>> thank you, mr. president. thank you, vice president harris, for protecting the people of this nation and for placing your trust in me to become the next director of the atf. >> thank you also deputy attorney general monaco for all that you and attorney general garland continue to do at doj to make our nation safer, and thank you, mia, for your incredible inspiration and courage not just here today but all over this nation. thank you. i also want to thank my incredible, supportive and often patient family who are here. my wonderful wife, carol, and my children, ally and david, please. >> if he's 16 years old, i want to draft him. >> is there an agent in the house? but seriously, most especially today i want to thank the men and women of the atf. i started -- >> you have been listening to the president's pick to lead the atf. of course president biden himself announcing a new federal crackdown on so-called ghost guns. these tough-to-track weapons, president biden announcing this initiative alongside key members of his administration. i want to bring in josh lederman who's in washington. also chuck rosenberg who formerly was acting administrator of the u.s. drug enforcement administration. josh, walk us through next steps as the president has laid out this plan and what you're hearing behind the scenes why this is so important to do at this moment. you heard the president reference and cast in emotional terms the personal stories of the people, some of whom are in that audience, who have lost loved ones to these kind of guns. >> yeah, that's right. the next steps will start with putting into place these final regulationing that president biden was talking about regarding ghost guns. making sure that people will need background checks to buy these kits. once you have these major components that you need to build a gun that's going to eventually look and feel and work like any normal gun thank you buy in a store, it has to have a serial number. the administration sorted through about a quarter million public comments on the regulation of that which is what a hot button issue this is. and the administration has to get their new nominee confirmed through the senate for the atf, something that white house officials are optimistic will be an easier job than it was with david shipman, who came from the gun control world, was seen more of an activist on this issue as opposed to the president's new nominee who is someone who comes from being a former u.s. attorney. he's familiar to law enforcement, has some experience with members of congress from having been confirmed before. now, as far as why the administration feels like they had to do this now, they have really been under increased pressure, hallie, from these gun violence groups who have said that president biden made a lot of big promises as a candidate about taking action on gun control, hasn't done a lot since. certainly has not made a major push legislatively in congress which is something the politics still don't seem to support. and so the white house want to show before the election that they are taking action where they can on this as they try to refocus people's attention after a month where we are focused so much on the war in ukraine, on the nominee and confirmation of justice jackson back to these other issues that are on voters' minds, including guns, including police reform, which is something else president bide entalked about today, making sure police have the resources they need to do their jobs and community policing as opposed to defund the police, which is something he says he does not support. the president is trying to lay down a marker on these issues even if he's able to get through the more sweeping steps like universal background checks which would require a consensus in congress that does not exist. >> you're talking about two pieces of the puzzle. there's this policy piece but there's also the political undercurrent to this which you explained. is the white house prepared for the opposition that these new rules are likely to get? >> absolutely they are, and they know there will be lawsuits forthcoming. if they haven't been filed already they will be imminently. jen psaki saying earlier today the white house is confident in its -- in the legal underpinnings of these rules. but this is one of those instances where even if it's not ultimately successful, the biden white house wants to get caught trying. they don't want anyone to say they didn't give it their best go. of course their answer to courts saying you can't do something like this with executive action would be, well, that's exactly why they want congress to do their job and pass more laws. >> josh, stand by if you can. if you have to go, i totally get it. chuck, let me go to you and take one piece of this which is your perception as to what concrete difference these new rules could make when it comes to fighting gun crime in this country. >> sure. look, hallie, it's not the complete solution but it's going to help and let me explain why. when a crime occurs and a gun is recovered, if it has a serial number on it, law enforcement learns a bunch of things. where the gun was made, where the gun was sold, who sold the gun, who bought the gun. those are leads. if you have a crime gun, you have leads and that helps you solve crimes. with unserialized weapons, with ghost guns, you don't have any of that. that doesn't mean you can't figure out who bought the