convolute convolute and. at this moment, there's one small and distinguished group of individuals focused only getting to the bottom of what led to the january 6th insurrection and perhaps more importantly, determining how to prevent a coup attempt like trump's from ever happening again. the january 6 committee is increasingly signaling that the focus is on the future. they're working to thwart efforts from trump and his allies to sow doubt about our elections. in a new piece of reporting, the atlantic makes clear the committee's work is a race against a ticking time bomb. the piece is forcing washington and the country to confront the reality that donald trump's next coup has already begun. that effort plays out in today's headlines in the form of a campaign by trump's allies to obstruct the bipartisan probe. donald trump's former chief of staff is now saying that he is no longer cooperating with the investigation. that is despite a subpoena forcing his testimony. leading to the news that broke in just the last hour that if he does not appear for a deposition tomorrow, he will be held in contempt. that's according to a new statement from bennie thompson and liz cheney. much like steve bannon, whose case was in court today as we continues to stare down a potential prison sentence for his refusal to comply with a subpoena. of course, the committee can walk and chew gum at the same time. working to hold insurrections accountable and the witnesses who have chosen to cooperate. folks like mike pence's former chief of staff who likely bore witness to that pressure campaign against his boss, the former vice president, to u serp the will of the american people. the focus on that pressure campaign by the committee becoming a stark reminder of the significance of that event and what donald trump was asking his vice president to do that day. the chain of anti-democratic events that mark calls a dry run in 2024. a warning, quot even in defeat, trump has gained strength. after the polls close in november 2024. he no longer commands the executive branch which he tried and mostly failed to enlist in his first coup attempt. yet the balance of power shifting his way. trump has reconquered his power by setting its space on fire. trump has built the first american mass political movement in the past century that is ready to fight by any means necessary including bloodshed. for its cause. opponents of the coup that would certainly spell the demise of democracy as we know it, are not helpless though. at least for now though. they're not doing enough. on this, gelman writes quote, democrats, big and small d, are not behaving as if the threat is real. some of them, including president biden, have taken passing rhetorical notice, but their attention wanders. they are making a gree vous mistake. that mistake in that report is where we start today. former rnc chairman, michael steele is here. michael has launch add exploratory committee as he considers a run for governor of maryland. also joining us, msnbc political analyst, claire mccaskill and bart gelman, staff writer at the atlantic. bart, yesterday, i didn't want to embarrass you today, but i'll go ahead and do it. i said the sort of genre of journalism has a new standard bearer in you and this reporting. i wonder if we can put this piece of reporting in the frame of the election. so much of what you warned about and you quote people for that piece, all of it and more has come to pass. tell me about this moment now and what the future portends. >> the movement now is that we are in a place where republican operatives and conservatives and trump allies are analyzing everything that went wrong in the coup attempt last time. everything that thwarted trump. whether it was georgia, the secretary of state saying no, we will not find 12,000 more votes for trump than actually exist or whether it was court cases or legislatures. and they're going around methodically and finding ways to cure the defects as they see it, that prevented them from having the coup last time. so they're changing laws. they are, they're sort of whipping up a mass movement with false claims of election fraud and they are preparing to steal the election in a somewhat more respectable way by taking control of the structures and the institutions that officially have to make the decisions. >> bart, i had two thoughts. sort of the second time i went through this. one, imagine if donald trump led his party on a noble endeavor say to, i don't know, stop the spread of a deadly pandemic. and procured ventilators and rapid tests and vaccine supply with the same zeal with which their fixing all the flaws in the failed coup attempt. but that the other thing that is so striking is the democrats. do you think this is a reality they don't see? do you think this is a state by state by state fight they're not equipped to wage or what is your understanding of the democratic party's posture? >> there are exceptions and there are people working hard on this problem, but i have to say that hardly anyone is treating this as an emergency. we have no idea what to do when a presidential candidate loses anned refuses to concede, continues to claim victory. no one ever tried that before. trump did it loudly and persistently. and institutions didn't really know how to respond to that. and right now, we have a president in the white house who gave a great speech in july saying that election subversion and the republican maneuvers that i talk about here are the greatest threat to american democracy since the sieve war. it implies he's going to throw his power and authority and resources behind an effort to defend against this cataclysmic threat and he has not done that. presidents have lots to do. he has other priorities. he cares about infrastructure and social spending and climate change and all kinds of things. but protecting the life blood of our democracy is a fundamental interest that's being neglected. >> john heilemann brought our attention immediately at the top of this hour yesterday when the piece was just released to your reporting on political violence and i want to read some of that and probe you on what you discovered. you write this. what we know already and could not have known on january 6th is that the chaos on that day was integral to a plan. it lit his base on fire and sewed the seeds of discord for his followers to take it back including violence. and you look at all the polls and they don't do justice to the people who have been radicalized. my colleague has a new podcast out about one woman, a woman who died at the insurrection, but behind every person who's now facing criminal charges is a story of radicalization, but the only thread who runs through all of them is donald trump. talk about what his base is willing to do now. >> well, it's frightening. everything abnormal starts to seem normal in the trump era. let's start with the fact that 68% of all republicans believe that the election was stolen. that joe biden is an illegitimate president. 68%. so more than two-thirds of all republicans. it's a catastrophic effort. unprecedented in american history. we've had nothing like it before. the civil war, the confederates understood that lincoln won the election. they didn't claim otherwise. so trump has truly radicalized tens of millions of people. who genuinely believe that the election was stolen. the majority of republicans no and would -- knew that because the base is now so filled with angry passion about it and so misled. that it's unsafe for an elected republican to acknowledge biden as a legitimate president. >> because you have the distinction of having seen around the corner of where our election was heading, you take us around this corner that is somehow more harrowing. what is your sense of sort of pragmatic expectation for what can be done to take us off that path? is there anything? >> well, you know, i wish i had better answers to that than i do. i'm a journalist. it's lucky for you and your viewers that no one has entrusted me with big decisions about public policy. but certainly understanding the urgency by all of our institutions and by the president of the united states and by civil society, understanding that this really is an emergency is the beginning of an answer. you have to be sufficiently motivated to do something. joe biden is the president. he's been around the white house for a long time. he knows better than i do what a president does. if he sees an existential threat and needs to throw the full resources of his office against him. but also even down at the groosz roots level, republicans are running people for committee people and county election administrators and secretaries of state with an organization and passion and foundational big lie behind it that is not matched by democrats. we are not seeing grass roots efforts to staff the election machinery from bottom to top around the states and they're going to have to be good faith actors in those jobs as they always have been, but that are being pushed aside now by people who are committed to the idea that trump really won the last election and committed to the idea that they won't certify a democratic victory in the next one. >> bart, the contribution to this first draft of history is to me this reporting out of sort of the braid of toxicity. right? the political violence is not without a purpose. it sort of stands on the shoulders of the political operation, which is what you just described. stacking people in these jobs that were typically non-partisan to run the gears of our elections then the intimidation and the threat of political violence pushes out the good people and clears the way. the third piece is the radicalized base. it used to be that the result of an election was accepted by either party and we moved on. liz cheney seems to have focused ond this as the threat to our democracy that motivates her work on the 1/6 committee. what other than the committee is even aiming at unraveling that braid of toxic threats to democracy? >> the question mark is what the justice department is doing. if you have an effort to topple a free and fair election, to overturn the results that the people voted for and it goes unpunished, there is no consequences, then that's just