Transcript of Hegseth squirms as Democrats hammer poor character, weak qualifications to be defense secretary

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All of that made it look like Pete Hegset might just, might just fail to get the Republican support he needed to become Trump's next defense secretary. A lot of the attention about Hegset's fate fell on one senator in particular, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa. Senator Ernst is herself a sexual assault survivor, something she has spoken openly about in the past. Abuse is not something you can just simply forget. It stays with you forever. And I know this personally. As a survivor and as a United States Senator, I feel it is important to be a voice for the thousands of victims across Iowa and so many more across our nation who have fallen prey to sexual assault, to rape, to harassment, and other forms of abuse. Again, then, as Senator Joni Ernsting, she feels it is important to be a voice for victims of sexual assault and rape and harassment. Senator Ernst is also a veteran, which made Hegset's comments about women in the military, seemingly a particularly tough pill for her to swallow. Here is how Senator your honor, spoke about Pete Hègs. That's just last month. I did have a very long, lengthy discussion with Pete yesterday, and I do appreciate his service to the nation.

I also am a combat veteran. We talked about a number of those issues, and we will continue with the vetting process. I think that that is incredibly important. Again, all I'm saying is we had a very frank and productive discussion, and I know that we will continue to have conversation in the upcoming months.

Okay.

It doesn't sound on your answer that you've gotten to a yes. If I'm wrong about that, correct me. If that is the case, it sounds to me as if the hearing will be critical for his nomination.

Am I right about that? I think you are right. I think for a number of our senators, they want to make sure that any allegations have been cleared, and that's why we have to have a very thorough vetting process. Now, Senator Ernst signaling that Pete Hegset did not necessarily have her support was a big deal because it would take only four Republican defections to kill his nomination. As a veteran and a sexual assault survivor, Ernst's vote was especially critical. Just last month, Senator Ernst was very much on the fence, as you can see in that interview. But in the days since, Republican senators, and especially Joni Ernst, have been on the receiving end of an unprecedented pressure campaign from Donald Trump and his allies. An Elon Musk-backed pressure group spent more than half a million dollars on ads supporting Hegset, including this ad, which reportedly targeted Ernst's home state of Iowa.

Pete Hegsef is a Patriot. The Deep State is trying to stop his nomination, but Pete isn't backing down. Call your Senator today and urge them to confirm Pete Hegsef, her Secretary of Defense.

That is just the tip of the iceberg. As the New Yorker's Jane Mayer reports this week, the amount of private money being spent on the effort to confirm Hegsef is staggering for a cabinet nominee. The sum is rivaled only by the cash that has been spent to pressure senators into confirming Supreme Court justices. One group, American Leadership PAC, reportedly plans to spend a million dollars to muscle wavering Republican senators in five states into approving Hegsethe. According to the most recent FEC records, the group barely exists other than as a political Piggy Bank for four enormously wealthy right-wing mega donors. Those four mega donors are: Timothy Dunn, a Texas oil magnate, Bill Koch, a member of the right-wing mega-rich Koch family, Richard Euline, the Wisconsin billionaire who happens to be a major founder of election conspiracy groups, and Thomas Klingonstein, the head of the ultra-conservative Claremont Institute, which he founded with Trump's election-denying co-conspirator, John Eastman. All of that money appears to have been well spent. It has paid off. At today's hearing, Senator Ernst began her questioning by entering into the official record a letter of support for Pete Hegset. From there, it was pretty clear where this is going.

Ernst spent half of her time asking about Hegset's commitment to auditing the Pentagon before asking some perfunctury questions about women and sexual assault in the military, largely agreeing with Hegset's answers on both. It was not an adversarial line questioning. In fact, it was hardly questioning. At the same time, the New Yorker reports that Senator Ernst turned down offers to hear privately from Hegset's sexual assault accuser. Now, earlier tonight, Senator Ernst denied that reporting, saying she never received a request from the accuser or her lawyer. Either way, any meeting between Senator Ernst and the victim is unlikely to happen despite Ernst's announced desire to have any allegation cleared and to be a voice for victims sexual assault. That meeting is unlikely to happen because shortly after the hearing, Senator Ernst told a conservative radio host that she will now officially support Pete Hegset's nomination. I thought it was a good hearing for him.

Does he have your vote?

I am breaking news, Simon. I figured you would ask this. So, yes, I will be supporting President Trump's pick for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegset. Now, Senator Laurence was not the only Republican who effectively rolled over today when it came to vetting Pete Hegset. In fact, a lot of the questioning from Republicans was utterly embarrassing.

