try to appeal to people being an obnoxious jerk is not the best way but there's been exceptions. there's something happening right now in this moment, particularly in the political right that's insentivizing cultivating nastiness as a political virtue. it's part of something broader and more broken with the way our political coalitions are functioning. ohio senate candidate jd vance tweeted dear jack, let trump back on. we need alec baldwin tweets. he's referencing the truly horrifying news that is inescapable today. he was involved in fatal shooting involving a prop gun while filming. he was handed a loaded weapon by an assistant director who indicated it was safe to use in the moments before the actor fatally shot cinematographer. baldwin killed the film's cinematographer cinematographer and wounded the director. thankfully, the direct tor is now out of the hospital. law enforcement is not charged anyone at this time. the statement baldwin says he is cooperating with investigator and quote my heart is broken for her husband, their son. this is just an unfathomablely terrible situation and, look, humans deal with terrible things in dark humor. j.d. is running for office. he wants to represents millions and be in the united states senate and the first thing he does, reading this news. there's a woman who is dead. family is grieving. her children, every one around her is grieving and all things happen, i'll write a gloating joke about it on twitter. won't that be funny. won't that trigger people. it's meant to trigger people like me. it's a weird thing when you think about it. he's not a morning shock jock going out of his way to trigger people. he thinks there's an appetite for it. he's right. he's correct. people want it. he's doing a very pathetic schitck. it's become a broader ethos on the right. i think a lot of them believe this. it's not real those concerns with equity or social justice it's a performative etiquette. they are vice signaling. it's weird. take a republican of florida. he signed onto the texas attorney general lawsuit to overturn the election shortly after he entered congress he introduced a racist birther bill requiring presidential candidates to provide a copy of their birth certificate. while railing against democrats and joe biden's plan on the house floor, he embraced another gross message. >> people are understandably frustrated. actually they are very angry. they are not going to sit back and take it much longer. instead of the bogus build back better plan and reconciliation plan, you know what they want. they want you to help put america back where you found it and leave it alone. let's go brandon. >> let's go brandon. might sound like bizarre ending. it's a right wing euphemism for joe biden. anyone watching could hear that's not what the crowd was cheering. he retweeted a video repeating the phrase at the astros game the other day. it's a dumb little troll. we're all grown ups here. one of the great things is you tell the president to f off. that's fine. who is this for? what's the audience here? says something about who they particularly, who is like really up there on like ability, what they think their audience wants to hear. stay with me. there's a connection vice signa. the right has convinced their base that they are basically being deceived by the entire structure of mainstream establishment american life. the media, science, public health. they have convinced them all those people are out to get conservatives. we reveal he expected to be indicted for lying to fbi about illegal donations to his campaign. >> i told them what i knew and what i understood. they have accused me of lying to them and are charging me with this. we're shocked. we're stunned. i feel so personally betrayed. we thought we were trying to help. >> now there's nothing wrong with skepticism of law enforcement. that's a central principle of good journalism is to be skeptical of law enforcement but you can see how useful it is when anybody that contradicts the conservative world view or that would seem to reflect poorly on a right wing politician can be discounted and given the metaphor cal finger. all of it is from the people who hate you and look down downand you want to tell them to go f themselves. that brings up to matt gaetz. he's a troll. he's a back bencher. he's a legacy case. the son of a prominent florida politician with an infamous mugshot from 2008. that's who he is. he's just a guy. he's a troll whose daddy was a politician. he wears all that as a badge of honor. he's being investigated for child sex trafficking. put those three words together and put it underneath a politician. child sex trafficking. federal authorities are looking into whether he broke the law by providing goods of services if exchange for sex with a child, a 17-year-old girl. investigators believe that an associate of gaetz, a former florida official connected with women online through websites meant to facilitate dates in exchange for gifts, fine dining and travel. gaetz denies he paid for sex or had sex with a minor. yesterday the new york times added the justice department added two top prosecutors to the case. the prosecutors want a public corruption investigator with expertise in child exploitation crimes and the other have been working on the florida base investigation for three months