toughest affect the lead up to january six. those text revealed some of the republican lawmakers that made it break show of breaking with trump, were actually intimately involved with his scheme to overturn the election. with a talk to somebody you heard a lot about on this show, crystal mason is the texas woman who now faces five years in prison for accidentally voting which is not on the voter rolls. we will ask her about the play in hypocrisy like republicans on trump's chief is that -- we are now learning that he's under investigation by north carolina state authorities for voter throughout. we will also deep dive into the latest stuff from the world's richest man who says he wants to take control of one of america's biggest social media companies to defend free speech. we will talk about elon busk history of using his power and influence to tub other people what they can and cannot say. but we start tonight with the word we talk a lot about in the past on 48 hours. flagship. every naval fleet in the world has a flagship it is typically the biggest ship on the fleet. the word flagship little comes from the practice of flying a special flag from the ship which would signify that the commanding officers on board. when russia invaded ukraine six weeks ago, the flagship of the ukrainian navy was this vessel that you see here. it was a 3500 ton forget, the biggest ship in the ukrainian navy at the time. it was named after a 17 century military leader that led a campaign against the russians all the way back in 16 18. when war broke out across ukraine, ukrainian flagship was import for repairs. russia's much larger navy was starting to close in, and ukrainian flagship captain feared that those repairs would not be finished in time to prevent the crown jewel of ukraine's navy from falling into russian hands. so, just one week into the war with russia, that ukrainian captain made a decision that he and his crew would seek it themselves. ukrainian sunk their own flagship vessel. at the time, ukraine's defense minister described situation as this way, quote, it is hard to imagine a more difficult decision for a courageous man and his crew, but we will build a new fleet. that was the first flagship to go down in this war. this week, we saw a second flagship in this war sink under very different circumstances. ukrainian forces took down the flagship of the russian black sea fleet. that ship, known as the the moskva was 84 times the size of ukrainians flagship. russian media claim that the ship sank because of a fire that broke out on board. but today, the pentagon confirmed that it was two ukrainian neptune missiles that sunk the the moskva, it decisive victory for the county forces against the russian invaders. the tale of the two flagships, it sounds like a david versus goliath tail that we all get used to hearing about, as ukrainian forces continue to mount an improbable strong defense against the russians. it is also a reminder how quickly fortunes can change during the war. there has been a lot of focus on ukraine's victory and russia's blenders in recent weeks. but as russian forces begin to regroup in eastern ukraine, i am sorry to have to report that there are deeply troubling signs on the horizon. the city of mariupol has been the sight of some of russia's most brutal attack since the start of the mission. today, the governor of the region into next says mariupol has been wiped off the face of the earth by russian forces. now russian forces appear to be on the verge of seizing that historic city. nbc's gabe gutierrez has the right is from the region. >> russia is intensifying its assault america people, the battle now entering a critical stage. ukrainians are defiant. we expect barry as many russians as possible, the soldier says. but the besieged port city could fall to russian forces within days, russia's expected onslaught on ukraine's eastern donbas region. in chernihiv, north east of kyiv, a massive effort is underway to get humanitarian aid to towns that are cut off. among those coordinating, victoria, who we spoke to weeks ago, as russian forces closed in, she is now safe, and we met her in person. she could show us how she survived for weeks in this cell or. >> how many people were staying in here? >> we were 20 people. >> she was furious at the russian soldiers, but is now grateful that ukrainian troops have held them back. >> i came up to them, thank them and started to cry because i felt that these people saved us. >> in an interview released by atlantic magazine today, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy cautioned the world against presuming that russia will lose the war. now is not yet the time a victory. ukraine can win, and by win, he means continue to exist as a sovereign, it permanently besieged, state, only if allies across europe -- swanson goes on to say quote, we have a small window of opportunity. the west and its allies are working to provide more weapons. the eu is contemplating a russian oil embargo, something that seemed impossible just days ago in europe. russia is also wrapping up it starts to ward off more western intervention. the washington post was the first to report that russian officials have sent a formal diplomatic message to the u.s. warning that u.s. shipments of the most sensitive weapon shipments to ukraine was adding fuel to the