an invitation to do it again. it turns the first time into practice for the second time and we don't know whether and to what extent the justice department is investigating the conspirators from, or president trump on down, who tried to overthrow the last election. we know there's some kind of open investigation in georgia under state law. about trump's effort to subvert the georgia vote count. there are other local investigations. the justice department, we wouldn't necessarily know it if it were happening. there are a lot of people who are impatient and wanting to know why we aren't hearing from merrick garland. there are clues such as the seizure of phones and other gas prices from rudy julian. i think part of the answer is going to have to be prosecution. >> claire, you and i have talked about that endlessly, about this, at least at this point in perception, that there is not accountability. i want to read what bart writes. the justice department and fbi are chasing down the foot soldiers, but no public sign against the men and women that sent them. an unpunished plot is practice for the next. >> bannon is as close as we've gotten to the control center of this. but giuliani is there. powell is there. the other people in the hotel room are there then at the end of the day, you've got to trump kids and trump. it was interesting that meadows got so upset that they had the nerve to subpoena his phone records. that should be expected when a group of people march on the capitol to reverse a free election. by the way, fraud free, according to donald trump's own administration. so it is going to be a big problem for, i mean one thing our country's always had is faith in the rule of law. we've always known it was frayed around the edges. we've known that the justice was not applied equally, depending on who you were and where you lived and how much money you had, but ultimately, we thought when somebody did something really bad, something really bad would happen to them. instead, this guy sitting at his golf resort picking out his cabinet secretaries for his next administration. >> this reporting really does cover everything and it does not ignore anything and that includes the racist element of the insurrection as sort of motivation and incentive structure. i want to read this. one statement earned overwhelming support among the 21 million committed insurrectionists almost two-thirds agreed that quote, african american people or hispanic people in our country will eventually are more rights than whites. the other way, those who believe in the great replacement theory were nearly four times as likely as those who did not support the removal of the president. that led experts to know they were generally dangerous. more than one in four said the country needed groups like the oath keepers and proud boys. all had easy access to the organizing power of the internet. this is not, michael steele, a politician who can be defeated. he was defeated. and not only did he not go away, but as bart reports out meticulously, he's in a much stronger position today than he was in november of 2020. what the does the country do now? >> i think the country has to come to grips with the reality that bart and his incredible reporting has put in front of them. this is a journey we've been on for a number of years now. this is something that we just woke up and 2017 and realized oh, okay, we're in a new space. this has been something that we've been battling against for quite some time but the difference is that we had men and women inside and outside of congress, particularly in congress, who understood what that battle was and they leaned into it. now you have men and women in congress who are full participants in the deconstruction and the destruction in the undermining, in the uplifting of the narrative. who give, you know, that salute to the proud boys, right? so that's the new reality that the country has to come to grips with. there are a couple of things, ways to look at the first 15 minutes of this conversation. that is one, you take to heart what bart has laid out in front of you. both in the media and in the public. because these are the two players that are going to determine what happens next. at the end of the day. how you tell this story not in the future, but right now, not worried about how history's going to reposition the players on the chess board. but in fact, acknowledging where those players are and what those players are doing and reporting honestly about that and calling out the crap that is filling the air waves and sinews of our public discourse. and the people of this country asking themselves honestly, do you want more of this? because you're about to put men and women in charge in the united states congress in 2022 who will give you that with a ugly cherry on top. if you think, if you think you don't like a nancy pelosi as speaker, wait until you embrace kevin mccarthy or better yet, jim jordan, who is likely more in line to be the speaker than mccarthy. what do you think jordan is going to bring to the governance of this country? what do you think that does for a senate under mcconnell's control? all of these questions become important for the country to ask when those leaders have not distanced themselves to donald trump. they've leaned into him. as it was just said, he's sitting in mar-a-lago filling out his cabinet form for the next election. he's not worried about anything that we're talking about. because donald trump has always believed i'm going to do it until you stop me and no one has stopped him. and that's why we are where we are. and it's going to be up to those two players, the press and the people, to decide just how much more of this crap we're going to tolerate. we're going to take this country and move it forward. we're going to move off this proud boy nonsense and recognize the racism that is driving a lot of this or we're going to lean into it with these other sycophantic leaders who have no gain between them. they buy into it. they sell the country out was there's a good drift on the back end. heck, maybe i could become the chief operating officer of trump's new media platform working with nunes. this is the mindset we're up against. >> brian, i want to give you the last work and ask about the letter that came out. it was about the atlantic's commitment to covering if this is what is to pass the demise of democracy. i'm familiar with some of your reporting. certainly about my old boss and everything that ensued after 9/11. what is this like, like being on the front line as a journalist covering the potential demise of democracy in our own country? >> i'm struggling with disbelief myself, which i think is actually central to the strategic problem that small d democrats have right now is that we just can't believe this is really happening. that deep down, it's hard to come to terms with the idea. that someone can steal an election for real and right now, peculiarly, republicans are much more worried about that than democrats are by a factor of two to one. republicans are convinced that the election has been stolen. that is nonsense, it has made up, imaginary. but the real thing could be coming down the pike in the next presidential election. >> it's an amazing piece of reporting. thank you so much for starting us off today. when we come back, a video summit between president biden and putin. u.s. president warning russia of escalating conflict with ukraine. the meeting has wrapped up. we'll look at where things stand. and the supreme court commission is ending today. the white house making no recommendation to reform the supreme court. is there any way forward as the court faces some of the most consequential decisions that could reshape this country? and later in the program, zoe lofgren joins us on the day's developments including the committee's warning to mark meadows about a possible contempt referral. all those stories and more when we continue after a quick break. don't go anywhere. e after a qui. don't go anywhere. ♪ ♪ ♪ (sha bop sha bop) ♪ ♪ are the stars out tonight? (sha bop sha bop) ♪ ♪ ♪ alexa, play our favorite song again. ok. ♪ i only have eyes for you ♪ want to save on your home internet? xfinity is proud to support ok. the emergency broadband benefit program. for a limited time, you may be eligible to qualify for a credit of up to $50 a month toward your internet service through this program. that's right! you could qualify for a credit of up to $50 a month toward your internet service and equipment. for even more value, switch to xfinity mobile, and you could pay as little as $15 a month for wireless. click, call, or visit a store to learn more. magic in a stick! boomstick trio. glo, glimmer and color. wonderful stick of moisture. the boomstick color, this stuff is super creamy. boom glimmer, bling for your face. i look like me, but i've got a glow. >> hello. good to see you again. last time -- it was at the g-20. >> could be his most important meeting with a world leader since taking office. joe biden met with putin today via video conference to discuss and hopefully to deescalate the growing conflict on the border of ukraine. tens of thousands of russian troops are amassing to possibly invade that country. in the call, president biden was reported to have issued a stark warning to putin, warning him that if he invades ukraine, they may be cut off. but according to the "new york times," some of his aides are doubtful there is a process -- of destabilizing the president's pro-western government in ukraine. joining us now, rick stengel, michael and claire are also with us. rick, i want to read sort of the background on what putin is up to to understand what choices are really before this president and this white house. times reports it is the kremlin masses troops near ukraine, it's signaling conviction. russia cares more about the fate of its southwestern neighbor than the west ever will. in article, putin and his associates have telegraphed a -- living in a failing state controlled by western forces determined to divide and conquer the post soviet world. i'm not going to read about the disinformation russia is implying because you quite literally wrote the book aout that, but tell me about the sort of