at these grown men that are behaving in such a ridiculous way. but it is also deadly serious. and it should be called out for what it is, dangerous. we must demand more of our leaders. and on that note, i wish you a peaceful and a good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thank you for staying up late. see you again tomorrow. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> it is easy to become desensitized to the litany of outrageous things that donald trump has said over the years. but there is a reason that historians are concerned about mr. trump's latest stump speech. >> we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, marxists, fastest's, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave none the threat from within the. >> calling your political opponents vermin and the threat from within, we've heard that before. in mine collins, adolf hitler referred to jews as vermin of eradication, and benito mussolini referred his opponents as parasites and reptiles. so donald trump is following in some appalling and notorious footsteps of the most violent dangerous man of the 20th century, or at least some of them. and trump did not end there. here he was in the very same stump speech talking about the home invasion and the brutal attack on speaker nancy pelosi's husband, an attack that was carried out by a right-wing extremist. >> nancy pelosi, who is a crazed lunatic, she's a lunatic. she is a crazed lunatic. what the hell was going on with her husband? let's not ask. let's not ask. i'll withdraw that statement. by the way, she's got a wall around her house. obviously, in that case, it didn't work very well. >> nancy pelosi is a crazed lunatic. that kind of glorification of violence, that call to abandon empathy, to stop seeing our shared humanity. that is no longer just donald trump. that rhetoric and that behavior has invaded trump's entire party. here was trump's closest rival for the republican nomination, governor ron desantis, in a radio interview today mocking former governor nikki haley for expressing grief over the killing of george floyd in 2020. >> you know, i remember when the george floyd riots were happening, i called out the national guard. i said i'm standing with police. but she was tweeting that it needed to be personal and painful for every single person. and i'm thinking to myself, why did that need to be personal and painful for you or me? we had nothing to do with it. it just shows an example of her adopting this left-wing mindset and accepting the narrative. we need leaders who are going to fight the narrative. >> now, the narrative, to be clear here, according to a jury's verdict is that george floyd was brutally murdered as officers back the officer who press the knee into george floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes as those onlookers begged for them to stop. but according to governor desantis, any pain, any perceived pain for the public murder of an innocent american means you are somehow capitulating to the left wing and it's agenda. this is trump's effect on the republican party, a party whose worship of white male machismo appears to be turning into something brutal and cruel, where violence isn't just an accepted outcome in american life, but a necessary outcome. know where was that more on display none in the halls of congress today. for months now, republican senator markwayne mullin has been in a feud with the head of the teamsters union, because the union president had referred to senator mullin as a greedy ceo. today, the head of that union, sean o'brien, testified before the senate health and labor committee, where senator mullin revisited sean o'brien's invitation to settle their dispute anyplace, anytime, cowboy. >> sir, this is a time, this is a, place you want to run your mouth, we can be two consenting adults, we can finish it here. >> okay, that's fine, that's perfect. >> you want to do it now? >> i would love to do it now. >> stand up and do it. >> you stand up and do it. >> no, hold on, stop. sit down. no, you're a united states senator, sit down. >> you are a united states senator, sit down. the wheels are coming off here. a chain reaction started by donald trump now has republicans not just ready to bra with democrats, but brawl with each other. just a few hours ago, republicans, under the leadership of speaker mike johnson, could not agree on a way to fund the government. and so, they had to do what they always now have to do in this congress, which is to rely on democrats. with 209 democrat votes and 127 republican votes, the house managed to pass the resolution to fund the government for a few more months after weeks of infighting among republicans. if you are a republican right now, this is all completely embarrassing. the party ousted its last speaker for relying on democratic votes to get something done, then held the government hostage while trying to figure out who could possibly lead the republican conference. finally, electing a hard liner who once again had to rely on democratic votes to get the thing done. if that call wasn't shameful enough for the gop, the last republican house speaker, kevin mccarthy, is reportedly lashing out at the members who cost him that job in the first place. and when i say lashing out, i mean that literally. today, npr reporter claudia rue solace was interviewing republican congressman tim burchett, when the congressman claimed former speaker of the house kevin mccarthy intentionally elbowed him in the kidney. here is the audio from that incident, captured by npr. >> why do you only me in the back, kevin? hey kevin, you got any guts? jerk. >> has he done that before? >> no. >> that's a new move. >> i'm going to go talk to him. >> hey kevin, why to walk behind an elbow me in the back? >> you've got no guts. you did so. they sat down or said it right there. what kind of chicken move is that? >> your pathetic, man. >> kevin mccarthy later denied that he hit congressman burchett with yet in other display of embarrassing machismo. >> show me a reporter who saw that. if i elbowed someone, they would know i did it. >> he said he wasn't in pain. >> oh, come on now. >> joining me now is npr's congressional correspondent claudia car salah's, who