conflict there that could bring unpredictable consequences. that may sound like more bluster from make increasingly isolated world leader, but the fright of unpredictable consequences is sadly not an empty one. is today, the head of the cia made that point very clear during a public speech. >> given the potential desperation of president putin and the russian leadership, given the setbacks that they have faced so far momentarily, none of this can be taken lightly, the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons. >> in an interview with cnn, ukrainian president zelenskyy echoed the sentiment. the world to prepare for the possibility of a nuclear strike inside ukraine. there have been differing experience from experts about the threat of a nuclear strike by russia since the war began. there is a question that russia's nuclear arsenal hangs like a sword over every western decision in this conflicts. if russia was to resort to nuclear weapons, tactic or not, it would be the first nuclear strike by any nation since the devastating u.s. bombing of her russia and nagasaki ruler to. it would irrevocably changed the world in ways we cannot waive off or ignore. the big question remains, as russia ramps up its threat to the west, just in time for its new assault on eastern ukraine, what can we in the west do without provoking a nuclear war with putin? joining us now is retired four star general. he served as the nato supreme allied commander from 2013 to 2014. he's not distinguished chair at the middle east institute. general, thank you for being with us tonight. let me start by asking you about the situation in mariupol. i saw a video today from a journalist from the keep independent showing what's left of the city, which is practically nothing. this reporter rightly points out that if russia controls the city, they will only keep the land, because there is really nothing left there in terms of infrastructure. explain to our viewers why mariupol is so strategically important to the russians to the point that they would destroy to take control of it? >> variable is key for several reasons, thank you for having me on tonight. it is one of the two remaining large ports in ukraine that keep ukraine connected to the rest of the world for commerce and shipment of grain etc. it is a key spot in that land bridge that has been talk so much about from the blue hawks don't next area down along the coast to crimea. this is a key piece of terrain. it is very sad to see if all. we heard reports today that some of the soldiers there had to surrender the coast. they ran out of bullets and food. this is a failure of the west i think to get all the supplies they needed into them. >> the full of mariupol would be a huge blow to ukrainian morale, not to mention the humanitarian crisis. >> it would. sadly what we would find in mariupol is the same thing that we found in the north from where the russians have left their fingerprints in terror and in war crimes. this is going to be another tough slog to get through what we find in mariupol. >> general you had said in recent interviews that the united states has been completely deterred by russian nukes, and putin's undeterred. you have called in the past for a limited no-fly zone. you have said we should not exaggerate the direction nukes to the point that we don't do anything. cia director bill burns who directly worked with putin in the past. he said yesterday that we can't take lightly the prospect that putin would use tactical nukes inside ukraine. do you disagree with director burns? >> no, i don't. i think we have to take serious a lot of these threats. mr. putin has written about this. a senior general has written about this. they often say that nuclear weapons are a logical extension of the conventional battlefield. whereas, we see that completely differently in the west. the fact of the matter is mr. putin is extremely good at deterring us. he is doing this to deter us. as i understand now, he has declared that our weapon shipment to ukraine will now cause new possibilities for him. so, we are deterred, and he is seeking to further deterrence because it has worked so far. >> i want to get to the bottom of this deterrence point, i agree with you, it is deeply frustrating to see the way that putin can almost blackmail the west with his arsenal. reality is reality. if you say that you agree with bill burns, that he could use tactical nuclear weapons, then we have to be deterred, right? or are you saying we can push forward with more weapons, maybe a no-fly zone that you advocated in the past, without triggering the use of, that fog, nuclear use weapons? >> in the past, we have done this. in northern syria, under a different administration, we took almost a battalion of russian it's off the battlefield. we are in the same situation, with the same putin in the same nuclear arsenal. it is just a matter of assessing the risk and then taking the appropriate actions. i think that we need to have those conversations about risk now. sadly, there are people in this world that believed there are no risk if we do nothing. i believe we incur more risk every day. >> you are 100 percent right. there are risks on both sides, and we do have these conversations. we are having these conversations, i appreciate you having it with me. the syrian conflict, correct me if