good evening, once again. i'm stephanie ruhle. fulton county district attorney fani willis is moving to fast-track the trial for all 19 defendants accused of racketeering in the georgia election case. in a new court filing today, willis, once again, requested that all 19 stand trial together. remember, former trump campaign lawyer can chesebro, requested a speedy trial, and the judge set in october 23rd start date. former federal prosecutor glenn kirschner explains what the eight willis's move actually means. >> fani willis has now said we are ready to go to trial, the speedy trial law is what it is and we are prepared to give all 19 codefendants a speedy trial, and we would love to have them set for trial on october 23rd. what i predict, ali, is that is going to result in a chorus of voices from many of these codefendants saying, not so fast, we are not demanding a speedy trial. in fact, we are prepared to waive our speedy trial rights, and we're going to need far more time to prepare. >> a chorus of voices singing some special song. sydney powell, one of trump's other campaign lawyers, has also filed for a speedy trial. today, she pleaded not guilty, waving an arraignment on september 6th. meanwhile, mark meadows request to move his case to federal court is now in the hands of a judge who is asking for more information before making any decision. a judge has asked fani willis's team for more details. both sides have until five pm thursday to respond. with that, let's get smarter with help of our leadoff panel tonight. my friend, katie benner is here, pulitzer prize-winning reporter for the new york times, shannon mccaffrey, editor of the atlanta journal-constitution's georgia grand jury coverage, and barb mcquade, a veteran federal prosecutor, and former attorney for the eastern district of michigan. shannon, you are our hometown reporter tonight, help us understand this. fani willis appears to be taking the idea of a speedy trial to a whole other level with this request. what do we need to know? >> well, she said all along, you know, since this case began, we realized there were 19 defendants here that she wants these folks tried all together. she has said of the r.i.c.o. law, one of the reasons she likes it, is that it gives a jury the totality of a case, right? they're not seeing one angle of it. they're seeing the whole case. in her mind, this was all part of a criminal conspiracy. she wants to try these folks together. what's interesting is you have some of these defendants, you mentioned can't chesebro and sidney powell, wanting to go fast, and you have donald trump's lawyer who said he wants to sever from them and wants to slow down. i feel like you have both ends working against each other here. some folks want to be done in october, and some folks want to wait until after the election. >> barb, do you think they want to go fast, the likes of sydney powell and others, because they believe when trump sets trial, he will argue, my lawyers told me to do it, and they want to get first dibs into say, no, that's not how it happened? >> it's hard to know what might be motivating to lawyers. that's one possibility. i think there maybe a couple of reasons that are animating this request for a speedy trial. one, perhaps, in effort to catch the prosecution flat-footed because most defendants want to delay, delay, delay. sometimes you can get the element of surprise when he demanded speedy trial. i think when you will see striking back with the filing today, saying, bring it on. i won't just write kenneth chesebro and sidney powell in october 23rd, i will try all 19 on october 23rd. i think she's demonstrating she will be ready to go in that time comes. >> but do you think that's a risk? for real. 19 defendants by october 23rd? that's a lot. >> yeah, i think one of the things we saw with fani willis was, remember back in january we had a recommendation from a special grand jury to go forward with indictments, and then she waited several months before she actually filed that indictment. i think she recognized this was a possibility, and she wanted to have all her ducks in a row before she filed at indictment. so by waiting until august to file it, my guess is she had all the discovery ready, her witness list, her trial prep, ready to go. she'll be ready to go in october. the truth is, a prosecutor usually is ready to go when they file the indictment because they bolivian with the case for a couple of years, as she has. the defense is seeing the case for the first time. it wouldn't surprise me if some of these other defendants would want to sever the case and ask for more time to get ready for trial because they can't be ready by october. like 2026 are probably a nonstarter, but requesting date a little farther off, i think fani willis herself has suggested she could start this case sometime in the spring of 2024. it strikes me as a more reasonable period of time for the remaining defendants. >> and why would she want all of them to be tried to gather at once? i would think that would put an enormous amount of pressure on her, barb. >> yes i do too and she has, as you pointed, out said i want one jury to see the full scope of this conspiracy and of this interview prize and how all these different groups working together for the common goal of overcoming the election. i think she tried as many as 12 defendants