. >> i don't think they've had that honest conversation. i mean, in a lot of ways and maybe even like you intellectually i am fatigued by this entire debate. >> amen. >> to hear lebron james say he's done his research and he's come to a conclusion, i'm glad to know he has a monthly subscription to drama magazine. this information has been in the public sphere for months now. and we know the history of vaccines in this country, you know, have almost eradicated horrible diseases like polio. for black athletes in particular to raise the specter of the tuskegee experiment, what is lost on them is the fact that that was an experiment where black men were intentionally infected with a disease and were not given a treatment. instead, the medical community stood back and watched to see what happened happen to them, killing over 100 people. this is a case where there is poison going around in our atmosphere and there is a vaccine available to protect you from it. so it would seem to me that you would want to take that to protect not just yourself but to protect all those around you. so i think that's a conversation that needs to be had and i think it does need to be put in social justice terms. >> i'm going to guess where you come down on this. kareem abdul-jabbar takes this tough love posture and says if they're not going to get vaccinated, the team should let them go. they're failing to live up to the responsibilities that come with celebrity. athletes are under no obligation to be spokespersons for the government, by this is a matter of public health. the hall of famer writes in a rolling stone e-mail,he is especially disappointed in athletes of color. by not encouraging their people to get the vaccine, they're contributing to these deaths. i'm also concerned how this perpetuates the stereotype of dumb jocks. i thought this was too harsh to read in this segment before you started talking, but it seems like he's giving voice to some of failings you might share. >> absolutely. it's been 90 years since the book called "the miseducation of the negro." a lot of black athletes who are hesitant or refusing to do vaccines are, in fact, miseducated on this particular issue. i wholeheartedly support the criticism and critique raised by kareem abdul-jabbar. as you stated at the beginning of the show, most everyone is on board with this. if you want to jeopardize your earnings in your career as a professional athlete by not taking this vaccine, then so be it. there are people working in industries all around this country right now who are facing that very same situation and are finding themselves, unfortunately, unemployed or employed within their industry in an entire other space simply because they won't step up to this very public responsibility. >> it's really fascinating and it's great to hear from you on this. we'll stay on this. i know you're an influential voice. i wonder if they'll hear some of this criticism and go ahead and get vaccinated. thank you so much for joining us today. when we come back, another big loss for the disgraced ex-president. this time from his attempt to silence a former aide that came crashing down on him that could have big implications for others. him that could have big implications for others the lasting cologne scent of old spice dynasty helps get you off your couch. and into the driver's seat. one of my favorite supplements is qunol turmeric. turmeric helps with healthy joints and inflammation support. unlike regular turmeric supplements qunol's superior absorption helps me get the full benefits of turmeric. the brand i trust is qunol. twice-impeached and disgraced ex-president donald trump has suffered another legal loss. a case has been tossed out, in which he claims that omarosa violated an nda. the arbitrator deemed it invalid because the nda was too big to be enforced. the strategy seems to be failing in court, with a federal judge issuing a similar ruling. that leaves open the possibility that others that signed ndas with trump may question the validity of the agreements. harry, i remember reading about the white house counsel don mcgahn having white house staffers sign ndas. when you are a staffer, you take an oath to the constitution, and some were obviously not taking the oath earnestly. but are ndas for government employees even legal? >> yes, that's the short answer. but the problem with trump's, they were too trumpy. there's sort of a delightful storyline, he's getting his comeuppance because he wanted to be too controlling. it's the employment conditions, you have to go through a whole process to be able to say things. they can't completely muzzle you. but there's a large way in which they can. here, what happened, both the arbitrator and the court said for reason that would apply to anybody who signs these ndas, this is so broad as to be vague. there's no limitation of scope, no limitation of content. his confidential information includes 35 different categories, including whatever he wants to remain confidential. he wanted so much to fetter them, courts have said he's basically hoist by his own petard. that doesn't fly anymore under new york law, and it shouldn't be any different for anybody who had to sign these intrusive and expansive ndas. >> i talked to a former trump official today saying that this is in the news because he failed and it came to its conclusion. but what is your assessment that the ex-president and his kids are being crushed by the civil and legal endeavors they're engaged in now? >> i think there's a lot to it. he had this playbook, it didn't necessarily depend on the merits of the law, it depended on his ability to cow and frighten people on the other side. but now that he's in such disrepute, and people on the other side include, say, the department of justice, that won't back down, his normal playbook is failing him left and right. i think there's even a sense in which the courts are looking for reasons to give him his comeuppance. because his basic tactics have come out as a litigation serial abuser. exhaustion, hard to say. they've been doing it all their lives. but everywhere in the country, they're getting their lumps. and they've never had great law on their side. they've had will and money. but the force of that has now been eroded substantially. >> they had power, bullying, and intimidation taking place in full view. now, does this open the doors for others to talk? >> it does. there's both -- everything they said has to do with the nda itself, the boilerplate that he made them sign, including things like confidential information is anything i want to deem confidential. under new york law, that is just too vague and both an arbitrator and district court have said so. so plaintiffs may be taking the risk that other courts may say otherwise, but they would stand on strong ground. basically, this argument is in shreds, and it's because he went too far to try to control everything and everybody. and that was always against the law. so there's nothing special about this ruling for omarosa or the other plaintiff, and other people who signed this agreement should be able to have the benefit of the ruling. >> unbelievable plot twist. harry, thank you. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. k. my family encouraged: kindness, honesty and hard work. over time, i've come to add a fourth: be curious. be curious about the world around us, and then go. go with an open heart, and you will find inspiration anew. viking. exploring the world in comfort. 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"the beat with ari melber" starts right now. hi, ari. there's a deadline of midnight tomorrow to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. conservative democrats in the senate have been pumping the brakes on part of this package. and liberal leaders began pushing back this week, vowing to vote down anything they view as a watered-down plan that fails to include spending on infrastructure and the liberal safety net. the news tonight is a sign that that liberal push may have speaker pelosi delaying a critical vote that was planned for tomorrow. >> speaker pelosi, if progressives are still threatening to block this bill by the end of today, can you still move forward with the vote tomorrow? >> we take it one step