i'm wrong, wasn't that a group of russian missionaries that were killed in syria, and syria does not mean as much as ukraine to putin? >> that was the wagner group. as you know, the wagner group is an extension of the russian military. we took the russian military off the battlefield in northern syria. >> i guess the way i see it, and you and i may disagree on this, if on the one hand, we say vladimir putin is a genocidal warmongering mad men, the worst since hitler, in which case, we were there to take a nuclear threat very seriously. or he is bluffing, maybe he's not there we think he is, we can have it both ways, can we? >> i do not draw the two distinct issues that you do. i think there is a distinct middle ground. i do not think he's bluffing. i think if it goes bad enough for him, i think he may actually take these drastic actions. but if we allow the world to deter us in this way, then every nation that has a nuke, looks up and says, okay, i now know how to deal with the united states over taiwan. i now know how to deal with the united states over south korea. and now know how to deal with the united states over the missiles that i would like to fire into the middle east. i think that at some point, we have to understand that if we are going to allow ourselves to be nuclear blackmailed in every endeavor, then we will have a tough time in the road ahead. >> i guess there has never been a better argument for nuclear disarmament. one last question, general, after the massacre in bucha and the destruction of mariupol, it is very unlikely that the two countries are going to sit down and succeed and negotiating anytime soon. even though zelenskyy keeps offering a chance to meet putin. are there any diplomatic offerings we can get to president putin to persuade him to end the war, to declare any fake victory wants a go home? >> i think that will be very tough. but you hit it right in the head. we all want a negotiated ending to this. what we don't want is to force ukraine to have to give up its sovereign territory. we need to support president zelenskyy who is a wartime leader of the highest caliber. we need to support him and prepare his troops so that they can earn a better negotiation position at the table. >> retired four star air force general and former nato supreme commander breedlove, thank you so much for attempting a, appreciate it. if you have been a fan of the show for a while, you know rachel's mantra, watch what they do, now with a say. up next, new text messages reportedly obtained by the january six investigators show that is supposedly die hard defender of the constitution, he says he loves it, he was just as eager as anyone else to overturn the election. what he had in mind could be one of the biggest threats to democracies going forward. that eye-opening report coming up next, do not go away. go away. allergies don't have to be scary. spraying flonase daily stops your body from overreacting to allergens all season long. psst! psst! flonase all good. inner voice (design studio owner): i'm over here waiting... ... looking intensely for a print that i never actually printed... ... so i don't have to deal with that terrifying pile of invoices. intuit quickbooks helps you easily send your first invoice in 3 steps. simple. 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[ding] the senior senator from the e*trade now from morgan stanley. great state of utah's republican named mike lee. he has held that job for a little over a decade and on january 6th, as the attack on the capitol was getting started, senator louise cell phone rang. here is how he remembers it. the caller id indicated that the call was coming from the white house. to migrate spies, it was president trump on the other end of the line. there was a lot of noise and commotion in the room but i thought i heard him say, how is it going, tommy? tell me? who is tommy? turned out the president was dialing the wrong number. he was looking for tommy tuberville, the newly elected senator from alabama. a vocal supporter of president trump's big lie, and that's why trump was trying to call him, in an effort to try to delay the certification of the vote in congress. instead, he got mike lee on the phone by mistake. he asked yes mike lee is a republican. but there was a reason that the president was not calling him on purpose to try to get him to go along with his scheme to overturn the election. senator lee was not a vocal public proponent of trump's big lie. he voted in favor of certifying the vote for joe biden. mike lee told journalist bob woodward that he personally looked into some of trump's claims of supposed voter fraud and did not think any of it checked out. he said he disagree that vice president mike pence had the authority to stop the certification of the election. by all public accounts, mike lee portrayed himself as a proud defender of the constitution, someone with absolute fidelity to it. but it turns, out in private, lee it was actually just pushing for a different way to overturn the election. today's cnn first obtained text messages that senator lee sent to the presidents chief of staff, mark meadows, in a few weeks after the election. these are text messages that have been turned over to the january 6th investigation at congress. i should've into that nbc news has not yet obtained or verify these