gun, it's just a lot harder. and so the more serial numbers you have on weapons that are recovered on crime scenes, the easier it is to solve crimes. will it solve all the crimes? no, of course not. are there other ways that bad guys can unserialize weapons? sure, they do all the time. bad guys like the notion there aren't serial numbers on weapons. but the more numbers you have, the more leads you have. the more leads you have, the more crimes you can solve. >> as we talk about the other piece of this, which is as we came back on the air here outside the white house, the president's atf pick, the pick to leave the atf is speaking. i understand you know him personally. talk about the top priorities of this role. and i know you have some thoughts. for an agency that has rarely had confirmed permanent leaders at its helm. >> first, steve dettelbach is an experienced prosecutor, he served as a u.s. attorney. i know steve, i like steve and i trust steve. i think he's a fine choice to run atf. here's a caveat, hallie. atf only has about 2500 special agents, men and women who carry a badge and a gun. that makes him about 1/15 the size of the new york city police department. and so the solution to gun crime is not going to come solely from the atf or even solely from federal law enforcement. it comes from hundreds and thousands of law enforcement officers around the united states. is the atf a big and important job? yes. are they going to resolve gun crime by themselves? absolutely not. not even close. >> josh, what's the expectation for the confirmation process for dettelbach? >> now that we have a name out there, the white house will be looking very closely to see what the reaction is like from members of congress, particularly moderate democrats like joe manchin who have raised concerns in the past about atf nominees who they perceived to be, you know, too much -- too much in the vein of trying to restrict access to guns and limit people's gun rights. so if the white house sees that they have all democrats on board, this is someone that's likely to not get a whole lot of knee-jerk opposition, particularly from those members of congress that are most influenced by the nra, they may be able to move on this very quickly. if not, then it's going to take more time. but the white house knows their first nominee failed. they want to go into this being able to succeed on the second nominee, especially as these gun groups, these gun violence groups are really saying that it's inexcusable that this agency has not had a confirmed agency leader for so long. >> josh, chuck, thank you both for being with us. we turn now to the other big story of the afternoon and that of course is the war in ukraine. new from the pentagon just this afternoon, evidence that russia is trying to resupply and reinforce its troops in eastern ukraine in the donbas region. these satellite images show an 8-mile-long convoy heading that way with president zelenskyy warning of a new push by the russians. ukrainians in the east are getting on trains to head to safer parts of the country. parents in tears saying good-bye to their kids, trying to get them out of harm's way. on that newly appointed russian general known as the butch erp of syria, the pentagon is saying they expect russia to keep up their brutal tactics. rescuers desperately searching for any survivors trapped in these shelled builds. ali arouzi is there live, courtney kube is at the pentagon and jim townsend, former deputy secretary of state. ali, the new warnings that we are getting from u.s. defense officials and ukrainians who are left in the east scrambling to get out. >> that's right, hallie. we've seen them trying to scramble to get out the other day at the kramatorsk rail station and they got there. one of our local producers here knew somebody who had parents sent their 16-year-old child to that train station to get them to safety and unfortunately she was killed in that attack there. they are trying to get out but it's not safe to get out. every ukrainian you talk to here knows what's coming to the donbas region. they are very afraid. they have seen what's happened in mariupol, that cascading humanitarian disaster there. they feel that's what's going to happen in the donbas area. ukrainian intelligence is putting out as much information as you can get from them. they're telling us that they think that the russians are going to move now southeast towards a city called izium, which they captured from the ukrainians about a week ago and use that as a launching pad to get into a place called sloviansk. they'll then be able to encircle the donbas area and that's going to be a very, very big fight. it's a pivotal city to get that area and all the people here know what it's going to take to fight the russians. the ukrainians are saying we need much more advanced hardware to push the russians back. we need aircraft, we need tanks to fight them and they still haven't got that kind of hardware. you also listen to any ukrainian, they know the reputation of dvornikov, the new general, the ground commander here. they have seen what he's done in syria. those tactics have already been employed here in ukraine. you speak to people here now and they think those will just be done on a much broader canvas, much more ruthlessly on them to gain battlefield momentum. >> courtney, let me turn to you. you heard ali mention that new russian general. you've done a lot of reporting