together in a prior rico case. in cases i have handled with large numbers of defendants like this, often the judge will sever the case into smaller groups of defendants because there is a concern that a jury could be confused and have a hard time keeping track of the evidence against each of the defendants. what we might actually see here is of tearing down of the number of defendants through guilty pleas. maybe some get speedy trials because they want them, maybe some get a lengthy or delay in so we have smaller groups that go to trial in more manageable segments. but i think what fani willis is doing is signaling to all 19 and to the court, i am ready to go, and i am willing to try all 19 of these defendants at once, because our team is ready. >> all right, katie, even if kenji's bro goes to trial alone on october 23rd, doesn't mean we're going to hear the allegations against trump before any of his trials start? >> no matter who goes first and how many people go and in what numbers, every time people go to trial we will be hearing the allegations against donald trump and we will be hearing the allegations these people worked in concert to overturn the election again and again. it's difficult to escape this in it sounds like we're going to be getting it from all sides for a prolonged time if these defendants aren't tried together. >> all right, shannon, new topic, mark meadows. he wants to get his case moved to federal court. that is his goal right. now his lawyer said that meadows was focused on, quote, landing the plane, basically trying to get trump to accept the 2020 results. but does he have any testimony that back that up? >> what he was essentially saying is that at that point they were trying to get trump to accept the fact that he had lost the election. and i think what this kind of comes down to is, it's up to the is that the job of the white house chief of staff or someone involved in the campaign? so much of their argument was about what are the duties of a white house chief of staff. you could argue that they have their hands in absolutely everything and that's what they try to say although it will be interesting to see how the judge decides that, whether or not there is some kind of line of demarcation there. i think the interesting thing the drug the judge said he was going to rule it soon as possible but he also said i don't have a lot of equal legal precedent to work with here. there's not a lot to work with. we're probably going to be setting precedent here. he made a point of telling mark meadows that, if you haven't heard from me by september 6th, so up to fulton county court to get arraigned, because you may still need to end up in that court in a long run. so he's going to rule quickly but it's really a wide open area. >> but shannon, regardless of what meadows job title was at that time, do we know of any witness testimony that backs up this argument that he is trying to make that he was working to get trump to accept the election results? by our research, i don't recall anything that we have ever seen or heard in a concrete way, him trying to do that. >> i don't know that there is evidence at all that certainly what we have seen, what have been publicly out there, has been a lot of him encouraging trump. he was on the phone with raffensperger, he was down in the cobb county audit site, looking at what was all going on there. most of what we have seen so far has not been mark meadows trying to land the plane, but mark meadows trying to appease his boss. and try to get as much as he could from those conversations in which he was trying to, basically, give trump what he wanted to hear. i don't know. i think whether or not, meadows seems to be trying to have it both ways at this point, and whichever argument is going to help him in federal court at this point is the one he's going to make. >> the judge is going to decide whether or not meadows goes to federal court. this joe judge wants more information. barb, what are you looking for? >> he issued an order today asking the parties to submit supplemental briefs by thursday. in answering this question. if there was even one over act that mark meadows performed in his official duties, is that enough to remove the case to federal court? as he said, there is not a lot of case law out there. he does not know the answer to that question, so he is asking the parties to make the argument. if i were making the argument, i would say, anything within the scope of his authority should be enough to remove it federal court. but there is nothing he did that is elated in this indictment that would be within the scope of his authority. what he was doing there as alleged in the indictment was political activity, campaign activity, he has a lot of work he leads to do within the scope of his duties as the chief of staff. but only those duties that advance the interests of the united states of america, not those that advance the interests of a donald trump the candidate. if you look at all those overt acts listed there, everyone is about the campaign, it's about activity in georgia, michigan, pennsylvania. all of that would fall outside the scope of that authority. but we'll see. he's going to look at this additional authority and he promises to rule promptly. >> shannon, what can you tell us about this judge? >> this judge has been on the bench, on