texts. in the messages, mike lee repeatedly says that there is only one surefire way to overturn the election. and it has nothing to do with conspiracies about suitcases full of ballot papers or italian satellites or reckons. it is about the fake elector scheme. the idea that states that actually went for biden could submit a fake slates of electors to congress for trump, so that if mike pence refused to certify the results, these fake trump electors would be on record to put the election in trump's favor. mike lee, a few days after the election, mike lee writes tomatoes, white house chief of staff at the time, quote, it's a small handful of states were to have their legislatures appoint alternative slates of delegates, there could be a path. a month later he discusses his concerns about the way his senate colleagues have gone about examining the results. he wants -- to know that his electoral scheme has a much better shot of success. i'll think, he says, that this could all backfire badly unless we have legislators submitting trump slates. later, he says again, we need something from state legislators to make this legitimate to have any hope of winning. even if they cannot convene, it may -- indicating how they would vote. and i have been working on doing that all day today. here is why this matters so much right now. the fake electors scheme is a play that republicans could very likely try to run again to overturn the election results in 2024, if the democrats win the white house again. it is truly shocking to hear a sitting member of the senate advocate for such a plan, though actually, maybe a little less surprising coming from senator lee, given that he tweeted right before the 2020 election that he does not believe that the united states is a democracy. so, what do we do to save our institutions when the people constitutionally tasked with protecting them or in fact the ones who pose the biggest threat? joining us now is a democracy expert, to help us understand the way we should be thinking about this, ruth ben-ghiat is a history professor at new york university. she has written a book on authoritarianism called strongmen thank you for being, here ruth, as someone who has written about authoritarianism and strongmen leaders, what was your reaction to these text messages today, from a senator to achieve a? it is mike lee texting the chief of staff, saying all this stuff. >> i feel very sad for the state of affairs. and glad that they are coming out, to remind us of the profound corruption of these individuals. what strikes me reading through these is the casual criminality, where this tone of, we are just gonna be very casual about committing these crimes, is there. where mike lee said to mark meadows, oh, it is not a binary choice between trump conceding and, quote, the destruction of the credibility of the election process. it is just thrown out there. it is not the ideal option, there may be another option, which turned out to be these fake electors. but the casual way that these matters are discussed, it is really a testament to what we have seen in authoritarian -- you know, when you have someone like trump, at whatever level is low in your ethics before, being around someone like trump, you then and up, by the time he is done with you, much lower. because his whole point is to make you as the based as possible. and he was asking people to commit criminal acts. and so it is not at all surprising to find that the circle is widening, with the people involved. look at ginni thomas, that was the last revelation. >> it was cuckoo by text. to me, what's it out the most about the text messages is not just that these members of congress are rooting for the overturning of the election. it is the specificity with which they went to bat, to use certain tactics over others that would have a greater chance of success. and i wonder, how should we be thinking about how these tactics fit into the larger scheme to undermine the election, and going forward, how they will be used again in 2024? as the old saying goes, a coup that is not punished is just a training exercise. >> that is right. and that is very much how the party is thinking about this. because, as we see more and more evidence coming out, it just reminds us that january 7th, they could have gotten rid of trump, he was toxic. instead, what has happened is that january 6th has been a profoundly radicalizing event. and all these tactics are now absorbed into the party dna. so, those texts are full of discussions and remedies to the problem of this election that did not go their way. they also talk about election integrity, which we know is code word for fixing elections or that they go your way. but this is now a year later. it is institutionalized as policy. think about ron desantis, who has his new office of election security. we have fallen so much farther as these people have not been punished. and all these methods, very carefully plotted out, which this revelation shows, they have become part of the parties methods. and there is no reason to think that they would not be used in future. >> ruth, i was on twitter earlier today and i saw someone say, well -- and we were talking about accountability for members of congress and i thought mike lee should resign for this. and i kind of laughed, he is not going to resign. we have josh holy