on that so-called butcher of syria. we heard from john kirby in the last bit. i want to play what mr. kirby had to say. watch. >> sadly, we can all expect those same brutal tactics, that same disregard for civilian life and civilian infrastructure will probably continue as they now focus in a more geographically confined area in the donbas. >> talk to us about that and the latest assessment we're getting in from the pentagon. >> yeah, that's right. so what the press secretary, john kirby, was talking about was the kinds of tactics that we saw, that this russian general and some people call him the butcher of syria, the things we saw him employ specifically in aleppo against civilians, there's a lot of concern that's the kind of tactics that he will then employ in ukraine. but the reality is as ali has been reporting and many reporters have been talking about, there has already been tremendous loss of life among ukrainian civilians and many have been suffering in bucha, in mariupol and some of these other places. so it's not really clear whether he can make the situation that much worse than what we've been seeing for the past 45 or so days. the other question is why exactly is russia employing this new general? there are some u.s. officials who believe it's an acknowledgement by the russian government that they have a problem on the ground, specifically with their command and control. what that means is their air forces, their ground forces are not talking to one another, not working together and not communicating and that is having a practical impact on how the russian impact is advancing or not advancing in many cases on the ground there in ukraine. now, what we have seen according to a senior defense official is the russian military that were arrayed around kyiv for many weeks that moved out from around that city up north into belarus, into russia, some of them have started to refit, to potentially restructure and to get set for the next phase of this offensive in this ongoing military campaign in ukraine. some of those russian military forces have started moving east. the belief is that they will move around towards the donbas area in the southeastern part of ukraine and then begin a new phase of this campaign. the concern with this new general, general dvornikov, and with this new effort in the southeastern part that ukrainian military, ukrainian civilians could have a very rough road ahead. that is because not just because with this new general, but this is a known area to the russian military. they fought there for eight years. it will be a much more concentrated offensive. there's a lot of concern about what we're going to see unfold in the coming weeks and days, hallie. >> courtney kube, thank you. jim, let me turn to you and if you can talk about the significance of what courtney has laid out with russia putting this new general in charge. >> well, courtney did a great job on that report. john kirby really laid it out as well. we're going to have to see just what he's going to do. they have had a command and control problem. you can see it in so many ways, the russians just failed over the past few weeks, whether it's leadership in terms of morale, whether it's logistics, whether it's tactics in the field. they have been -- they have been really short-sighted and lost a lot of their commanders. so with the so-called butcher of syria coming in, i think we have to focus on how good is he in terms of leading troops, how good is he in terms of massing the forces that they're going to need to pull off taking the donbas. he might be a butcher and done all that we've heard about in syria, and i'm certain he did, but to see how good he is as a military leader. how good will he be leading these russian forces, because they're going to need -- they're going to need a lot better leadership than they have had in the past. >> i also, jim, want to ask you about my colleague tom costello who has this exclusive reporting out on nightly news. he talked with a general on the u.s. space force about this push by russia to jam gps signals in ukraine as a battle. i want to play this. >> we routinely see people attempting to interfere with gps services and protect themselves from others using gps. >> in this case? >> in this case certainly the russians understand the value and importance of gps and trying to prevent others from using it. >> is there anything more we can do to fight that push by the russians? what's the effect of them doing the jamming of those gps satellites? >> well, we have seen them jam gps satellites for years now. the norwegians particularly have had to operate under gps jamming from the russians up in the high north. i think the finns have also have problems. this capability is well known and we have ways to combat it. we have electronic warfare that can work around jamming, such as what the russians are doing. but the key is we've got to make sure that ukraine has that kind of capability, whether it's in terms of satellite time, whether it's in terms of other things that they need to get around the jamming and to have alternative ways to communicate. that's some of the equipment. that's some of the reinforcement that ukraine needs right now. so it's more than arms and ammunition. it's sophisticated equipment as well and tactics, techniques to help them get around things. you can bet the russians will pour it on, whether it's gps jamming, whether it's cyber, the pure