challenge that this brewing conflict presents and what our options really are. >> well, it's a big challenge. i mean, just to note what you were talking about there, nicolle, russia has been united with ukraine for 500 years. there are deep, deep connections there. we have to acknowledge that and mentioned in the story that russia cares more about ukraine than the west does. of course that's true, but that doesn't mean they should violate the territorial integrity of an independent country, a country we want to lean more towards the west, that russia wants to make dependent on russia. the president doesn't have a big hand to play. i mean, he, he admirably was restrained and didn't suggest that we would militarily support ukraine. that would just be kind of an insane thing to do, but he did deliver the biggest warning, which is basically saying we will disconnect you, mr. putin, and your cronies and your whole oligarchy from the international financial system. that will hurt you in ways that will potentially unravel your own leadership. because remember, putin depends on those oligarchs around him and the way they depend on putin is for the billions of dollars that putin sends their way. if the u.s. disconnects them from the financial system, they're going to be hurt and putin's power will be shaken. that's most leverage we have. we don't have any military levage at all. when you look at sanctions policy and politics, they only work if the global community sanctions russia, right? if they can go and replace our business with iranian business deals, they're toothless. do we have the whole world sort of community standing with us or can russia address any damage we do through economic sanctions? >> well, it's complicated and putin gets that. i mean, i'll mention the one thing nobody really wants to talk about st the nordstrom pipeline. russia has this pipeline that goes around ukraine to germany. mrs. merkel begged biden to not support it. there are a couple of sanctions bills in congress now against russia for the pipeline. so russia has their own financial leverage. they can you know, withdraw oil and heating from europe this winter. there's a lot of stuff that they can do and our again, our hand is kind of limited. >> rick, is there a sort of contraction of the options available? is there a cumulative em boldening of putin from the last four years? is any american weakened by coming after trump? >> putin was watching your last segment. he reads the newspapers. he reads the polls. donald trump probably sends him his internal polls. putin is a kind of a checkers player. he believes in brinksmanship. he tests people. he's testing joe biden. he's looking at biden's polling. the midterms. the possibility that america will turn authoritarian and will have an authoritarian president in three more years. he's testing all of that. one of the things the white house said is that they're not sure that putin has made a discussion about this. i think that's right. i think he makings decisions in the moment based on how people react and that's why i think biden's strong call today, the fact that he didn't back down, that they said look, there are going to be real consequences for this, was positive. i just thought looking, i get the tweets from the russian foreign ministry. they waited three hours to do their readout from that call. that's very uncharacteristic for the russians. to me, maybe it was tougher than they thought it was going to be. >> claire, i follow some accounts that monitor russian media and the russian coverage of trump is almost like the rnc. the way they cover trump. the way they follow his every move. what do you make of sort of this new republican russian alliance as a geo political challenge for this white house? >> well, it's another norm busting. the republicans that i knew on the committee, yeah, and lindsey graham and tom cotton and all of them. marco rubio. they were all about making sure we had eyes on russia and that we were doing what we needed to do to hold putin and his human rights abuses in check. putin loves trump. for gosh sakes, trump said publicly to the camera that he believed this ex-kgb more than his own intelligence community, which has an extraordinary thing to have happen. it still is shocking to me that that happened and this man was remained as popular as he has remained with the republican base. so i do think richard's right, that the only hand we've really had to play is an economic one, but putin, what he's going to want to do so try to cause chaos to cause political problems for biden so that he can get his guy back in. because make no mistake, he wants trump back in in the worst way because he knows trump will always do what he wants. >> it is one of the fastest sort of tech tonic plates to have shifted in the republican party. john mccain used to call him a murderer and you're right. donald trump turned all the republicans into russian sycophants. rick, thank you so much for being part of this conversation. nice to see you, my friend. president biden once said that presidents come and go, but supreme court justices last for generations. now his commission laying out ways that that might change while roe versus wade hangs in the balance on life support. we'll discuss that next. balance. we'll discuss that nt.ex the snapshot app from progressive rewards you for driving safe and driving less. okay, what message did you hear this time? 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sleigh north because my job here is done. it's not magic that makes more holiday deliveries to homes in the us than anyone else, it's the hardworking people of the united states postal service. . if elected, i'll put together a bipartisan commission of constitutional scholars, democrats, republicans, liberal, conservative, and i will ask them to over 180 day, come back to me with recommendations as to how to reform the court system. because it's getting out of whack. the last thing we need to do is turn the supreme court into just a political football. whoever has the most votes gets whatever they want. presidents come and go. supreme court justices stay for generations. >> come and go. supreme court justices stay for generations. that was then candidate joe biden with a reminder of the enormous and legacy making power of a supreme court appointment. as he promised a commission to look into ways the country's highest court could be reformed. those comments were in the wake of the passing of ruth bader ginsburg and the confirmation of amy coney barrett. now the commission appointed by president biden has just voted to officially release its final report. it does not make any recommendations. it lays out a whole host of options on how to court could be reformed and how to implement those reforms. things like term limits for justices. it comes when the power and esteem of the court is in the slight with the majority of justices signaling it is potentially ready to overturn roe versus wade. let's bring in brian fallon, executive director of the progressive group. so, brian, when i saw this, you were the first person i wanted to talk to. your reaction. >> well, from my standpoint, the best thing that can be said about president's commission is that it's finally over because now it will force not just the biden white house, but democrats collectively to grapple with the question of what should be done about this court. if you are president biden, this served its purpose. he announced the formation of this commission. the closing to the campaign amid calls for expansion of the court in the aftermath of amy coney barrett's confirmation, he did not want to take a position on this issue. and so they set up a six-month timeline for this commission, which has basically produced a glorified book report, assessments of which had been happening in the court for years now. so there's really nothing new in this report. my hope here is that you know, one of the smartest, if not the smartest person in the united states of america in the democratic party when it comes to the combination of american politics is ron klain. this is a guy that's had a perspective on these issues. he was the top aide for joe biden and he was the point person for rbg and bill clinton's white house. he understands the value of judges more than anybody. he's the person responsible for joe biden's single minded commitment on getting lower court judges confirmed in his first year and i think he knows about what's afoot at the support and i hope he knows and the large biden administration knows they can't avoid this issue any longer in the time since his commission has been doing its work, we've seen polls showing historic disapproval in the supreme court. adding 50% of the public is pretty much evenly split on that question, with democrats overwhelmingly in support. justices like sotomayor talking about the stench by the supreme court and i don't think that the biden white house can pretend it didn't smell the odor anymore. they're going to have to take a position now. >> obviously my time in politics was spent on the other side of the aisle. sometimes regrettably. the way i view in, and please tell me if i'm wrong, if i have this wrong. is that democrats look at this as sort of like a political hot potato. we don't want to be for court reform. i think the fact that six of the sitting justices have given speeches and publicly talked about how oh, we're not political. their thin skin is showing and i think justice sotomayor talking about the stench of the court, it is over. the court is now, they've dropped 22% in public approval since 2001. right after bush beat gore. 20% more popular than they are today. roe versus wade enjoys the support of a majority of republicans. why is it in an offensive in why don't democrats view it as a political opportunity to champion not court reform because the balance is wrong. roe was decided i believe also by a conservative majority, but they weren't political actors. they were evaluating the constitution. who tells that story and why isn't that viewed adds a political opportunity? >> again, if you're the biden white house, he came into office looking at this from the perspective of hey, number one, we have to get covid under control. we