the federal bench, for about 12 years. he's a university of georgia law school and undergrad graduate. and he has had some rulings that have been controversial on both sides. he initially found that the states six-week abortion ban was unconstitutional, struck down a georgia law. of course that changed once roe v. wade was overturned at the federal level. but if you remember stacey abrams, her political action, her fair fight action had filed a fairly lengthy lawsuit that challenged a lot of what they said were voter suppression tactics in the 2018 election. and he threw all those things out of court. democrats a big load there. and not only did he throw their claims out of court, he ordered them to repay the state something in the neighborhood of $200,000 in legal fees. so he is known for having an independent streak. he's got a big redistricting case next week as well. so he's got a lot on his plate. >> katie, what could this ruling mean for donald trump in the other defendants in all this? >> back if mark meadows is allowed to move this to federal court to have a different jury pool, a couple of impacts. one is that could expand the jury pool for him which could be slightly more favorable than fulton county, which is a little bit more blue and has a little bit less for donald trump. also, other defendants, they also could make an argument that their cases should be moved. and it could also slow things down and could do the opposite of what fani willis wants, which is to try all the defense together in as quickly as possible. >> okay, i'll get one more for you, katie. republicans on the house judiciary committee opened this new inquiry into a meeting that took place between a member of jack smith's team and the white house counsel's staff. we know that parts of the media are making a lot of noise about this. help us understand what actually happened? what do we need to know? >> what we know from some of the reporting is that indeed jay -- the national security division of the justice department's been working on the documents case. he did go to the white house to interview a career employee about conduct that happened during the trump administration. that would be something that you would see unofficial from the white house greeting that prosecutor, greeting people from the justice department, letting them into building, and bringing them to the interview room. that wouldn't be unusual. but to your point, this is something that the republicans are going to make hay of. they're going to speculate that in that meeting jay brad and someone from the white house counsel's office could've coordinated and discussed the case against donald trump and could have worked together in order to try to do something that would be politically motivated, that would hurt donald trump's chances of winning the election. again, there is no evidence of that, but we're definitely going to see the argument made again and again. we'll probably see that argument made with merrick garland goes and testifies before the house this september. that is going to be a really intense hearing, and i think you're going to see a lot of things. this meeting will be in question. he will not be able to talk about it, especially if they were interviewing somebody about an act of an ongoing investigation the dealt with some kind of conduct in the previous administration. and they're going to hit him with questions about hunter biden. so it will be a contentious hearing. this issue that we're discussing right now is going to probably take main stage. >> we will certainly be watching and covering not the speculation but the facts. katie benner, shannon mccaffrey, barb mcquade, ladies, i take you. you know my absolute favorite way to start this hour is with a group of brilliant women. and what you did that for us. when we come back, president biden making big moves to try to save americans money on prescription drugs. we are going to compare that with the republican front runner is up to. robert gibbs and matthew dowd are here, and later, we are following hurricane idalia as it takes aim at florida's gulf coast. the latest forecast says the storm is expected to be extremely dangerous, a category four hurricane at landfall. we're gonna have the latest on this track and how people in its path are getting ready. the 11th hour just getting underway, on a very important tuesday night. tuesday night. 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(vo) football season is here. get nfl sunday ticket from youtubetv on us. a $449 value. plus, get a free samsung galaxy z flip5. >> today is the start of a new only on verizon. deal for patients, where big pharma doesn't just hand you a blank check at your expense and the expense of the american people. on my watch, health care should be right not a privilege in this country. >> the front runner for the republican nomination is focused on his own legal problems and fundraising off his own mugshot. president biden is announcing a real tangible way to improve the lives of everyday americans. the government will start direct negotiations with pharmaceutical companies to lower the price of ten major prescription drugs. here now to discuss, robert gibbs, former obama campaign senior adviser, the way house press secretary under obama, and the senior political analyst, my friend matthew dowd, also a former george