armor they're going to send through in a mass, artillery, they're going to turn it on. this is going to be a tough fight ahead. >> jim townsend, thank you for being with us and for your perspective. coming up this hour, the big u.s. city that is masking up yet again. the first to reinstate now an indoor mask mandate recently because of rising cases. plus, why elon musk is no longer joining twitter's board and what it all means for the future of the platform. we've got kara swisher in just a bit. we've got kara swisher in ja 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france participates in peace talks between russia and ukraine. le pen has said ukraine should withdraw. pakistan's prime minister is more friendly to the west than the previous leader. it comes after protests and mass resignations over who would lead the country. in covid headlines, philadelphia is bringing back its mask mandate starting next week. you will have to wear masks indoors in philly. we just found this out. to talk about that there's bring in dr. john torres. a bit of an uptick in cases. 43 hospitalized with covid. is the mandate warranted or is this overcaution on the part of philly officials? >> you know, i think they have gotten to the point they're saying we know what direction this is going to take and they have criteria. they have four levels they're talking about. one of the levels is the level 2, which is what they're calling this right now. level 2 basically says that you have increase of more than 50% of cases in the previous ten days and that's the criteria they're laying this on. our cases have increased more than 50%. we know they'll go up a little more. we want to protect the more vulnerable people. that was the tweet they put out, saying we want to protect those because even if they are vaccinated with this ba.2 subvariant, they can still get it and have issues from it if they're immunocompromised. if they're elderly with immune systems not as strong as the younger ones. but we're not going make vaccination a requirement. so they're doing this in a step-wise fashion. i think some will say they're being extra cautious and overly cautious, but i think they're doing the right amount of caution here, trying to get it under control, getting masks on in public places, seeing what direction it goes in and hopefully start bringing that down, flattening the curve and making sure the cases stay under control. >> we just had that map up, dr. john. what city do you think could be next on the list to start reconsidering newly relaxed restrictions, if you will? and at what point would you start thinking a little more seriously about the potential for a summer wave? >> right now we're looking at a repeat of the last couple of waves, including the delta wave and original omicron wave. we saw it start on the coast and move inland, particularly on the northeast coast. it would not surprise me if washington, d.c., followed this and possibly boston, new york city. the bigger cities where we're seeing these cases going up and then it start to happen across the country. i have started to put my mask back on only because i know what's coming, i know what's happening and these things lag a few days so i'm trying to protect myself and my family by doing that when i go out into public places. that's an option that we have and people can do that but i think you'll see more mandates happen as time goes on. >> do you think this has any impact as we look ahead to the lifting potentially of the federal transportation mandate, meaning the thing that says you have to wear a mask on a plane, et cetera, and in airports. that's due to come up april 18th. if you're a betting man, which way do you think that goes given the information we have currently? >> i don't bet much because every time i do, i lose money. but in this case i think i can take a bit of a stance, that's only a week from now. when that expires and they have to decide whether to extend it. i think they'll say we're not quite there yet but we might do it in the next month or two. if i was a betting person, i'd say they will extend it by a few weeks if not a month or two, hallie. >> we'll clip and save that piece of tape and play it back in a week and a half and see how it ages. thanks, dr. john. turning to news out of washington and that investigation into the january 6th insurrection and some interesting threads here today. you've got a member of the house select committee, congresswoman liz cheney, saying that the committee is absolutely clear that former president trump's actions surrounding the 6th were unlawful. that's after "new york times" reporting on sunday that the committee has the evidence to support a criminal referral but members of the panel are split on whether or not to do it. you heard cheney pushing back a little bit on that characterization. we'll talk about that in a second. she's reporting one heck of a fund-raising quarter, pulling in nearly $3 million in just the first months of 2022. she's been outraising her primary opponent banding by president trump by a landslide, bringing in ten times what she did in 2021. let me bring in leigh ann caldwell. let me start with this january 6th development from congresswoman cheney. she's also pretty clear that she would characterize it as an ongoing discussion and less an ongoing division about what to do as it relates to former president trump. explain that. >> yeah, you characterized it really