according to two people briefed on the matter. the times report that joe greenberg told authorities he saw mr. gaetz and others have sex with the underage girl. he saw him have sex with a child. greenburg made the same claim in letter he wrote while trying to get pardon from donald trump back in april. in any other universe, a member of congress facing an investigation, it's just investigation but a serious one of alleged sex trafficking of a minor is pretty serious stuff. it's serious stuff of a moral level and legal level. he thinks that the vice signaling impulse among his base is strong enough you can survive. the impulse to discount whatever all the pointed headed leads and the new york times and the fbi an what every one else says, the ability to make people believe that's all nonsense or maybe that it's true and they don't care because you're sticking your finger in the eye of them and that's the dangerous political super power that all of these people are desperate to develop. >> when ever you have a member of congress or a big time politician under investigation it's something that is serious, serious like this case, you are the case is aided and over seen by a prosecutor from washington. those investigators have a massive decision to make. that's a decision whether to charge gaetz with sex trafficking of a minor. the same thing as you were pointing out that joe greenberg has been charged with. that charge comes with the minimum. you are almost going to be spending ten years in prison. bringing charges against anyone is a very serious thing, obviously. doing it to a member of congress is even a bigger deal because of the perception of politics in that. a ten-year mandatory minimum is another level of seriousness in the entire thing. that is the decision that the garland justice department will have to make in the coming weeks and months. are they going to indict him on this massive charge which would almost certainly go to trial. >> yeah. just to be clear, the significance is that were this just an investigation of joe greenberg who we know is cooperating with prosecutors and was going to stop there, you wouldn't be getting public integrity prosecutors from d.c. on a case. tell me about what greenburg has said or what we know about the status of his cooperation. he is the key witness. >> the federal government had a massive amount of leverage against him. joe greenberg committed a bunch of different crimes. he took money. he committed fraud. there's a massive amount of time he could spend in prison. he plead guilty and his lawyer agreed to cooperation agreement that forced limb to tell the government everything he knew. he told the government as you had pointed out that he saw matt gaetz have sex with the 17-year-old girl. he was an eyewitness to that. in any type of investigation that involves sex and these very significant allegations, you are going to need as many witnesses as possible, as much evidence as possible. the government has not only received that testimony from joe greenberg but his lawyer has provided them with documentation that backs up greenberg's accounts whether it's venmo transactions he had with the women or that he had with matt gaetz or different hotel receipts. what the government will do is look at all this. they will look at the documentation. they will look at what joe greenberg says. they will look to see whether other witnesses back up joe greenberg's account and what type of witness would show greenberg be on the stand. >> just a final point here, it's also established like greenberg and gaetz are associates. this is not coming out of thin air. they knew each other. there's pictures of them. >> correct. he saw his way into that through people like matt gaetz and not just building a relationship but bringing matt along with the things he was doing. buying drugs. having these parties in hotel rooms. these are all ways ta joe greenberg was ingrashting himself with other republicans in florida state politics. that's how this relationship came together and how it leads to this point where the garland justice department will have to decide whether to indict one of donald trump's most vocal allies on capitol hill. someone who has gone to extreme lengths to embrace donald trump, his rhetoric and to advocate for him. >> michael, thank you very much. appreciate it. just one day after the house voted to hold steve bannon in contempt of congress, we can report the january 6th committee has gotten its first really high profile person to testify. the former doj official who helped plot a coup with donald trump nearly sending the country to the brink is expected to answer questions about his role in attempting to over turn the election. we'll talk about it with a member of the january 6th committee, next. machine mber of the january 6th committee, next. machin ♪girl, i don't know, i don't know,♪ ♪i don't know why i can't get enough of your love babe♪ ♪oh no, babe girl, if i could only make you see♪ ♪and make you understand♪ get a dozen double crunch shrimp for $1 with any steak entrée. only at applebee's. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. you could email an urgent question to lisa in marketing. and a follow up. and a “did you see my email?” text. orrrr... you could see her status in slack. and give lisa a break while you find someone online who can help. slack. where the future works. . donald trump has always wanted to be known as one of the world's most richest men even when he wasn't. the new york time documented the first public record that his exaggerations came in 1976. a few years out of college he boasted he was worth more than $200 million. years later it emerged that his 1976 taxable income had only been $24,594. a former reporter for the forbes 400, the annual ranking says back in 1984 trump called him while posing as his alter ego that the valuation was wrong. with the home runs, he should be called a billionaire. a former senior editor notes that trump used to endlessly lobby and bully staffers who assembled the list trying to get them to move his net worth number up. for trump being seen as rich is in many ways just as important as actually being rich. he's made lot of money convincing people he was incredibly wealthy and successful. remember that despite presiding over six chapter 11 bankruptcies he made many millions of dollars pretending to be a successful businessman on the apprentice. it was the one thing he was sort of good at. this year, though, trump's ability to capitalize on his rich man image has taken a bit hit. he fell off the richest list for the first time in 25 years and getting the cold shoulder from the business world as a new york time reports after decades of bankruptcy, loan defaults, business abuse and commercial failures not to mention a polarizing presidency that ended with a violent mob, he was shunned by much of corporate america. what is a former president to do when nobody will do business with him? especially when hesitate trying to launch a brand new social media platform he wants to monotize. he found wap to get access to a huge pool of cash by using a shell company work around. here to help explain is tim o' bryan. one of the few people that will have sign trump's financial records after arguing he was worth ten times less. trump lost and tim joins me now. tim, there's a thing called a spac that we have to understand to understand what has happened maybe first walk me through that. >> well always remember any time people with a lot of power, a lot of money have an acronym it's because they are trying to hide something that is simple in concept and potential scammy in an out come. it's a special purpose acquisition company. all it is is a way of raising money without having to do a lot of disclosure. historically, wall street has taken companies public on the premise that they are inviting outside investors to give them money to fund operations in exchange they are providing transparency. they are an operating history that would suggest the expertise that merits giving them your money as well as some financial outcomes in the financial statements. a proven financial track record as well. the ipo process, initial public offering are the way that small unknown companies go public. again, with the idea that they have to go through a rigorous vetting process before they come to you, the investor because they have bono fide that make them invest worthy. along comes the spac. it's a new name for an old thing on wall street. these used to be called reverse mergers. all that will are is a way for a company to become public and raise money from public investors without having to go through all those other steps of disclosure. showing what kind of operating success you've had. showing that you been profitable over a period of time. again, making you visibly trustworthy to get someone else's money. it's no accident that spacs have attracted people who don't want to go through that because they are looking for a work around. their track record this year has been bad. they have not performed well. they have big initial bursts and then over time when they have to prover their mettle, they can't do it. their returns have been sub par. >> this spac thing, my understanding some call blank check companies where the company goes public. you don't know what the company is. it's a vehicle, basically. >> just as we want to do something at some point in time, give us money and within two years, we'll do that. if we can't, we'll give you your money back. >> in this case you've got a spac that has now going to merge with the trump entities. it's a blank check company. >> when you give your money tow that spac, they have no operating history. when they say we have a company with the stuff inside that is investment worworthy, it should have an operating history and financials. the trump bringing that to the table? no. the spac was hilarious. it had all of this marketing hijinks in it. >> they're not actually merging with a business. it's like there's this great mattress maker we found. it's like, it's a dream. it's a marketing deck of like a future multi-facetted trump corporation. >> yeah. it's suspiciously crummy asset management or a scam is what they should call it. when people say trump has been a good businessman, what they are not defining is he is a tireless self-promoter. he will do anything to get his name out there and he's done a very good job of convincing people that somewhere behind that sizzle is steak. the reality is he's a serial bankruptcy artist. any time he's been asked to put his hapds on company and manage it well over a long period of time, he screws it up. time