have to pass a covid relief package. which they did. then they're saying we've got to pass the infrastructure bill, build back better. we've got to show a focus on economic issues to show the public being responsive to the main reasons we feel we got elected then they have to vote for a voting rights issue which they haven't turned to yet. so they've had a lot of irons in the fire. to some extent, i don't blame them for saying let's have to commission while we deal with all these other forest fires that are raging and maybe while we give this issue some time to play out, circumstances will ripen so we're back to address this by the time the commission finishes its work. my belief is that those political circumstances have ripened. in the time since the commission's been doing its work, you've had bills introduced in the house and senate that are garnering more co-sponsors. you're going to have a cry that arises among the public in june -- by not just upholding the mississippi abortion ban, but overturning roe outright. and keep in mind the other big ticket cases could force states like new york to allow texans with concealed carry permits to walk through sometimes square with weapons. a there's a chance they might take up a case on affirmative action. all these constituencies and members of the public that care about climate change and gun safety that are going to be animated by this. >> this is so important. i didn't get a chance to ask michael steele, but i'm going to put you on the spot on live tv to come back tomorrow. i have an egg timer saying we have to go. thank you for spending time with us today. president biden and the first lady visiting the world war ii memorial. two congressman also marking the day -- a bill that would restore benefits to black service members who were denied them after serving their country. one of those lawmakers is our next guest. don't go anywhere. is our next guest don't go anywhere. ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ feel stuck with student loan debt? move to sofi and feel what it's like to get your money right. ♪ ♪ move your student loan debt to sofi— you could save with low rates and no fees. 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members who were denied them after serving their country during world war ii. they write, quote, after the japanese attack on pearl harbor, 1.2 million black servicemen and women answered the call to defend our country and to protect democracy abroad. they believed in america's promise and they believed their commitment to the country they loved would pay off, but when they returned home, much of that promise was denied to them. joining us now is congressman seth moulton of massachusetts, a former marine corps officer as well as a member of the house armed services committee. the piece goes on to say, thousands of black soldiers watched as returning white soldiers enjoyed the full benefits of the g.i. bill, at the same time, discriminatory policies and prejudiced state and local officials barred black families from fully accessing those same benefits. our generation did not commit this wrong but we should be committed to making it right. tell me there isn't anyone who objects to this piece of legislation. >> it's such common sense, nicole. i mean, the g.i. bill has been called the most amazing piece of legislation ever, the most successful piece ever. it returns $7 for every $1 invested by the american taxpayer. these veterans came home and built the american century, built the middle class. on this day, december 7th, when we mark the beginning of world war ii, we should also remember how it ended and how america took care of all these veterans when they came home with an exception. and most people don't know, even myself, someone who benefitted from the g.i. bill, i certainly wouldn't be here as a member of congress without what the g.i. bill did for me. i had no idea that thousands -- hundreds of thousands of black veterans were left out. were left behind. and it's high time we fixed this injustice. that's why i wrote the bill. >> where does it stand? i mean, how do we -- i mean, is there a lack of support or is there a lack of attention? where does it stand? >> well, there's a lack of attention because, like i said, most people just don't even know that this happened, but everybody that i have told this about, i mean, it was a marine on my staff, mike devin, who came to me just a year ago and said, did you know? and i said, no. we have got to fix this. whenever i tell people about this, they're shocked. they're appalled. and they want to fix it. the beauty of the g.i. bill is it didn't just reward veterans. it built generational wealth because you know that if you go to college, your kids are much more likely to go to college. if you own a home, your kids are much more likely to own homes. so, what this bill does is it restores benefits to the descendants, the direct descendant of world war ii veterans because of course, sadly, most of these black world war ii veterans died before they ever realized the benefits that they were owed by the u.s. government. >> what are your thoughts on a day like today when, you know, we remember the horrors of what this day means, 80 years ago. but we don't -- like you said, a lot of people don't even know about what you're trying to do because the political arena is full of so much garbage. >> well, on the one hand, i'm very proud to be in a country that does, by and large, value its veterans, and i think that the way i was treated after coming home from four tours in iraq, which was very well, was in many ways built on the backs of so many vietnam veterans who were treated poorly, but we've learned that lesson. i think america now values veterans the way we did back in world war ii, but just saying that is not enough. we've got to continue investing in veterans. we've got to recognize them for their sacrifice that made all of this possible, and yeah, too often, this gets lost in the political junk that's going on across the street here, but at the same time, i know in americans' hearts, they believe in this. they believe in doing right by veterans, and they believe in fixing this injustice even if, like we said in the little op-ed, this may not be our generation that caused the injustice, but we can be the generation that fixes it. >> do you have bipartisan support? >> we just introduced the bill, so we don't have any support. i chose jim clyburn to be my first co-sponsor because he obviously is such an iconic leader in today's congress, but we're going to start the work tonight and tomorrow to get people on board on both sides of the aisle, because this absolutely is something that every american should want to support. >> okay, so, make me a promise. come back. keep me posted, and hopefully it's something that is sort of that rare bird that garners bipartisan support and is signed into law. we'll stay on it with your help. congressman seth moulton, thank you so much for spending time with us. >> thank you, nicole. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. tarts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. feel stuck with credit 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like homework, but it will help you and your family stay safe during an emergency. earn about covid-19, but it will help you and your family stay safe the more questions we have. the biggest question now, what's next? what will covid bring in six months, a year? if you're feeling anxious about the future, you're not alone. calhope offers free covid-19 emotional support. call 833-317-4673, or live chat at calhope.org today. how do i know that you're not a weirdo? ♪ confessing, yeah ♪ ♪ oh, i've been shaking ♪ ♪ i love it when you go crazy ♪ what are you doing? ♪ baby, there's nothing holdin' me back ♪ i knew you were a weirdo. ♪♪ the department still lacks an overall training infrastructure to meet the needs of the department. the level of intelligence gathering and expertise needed and an overall cultural change needed to move the department into a protective agency as opposed to a traditional police department. >> how many of your -- i think, now, around 104 recommendations have been implemented? >> out of the 104, we have 30. >> wow. hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. the aftershocks of january 6th still felt acutely in washington, d.c., especially by the u.s. capitol police who according to the man you just heard from, that was the force's inspector general, michael bolton, has seen about 200 officers leave the force since the insurrection, and he says it has still not done enough to improve its operations and training in the wake of the deadly riot. bolton voiced those assessments during a senate rules committee hearing earlier today, just one of the flurry of developments up on capitol hill today having to do with investigating january 6th. here's what else we're learning this hour. donald trump's former chief of staff, mark meadows, is reversing the call he made last week to cooperate with the 1/6 select committee, to which the panel responded just over an hour ago, saying, if meadows does not appear at his scheduled deposition, they will be left no choice but to advance contempt proceedings and recommend that the body in which he once served refer him for criminal prosecution. that comes as marc short, the former chief of staff to mike pence, is cooperating with the committee. short could be a very crucial witness as he was with the vice president on the day of the insurrection. him and folks like john eastman were hounding mike pence to get him to overturn the will of the american voters. today also marks the select committee's deadline for document production from those extremist organizations, the proud boys and the oath keepers, as well as their leaders as it tries to uncover more evidence about the planning that was under way ahead of the attack. and lastly, a federal judge ordered a trial date of july 18th for the criminal contempt case against trump ally, steve bannon, who refused to comply with the panel's subpoena. all these developments underscoring the urgent mission that rests in the hands of the members of the january 6th select committee. politico reports this. "right