well according to what my sources are saying. they're saying there's not a lot of discord on the committee, they just haven't made a decision yet on what they're going to do as far as sending a criminal referral to the department of justice regarding the former president. that is a really big decision that they have to make. let's unpack that a little bit. if you go back to the beginning of this committee, they have always said that their purpose is legislatively to ensure that something like january 6th never happens again and that they are not a criminal prosecution organization. they know that that is up to the department of justice. now, if they decide to actually send a referral to doj and then what if the department of justice doesn't act. there is some concern that it would completely undermine their investigation, which is also in part to inform the public of what is going -- what happened in the lead-up to january 6th and on that day. so these discussions are ongoing. i'm told there is not discord, they just have not yet come to an agreement yet and there's a lot of things they have to think about, hallie. >> leigh ann caldwell, thank you. still ahead, we're going inside former president trump's surprise select endorsement. and what you're paying for eggs and o.j. ahead of a new inflation report set to come out tomorrow. why they are warning it may only get worse. that's coming up. t may only get worse. that's coming up it's dr. scholl's time. our custom fit orthotics use foot mapping technology to give you personalized support, for all-day pain relief. find your relief in store or online. attention medicare beneficiaries, if you have or are eligible for medicaid, find your relief please listen closely. you may be eligible for a medicare advantage plan from wellcare with $0 or low plan premium. call now. we can answer your questions and help you enroll over the phone. wellcare provides access to essential benefits that go beyond original medicare such as dental, vision, hearing and prescription drug coverage with free home delivery. plus, 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little bit more for stuff at the grocery store. have you ever wondered why some things are more expensive than others? a new inflation report out tomorrow has analysts bracing for less than great news. but prices of stuff like wheat and veggie gone up. the cost of lettuce almost 8% in just the last year. eggs, oranges and pork have gone up a lot more. look at how much the price of bacon is up, almost $1.50 difference. for some of these products, the reason is a lot more complicated. kristina, good to see you. you called this a black swan event. >> black swan is unpredictable events. you had the u.n.'s food price index that soared 13% and that's the highest we've seen since the 1990s. of course you've got russia and ukraine that's largely to blame, especially for wheat prices. but there's so many other black swan events plaguing your dinner plate. take, for example, a hog disease outbreak that is shrinking herds in mexico. that's forcing mexico to turn to the united states for their pork supplies and that's driving up prices, like you mentioned with bacon. in january and february alone exports to mexico climbed 33% year over year. and then you've got bird flu that's sweeping the nation in the united states forcing american farmers to kill millions of hens. when they're killing the hens, they're slashing the supply of eggs and that drives up the weekly prices, which right now is climbing 44% for a dozen large eggs compared to last year. keep in mind you've got the easter holiday just around the corner so that's going to further add to demand. maybe you're thirsty. the u.s. department of agriculture said this year's citrus crop was expected to be the smallest in more than 50 years. frozen orange juice prices were up 17% in february compared to last year. why? an invasive insect disease that damaged a lot of florida orange groves across the county, and then you had prices so far up 16%. we're seeing also today oats surging to their highest level ever, dating back to 1973. and that's because of a drought in north dakota and certain parts of canada. so it sounds really bad and the usda is warning companies will probably move ahead with second and third rounds of price hikes to keep up with this inflation. >> such an example of how interconnected all of it is. as you look ahead to tomorrow morning's inflation report, what's the one thing you're watching for? it seems like from the perspective of where i'm sitting here in washington, you will likely see the white house look to frame this by pointing the finger at vladimir putin and this war in ukraine. >> right. they most likely would. but the inflation problem with a lot of these food products has been a longer term story, right. we haven't necessarily seen it with fruits and vegetables, but meat has been climbing, meat prices. we've been talking about this quite some time. bacon, it's not just according to ukraine. yes, you need the wheat and crops in order to feed the animals but this is a longer term problem and that's a concern for a lot of people going forward. how are we going to taper this down. how are we going to stop eating into our monthly budgets. this is definitely going to be a debate for tomorrow. we're not expecting the prices to decrease, that's for sure, especially with tomorrow's report. >> kristina, thank you very much. appreciate