and again for decades. as you know and i know, running media companies is not easy. if he's going to use this money to start social media platform or some sort of a news site, it will require good management, hard work and imagination and hi lacks all three of those things. >> the stock went up on this sort of frenzy sort of buy the rumor, sell the deal thing. again, the proof in the pudding. >> it's been consistent with spacs all year. it's consistent with ipos. people love the buzz in the beginning and once the haze goes away and you say what have you done for me lately, can you really run a company? oh, you can't and then it tanks. >> i guess if you really want to make the bet here, you could just try to find some way to short this and see where it heads. >> i think we should pool our money and short it together. >> i don't think i'm allowed to do that. >> i'm not either. >> a short position is a thing ta exists for people that think a certain entity will not return a lot of money. thank you very much. >> thanks, chris. up next, a major player in trump's failed coup attempt is going to testify to congress and we'll talk to a member of the committee who will question him right after this. machine him right after this machin with extra hot sauce. tonight, i'll be eating salmon sushi with a japanese jiggly cheesecake. 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call the barnes firm now to find out. yoyou ght t beurprpris ci had no idea how muchw i wamy case was worth. c call the barnes firm to find out what your case could be worth. we will help get you the best result possible. ♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪ . if you get subpoenaed by a court or congress to come down and testify, you think you might have a am of approval for self-incrimination. you take all the questions starting with what is your name and address. when you get to a question where you night incriminate yourself as to bank robbery or insurrection or whatever might you say, i take the fifth amendment. i assert my privilege. at that point the committee has an option, will the committee accept that or say we will give you immunity. you have to testify but nothing you testify about will be used against you. >> they made it clear they are not messing around. if you refuse to testify, they will come after you. it's barely been 24 hours since the house voted to hold steve bannon in contempt asking the department of justice for criminal prosecution over his refusal to cooperate. now it seems another key witness has been shaken loose. tonight, cnn reporting a former department of justice official jeffrey clark will testify a week from today. now the reset the situation here, you may remember clark was subpoenaed last week. he's a lifelong republican lawyer who served both in private practice and the george w. bush doj. ultimately becoming acting assistant attorney general for the doj civil division at the very tail end of donald trump's term. that's a big job. that's up there in the upper echelon department. once trump lost the election, clark became one of the leading voices, if not the leading voice, pushing the department of justice to aid trump's attempt to over turn the election. he even reportedly plotted with trump himself to take acting attorney general's jeffrey rosen's job. clark met with trump personally after the election and urges the doj leadership to intervene in the georgia election. providing a letter ready for the attorney general signature. senator sheldon whitehouse mofz how important he is. >> he's the central person in this saga and at some point in the committee, before a grand jury, some place, his testimony is going to be obtained. >> congresswoman, a democrat of virginia is a member of the select committee. she joins me now. first, i want to ask if you're in a position to confirm will clark will be testifying a week from today? >> as you know, we issued a subpoena for mr. clark's testimony but as far as when and if particular witnesses testify, not going to comment on that. as senator whitehouse said, as the subpoena indicates he's definitely a person of interest who we think have information that's important for this investigation. >> there's a question now about the what happens next on the bannon situation which is the vote came out. there's a referral to the department of justice. what is your expectation about the timeline here in. >> we didn't waste any time after the timeline ran out on the subpoena, within a week we voted. the vote happened yesterday and the speaker confirmed that. that was taken over to the department of justice within hours and we expect that to move forward quickly. we're not messing around here. this is not the previous administration. with this investigation into the violent acts of january 6th, to stall the election result, this is important. we're not going to allow people to defy the subpoenas from congress. it's essential that we get information from them and i fully expect that the justice department will evaluate all the facts in the case and i'm hopeful they will move with speed in acting on the criminal contempt referral we have sent to them. >> there's also some news suggesting a fairly accelerated pace for briefing and hearing arguments in the lawsuit the former president has filed to attempt to stop the national archives