for your business today. >> ryan bussey, candidate for comcast business. powering possibilities. governor of montana gets tonight's last word. the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts now. >> tonight, the guilty verdict for the man who attacked paul pelosi. the conviction handed down amid a rise of political division, violence, and dangerous rhetoric. and questions about how the media should cover donald trump during this election in the wake of -- the shifting approach. then, alarming testimony from a former facebook exact about what his teenage daughter experienced using the app. an important discussion on the effort to keep kids safe online as the 11th hour gets underway on this thursday night. ♪ ♪ ♪ good evening. once again, i'm stephanie ruhle. tonight, a verdict in the case that raised fears about violent political outbreaks in this country. a federal jury has convicted david to pop of federal crimes for a violent attack on paul pelosi, husband of the former speaker of the house, nancy pelosi. this ulta place over one year ago. depape broken to pelosi san francisco home shouting, where is nancy? he then beat paul with a hammer, fracturing his skull. depape admitted he was motivated by baseless, far-right conspiracy theories. many of the loudest voices on the right of since joked about the attack, including former president donald j trump himself. >> you know, we had no terror during my administration. the only terror we had with nancy pelosi, who is a crazed lunatic. what the hell was going on with her husband? 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. ten years ago, san francisco was one of the greatest cities in the world. today, i don't know, it's sad to see. and nancy pelosi is a big reason for it. by the way, she's got a wall around her house. it didn't help her husband too much. >> classy. the attack happened just ahead of the 2022 midterm elections amid sharp political and cultural divide in america. one gop come grossman who also came to power than was george santos of new york. his election help republicans take control of the house, but boy, oh boy, what a difference a year makes. now santos is facing expulsion in the wake of an absolutely devastating the house ethics report that was released earlier today. it says he broke multiple federal laws, including using campaign cash to fund things including, wait for it, botox treatments, payments to onlyfans, and a whole lot of other things. nbc's ryan nobles has the whole story. >> tonight, embattled representative george santos's days in congress maybe numbered. >> he should be expelled. what he has done has violated the public trust. >> this after the bipartisan house ethics committee released a bristol-ing report outlining a long list of allegations against the new york congressman. >> the level of misconduct here, criminal conduct, is off the charts. i've never seen anything like it. >> among the new revelations, that santos used campaign fund to pay for his personal rant, to take out cash from an atm at a casino, to spend lavishly at designer stores, for cosmetic treatments like botox, and on the website onlyfans, which is known for its adult content. santos already faces a lengthy criminal indictment. the ethics committee referring their findings to the doj, which could add to his list of charges. as he left washington, incentives was defiant. >> i think i said this very clear to you. i will take whatever comes my way the way it comes. i have no concerns. >> today, he announced he would not seek reelection, but vowed to stay in his seat, quote, up until i am allowed. but that may not before long, as a flood of members who once had santos deserved due process before any talk of expulsion, are now ready to kick him out. >> the ethics committee found that he did not cooperate with the investigation, and i think he's been given the fair due process. >> that criminal indictment, ryan noble mentioned, involves 23 separate charges that include stealing from his donors and falsifying campaign filings. with that, let's get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel, luke broadwater is here. pulitzer prize-winning congressional party for the new york times. you're gonna get really excited but our next guest. leigh mcgowan is here at 30 rock. and you know her as the internet's very popular politics girl. stuart stevens joins us, a veteran of the mitt romney and george w. bush presidential campaigns. he is now with the lincoln project. his new book a must read the conspiracy to end america, five ways my old party is driving our democracy to autocracy. it is out now. luke, do you remember when steve scalise was shot in 2017? it was devastating. and people all across the hill, all across the country, but obviously, on both sides of the aisle, came out in his support, condemning the shooter. why are we not hearing that for paul pelosi? because it wasn't just donald trump going after him. i remember glenn youngkin, who likes to paint himself as a moderate, he mocked paul pelosi. >> yeah, there is no defending those comments in anyway. you had a brutal and devastating attack on an elderly man with a hammer because somebody believed a whole bunch of lies on the internet about pelosi along. terrorism experts call this stochastic terrorism, which is that somebody has been so demonized, in this case, nancy pelosi and her family, that it creates this heightened risk of lone wolf actors like the attacker in california. and so, you can very much tie the dehumanization of nancy pelosi and her family to this attack. and you'd heard the attacker on the witness stand, who's said he's gotten into these right-wing conspiracy theories, and that is why he turned violence. and so, the more that they joke and they demonize the pelosi's, the more likelihood there is that you'll see more of this political violence. >> stuart, i want you to hear what attorney andrew weissmann said about this earlier tonight. >> it's sort of unbelievable that we're sitting here talking about gee, wouldn't it be great if politicians had the fortitude to not normalized violence? >> you write about political violence in your new book, right? trump jokes about violence all the time and people are like, oh, it's just what he says. just what he says