now, the january 6th panel is the only comprehensive investigation in washington that is probing how the government responded to an attack on one of its branches. republicans don't approve of the way speaker nancy pelosi is conducting the january 6th probe, but they have yet to announce any alternative investigation of their own. that leaves a serious burden on the shoulders of democrats as well as select panel republican representatives liz cheney and adam kinzinger. they have to beat the midterm clock with an inquiry that can result in significant findings and recommendations before the 2022 elections that are all but guaranteed to end with the gop majority and a shuttered effort." the latest developments into the january 6th investigation with the clock ticking is where we start this hour with one of the committee members, congresswoman zoe lofgren of california. i will just say, my personal opinion is that midterm history can be defied. i worked for a president in an unprecedented moment of angst for homeland security issues specifically in 2002 and that history was defied but how much does regardless of the midterm result, how much does the clock weigh on your work? >> we need to get an answer to this. i mean, we had a situation where the government itself came close to being overturned on january 6th. and we need answers. we need to make our best recommendations to keep that from happening again. and there's a lot of information that we are -- have already obtained, i mean, more than 30,000 documents over 275 witnesses and more coming in. but there's a lot to go through, and we're committed. and by the way, you know, it's a committee of democrats and republicans, but we're all pulling in the same direction here. it's not the way you see a lot of congressional committees where people are throwing bricks across the aisle. no. we are pulling together to get all the facts. >> and you -- it's not clear, always, from the outside, but it's clear that the mission of the investigation and the urgency to do what you just described is that unifying force. i want to focus on something you just said because i feel like from the outside, we focus so much on those witnesses who refuse to come in, the steve bannons and the mark meadows and we'll get to meadows in a second but 275 witnesses. i mean, you guys haven't subpoenaed people who don't know anything. you've subpoenaed the people who were closest to the ex-president, the people who ran his campaign and the people who gathered the insurrectionists in washington. marc short is a perfect example. we looked up and we remember that he was -- trump was so mad at him, he was banned from the white house the day after the insurrection. i know you can't talk about the evidence they're providing but can you characterize the helpfulness level on a scale of sort of 1 to 10 of the witnesses, the 275 who have come in? >> let me just say that a significant amount of very telling evidence has been accumulated. there's more that we're doing, but it is a significant case that has -- is developing, and the staff is working overtime, pulling all the pieces together and connecting the dots. now, all these witnesses are important, but no single witness has all of the information. so, i mean, just think about a text message. i mean, you send a text message. you have it because you sent it, but the recipient also has it, so you know, we're pulling things together. >> and i guess what you're saying without saying it is you don't need 100% of the witnesses, that you've got enough cooperation that whether meadows and bannon decides not to come in, you may have things on the other end of their communications? >> you know, mark meadows sent over thousands of documents. some were documenting his realtime communication as january 6th unfolded. he didn't assert some privilege about that. he sent it over to us. we'd like to ask him questions about it, and it's ridiculous that he is now having sent it to us, refusing to answer questions about it. and by the way, he's just published his book, you know, apparently. i haven't read it yet but from the reports, he relates conversations that he had with former president trump. he can do that for money, but he can't come in and tell the committee what he said? that's just not tenable. so, yes, we do need to hear from him. but he is not the only source of information. >> will the committee refer him to the house for criminal contempt? >> well, we're going to go ahead with this deposition tomorrow. i hope that he is getting good advice, because i'll tell him right now, his position is not supported by the law or the statutes. he needs to come in. if he defies the law, then i don't think we have a lot of choice but to refer this to the house to refer to the department of justice. >> the committee -- >> you know, i'd like to say something. >> please, please. >> i was listening to your prior segment on, you know, the anniversary of pearl harbor and it reminded me, the day after pearl harbor, my dad, my late dad, went down to volunteer to fight for the country, and it was a traumatic event for the united states, but fdr said, we have to take a critical look and investigate what happened on the failures at pearl harbor, because it was important for the country. we did the same thing after 9/11. what is wrong with these people who were in government that they don't want to uncover what happened on january 6th? where is their patriotism? what are they trying to hide? >> well, after -- i guess i would ask you, after interviewing 275 witnesses, what are the possibilities other than protecting donald trump? >> well, you know, one does suspect that, because in the case of many of these witnesses, their defiance of the law is pretty astounding. it's just -- it's not right. and it's not in keeping with our history as a patriotic country, and especially on this anniversary of pearl harbor, we ought to recall how lucky we are to be americans, and the history that came before us and not let our country down in this way. >> i wonder if i could just ask for your revaluations. you've put the investigation in this historical framework of one of these things is different, our response to pearl harbor, our response to 9/11, a horrific and tragic attack on our country. the attack on the capitol, thank god, the loss of life didn't rival either of those two tragedies, but it was an attack on the seat of government. and its intent was to overthrow the will of the voters. what is your sense of why patriotism doesn't trump tribalism in uncovering how that happened? >> well, for a lot of people, it does. i mean, i didn't want to have too broad a brush, because we had tremendous cooperation from a lot of people. but it is distressing. i mean, the mob came alarmingly close to overturning the election, and turning it over to a person who didn't win the vote, who was not elected. that's pretty serious. that's really, in some ways, as a constitutional matter, a more -- of more import than an attack from a foreign enemy. we need to make sure that that never happens again, and i'm grateful to the many, many witnesses that are stepping forward out of the sense of duty and love of their country to tell the truth, and it's very disappointing when some individuals who should come in and tell what they know refuse to do so, throwing forth bogus excuses. >> you've been so generation with your time. i have one more question. we've spent a lot of time in the last two days delving into this very well reported out cover story in the "atlantic" about the next coup and i know that chairman thompson and congresswoman cheney have made comments about the mission being as much investigating what happened but also preventing a future coup. how much does that reporting -- and i don't know if you've read the piece or not -- but how much does the future threat and the continued sort of me metastasizing of the big lie, how much does that weigh on you and drive the investigation? >> it's very concerning that a significant portion of the population was lied to and believed the lie. and you know, some of the people who attacked the capitol thought they were doing the right thing, that they were saving the country when, in fact, they were trying to overturn the government. what we want is a system that really is envisioned in our constitution where we, the people, choose our government. the constitution guarantees to each state a republican form of government, enshrines the right to vote in the constitution, so it's the voters who need to be protected, and they decide, not a partisan vote counting who doesn't count the votes, not a legislature who thinks that they can overturn the voters' decision. we need to really tighten up the legal system so that you can't abuse the american voters, and you know, we don't have all that legislation drafted yet, but the information we're getting is very helpful and informative as we think about what to propose. >> and the final report, the final investigation will include proposed legislative fixes to help prevent some of what we saw on january 6th in and around that date? >> i'm sure it will. >> congresswoman zoe lofgren who has a ton of things on her plate, thank you very much for starting us off this hour and all the day's headlines. joining our conversation, former republican congressman david jolly, national chairman of the serve america movement and carol leonnig, coauthor of "i alone can fix it." so, carol, i know that sort of been out there and i know liz cheney has talked about legislative fix, but this commission is, it would appear, they have more people that are cooperating than aren't, and perhaps those of us who cover them -- i'm talking about myself, not you guys -- spend too much time talking about the two and not the 275 witnesses who have willingly walked in and told them everything, and even mark meadows, she said, has given the committee thousands of documents. and when you -- looking at documents and you're looking at the way we all communicate, you don't need both people to show you the text. if you've got a text chain, you've got one person usually has both sides of that conversation. what is your sense of how much the committee has? >> well, i think congresswoman lofgren gave a good