from turning over those materials that are being sought. i'm curious if you're encouraged by the pace there because it does seem a big question is, whether the courts drag their feet or not. whether the courts understand the importance of reaching decisions on these issues quickly or not. >> what i would say is that the indication with the timeline we were given today is they fully understand that. they understand the importance of this investigation and just independent branch of government. every indication i have today is they are moving with utmost speed to address these issues and make sure that any case is brought before them that impact the work of the committee will be handled quickly and without delay. >> another key figure in this drama, as far as we know from public reporting and public appearances, is the law professor john eastman. a very interesting interview with him in which he attempts to wriggle out from under the sort of shameful weight of what he authored. he says his disagrees with some major points in the two page memo. anybody who thinks it's a viable strategy is crazy. he told the national review about part of it. i wonder if you anticipate eastman being someone you would be interested in speaking to as well? >> we are certainly interested in every one who has information about the events leading up to january 6th, the big lie and where that came from and this plot to pressure the vice president. to change the results and choose different electors. i think anyone who is familiar with the events surrounding this understand those memos, everything that he stated in that interview with the national review is something that is of utmost interest to the committee in this investigation. i did read that article and did find that he kind of tried to back step on things he put in writing. i found that quite interesting. >> i did too. that was also my reaction. thank you very much. still to come, senator mitt romney says he opposes joe biden's big bill because one trillion seconds ago neanderthals walked the earth. a little confusing. walked the . a little confusing they drove to safelite for a same-day repair. and with their insurance, it was no cost to them. >> woman: really? >> tech: that's service the way you need it. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ you get more with aarp medicare advantage plans from unitedhealthcare. like $0 copays on tier 1 and tier 2 prescription drugs. ♪ wow! ♪ ♪ uh-huh. ♪ $0 copays on primary care visits. ♪ wow! ♪ ♪ uh-huh. ♪ and with unitedhealthcare, you get access to medicare advantage's largest provider network. ♪ wow! ♪ ♪ uh-huh. ♪ most plans even have a $0 premium. so go ahead. take advantage now. ♪ wow! ♪ this is wealth. so go ahead. take advantage now. ♪ ♪ this is worth. that takes wealth. but this is worth. and that - that's actually worth more than you think. don't open that. wealth is important, and we can help you build it. but it's what you do with it, that makes life worth living. principal. for all it's worth. at heinz, every ketchup starts with our same tomatoes. but not every tomato ends in the same kind of heinz ketchup. because a bit of magic unfolds when there's a ketchup for everyone. ♪ (vo) subaru presents... becausthe underdogs.ic unfolds they may have lost an eye, or their hearing, or their youthful good looks. but there's a lot of things these remarkable dogs haven't lost... like their ability to lick, wag, and love with the best of them. join subaru in helping underdogs find a loving home and celebrate all dogs during our third annual national make a dog's day. cough cough sneeze sneeze... [ sneezing ] needs, plop plop fizz fizz. alka seltzer plus cold relief. dissolves quickly. instantly ready to start working. so you can bounce back fast with alka-seltzer plus. now available for fast sinus relief. we have covered dozens of stories about this divided country. chanting jews will not replace us to people protesting critical race theory in america's history of racism. a new documentary from executive producers brad pitt and henry louis gates junior called civil war examines is roots and divisions. >> we never had a racial reckoning. the problem started first immediately after the war. if you want north and south to get together and get along again, you don't talk about causes and consequences. you talk about the mutual valor on that battlefield. >> we look at southerners and how they try to twist the narrative put ourselves in the shoes and try to figure out why. >> no one on the civilian side, on the confederate presidency was ever forced to concede and repudiate what they believed. we allowed a group of people that waved an armed insurrection against their government to build statues to be heroes. we have never solved the core problem of the civil war. sdplp the peacock original film looks at race, heritage and geography shape our beliefs. tune in sunday at 10:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. n sunday at 10. eastern on msnbc and here. and here, too. it's here to help you save time and money and trips to the pharmacy. it's here to get you the medication you need when you need it. who knew it could be this easy? your new pharmacy is amazon pharmacy. ♪darling, i, i can't get enough of your love babe♪ ♪girl, i don't know, i don't know,♪ ♪i don't know why i can't get enough of your love babe♪ ♪oh no, babe girl, if i could only make you see♪ ♪and make you understand♪ get a dozen double crunch shrimp for $1 with any steak entrée. only at applebee's. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. ♪ ♪ wi you've never seene. anything quite like it. we've never created anything quite like it. the all-electric, all-mercedes eqs. you could be working with someone outside your company and wait for back and forth e-mail, or a call to be rescheduled for the third time. orrr... you could use slack. and work faster with everyone you work with, together in one place. slack. where the future works. mission control, we are go for launch. um, she's eating togeththe rocket.lace. ♪♪ lunchables! built to be eaten. when you hear, cough cough sneeze sneeze. [ sneezing ] it's time for, plop plop fizz fizz. alka seltzer plus cold relief. dissolves quickly. instantly ready to start working. so you can bounce back fast with alka-seltzer plus. if you smell gas, you're too close. leave the structure, call 911, keep people away, and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. ♪♪ democrats are in control of washington, which means right on cue it is time for republicans to start caring about the deficit again. the biden administration is currently negotiating with senate democrats over the cost of the spending bill, which is expected to contain provisions addressing everything from health care and child care to education and climate change. republicans are not too happy about the idea of the government spending money, at least in this particular case. spending money to materially improve the lives of regular people in the country. just listen to senator mitt romney outline his concerns. >> so you may be hearing about the president's social spending bill in washington. the amount of money he wants to spend is really an astronomical amount of money. to give you some perspective, a million seconds ago, a million seconds ago was just earlier this month. a billion seconds ago george hubert walker bush was president. a trillion seconds ago neander that wills were on the earth. a trillion seconds ago. a trillion is an extraordinarily large number. so whatever number the democrats come up with, one, two or three-and-a-half trillion, it is a heck of a lot of money on social spending. >> terrific. listen, communicating large numbers is hard, i know it firsthand. telling someone how long a trillion seconds is or expecting them to care how long ago knee neanderthals walked the earth, if you went back 7 billion seconds ago you would arrive at when the cavemen went extinct. see how useless it is a tool for explaining government spending? first of all, the money proposed here will be spent over the next ten years, not at once. romney leaves it out of his jurassic park math because it is less than what he and fellow republicans are happy to spend on other things. let's break it down for you. one dinosaur equals $1 trillion. while the details are being negotiated let's say for the sake of argument the cost would be $1.5 trillion over ten years. that would be less than the $1.9 trillion cost of the trump tax cuts over the same period of time, and every single senate republican supported those tax breaks primarily for the rich and for corporations. it is less. that $1.5 trillion price tag from the democrats that the senator seems so worried about is equal to what we're about to spend on national defense in just two years. in two years. just the pentagon budget. if you project that defense spending out over the same ten-year window, well, golly, that's a heck of a lot of dinosaurs. robert reish served as secretary of labor under president bill clinton. he is also the author of "the system, who rigged it, how we fix it." betsy stevenson served on barack obama's council of advisors and as chief of the labor department in his administration. let me start with the big picture. the big numbers are meaningless to anyone. no one can get their heads around them. i work with this all the time and a trillion is meaningless to me whether you tell me it was neanderthals or whatever. i think the goal is to scare people with big numbers but i don't know if it works. what do you think, robert? >> unfortunately, it is working a little bit this time around because, remember, the original number was going to be $3.5 trillion. that was biden's opening, and now it is getting squeezed down to the range of maybe $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion. i think that these numbers only have meaning in comparison with other things that we are trying to do. now, you compared it to national defense. over the next ten years, $8 trillion. now, compare $2 trillion to $8 trillion. >> right. >> you don't have to be an advanced mathematician to see that. if you look at the amount of trillions of dollars that the trump republican tax cuts represented, that was $2 trillion right there, chris. >> right. >> finally, finally if you are looking at how much billionaires, the 775 billionaires in america, actually how much they gained over the course of the pandemic, over the last year and a half, just in terms of their fortunes, 775 people, that was $2.1 trillion. >> wow. >> right there. i mean it is compared to everything else, the numbers that joe biden is talking about for fundamental -- it is