and ted grooves, who helped incite of insurrection, josh hawley, who stuck his fist in the air in front of the crowd. they did not resign. they have been trying to smear the first black female supreme court justice. there are no consequences for the supreme court justice and i wonder why they do not shout from the rooftops, the democrats, about colleagues being complicit in a coup. >> it is a huge failing. and it is like we are all pretending. it is not that everything is okay. but we are not grasping the gravity of these people, still there are sitting lawmakers. it is even worse because january 6th has become this badge of honor in the republican party. so much so that dozens of participants in january 6th, including several who breached the capital, are being encouraged to run for office and so when you have a party that wants to rule in a lawless fashion and be an autocratic party, unfortunately you need criminals. and you need lawless people along among the ranks. that is what has happened. the party is remaking itself and trump is -- endorsing over these people. people who did this lawless thing are now the new heroes of the republican party. and that is a consequence for pretending that everything is normal, when it is not. quick last question, you have a new piece in the republic when you explain how the republican party has absorbed the authoritarian tendencies of donald trump. i was thinking about that piece when trump endorsed j.d. vance in ohio and the gop senate there. vance who was a trump or, who said in 2016, that he thought trump was exploiting racism, they're gonna says it all. >> yeah, he is just one of the people that has made this journey under trump, think of kevin mccarthy, who read before trump got the nomination, was the one that said he thinks putin is paying trump, and then he ended up voting in favor trump. we need to have to take this person out a call of trump seriously. it is extraordinary what he managed to do in an open society with an open media and bring this party to heal, and have it be his personal tool. those text from lee and others is also a leader colt. i see generous six as a leader cole rescue operation. look how far we have fallen. trump could welcome back him to power. >> ruth, i am not sure how american democracy survives when the two major parties brazenly does not believe in the box anymore. ruth, a state professor and why you, thank you so much for being here tonight. up next, one of donald trump's closest former advisers was just removed from the voter rolls in north carolina to be registered to vote in two separate case. to be determined if he would face any legal consequences for that. my next guest is fighting a five-year prison sentence for just trying to vote, that unbelievable story next, stay with us. with us. if you book with priceline, you'll save more, so you can “broooo” more. 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[splash] [disappointed] broooo... good thing you saved on the trip! priceline. every trip is a big deal. nicorette knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like: good thing you saved on the trip! just stop. go for a run. go for 10 runs! run a marathon. instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette. ♪ it's the most wonderful time of the year, ♪ claritin provides non-drowsy symptom relief from over 200 indoor and outdoor allergens, day after day. feel the clarity - and make today the most wonderful time of the year. live claritin clear. hey businesses! you all deserve something epic! so we're giving every business, our best deals on every iphone - including the iphone 13 pro with 5g. that's the one with the amazing camera? yep! every business deserves it... like one's that re-opened! hi, we have an appointment. and every new business that just opened! like aromatherapy rugs! i'll take one in blue please! it's not complicated. at&t is giving new and existing business customers our best deals on every iphone. ♪ ♪ the messages read, quote, this fight is about the fundamental fairness of our election system. the nation is pending upon your continued resolve. stay strong keep fighting this is the president. and we need ammo, we need fraught examples, we need it this weekend. as we have been talking about tonight, those are two of about 100 messages sent by republican senator mike lee of utah and republican congress member of texas sent to the right house to falstaff mark meadows shortly after the election. cnn has not independently verified attacks. the two lawmakers were encouraging meadows to do everything he could to push to the presidents claim that the 2020 election was stolen. find the proof, find the ammo. we know for sure now that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud that impacted the results. we learned this week that mark meadows may be able to offer up his own ballot as an example of voter fraud that is prince so desperately sought. the former chief of staff was removed from the voter roll from north carolina after state voter investigators found out he was registered for north carolina and virginia. his registration is tied to a single line mobile home, but there is no evidence of him actually living in the state. the state bureau is still investigating. we will see if he faces any consequences. it is an open question if you look at the history that