w. bush's strategist. robert, i turn to you first. these drugs crossed medicare 50 billion, billion with a b, dollars in the last year alone, with the exception of, i don't know, the ten biggest pharma companies in the world, this has got to be a win for almost everybody in this country. >> it is, stephanie. if you think about it over the course of the next ten years, this is gonna save the federal government 100 billion dollars. it will start to save people money off of their health insurance premiums. it's going to make that out of pocket expenses for medication less, cheaper drugs. it's a win win win for the american people. it's also a win for joe biden. if i worked on the senate races in 2000 where this was a central issue. joe biden has been working on this, and democrats have worked on this for almost a quarter century to get this done. so this is a landmark day, a landmark beginning to cheaper health care for millions of americans in this country. >> the government be at the table to negotiate major drug prices. matthew, if joe biden can continue to do very popular practical things like this, what is the republican counter argument going to be? i'm not exaggerating, the only thing the republican front runner is talking about right now is his own personal legal woes. >> well, the republican party has abandoned any conversations about issues, substantive issues, completely. you don't want this to be about issues. to be honest, they actually don't want this to be about donald trump. but they want to make this somehow some referendum, actually, in my view, on joe biden's age and competency, even though every single argument you can lay on the table, including what he did with prescription drugs, is an advantage for him on competency. but i don't think republicans are gonna run anywhere near any issues in 2024. >> matt, when i heard this news i was thinking about the state of florida. a state filled with older voters. they are reliable voters. couldn't issue like this move some of them into joe biden's camp? >> yeah, i think this issue, in combination with their feelings about donald trump. donald trump is going to end up in this, if he's the nominee, which i think he will be, he's gonna end up the most unpopular nominee of any nominee in history. so he will enter the race as the most unpopular nominee of any party candidate in history. combine that with this kind of issue i think gives biden an opportunity. but this race is matt going to be a ten-point race or 12 point race. it will be another race like 2020. exactly like 2020, where it's going to be decided by a few thousand votes in a few states. regardless of all of the debate on all the things and where trump stands, this is going to boil down to a couple hundred thousand votes spread across six or seven states. >> all right, well, let's stay talking about this issue, this policy change, and get kind of politically practical, robert. you are the white house press secretary when obamacare passed. what does president biden need to do to tell people about this and give himself credit? when people are at the pharmacy and getting their drugs, i'm not sure they're gonna connect the two. hey, my prices are way lower, this administration did that for me. >> yeah, look, the presidents gonna have to take this on the road and take it out on the road repeatedly. and look, pull people up onstage from las vegas, nevada, when you're out there, in phoenix, arizona, ian philadelphia, pennsylvania. in all of those states with huge senior populations, all of those states are part of this. matthew just talked about. they're gonna be crucial and picking the next president. paula senior on the stage until the crowd, this is how much that senior is gonna save when this is fully implemented. this is how much medicare is going to save. this is how much our health insurance costs are gonna go down. you have to make this live with people and right where they are. secondly, you're going to see the campaign go on offense on this. you've got seven, six or seven states where this campaign is going to be decided. a billion dollars on tv advertising is gonna help a lot of people understand exactly what joe biden has done in the white house for two and a half years. >> let's talk about the differential between the two, because recent polling shows that many americans see joe biden as all, and they see donald trump as corrupt. but i want you to watch with this group of young voters are saying. >> i think that biden and a lot of other politicians, both on the right in the left, are too old for their jobs, quite frankly. i am battering for biden because i strongly dislike just about everything the trump stands for and his ever stood for. >> to tell you the truth, he's a little too old for the job, but i think we might not have a better option right now. at least i don't see a primary campaign working for any politician i can think of. and i think the incumbent see in vantage is pretty important, especially against trump, because already beat him once. >> quick side note, both joe biden and donald trump are within just a couple of years of one another. if we're talking about age. but matthew, what is your take on that? >> my take on it, i'm gonna tell you something i hope this is in lightning, but maybe funny. it's like inviting to elderly people but you're going to choose from to