was the reporter talking to congressman byrd should at the time of that incident. claudia, first, just tell me from your perspective what happened. did you see kevin mccarthy actually run up on the congressman as you are interviewing him? >> great to be with you alex. i was focused on brigitte. i was -- is coming up this long hallway, it was a distance from the meeting room. republicans were just meeting and he had just come over to my side of the hallway. we were speaking. so i was fully focused on him. he had maybe said one sentence to me before he lunch towards. me rub out two feet apart. said he is about a foot towards me. and it was just such a shock. i remember burchett yelling out to mccarthy, initially joking, saying, hey, kevin, didn't mean to elbow. and then he switched and said why did you elbow me in the back, kevin. and i start to look at that, point realized, that's mccarthy, that's his detail, they walk by. and initially, i thought it was a joke, maybe a joking, shove of some, kind of a bump. but from what it looked like from my perspective, mccarthy had shoved into burchett. it appeared to be an elbow, as burchett claimed. >> you know, you think about this incident that you captured, both in audio and on social media. and we are now talking about it, with a quote from former congressman, republican adam kinzinger, who in his book, writes about once i was standing in the aisle that runs from the floor to the back of the chamber. as mccarthy passed with his security man and some of his boys, mccarthy veered towards me, hit me with his shoulder, and then kept going. it is bodychecking a fellow republican who run afoul him a thing for speaker mccarthy? i know your congressional reporter, claudia. how much of this is something that he does? i mean, have you heard about this before? >> not before today. it is -- it has been a concern for me in terms of how high tensions have been running, especially within the house republican conference, especially since mccarthy was ousted. i have been worried about physical altercations between members. i wrote a piece last week about members in the public infighting. but as where it would build up to a mom, it was just very surreal that it happened to play out right in front of my eyes today. but in terms of mccarthy's history, no, i was not familiar with it. i heard about kinzinger's experience, just today from his book. and it's quite shocking to you both, to hear that case, and see what i saw today. >> can you talk a little bit more about the sort of tenor, well, the temperature, actually, inside a republican conference? we are seeing, you know, the explosions of anger in the senate and the house. the -- front runner for the republican nomination is's making anger part of his brand. what has been effective in all of that in terms of the legislative body? how does a feeling congressman? >> i think we're seeing a play out. this is a perfect storm. it has been building all year. how speaker mike johnson spoke to him earlier today, before i had shared what i had seen, and he's talking about this pressure cooker in the house, and something that we had been wondering about, especially since october, when mccarthy was speaker, he canceled two weeks of recess. and the work, the struggles, the tensions, the fighting that we saw in the house republican conference go through in october, i just exacerbated a lot of sore feelings that were there earlier, from earlier in the year, they played out. now, republicans were worried about the threats from fellow republican constituents. so, it is very worrisome. in some ways, it is not surprising to see this play out now, but in others, it's very shocking. >> claudia grisales, may i suggest elbow pads, shoulder pads, whatever you need to keep doing your job with this essential reporting. claudia grisales from npr, thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you. >> joining me now is jamelle bouie, new york times opinion columnist. his latest piece of today is titled trump wants to know that he will stop at nothing in 2025. jamele, thank you for joining me. i can think of no better person to help sort of break down what exactly has happened to the grand old party here under the tutelage, if you will, of donald trump. first of all, what did you make of the fireworks, i guess, is the most euphemistic term that we saw in congress today, in the context at the age of trump? >> on one hand, you can attribute some of the aggression, maybe to trump. you can attribute the real anger and the stain that appears to be the republican conference. on the other hand, i remember 2010, 2012 cycle with the tea party and everything, i remember the sort of -- set to those members were up a polak and aggressive, and so forth. i think the difference between now and then right is that now, there are no, no really moderating in the conference. not to say that there were some prior, but there are none now. there is nothing to bring the temperature down, and you have a new crop of members who don't seem to be interested in governing whatsoever. so, all of that together means you have the kind of situation where you're going to have the fireworks that we saw today. >> i do wonder, totally agree with you that there is no moderating influence, but it seems like it's a step beyond the when you talk about 2010, and of course, joe wilson says you lied to president obama. a purse has been the gop thing, but this almost -- we seem to be in a moment where violence and anger and outbursts are incentivize. i'll go back to the piece he wrote today in the new york times. i'll go back to the piece he wrote today in the new york times. >> it's not there an acceleration or hyperbole to say, it looks like an awful lot like trump's planned could have been reelected. it looks awful like a supplants meant to give the former president the power and unchecked authority of a strongman. i feel like having a sort of idol who is a strongman or wants to be even more of an unchecked strongmen, almost gives license and encourages footsoldiers to be their own miniature happy meal version of strongmen. >> one thing you see, throughout the republican party is the rejection at the idea of persuasion, rejection of doing any kind of way of