results and things like this. >> yeah, you know, really, i think the republican parties to blame for this. because the republican party calls this out, it would be less normalized. so take governor of florida right now, ron desantis, republicans forever have said let's cut the federal budget, let's reduce the number of federal employees. we never did it, but we still talk about it. so now, that's become for youngkin, he says, i'm going to slip their throats. that's a guy, governor of a really big state that was a front runner in his race at one time, instead of opposing doctor fauci, he said somebody should throw that little elf across the potomac. and you know, when he saw the debate the other night, it was full of all this glorifying of who could be the most descriptive and what they wanted to do to somebody else. and i think it's a deep sickness that's in the party. >> yeah, but here's the thing, there are polls out there that more and more people are saying in some cases, political violence is justified. do you think democrats need to be way more focused on the threat of violence right now? >> i think we all need to be aware of the threat of violence. you lose me at polls because i don't know who is polling anymore. i don't understand these polls that are coming out. oh, this person, trump is still winning. when it comes down to political violence, i think we have to go right back to common sense. is that what the american people want? when you think about it, politics in general, we really want to congressional members fighting in congress. gee, i thought it was great when that senator asked to fight somebody in congress. -- >> who is pulling that? in any place a business where you've ever worked, have people argue that work, and said, let's take it outside. i'm gonna take you down. no. >> our children would not be able to behave like this. my child behave like this, he resigned from school, who'd be suspended. and yet he we allow our congressional members to do that, and that's exactly what happens. when your standard bearer, you're the biggest brutally in the world. you have to either rise to the level that bubbly or you are demoted within your party. and that is what we have become. we have become the bassist version of ourselves and we have to ask that's really what we want. and i think most of the american people are saying, that's not really what we want. and i don't know who's going on the phone, because most people don't want violence. >> okay, clearly what we're talking about is the thing we saw earlier this week, right? gop senator mike wayne mullin challenging the teamsters president to a fire during a hearing. and we could say that's ridiculous on his part, but i want to know what our other members of congress saying about that. yeah, so i'm going to take you out. let's take it outside. are they right on man? >> i think most people in congress, or at least once and i talked to throughout the week, felt embarrassed to be a part of the institution this week. you had, you know, allegedly former speaker kevin mccarthy elbowing another republican. in the hallway. and the two of them traded insults. and accusations. senator mike wayne mullin challenging a witness to a fight in a congressional committee room. you had really mean and nasty insults going back and forth in the oversight committee. so, yeah, it was an embarrassing week for congress. it was an embarrassing week for, in particular, the republicans in congress, who are the ones doing all of the accusations, all the threats of fights. and it was a scene of chaos and, like i said, deep embarrassment for many members. >> beyond the political divide, we have to talk about what happened on tiktok today, lee. young tiktok users, right, somehow, this 20 year old letter penned by none other than osama bin laden. we now have some young american tiktok user saying maybe he had a point. what in the world's going on, lee? >> i think the problem with social media, and i say this is somebody who created their entire career on social media, is that there's very little room for nuance there. it's very -- >> i'm sorry, where is the nuance around him some of bin laden? >> i think the problem is it's very easy for people to hear one thing, click on to it, and say oh, i am against genocide, so here i am suddenly against israel. or i am against this thing, so i'm suddenly for osama bin laden. people are not using their critical thinking minds, and we are not coming at it from a sense of humility. we're not coming at it like, i don't know everything, there are experts out here in the world that actually know these things. i don't want my surgeon learning how to do my surgery on tiktok, and i don't want my tiktokers telling me how to do international policy. there are people who are actual experts. and we can learn from social media, about what we should be pain attention to, what we should be seen, what we should be maybe researching more, but to actually get our information solely from social media, it leaves us very vulnerable to understanding the wrong thing. >> help me understand this, stewart. it's clear that there is a line. political rhetoric is inflaming people and inciting violence. paul pelosi is the perfect example. why is it that all sorts of lawmakers are clinging to the idea that protecting free speech is more important than protecting human life? >> it's not really free speech. it's free speech that they like. you know, you saw where facebook now is made a policy where it's okay to say that past elections were stolen. this is just incredibly corrupt to any sort of civil society. you know, republicans have gone down this road, and it's so striking about it to me, having spent 30 years in the party, i used to think that we were the adult in the room. remember that? where like, you know, it might be boring to have republicans in office, but would be stable and at least they would try to do the work and be confident. and that's just completely gone, to this sort of craziness. look at that clip. he had bernie sanders at was the institutionalist saying do this? in the united states senate? i mean, you know, i remember when bernie was running for mayor and the bicycle down the main street in burlington and he was yelling about -- anyone that race. and