fundamental things. child care and medicare, help for seniors, for vision and for hearing and for all kinds of other things, basic needs of america, well, it is more important -- excuse me for saying so -- than another 85 f-35 bombers. >> the other way to think about this, betsy, and the way i've been thinking about it is even at the $3.5 trillion, these numbers, it is essentially like a very small increase over ten years of total u.s. outlays to basically expand fundamental aspects of the american social safety net for elder care, child care, paid family leave, dental care for seniors, in ways that are not, you know, that other countries tend to have and we don't. and as a price tag, it is like an appreciably small amount of the total amount of spending. >> so i would agree with that. let me give you another way to scale it. you know, we passed social security in 1935 when our gdp was 20 times -- or gdp today is 20 times bigger than it was in 1935, yet in 1935 we said we are too rich of a country to let our seniors -- >> right. >> and it is now 2021. i am telling you we are too rich of a country to let our children starve. some of the important things in this bill are ensuring that we reduce child poverty through expanding the child tax credit and then making sure that families can make ends meet through basic safety net provisions and social supports that other developed countries have. as you said, like paid family leave, access to affordable child care. >> so here is a big question i want to get you both your takes on this. as we've watched the negotiations, you've got a bunch of stuff in the first initial package, $3.5 trillion. basically manchin and sinema basically the two of them alone hacking and hacking and hacking. there's a question how do you get down from 3.5 to 1.5. one way is you choose a smaller number of programs but you do them full tilt and make them permanent for the full budget window and the other is you keep all of the programs but pare them back in different ways. right now the keep as many programs as you can and pare them back, so instead of 12 weeks of family leave you get four weeks. instead of the child tax credit being extended for ten years you get it extended for one year. that's the approach that's being taken. some people think it is the wrong approach. robert and then betsy, tell me what you think. >> well, chris, having been in and around politics for the past 40 years, i can tell you it is better to try to get as much in as you possibly can with the hope that people actually like what you are doing politically and therefore will put pressure on politicians to extend it. that is the political rule. that's how we have done a lot of things. i suggest that congress do exactly the same. >> so you're on board with that and that's interesting to someone who is a veteran to some of this stuff. betsy, what do you think? >> you know, i think one of the things that frustrated me about the whole debate is we have focused on what is the dollar amount instead of what is the value and what are we getting. so i think it is most important that we make the investments for children early on so that we're expanding that child tax credit, that we're making the investments in early childhood education, universal preschool, because, you know, those lay a foundation that allows our system to work better, reducing inequality going forward, allowing kids to grow up and be able to be more productive as adults, pay more into the tax system, and we actually know from, you know, decades of studies that at the end of the day we end up raising more tax revenue from investing in kids. so those are investments that pay. i really want to see a lot of the emphasis there but, you know, i hear the argument that, you know, we've got to give people a taste of things. i have to admit it makes me cry a little bit to hear four weeks of paid leave but, you know, i guess we have to get a paid leave system going and then hopefully people will like it and they'll ask for more. >> yes. >> i saw -- i'm sorry. if i can just suggest. >> go ahead. >> i think that what the republicans and also sinema and manchin, what they would like more than anything else is for democrats to squabble about all of this. >> right. >> to say, oh, well, if you don't do environment -- i mean it is environment versus kids or this versus this. >> right. >> in fact, we don't have to make these decisions. should not make these decisions. we can afford it. we are the richest country in the world. >> yes. >> every other country is doing this. >> pakistan has 12 weeks i think of leave. i just saw it today. robert reish and betsy stevenson, thank you both. that is "all in" for this week. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening. >> good evening, chris. thanks, my friend. have a fantastic weekend. >> you too. thanks at home for being with us on a friday night. happy friday. here is the thing i do not get to say very often. today was a day full of good news when it comes to whether or not we're going to stay a democracy in our lifetimes. we have been covering this beat pretty relentlessly for the past several years now as you know. the republican party over the past several years, they have more and more overtly embraced donald trump's denunciation of elections, the promotion of false claims about elections