you joining us from cnbc headquarters. >> thank you. next up, what former president trump's dr. oz endorsement means for that. we'll go inside pennsylvania politics with one of the people who knows it best, coming up. h n who knows it best, coming up what goes on it... usually. ♪♪ in it... mostly. even what gets near your body. please please please take that outside. here to meet those high standards is the walgreens health and wellness brand. over 2000 products. rigorously tested. walgreens pharmacist recommended... and particularly kind to your wallet. ♪♪ i booked our hotel on kayak. it's flexible if we need to cancel. cancel. i 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♪ ♪ can a company make the planet a better place? what if it's a company of people working beside friends and neighbors? pursuing 100% renewable energy in our operations. aiming to protect, manage or restore millions of acres of land. and offering you more sustainably sourced products so you can become part of the change. so, can a company make the planet a better place? we're working on it, every day. panera chefs have crafted a masterpiece... so, can a company make succulent, seared chicken... a secret aioli... clean ingredients... in a buttery brioche roll. made fresh, to leave you... speechless. panera's new chef's chicken sandwiches. $1 delivery fee on our app. my name is douglas. i'm a writer/director and i'm still working. in the kind of work that i do, you are surrounded by people who are all younger than you. i had to get help somewhere along the line to stay competitive. i discovered prevagen. i started taking it and after a period of time, my memory improved. it was a game-changer for me. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. some news today changing the landscape of a couple important midterm senate races. in iowa you had a judge ruling that the democratic front-runner in the race there should not have her name on the ballot after former congresswoman fell just three petition signatures short of the number she needed. she hoped to take on republican senator chuck grassley running for an eighth term. over in pennsylvania, an endorsement on what could be the year's most consequential senate race. former president trump throwing his backing behind dr. oz. the former president in a statement saying oz has the best chance of stopping in his words the radical left maniacs from destroying our country. jonathan, good to have you back on the show. good to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> you have just in the last i think 20 minutes published a piece out looking at exactly this question. what does donald trump's endorsement mean on this race? i had a chance to skim it during a commercial break and you hone in on david mccormick and dr. oz, the two considered front-runners in this republican primary. both had lobbied and certainly mccormick had to get this endorsement from former president trump. what tipped the balance? >> from what we're hearing about it, oz's fame is a major factor for trump. he even talked about this at a rally saturday night. he said when you're on tv, that's like a poll when you're on tv that long, people like you. so oz is campaigning as a famous outsider and it really echos with what trump campaigned as. as well, oz was said to have a pretty good relationship with the trump family, including the former first lady, melania trump. mccormick had some ties as well, his wife worked for the former president, he had hired a number of the former president's aides but on a one-to-one level oz had more of a connection with the president and was more of a natural fit in his approach to politics. >> i know you've talked to folks who said this could undercut any attacks against dr. oz or attempt to blunt the momentum of attack as a rino. on the one hand a trumpy candidate and a republican in name only, quote unquote. you write mr. trump's endorsement could help bolster oz on that front. >> yeah. that's been the main weakness that he's faced. he's got name recognition, he's got a lot of money to spread his message. he's used to being out in front of a crowd. but he has a lot of statements in his past on things like guns and abortion and fracking that run counter to where most conservative republicans are. the mccormick campaign has really used that against him heavily. and now he's got this endorsement from the president. he can say, look, at the call me a rino, but my record is good enough for former president trump. so that's a really big potential shift in the dynamic where he can answer those attacks now not just with his own statements but with trump's endorsement to kind of bolster his credentials. >> from a policy perspective it's not as though oz and former president trump see eye to eye on every single issue. >> that's right. well, now oz says he does. but again he's got a number of statements in his past that run contrary to that. but again, it's more kind of the idea of what he's representing that he's outside the normal political establishment and trump seems to like the idea that he would be somebody who is kind of famous an bring a different look to washington than somebody like dave mccormick who has never held elected office but was previously in the bush administration. >> we should point out this is the former president's second endorsement in this race, right, after his first pick dropped out after allegations of domestic