tends to face real consequences for behavior like this. over in florida, two men in a retirement community, called the villages, are facing their own consequences for admitted voter fraud. they politically this week for fraud-ing multiple ballots into 2020 election, they were sentenced to 50 hours of community service at an adult specific class among some of the requirements. as long as they manage that, they will face no further punishment for voter fraud. those kinds of light sentences for white guys that knowingly cast fraudulent ballots, seems to be a trend. this man cast a ballot for president trump under his mother's name. there was a republican official from ohio, he cast an extra ballot for his dead father, he got three days in jail and a 500 dollar fine. there was another man from pennsylvania who applied for an absentee ballot under his dead mother's name. he got six months probation. there is also a man from nevada who cast about for his dead wife. he got a years probation. then there is crystal mason, a black woman from texas, who cast a provisional ballot in the 2016 election, she was on federal release at the time, she did not know she could not vote. she maintains that no one told her that she could not vote before her federal supervision ended. again, it was provisional, and it was rejected. yeah, she was sentenced to five years in prison for attempting to vote. late in 2020, crystal mason filed a petition with a texas court of criminal appeals to review her conviction. last year, the all republican court agreed to the review. joining us now is crystal mason, the texas woman who is appealing the five-year prison sentence forecasting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election. crystal mason, they see so much for joining us on the show tonight. we know that mark meadows is being investigated for voter fraud, the former trump white house chief of staff. i mentioned a bunch of men that were investigated for voter fraud, they pled guilty, and they did not get any prison time or sentences. then, this happened to you, the outcome for them so different to your outcome, what do you make of it? >> this really sends me. it saddens me about the type of justice system that we have here today. it obviously shows that i was pretty much targeted. i am, right now five years later -- >> i was just wondering, i will ask the question straight-up, do you think it is because they are white men and you are a black woman? >> of course, you can see plan is day but it is a different system. it is a different system. >> it is indeed. i wonder what is happening in terms of the system that you are dealing with right now. what is the latest to get your conviction overturned? we know that the texas court of criminal appeals agreed to review your case. they will rely on legal brief rather than oral arguments. what can you tell us about what you heard from them, what happens next? >> right now, five years later, i've been on appeal for five years trying to stay free. i am at the criminal courts of appeal, just imagine waking up every wednesday to see if you stay free or go to prison. it is overwhelming for me and my family, and it is just so sad when you look at cases like this to see little to no consequences to -- >> i think we may have lost crystal mason there. i think we got a back. i think we lost for a moment there. let me ask you this before we run out of time very quickly, does it worry you that someone could so initially make a mistake at the polls like you did and be sent to jail for five years, while other people are deliberately tearing up fraud and nothing happened to them, people like yourself, people who look like you, with backgrounds like yourself, who may not be obviously republican voters like some of the guys are mentioning, they will be intimidated to not vote. they will say it is not the hassle to vote, maybe that is the goal of all this. >> that is exactly what it is. i think the goal is to scare the black and brown away from the pole. if you look at cases, you can kind of see. from little to no consequences at all on true, real voter fraud cases. i put out a provisional ballot, which is never counted, and i am sentenced to five years for illegally voting, for never voting. >> crystal mason, we appreciate your time tonight. we wish you well with your appeal forecasting a provisional ballot in 2016 election. thank you for coming on a show tonight. >> thank you. >> up next, what's the richest man in the world just can't seem to buy. this one is a doozy, you do not want to miss it, we will be right back. ght back ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ tums vs. mozzarella stick ♪♪ when heartburn hits, fight back fast with tums chewy bites. fast heartburn relief in every bite. crunchy outside, chewy inside. ♪ tums, tums, tums, tums ♪ tums chewy bites [ marcia ] my dental health was not good. i had periodontal disease, and i just didn't feel well. but then i found clearchoice. 