sort of hint-hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, there where she said that they are, you know, basically putting together a pretty frightening narrative, and they think they have a good idea of what happened. i mean, i'm sure there's still some holes, right? many of us are not able, not reporters or congress members, able to talk to some key people who are resisting conversing about these moments, at least in public. however, i think it's really important what you have just said about two ends of the telephone, you know, the old-fashioned wire and the cup. there are two ends of that. and mark meadows apparently used a private cell phone for a lot of public business, which already puts him on the hot seat at the moment for sort of coughing up those records because it's a violation of the records act, the presidential records act, to not document those. that's a whole other kettle of fish, but on the other end of all those personal cell phone calls and texts are people like marc short, alyssa, keith kellogg, all people who are cooperating with the investigation, and can say, well, when he called me, he said -- on this date, and i have the record of it here on my phone, when he called me on this date, here's what he said. that kind of contemporaneous corroboration with dates and times and electronic recording is essential. it also adds weight. if i'm a reporter or i'm a member of congress, and i'm investigating this matter, by the same sense of seriousness about the reality of this information that the person's relaying. >> yeah, you know, david jolly, it is a split screen day. you've got mark meadows reversing himself, and she called him out. he's written a book. he's not claiming executive privilege. he's written a book about the president's most private medical information. frankly, probably more trump's mad about is how weak and feeble he was as he suffered from covid. so, the idea that he's going to now claim executive privilege after turning over all these documents, for a time, at least, i thought he had a real attorney. i'm surprised that's the legal case he's mounting, but this is donald trump's former chief of staff, so i shouldn't be surprised. but on the other hand, marc short, and we should -- i mean, i'd love your thoughts about marc short. mike pence was the vessel through which donald trump sought to do the actual coup turn, right? he was the one that had to carry out the coup. donald trump, you know, harnessed the legal dim wits into the oval but pence had to do the deed, and pence didn't do it and donald trump blamed marc short. he blamed him so ferociously that he was banned from the white house after january 6th. he is now spilling everything to the 1/6 committee. how big a deal is that? >> look, it's a very big deal. clearly, from ms. lofgren's comments, they are very close to getting direct communication, direct knowledge affirmation regarding the former president of the united states, donald trump. and it's notable that the people who are now claiming privilege on his behalf, on the former president's behalf, are the ones most likely to have engaged in direct one-on-one communication with donald trump. short of that circle, marc short comes into that group. perhaps he was actually on a call that involved donald trump, but if not, he certainly was directly relayed information from the former president through mark meadows or through others, because of his confidence with mike pence, and importantly, marc short is a mike pence guy, not a donald trump guy. so, the fact that he is cooperating also reflects, nicole, as you know, marc short's also kind of a washington politics guy. this is not the end of the road for marc short. he's not likely a candidate that needs donald trump's approval in the years going forward. his cooperation means a lot, but we clearly are at the stage where those with direct knowledge of donald trump's actions and words that day are now covering up for him, and the question is, what are you covering up, and why? because even if you stand on that privilege claim, it doesn't mean you have to use it. even if you think the former president is afforded it, it doesn't mean you have to use it if you have knowledge about the attack on the capitol. >> carol leonnig, thank you for spending time with us. david sticks around. when we come back, there are new developments in the case of the michigan school shooting, including new leads in the investigation and more heart-wrenching tributes to those victims. we haven't heard action in washington to end the growing risk. coming up, we'll talk to two leaders who are trying to change that, fred guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the parkland school shooting, and senator chris murphy of connecticut. as stacey abrams hits the campaign trail, her republican opponents are turning on one another. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. "deadline white house" continues teafr a quick break. we're making the fagioli! ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ this looks great. awesome. alright. thank you! what... what recipe did you use? oh. my nonna's! she a good cook? -no. ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ your plain aspirin could be hurting your stomach. vazalore... is the first liquid-filled aspirin capsule clinically shown to cause fewer ulcers than plain aspirin. try new vazalore. aspirin made amazing! small businesses like yours make gift-giving possible. now, comcast business has an exclusive gift for you. introducing the gift of savings sale. for a limited time, ask how to get a great deal for your business. and get up to a $500 prepaid card with select bundles when you switch to the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses. or get started with internet and voice for $64.99 per month with a 2-year price guarantee. give your business the gift of savings today. comcast business. powering possibilities. it's just been one week since that deadly shooting at a school in oxford, michigan. yesterday, investigators questioned a man who gave the suspects' parents a place to stay after the shooting while they were on the run. the 65-year-old, through a lawyer, insists he had no clue that they were fugitived at the time. as for those parents who have both pleaded not guilty to four counts of involuntary manslaughter, a former neighbor tells the detroit free press that she once made an anonymous phone complaint to the state's children's protective services when the couple would leave their son home alone while they went out drinking at bars back in 2014 and 2015. their son would have been 8 or 9 years old at the time. meanwhile, the tributes for oxford high, the detroit pistons wore school t-shirts during their warm-ups after the detroit lions made a similar gesture on sunday. but let's pause for a second, take a break, because one could be forgiven for feeling deja vu right now. like we've been here before. we've had this conversation. investigators investigating, thoughts and prayers, tributes, right? there's that sinking feeling that within a matter of days, people like me might start to move on, right? resigned to the reality that very likely, nothing -- nothing will change. that the conversations surrounding control in america will fade again into the background, at least until we jump on the air to cover another tragic school shooting. until more parents are forced to mourn their children. and then, all of us, together, will do the same insane, sick thing over again. it's a shameful cycle of inaction. a frustration. a tragedy. shared today by congresswoman brenda lawrence, oxford, michigan, is part of her district. >> and every time we do this, we do a doggone moment of silence, which to me is just becoming insulting as we bury bodies in our children that we sent to school are being buried, and we have to have that discussion about gun safety in america. i don't want to take away your guns, but i want the lawmakers, my colleagues, to have the compassion and the political strength to say, instead of standing there and bow your head and send best wishes to the family, we've got to look at mental health, and we must understand that it is time. it's way past time. we've lost too many lives, and this issue of our children is heart wrenching. >> joining our conversation is fred guttenberg. his daughter, jamie, was killed in the parkland school shooting. he is the author of the book "find the helpers." senator chris murphy of connecticut is also here. he's pushed for legislative action on guns since the sandy hook elementary school shooting in 2012. david jolly is still here. senator, we're almost at the anniversary. the date is december 14th. my son turned one that day, and i unplugged the cable boxes for nine months afterwards. it is unbearable to me that that happened and we did nothing. i have played your floor speech from last wednesday multiple times. i'm going to do it one more time. >> this only happens in the united states of america. there's no other nation in the high-income world in which kids worry about being shot when they go to school. it happens here in america because we choose to let it happen. we're not unlucky. this is purposeful. this is a choice made by the united states senate. to sit on our hands and do nothing. while kids die. it doesn't even involve any political risk. the changes we're talking about in order to make our schools safe places, they're supported by the vast majority of americans, republicans and democrats. >> senator, we are not unlucky has haunted me since you said that. what happens now? >> so, i think we have to understand what we're doing here, and it's -- so, it's so amazing to be here with my friend, fred, who's a hero of mine, and i hope he'll agree that we're building a social change movement. i understand people want this change to happen immediately. i understand that some people look at what happened in sandy hook and parkland and think, well, if everything didn't change after that, it never will. that's not how politics works. we were operating at a massive power deficit in 2012. the nra had all the power, almost unlimited power. the anti-gun violence movement was barely existent so we're building a new movement right now. we're