abuse, which is perhaps an indication, you know, sometimes an endorsement from donald trump doesn't always pan out in his view. do you think he got it right the second time? what are people who talk to you saying? >> it's not a slam dunk that oz now is suddenly going to ride to the nomination and be unstopped. by all accounts this has been a close race. both candidates seemingly have unlimited resources to spend so it probably will remain a close race, but it's a major new factor in the race that helps oz. even if it's a few percentage points help, that's a benefit in a race this close. so again, i don't think suddenly everybody packs up and goes home and expects oz to be the nominee, but you'd much rather have it. that's shown by the fact both he and mccormick tried to get this endorsement. it certainly means something. >> a viewer wrote in to ask me when we were teasing this in the commercial break, he said dr. oz doesn't live in p.a., how can he run for senate there. he does now, right? >> he's lived in new jersey for decades and north jersey, the part that's close to new york and associated with philly. he was in the part associated with new york, let's be clear. but he says in late 2020 he moved to his in-laws house to suburban philadelphia and his recent financial disclosures show that he's even this february bought his own home in suburban philadelphia as well. so he has been living there. the constitution rules about residency are extremely loose for the senate. basically you've just got to live there on election day. by the law he's eligible. his opponents will use that against him but legally he's allowed to run. >> thank you for helping us mang sense of this one. hope to have you back soon. appreciate it. still ahead here on the show, why elon musk is turning down a seat on twitter's board, and why some says this sets up a game of thrones style fight between him and the platform. really? 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>> i have no idea if you believe that. the twitter statement said background check and fiduciary standing. probably irresponsible. might have been revealing inside information. i suspect he realized he couldn't do much of anything on the inside so he couldn't make noise on the outside. he likes to scream in i guess. >> if he were to join the board and he would have been limited in how much stock to purchase. >> right. >> is it possible, like is there speculation that he could be planning a takeover? >> that's a lot of money even for the world's richest man. it is pretty high. he has a lot of rich friends. there could be all kinds of things to happen here and could get to 50%. he has a lot of other irons in the fire. companies that he built and functioning well. this feels like a side hustle. he does it with dogecoin. it sy for a second meme stock. he tends to have a very hyperactive personality. tesla and spacex he is dedicated to. >> you mentioned that you were reading into the twitter response to that and the letter to the company warned of distractions ahead and what does that mean? >> he might make a hostile takeover bid or tweet at them endlessly. he has influence. doesn't mean things happen. everyone was celebrating and the right. he has no power to change anything. one person on a board of 12 and this way he can throw all kinds of tweets in from the outside rather than the inside and a more comfortable position of elon musk. and the s.e.c. has not done anything and even though there seems to be a possible issues and the tweets, the s.e.c. is not act ds. we'll see if they do with an investigation and could be happening. who knows? >> talk about the conservative sill brags when the musk/twitter saga started and what we are seeing now. >> he is pushing this idea of free speech and objected to donald trump being kicked off. i was like he is not your friend. doesn't necessarily like trump. he's backed unfettered speech but not clear what that means exactly. he likes to say what he wants to say all the time. some people hi that's childish or cruel or funny. i think they -- anyone on the left or the right, by the way, hello the oil people. wants to get rid of oil companies or various things or going to space and all kinds of interests and a person you never know where he will come down and switches based on the fancy. >> cara, always great to have your perspective. thank you. >> thank you. you can find highlights and reporting of the show online and find me on nbc news now tonight and every weeg night at 5:00 eastern. for now "deadline: white house" starts after the break. ou in your tracks choose stelara® from the start and move toward relief after the first dose with injections every two months. stelara® may increase your risk of infections, some serious, and cancer. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, sores, new skin growths, have had cancer, or if you need a vaccine. pres, a rare, potentially fatal brain condition, may be possible. some serious allergic reactions and lung inflammation can occur. feel unstoppable. ask your doctor how lasting remission can start with stelara®. janssen can help you explore cost support options. one of my favorite supplements is qunol turmeric. turmeric helps with healthy joints and inflammation support. unlike regular turmeric supplements qunol's superior absorption helps me get the full benefits of turmeric. the brand i trust is qunol. 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