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[laughs] >> why? >> i think it is important that it be an inclusive arena for free speech, where -- >> that was the ceo of tesla and space x, the world's richest man, elon musk. yesterday at the ted 2022 conference of vancouver. by now, it is impossible to get a story that you are mosques attempting to purchase twitter and a 43 billion dollar takeover. today, twitter announced that it would adopt one is quickly known as a poison pill, a legal maneuver that would make it significantly harder for anyone to purchase more than 50% or to stop. it will greatly diminish the chances of elon musk taking over. let's take a step back from the will he, won't he story of mosques actually biden twitter. if there is anything musk is good at, it is a promotion. he is using this potential purchase to varnish his potentials as one of the world's great champions of her speech, come to save the world. this all kicked off last night with him referring to himself as a free speech absolutists. to purchase twitter, he believes that free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy. all of that as led to an avalanche of press framing this as a fight between musk, the champion of unrestricted free speech, and twitter. when everything about you on musk and his cars, with everything by him buying twitter, can we please not pretend that this guy is a paragon of freedom of speech for everyone. when the thin skinned musk is on the end of first peachy does not like, he uses his power as the richest man to retaliate and suppress that speech. and 2016, a venture capitalist and california blocked about a tesla launch event was poorly run. musk responded by canceling his order for the car. he was banned by buying tesla cars altogether for a blog post. in 2016, tesla fired an employee which the national labor board said was retaliation for organizing. the man was fired for distributing leaflets in the parking lot. in 2019, a self described venomous started a twitter account of musk on a jet, and then he blocked him. the teenager was not doing anything wrong. in february of this year, still a month before musk started calling hills south a free speech absolutists. testified one of their employees who had a youtube channel where he reviewed self-driving cars. he owned a tesla and candidly reviewed the car. not only did testifier him, they also cut off his access to the tesla self-driving software in a vehicle he owns. elon musk does not appear to be a guy of absolute for speech. he has the right to buy whatever he likes and runs his company however he likes, but we do not have to buy his nonsense story about saving free speech. joining us now is tim higgins, the reporter for the wall street journal, and the guy who wrote a little book on elon musk, called power play. tim, thank you for being with us tonight. in your book, you write that musk has a tendency to rage fire his employees. musk says this is false. he has the right to fire employees, he's the ceo. can you explain the reasons behind these firings? >> oftentimes, he would lose patience with somebody. this is a new phenomenon. at first you might be attracted to that person like it is shiny object, but then something might happen, and then a flip has been switched. he no longer wants to trust that person or wants to be around that person, and they must go. >> often because of something that might have said, right? >> said or have done. there was one instance in the book, for example, that the factory is struggling to ramp up production of its model theories, it puts the company under pressure and gray trouble. an employee, a low level employee, was working on a safety station on the assembly line, even saw this, saw the assembly line was stopped, he became unhappy and lost his temper. he started banging his head on the car on the assembly line to show that it was not hurting him. when they told him it was about safety, he fired the person and said get out of there. >> do you believe, you study this guy, you write in about him, do you believe his goals are truly ideological? that he is in it for the first speech, i don't, by when here you think, you are the expert. >> i think he probably convinced himself that he is. in some ways, he is about free speech as long as it is his free speech that is out there. it can also get at the core motivation of why do billionaires and millionaires for generations put their money's into buy media. it is about ego and power, it is about influence. musk has shown time and time again that he understands how to use real power and control in twitter and cement his power on social media. you have to keep in mind here the almost like donald trump, he has figured out how to use social media in a way to build his empire, to build his strength and influence around the world. in an era where there is great debate about how speech and those platforms can occur, and people are being kicked off for crossing lines, you have to imagine that he is concerned about it. here is a guy that has crossed once before, there is a possibility that his most potent tool could be taken away from him, that has to be concerning. >> yeah, the guy has more than 18 native million followers on twitter, he thinks first pitch is under threat. the idea of the problem of twitter is censorship rather than the rampant abuse of minorities and women's kind of bizarre. it tells me he does not really care. tim higgins, thank you so much for your time and analysis. he is a reporter for the wall street journal and the author of power play, thank you. okay, one last story here tonight before we go, do stay with us, it is a good one. t is a good one. 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