recruiting volunteers. we're raising money. maybe we're not more powerful than the gun lobby today but we've gotten the universal background checks bill further than ever before. it's passed by the house of representatives. there's a president who's willing to sign it. we have the majority of senators who will vote for it. we just don't have a super majority. we'll get there. but just like every other great social change movement, you've got to hit a lot of obstacles before you get to success from the minute that the country saw emmett till's open casket, it was over a decade before the first civil rights act was passed. i hope it doesn't take that long, but we have to be in this for the long haul. >> i know you're not unmoved by the fact that the long haul means our kids are at risk of getting shot in school. that's unacceptable to the majority of americans. so the long haul feels too long. so what do you say to people who don't want to wait for the long haul to come? >> listen, my children are the same age as yours. my youngest was one as well when sandy hook happened. and they go through active shooter drills every year in their public elementary and middle school. and that's terrifying, even if they, frankly, never have a gun pointed at them because there's trauma involved with just the fear of being shot at school. and so, no, i understand that we can't wait, and that's why there's multiple levels of action that are required here. we have passed dozens of state laws that have made communities safer. we have changed the practices of private sector companies and corporations to divest themselves from the irresponsible parts of the gun industry, so you know, you don't have to just sit back and wait for federal action. i'm going to press my colleagues every single day to get there. you can also go out and work in your local communities. you can work in the private sector to make change. we've been making a lot of that positive change over the course of the last ten years. >> where does the sickness come from with a christmas gift for a child was a gun, the child's instability was known to the school, and communicated to the parents and then two days later, republican elected official whose salary is drawn from the united states taxpayer sends out gun porn asking santa to bring ammo. how do we deal with the rot and the sickness around guns? i mean, cars kill people but you need a license, and if my 9-year-old drove my car, i'd go to jail. why is the gun obsession not just the right to have a gun, not just the right to have any gun you want, not just to the right to have as many of whatever gun you want, but the right to not keep it out of my unstable kid's hands? where does that sickness come from? >> yeah, i mean, there is a celebratory culture around guns in this nation that knows no parallel anywhere else in the world, and frankly, it looks very unfamiliar to the america just of 40 or 50 years ago. i think some of it is due to a complicated story about the metamorphosis of the republican party. the republican party has kind of lost any big ideas. the only idea they have left is that they want to destroy government, and the way they translate that often is by associating themselves with the ability of individuals to arm themselves against the government. i do think, though, there are some opportunities here, beyond things like universal background checks, in the wake of the michigan shooting, to your point, about responsible gun ownership. why not have a conversation about safe gun storage? why not do what connecticut did, which is require everybody that has kids in the house to lock up their guns? that's something that might be able to break through some of the partisan divide here and that may be an opportunity moving forward. even under -- even though we're going to have to concede for the time being there are going to be a lot of people with kids at home who own guns. let's make sure they do that responsibly. >> fred, the senator called you one of his heroes. i think a lot of us feel that way about you. for a lot of reasons. but one, turning to activism in your grief is something that every time you're on, i can't get my brain around, but when you hear about the long haul being what it's going to take to do something meaningful, to get something meaningful through the senate, how does that make you feel? >> it's too long. simply put. senator murphy is a friend of mine, and i think he knows, and i've told him this before, i consider him a hero. he and i have also had some really challenging phone calls over the need to break the filibuster. because i don't want to wait anymore. my brother in arms, manny oliver, is right now positioning himself every day outside the white house, trying to get attention, and the truth is, this president and this political climate is doing everything he can. there's $5 billion in build back better. there's executive actions. but we have a senate that refuses to protect the lives of those after they are born, and this is not rocket science. passing background checks should not be controversial. it's too long. i don't want to wait anymore. when my daughter was killed, there were approximately 300 weapons on the streets of america. now there's approximately 400 million. i think what i want to do is call on all of the families of gun violence, affected by gun violence, let's go to washington, d.c., and form a human chain around the capitol. let's do it around the senate. let's not let people out of the work until they pass background checks. i don't know what else to do. but waiting is too long. >> senator, you want to react to that? >> well, i want to pick out one thing that fred said, and listen, i don't disagree with him on the rules of the senate. the senate is fundamentally broken right now, and we have to get the senate back to operating once again in the best interests of the american people. let's remember that when the assault weapons ban passed in 1994, it wasn't filibustered. that was back when the filibuster was used for only really exceptional cases. that bill passed with, i think, 52 or 53 votes. but fred mentioned, in the build back better bill, $5 billion for community anti-gun violence initiatives. we do pay attention to these school shootings for good reason. but every single day, there are shootings happening in our low-income neighborhoods and if you go into those neighborhoods, they want stricter gun laws but also services to wrap around kids and give them a path out of constant conflict so if we pass the build back better bill, i'll tell you, there is going to be a positive downward trajectory on shootings in this country, so i agree with fred on the need to reform the senate but i also agree with him that there are things we can do, even if we don't pass background checks this year, that will make a difference. >> senator, will you join fred and all the families who have been victims of violence if they do what fred's talking about doing, coming to washington and surround the capitol? >> i will join them in whatever act of civil disobedience they want me to be a part of. i stood on the senate floor for 15 hours a few years ago demanding that my colleagues just simply hold votes on background checks, you know, for me, listen, i'm so lucky, both of my kids are still around. i can't imagine what fred and other families are going through, but this is a personal mission for me, because of my friendship and connection to all those families. i'm there for whatever they cook up. >> fred, you want the last word here? >> yeah, listen, the last piece of major gun safety legislation passed out of washington, d.c., was the brady background check bill, far too long ago. i've recently, actually, as i think you know, nicole, joined their pac as a senior advisor because ultimately, we have to solve this through elections. we have to get rid of those in washington, d.c., now who simply put do not care about our rights to life. you brought up the congressman, tommy massey, from kentucky. we can show the shooter who killed my daughter was inspired by photos like that and he's yet putting out photos right now, inspiring future killers. we need to stop this. we need to do it through elections. we need to do it through civil disobedience, but it's too long. we can't wait any longer for another piece of legislation. we have to, at a bare minimum, pass background checks and we have to do it this year. >> fred, i'm going to ask you to stick around. senator chris murphy, thank you very much for spending time with us and being part of this conversation. when we come back, it's a phrase we hear all the time. after a school shooting, right, there were warning signs. well, in the case of michigan, they were in abundance leading up to the shooting. so how do we do better, improve, recognize them, what can we do about them? we'll continue our conversation with fred guttenberg and david jolly after a quick break. don't go anywhere. nd david jolly after a quick break. don't go anywhere. ♪ red roses too ♪ ♪ i see them bloom ♪ ♪ for me and you ♪ ♪ and i think to myself ♪ ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ a rich life is about more than just money. that's why at vanguard, you're more than just an investor, you're an owner so you can build a future for those you love. vanguard. become an owner. at intra-cellular therapies, we're inspired by our circle. a circle that includes our researchers, driven by our award-winning science, who uncover new medicines to treat mental illness. it includes the compassionate healthcare professionals, the dedicated social workers, and the supportive peer counselors we work with to help improve - and even change - people's lives. moving from mental illness to mental wellness starts in our circle. this is intra-cellular therapies. one of my favorite supplements is qunol turmeric. turmeric helps with healthy joints starts in our circle. 