house sit your home. and one is the nice guy, but he may forget turn the lights off the leaves the garage open. the other guy cells all your furniture and gets rid of your dog, moves into your house, won't leave your house when you get back home, that's the difference in the two candidates. a guy might forget to turn the lights off, a guy's gonna sell all your furniture. >> unfortunately, robert, that was such an extraordinary answer, i am going to allow mr. dowd to have the last word in this segment. wow. he's gonna sell all your furniture and get rid of your dog. that is what we're looking at. matthew dowd, robert gibbs, great to see you both. when we come back, florida. it is getting brutally serious down there. it could look a lot different than this in just a matter of hours. hurricane idalia strengthening as it barrels towards the gulf coast, and it could get even more powerful before it hits. we are going to track the latest on the 11th hour continues. continues. small towns across the us, where our focus is to always support the people who live and work there. because you call these communities home, and we do too. pnc bank. i was stuck. unresolved depression symptoms were in my way. i needed more from my antidepressant. vraylar helped give it a lift. adding vraylar to an antidepressant... ...is clinically proven to help relieve overall depression symptoms... ...better than an antidepressant alone. and in vraylar clinical studies, most saw no substantial impact on weight. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. report unusual changes in behavior or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. report fever, stiff muscles, or confusion, as these may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. high blood sugar, which can lead to coma or death, weight gain, and high cholesterol may occur. movement dysfunction and restlessness are common side effects. stomach and sleep issues, dizziness, increased appetite, and fatigue are also common. side effects may not appear for several weeks. i didn't have to change my treatment. i just gave it a lift. ask about vraylar and learn how abbvie could help you save. ♪ did you know 80% of women are struggling with hair damage? 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a major hurricane hasn't come through this area, we are told, ever. >> correct. we haven't seen anything like this in a very long time. >> idalia that's to wash away parts of the florida coast with a record setting storm surge. a hurricane's deadliest threat is a surge of water that can suddenly, three feet is life-threatening, at six feet waves cost significant damage, breaking through doors and windows. and nine feet, the floods move farther inland. at 12:15 foot storm surge would be catastrophic for low lying communities here in florida. that roof line, that's about 15 feet right there. and look where the water already is at high tide. inches from the backyard. now a double threat from mother nature, a king tide expected wednesday, when the sun, moon, and earth to produce tides won two feet higher than normal. the view from the space station shows a dahlia is a monstrous size. but her destruction power needs to be seen up close. look at these villages in western cuba, submerged by rains just yesterday. >> very few people can survive being in the path of a major storm surge, and this storm will be deadly. >> first responders from missouri, virginia, and new jersey, already mobilized to the sunshine state. >> take it seriously, and be prepared. >> in tampa, flights are grounded in several hospitals have already been evacuated while tamper general rolls out this aqua offense to repel the stormwater. outside gregg thompson's big ben bar, they are boarding up, and inside, it's last call. >> something you want to write about. >> what do you think about the people who ride it out? i >> wouldn't do it. >> to begin the storm? >> too big of a storm. nobody can come help you. >> tonight the clock is ticking. time is running out to get out, and a stretch of florida readies for a hurricane the strength of which they have ever seen before. >> taylor county is in the path of hurricane idalia. that's where we find christina watkins, an anchor for our affiliate. christina, thank you for joining us. i'm sorry for what you're facing. what is it like there tonight? >> thank you so much for having us and giving us the chance to show your viewers what it's like here in taylor county. we're starting to feel some of the week or outer bands moving in here to taylor county. you have to remember, this is a very tight-knit community, as a community of about 22,000 people, many of whom never had to prepare for a storm like this, at least not a direct hit. when you look at the history books you've got to go back to the 1800s. that was the last time taylor county and specifically the entire big bend region of florida, it's the last time they saw a direct hit from any hurricane. people i talked to, though, say they're not taking any chances in doing whatever they can to prepare for the potential impacts from this storm. right behind me you see that to be true. we are in downtown paris, acute community, and you see these businesses are boarded up, all along this stretch of jefferson street here. we were out here earlier today with a lot of the business owners who came together, worked together