attempt to speak to someone who disagrees with you on an equal basis and try to bring them to your side. within the republican party, i think we're focusing on that right now, where it's not just a rejection of anything like dialogue or persuasion with democrats, but even amongst republicans, no attempt to do anything to reach out for people to persuade people. but more broadly, the republican party nationally, there's trump, obviously, the entire notion of trying to seize power is in some sense of rejection at the idea that you're doing the work of democratic life. there are state legislatures who create these intense gerrymanders and try to overturn and nullify the actions. again, this idea that there is no democracy to do anymore. we're just going to dominate over everyone around. does this really does seem to be the dominating ethos of so much of the republican party, and it's hard to know what to do about it, about this observant, and hope that it burns itself out. >> i will also say to the point of, like there is no working across the aisle, no democracy worth preserving. the recent that republicans are not shutting down the government, because democrats dug up and save their butts. like, the irony here, as trump vilifies the fascist left, the fastest left is actually saving your butts in congress. with asking nothing than a functioning government. i gotta ask you, jamele, this is so indicative of where the republican party's head is at today. this is senator markwayne mullin, again, senator markwayne mullin on newsmax today, sort of making a historical reference as to why it's totally fine to come to blows in the u.s. senate. let us take a listen. >> could you guys go barnacle if you want to do? >> you know the rules, and he smelled the cane. you can remember president henry jackson challenged nine guys to a dual, and won nine times. and a guy one-time, jackson jumped up, ran across the table and knock the guy out. so, at the end of the day, there is precedence for, if that is something with someone wants to do. >> just a word on precedents, andrew jackson, if republicans are taking their cues from the presidency of andrew jackson, houston, we have a problem. secondly, they got he was skating, i believe was abolitionists charles sumner. talk about two chapters of american history that are probably not where you want to be drawing your marching orders from, jamele? >> yeah, i don't know if i would want to -- i don't know if i'd want to compare myself to president brooks canning of charles sumner. it really was this major event in the history of congress, really galvanized a lot of forces. this glorification, this willingness to speak privately, to act properly, again, it speaks to this -- not just immaturity or aggression or rejection of the base and premise of democratic life, which is that we're going to talk to each other. persuade each other, an attempt to engage each other as equals. saying, i would burn out in congress. in a statement, indicating of seven or, there was a statement. i don't feel any obligations, and that is just not. you can't run a legislative society like that. >> yes, i think that is the takeaway, it's not just congress. you cannot run a society like that. jamelle bouie, thank you, my friend, for your rhythm and thought. i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> we have a lot to get to this evening, including president biden, who is strong a serious contrast with his predecessor, donald trump, on making the most important, the most urgent issue of our lifetimes. plus, the leaked tapes of jenna ellis and sidney powell telling georgia prosecutors what they knew about the conspiracy case and what trump knew, that is next. type 2 diabetes? 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ask about the power of 3 with ozempic®. >> amateur is not late for this evening, but i was with my team, making sure that an emergency machine got filed. i'm not happy that it was released, and your junior colleague got to your story. >> your story that fulton county d. a. fani willis was referring to today is the washington post reporting on the proffer agreements, effectively confessions, from some of trump's codefendants to accept a plea deals in georgia's election interference case. from what we have seen and red, there are both colorful details and substantive revelations, and the colorful category, the fact that sydney powell's first time meeting codefendant scott hall happen to be on an alligator hunt. as for substantive, president trump asked kenneth just burrow for a five questions about the matter of arizona. and chesebro described for trump's memo on the fake elector scheme. there was also a coup plot revealed to jenna ellis at a white house christmas party. this is what she told prosecutors about a conversation she had with tom's trump's top aide, dan scavino. >> he said an excited tone, we don't care, and we're not going to leave. i said, what do you mean, and he said, well, the boss, meaning president trump. the boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. we are just going to stay in power. i said to him, it is not quite work that way, relies. he said, we don't care. >> joining us now is mimi roker, the district attorney of was county, new york, and the former district attorney in the southern district of new york. thank you for being here. let's pick up or jenna ellis left off there, this idea that dance given a told her, we're just going to stay in power, i had to read it there. we are just going to stay in power. seems like a searing indictment that can be used in court, is it hearsay, how does this qualify as a piece of evidence? >> the fact that you know to ask if it is hearsay shows that this was the plan. >> i should get a lot degree. >> first of all, i would say, yes, this is a damaging testimony if it comes in, why? because it shows that it was a plan, not that he really believed that he won the election but rather this was the plan. i think her testimony in one a day questions was, why listened to you over some other lawyers? well, because we are telling them what they wanted to hear. >> that was sidney powell this at the. >> yes, yes. >> that would negate a sort of defense of -- >> advice of counsel. >> exac