now he's the institutionalist. and i think it says a lot about where the republican party is fallen. >> as long as we're talking about where the republican party has fallen, let's go even lower, george santos. can you explain to us, luke, what is the situation for him in the house? he took campaign dollars, spending on pain for onlyfans, botox, sophora visits, and going to atlantic city. what's going to happen to him? >> the ethics committee report today was quite damning. it really laid out a pattern and practice of using campaign funds for his own personal use, in addition to all the myriad lies that are documented that george santos has told over the course of his campaign. as to what's going to happen next, that's very much a question for the house republicans. two thirds of members have to vote to expel a member like george santos. at the last vote, a majority of republicans voted to save george santos. speaker mike johnson, the new speaker, put out a statement today in which he did not call for expulsion. he said the report was troubling and it concerns him, but he did not call for expulsion. and he has previously said that he really needs every vote with congresses tight margins. so, will this report tip it over the edge where now the republicans will have a change of heart and unite to vote out this oh man after this really damning ethics report? >> what's your take on his bold statement that he doesn't plan to run again? how is he gonna run again? what donor out there is going to say, let me write you this campaign check. or should i just fill it out directly to onlyfans? give me a break. >> this guy would lives in a web of lies. i don't think he has a clue what he's doing have time. i think the thing that we have to remember is that any normal congress, any government we would actually won, would've gotten rid of him from the very beginning. they would've been like, bro, you are not for us, obviously, you're a complete lie. are you like to people who elected you. you're not who you said you are from where you played volleyball or didn't play volleyball to your mother of was and if she died in 9/11. the skies too much. so the thing is that they're keeping him because they want his vote. and that's what it really comes down to. this is not a party that's looking to have values or morals or ethics. they don't really care about any of that anymore. they care about do they have the power? and they will do anything they can to keep the power even if that means keeping somebody like george santos. >> well, republicans are not alone inside behavior. stuart, take your pick. you've got bob menendez on the left, george santos on the right. two guys who can go to jail, yet congress is okay with them keeping their jobs as lawmakers. what does that say about our political system? >> well, i mean, obviously, they both should be expelled. democrats have done a better job calling out menendez than republicans have santos. you know, i'm thinking back, when mike pence first ran for congress, he lost because he was paying his mortgage with his campaign funds. so, this sort of thing, and he ended up being vice president. probably santos his career is not going to go that far. but you know, it goes to this idea that those -- does character count? does it really matter who people are? can we look up to these people? and i think if we live in a country where we've decided the character doesn't count, which is something that republicans used to say, and with trump, it's gone the other way. i think that's really dangerous. as lee was saying, it's not - country where we've decided the character doesn't count, which is something that republicans used to say, and with trump, it's gone the other way. i think that's really dangerous. as lee was saying, it's not like this in any other part of my life. coaches don't do this. teachers don't do this. and so, i think if we have lower standards for people around the country, what's that about? >> can you imagine people taking their corporate cards and pain there around ten covering onlyfans and going to atlantic city? you see that in corporate america every day. luke broadwater, stuart stevens, thank you both for being here. special thanks to leigh mcgowan. we don't get to see her often, and man, it is worth it. when we come back, trump's smack talking the judge again. and guess what? he's allowed to. and i really need somebody to tell me why. and later, a possible sea change for a news giant. univision has set off alarm bells on its influence in 2024. the 11th hour just getting underway, and i'm going to say, at a very important thursday night. very. and i think if we live in country where we've decided th character doesn't count, which is something that republican used to say, and with trump, it's gone the other way. i think that's reall dangerous. as lee was saying, it's no like this in any other part of my life. coaches don't do this. teachers don't do this and so, i think if we have lower standards for people around the country, what's tha about? >> can you imagine peopl taking their corporate cards and pain there around te covering onlyfans and going to atlantic city? you see that in corporat america every day. luke broadwater, stuart stevens, thank you both for being here. special thanks to leig mcgowan. we don't get to see her often, and man, it is worth it. when we come back, trump's smtalking dge again. ans what he's allowed to. and i really need somebody t tell me why. and later, a possible se change for a news giant. univision has set off alar bells on its influence in 2024 the 11th hour just getting underway, and i'm going to say at a very important thursday night. very 00 or more, you can sell all or part of it to coventry. even a term policy. for cash, or a combination of cash and coverage, with no future premiums. someone needs to tell them, that they're sitting on a goldmine, and you have no idea! hey, guys! you're sitting on a goldmine! come on, guys! do you hear that? i don't hear anything anymore. find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. c'mon, we're right there. c'mon baby. it's the only we need. go, go, go, go! ah! touchdown baby! -touchdown! are your neighbors watching the same game? 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