to make sure each and every business had what they needed to protect everything inside, to make sure that whatever the storm passes, they can come back and still have things to return to. a little bit further out by the coast, in keaton beach, we got a chance to talk to different families. a lot of people in those communities who love this area, they love this speech, and they are not used to seeing anything like this. there is a mandatory evacuation in place for people along the coast. those are the low lying areas, people in rvs, mobile homes, or even if you don't feel safe, the impact here in taylor county are supposed to be so severe, to the point where taylor county emergency leaders had to close the one and only shelter they were planning to open here. it was at the elementary school. they shut it down earlier today and decided to tell people hey, if you want to evacuate, you've got to go an hour north to tallahassee, leon county. there are four shelters open there for families to ride out this storm. here in taylor county, this is now the time for everyone to stay put. the curfew went into effect at 8:00, and police officers and the sheriff's office are making their rounds and checking to make sure people are heeding that warning. i can tell, you based on driving around, it's a ghost town. it's good. people are listening. >> it's good they are in their homes or they have evacuated. what percentage of people in taylor county do you believe he did that warning and got out of town? it's not used to storms like this, they might not be inclined to go. >> yeah, it seems as if most people actually listened to that warning. down by keaton beach we saw a couple of homeowners boarding up and then they said they were getting out. so it's hard to give an exact percentage number in regards to how many people heeded that warning. but based on looking around, boats are pulled in, rvs and campers are no longer at campground sites. everyone seemed to try and find higher ground. when we were driving down to keaton beach we saw a lot of people go in the opposite direction. they were getting out. and they have to follow that. because of that mandatory evacuation for people in some of the lower lying areas. so it seems as if most people either listened, they went to higher ground, they were seeking shelter, or they're just doing whatever they can to ride out the storm safely. >> what are people going to wake up to tomorrow? >> the emergency leaders said you can expect catastrophic destructive potentially even deadly storm surge. when you think about 10 to 15 feet of storm surge, that could be boat docks washed away, the beautiful beaches that we love here in taylor county may be unrecognizable. overnight storms are really heartbreaking because you can't see the impact or the damages until that side comes up, until the sun starts to rise. we'll just have to wait and see come tomorrow morning when that storm makes landfall. we will be gadget here assessing the damage at a safe point, getting a close eye on what people are dealing with, but it could be flooding, it could be damage from strong winds that are expected to hit. but a lot of people have their sandbags. they have their windows boarded up. we're just trying to prepare for whatever that damage could be. >> well, christina, i hope this is your last hit of the night. wherever you are going, i hope you can hunker down, stay safe, and ride this out. thank you so much for joining us tonight. when we come back, a jump in prices at the pump have some gop presidential hopefuls jumping to conclusions. but we're going to break down the facts with a reality check that they might not want to hear, when the 11th hour continues. continues. you need sinex saline from vicks. just sinex, breathe, ahhhh! 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guess how? surrendering. and political groups and independent vendors on both sides of the aisle want in on the moneymaking action as well. there are t-shirts, tote bags, shot glasses, stickers, pillows, toilet paper, and, of course, mugs. mugs of the mugshot. so so so many months. well yesterday don junior shared his thoughts about other people profiting from his father's photo. i want to watch this. >> i don't feel right about profiting from it. i other people have made a good living doing the maga march even though none of the money goes to the campaign or the cars. maybe it's a reckoning start. i can't do that. i wouldn't feel right doing it. i probably actually will get killed in the press doing it, thinking about that now. but it's important to have it done. so if you gaze go to shop dot junior.com, up with the link up on the bottom, you guys can see it here. check out all the merch. i'm going to take all of the profits from that. and really give it to the legal defense fund to push back against some of the insanity, the miscarriage of justice here. i let you guys know how much we end up making. i did at thursday night. everyone else is going to be doing. it many people will get rich. most are not doing anything with it other than probably lining their own pockets. that's the nature of capitalism. but if you're going to buy it, this is a good place to do it. >> let's take a deep breath on that one. you heard him. no making money of the mugshot unless it's going directly to the trump. which is why grifters are gonna grift. we'll be right back after this. right back after this i'm patriotic kenny. and, hi, i'm amanda on tiktok. my scooter broke down. i went into a depression. how do you feel about that? 