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. to make my vision a reality my varilux progressive lenses provide seamlessly transition from near to far. with every detail in sharp focus. that's seeing no limits. varilux lenses by essilor. there is evidence to suggest that they purchased that weapon for their 15-year-old, bragged about it online, thought this was some joyous occasion, as a present, and in combination with mom's social media posts, son's social media posts, the gun was his, and he had free access to it. and then, the signs there, so -- such warning signs. the day before about the ammunition, mom's lack of concern. in fact, she seems to be encouraging that behavior, and then of course, that morning with the meeting where the drawing and the notes were found, it's just goes beyond any sort of mere negligence or mistake. it's criminal. >> it's criminal. that's oakland county, michigan, prosecutor karen mcdonald talking about all those warning signs leading up to last week's deadly school shooting. we're back with fred guttenberg and david jolly. fred, i mean, we've been talking since this happened, and so i know how you feel about this, that this is an important step, but it's still happening after the fact. it's still too late. it still didn't prevent the tragedy, didn't prevent parents from going through what you go through every day but i wonder what you think about the conversation that's been started about the parents being charged. >> listen, there was no choice. gun rights should equal gun responsibility, and when people aren't responsible, and in this case, clearly looks like broke the law, they should be held accountable. you know, i want to caution one thing. because we must have this conversation, and people must know, without a shadow of a doubt, that if you do anything to cause gun violence, you will be held accountable, but i don't want the conversation to move away from the reality that we so thoroughly armed america that the ability to stop gun violence, the responsibility, the accountability, now falls on schools, churches, businesses, rather than legislators to do the right thing, and so, i want to hold these parents accountable, but i want to more than that go after all the legislators who put us all in this position. >> so, david, he's invoked your former body in which you served. your thoughts? >> fred and i have had some very personal conversations, and i would say the entire country should embrace and elevate fred and senator murphy's tenacity, compassion and, and frankly their temperament and patience in the face of inaction. nicole, our nation is fundamentally failed to protect our children in a way that other nations haven't. and we have to ask the question, why? it's because of a failure of legislators, including myself when i had the opportunity to serve. we have higher rates of gun ownership in the united states than any developed country around the world, and yet we have a higher rate of firearm death here in the united states than any developed country around the world. if guns made us safer, we'd be the safest nation in the world. the reality is, what we need legislators to advance in the united states that have advanced elsewhere in other developed countries is a banning of weapons of war. universal and comprehensive background checks for every transaction, including families. a waiting period and a zero tolerance approach by law enforcement and prosecutors like we're seeing in michigan to go after everyone culpable in moments of gun violence, and i can't add to the narrative of fred or even senator murphy, who's been in the fight for a long time, but what i would say, nicole, having shared this opportunity with you and very dark chapters following shootings, i thought i did the best i could in congress. some considered me a moderate. the only republican on the background check bill, et cetera, et cetera. but i didn't do enough. and what i would say to my former colleagues who are still there today is, do something now while you still have a chance. while you still have power, while you still have a vote, listen to fred guttenberg, join senator murphy. i failed to do so every step of the way and i regret it, and so if you're serving now in the united states congress or the u.s. senate, do something now while you can before you leave and before you regret it. it is on us. we are the reason there is gun violence in the united states. this is a phenomenon unique to our culture here in america. it's on us to fix it. >> fred, i'll give you the last word. i always give you the last word. >> thank you. listen, i think you know, i filed a lot of lawsuits after my daughter was killed, and we're settling those lawsuits now, and they're all about accountability. because when people fail, we need to hold them accountable, but if we don't do anything to address why we keep ending up in this problem, which is, the legislation that has allowed us to go from 300 million to 400 million weapons just since my daughter was killed, then we are failing. and yes, we must call out the party that is failing our kids. it is right now the republican party who refuses to do anything about this. and nicole, i watch your segment yesterday to open the show, tying january 6th and violence. it all goes together. this stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. and we've got to get rid of these people before it's too late. >> fred, david, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. really important conversation. i'm really grateful to you both. when we come back, one of the biggest names in the democratic party is now facing the perfect storm of trump madness. the latest from the governor's race in georgia after a quick break. or's race in georgia after a quick break. ray loves vacations. but his diabetes never seemed to take one. everything felt like a 'no'. everything. but then ray went from no to know. with freestyle libre 2, now he knows his glucose levels when he needs to. and... when he wants to. so ray... can be ray. take the mystery out of your glucose levels, and lower your a1c. now you know. try it for free. visit freestylelibre.us bye mom. my helpers abound, i'll need you today. our sleigh is now ready, let's get on our way. a mountain of toys to fulfill many wishes. must be carried across all roads and all bridges. and when everyone is smiling and having their fun i can turn my sleigh north because my job here is done. it's not magic that makes more holiday deliveries to homes in the us than anyone else, it's the hardworking people of the united states postal service. 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>> it's going to be brutal, and the former senator's argument right now is that brian kemp quote/unquote caved, and he caved to stacey abrams and the democrats by agreeing to certain changes during the pandemic that made it easier for people to vote by mail. and by the way, brian kemp did not agree to that or stacey abrams didn't agree to that. they weren't part of that agreement, but that's the general argument he's trying to make. i never thought i would say this, but at this very moment, brian kemp, the first long life-long republican governor is not in the primary because of donald trump's influence in the race. the first public poll came out that shows kemp is deadlocked with david perdue, which reflects what i have been hearing from activists and officials since david perdue announced yesterday, that there is no clear front-runner. this race is up for grabs on the gop side. >> just so we understand, there was no fraud in georgia, right? so what trump asked kemp and raffensperger wasn't even about trump. it was about the voters of georgia. i mean, what is perdue's attack on kemp, that he wouldn't, what? >> yeah, perdue hasn't articulated exactly what he would want kemp to do. he's just trying to allege that kemp caved to democrats and to stacey abrams generally. he hasn't said explicitly that he would want to reverse the election, but he has said he wants more investigation. he wanted the special session of legislature to be called delve into what happened. and governor kemp said no, he objected to that because he feared endless litigation and a distraction from the run-offs. the senate run-offs going on at that very moment that decided the fate of the u.s. senate. >> is one of the lessons that there's no sort of halfway in? kemp and raffensperger bet on trump, but because they weren't willing to overturn the results of the thrice audited election in the state, perdue jumps into the race. what else can you take from this? >> i mean, that is the biggest takeaway. despite everything that brian kemp, brad raffensperger, david perdue did to try to placate the then president, it wasn't enough. i mean, even david perdue faced chants of fight for trump and stop the steal that drowned him out at one of those rallies amid the run-offs, and tens of thousands of republican reliable republican voters who cast ballots in november for donald trump and for david perdue didn't come back in january, helping to cost republicans his senate seat, just a few weeks later, because of all these false claims of election fraud and all that. >> that's some sick stuff. we'll stay on it. greg, thank you for your reporting. >> quick break for us. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. dashboard before we board... and you have thinkorswim mobile- -so i can finish analyzing the risk on this position. you two are all set. choose the app that fits your investing style. ♪♪ doesn't your family deserve the best? 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"the beat" with ari melber starts right now. >> hi, nicolle. i have to ask, i love what you just ran, and also shout out to yamiche, who we have worked with before and get to welcome back, which is great. but i love what you just played. how do you look at that when you say you have worked in a white house, there's healthy tension with the press. there's other times where you look at a reporter, and i bet even if it runs against some of what your political goal for the week was, you say, hey, they're doing their job, or they're good at this. do you ever look at it that way? because she is so clear and objective and strong in what she does. >> i mean, look, even the president i worked for would say that people have a hard time confronting a president. even staff walks in and they think, i'm going to give him a piece of my mind, and they walk in and it's -- even more so for a reporter covering the president of any party. it is structurally difficult. he's at a podium with a