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most people don't realize it. so let's discuss. joining me now, ben la fave, who covers the energy industry and policy issues of politico. ben, what can you tell us about your reporting? >> that basically, as you mentioned, republicans are trying to pin higher gas prices on joe biden. joe biden's energy policy. but the data doesn't bear it out. the u.s. has unleashed a lot of energy production by its solar wind and even oil. the u.s. is on track to produce more oil this year than it ever has before and will be producing more next year. so the issue isn't barb mcquade energy production, it's oil being a global market being dependent on wars in europe and real estate markets in china, it's not something they can pin on the white house. >> gas prices have gone up recently. what is behind that? >> that issue is kind of the old bogeyman. it's opec cutting down production. saudi arabia wants to raise money for its own domestic economy, develop its own industries besides oil. the other issue is major refineries in the u.s. have gone down. these are the places that actually turned the oil into gasoline and diesel. we have one of them blow up a couple of years ago, a major one on the east coast. we had another big refinery in the south, in texas, or louisiana, catch fire and had to go down for a number of days. so that will do more to push up the price of gasoline if there is enough supply to go around, then any sort of oil or natural gas policy coming out of the white house. >> is there any truth to republican claims that green initiatives and the room inflation reduction act are causing higher oil prices? >> no, not at all. if you don't like rollercoaster oil prices, kind of a strategy is to get out of the game. so to do that you need to boost your solar power, your wind energy development, you're geothermal development. anything that can replace a barrel of oil will get you out of that game of, how opec feels it any given week or what russia is doing in ukraine. so the green transition doesn't necessarily mean that you're gasoline prices are going to be going up anytime soon. >> maybe this is an easy question, maybe it's a dumb question, everything that you have just laid out makes perfect sense, and most people don't know it. so why is in the biden administration pushing back against these claims that he has got these disastrous policies causing energy prices to go up? >> it's a double-edged sword. republicans don't need to bring out that joe biden's administration is hosting a huge output in oil. but democrats don't like to bring attention to -- they are running on a green agenda, they don't want to run around saying, under democratic administration were having this huge boom in oil production. that's not what the envoy environmental groups want to hear. and it's interesting, whenever there's any new data coming out on u.s. follows fossil fuel production, it's crickets from -- and then you also get a lot of angry from press releases coming from some of the progressive groups who are saying, why are we having any oil production? wire aren't we shutting this down? so it's not something the biden administration really wants to trumpet. it wants to let it go, oh bit keeps it tab on gasoline prices, and roll it out once in a while doing intubate to kind of -- a republican talking point, but they don't really want to go around blaring that too much for their own political purposes. >> isn't that just bananas? isn't that like the worst of politics? let's make sure we let politics and what polls we'll get in front of what the actual truth is. that right there is what frustrates the american people about government, don't you think? >> yeah, and it kind of points to the old political saw, the only thing in the middle of the road is road kill. and that's the kind of challenge that the biden white house has. they kind of need to have things, fossil fuel going without interruption to keep gasoline prices down to keep the voters happy, but you have to remember, the one economic indicator that everybody knows is with the corner gas step sciences. when you drive by a gas station, and prices going, up people just feel. bad weather going back down you think oh, man, gates in the white house must be doing something great. but when you're a democrat, you can't really call too much attention to. that when you're in the gop, if there was a gop president right now, they will probably be taking the mueller tied at the white house showing where productions going, like one of those debt clock things, it'll probably be barrels of oil. but when you're democrat you can't really do that. >> the only thing in the middle of the road is road kill. it is time we change that sentiment. ben, thank you so much for the us for joining. us and for those of you watching, if any of you can give me the correct spelling of ben's last name, you've got an 11th hour mug coming your way. when you see it, you lose your mind. ben, great to have you on. important reporting. and for you at home, thank you for watching. i wish you all a very good and very safe night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late