How many genders are there? Tough one. Senator But there are two genders. How many pushups can you do? I did five sets of 47 this morning. The only reason why I'm here and not in prison is because my wife loved me, too. Tell me something about your wife that you love.

Maybe if you could spend a minute just elaborate a little bit about the wokeness, where it comes from, and who will be held accountable.

Despite all of that, Democrats did their best to hold Hegset accountable for his controversial past, including and especially Senator Tim Caine, Democrat of Virginia.

You've admitted that you had sex at that hotel on October 2017. You said it was consensual, isn't that correct? Anything You've admitted that it was consensual, and you were still married, and you just had a child by another woman. You had just fathered a child two months before by a woman that was not your wife. I am shocked that you would stand here and say you're completely you are completely cleared. Can you so casually cheat on a second wife and cheat on the mother of a child that had been born two months before, and you tell us you were completely cleared? How is that a complete clear? One of your colleagues said that you got drunk A Good Invent at an event at a bar and chanted, Kill All Muslims. Another colleague, not anonymous, we have this, said that you took coworkers to a strip club. You were drunk, you tried to dance with strippers, you had to be held off the stage. One of your employees in that event filed a sexual harassment charge as a result of it. Now, I know you deny these things, but isn't that the behavior that, if true, would be disqualifying for somebody to be Secretary of Defense?

Senator, anonymous false charges. They're not anonymous.

Joining me now to discuss all of this is Senator Tim Caine of Virginia. Senator, thank you so much for being here tonight. Let me first just get your reaction to the news we got just about an hour ago that Senator Joni Ernst, who's long been seen as maybe one of the Republican linchpins to Pete Hegset's nomination, is going to indeed vote for his confirmation. What are your thoughts?

Alex, I'm shocked but not surprised.

Can you elaborate on that a little bit more? For a while there, it looked like she was not going to be an easy vote. It looked like she, given her background and her priorities, was going to try and hold Hegset to perhaps a higher standard than other Republicans. What's your estimate of what happened in the interim between then and now?

I think you laid it out pretty well in the introduction. I have worked closely with Senator Ernst on a variety of issues on the committee, including battling a culture that for too long was too tolerant of sexual harassment of women military members. But when she raised legitimate questions and didn't just sign on board with the nomination, the amount of pressure that's been applied to her from the Trump team, and you focused on things like ads on TV, but this is also things like personal threats and the kinds of things that you unleash. Again, I'm shocked that her focus on the needs of people who have been on the receiving end of sexual assault or sexual harassment has fated, but I'm not surprised because the pressure applied to her has been so significant. It's a sad day to hear that. But I think at the hearing today, Democrats did a pretty good job of shining a spotlight on the character of this individual. It is the My belief that we walked out of that hearing with many, many more questions than when we walked into the hearing.

I want to play some of your line of questioning, which was absolutely something that people paid attention to in terms of how tenacious you were compared to a lot of other people in that room. This is about Hegset and his dolling out of NDAs to alleged victims. Let's just take a listen to that exchange.

In finalizing divorces from your first and second wives, were there nondisclosure agreements in connection with those divorces? Senator, not that I'm aware of. But if there were, you would agree to release them from a confidentiality. Senator, that's not my responsibility. Did you ever engage in any acts of physical violence against any of your wives? Senator, absolutely not.

Can you elaborate, Senator, on what you were trying to get out there?

Well, a couple of things. I think the records show that Pete Hegset has nondiscriminately disclosure agreements, potentially with respect to his first two wives, I believe, with at least one of the two veterans organizations that he worked for and ran into the ground. He has a confidentiality agreement with the person that filed a sexual assault complaint against him that he ended up settling, making a cash payment to and entering into a confidentiality agreement. He had the nerve to say in the hearing today, Hey, I'm an open book, and I pointed about, Yeah, but you've got all kinds of people tied up with confidentiality agreements that can't share with us what they want to share with us. The other thing I was trying to get at was this. I need to be careful here because of some of what I know is either from classified or from committee-only materials. But I have deep concerns about his abuse of women, his drunkenness on the job, his creation of toxic work culture, the circumstances surrounding his two divorces, including multiple allegations of infidelity. I was trying to get him to just be candid with the American public. Should committing a sexual assault be disqualifying to be Secretary of Defense?

Not a hard question. Should spousal abuse be disqualifying to be Secretary of Defense? Not a hard question. Should drunkenness on the job be disqualifying to be Secretary of Defense? Not a hard question. He wouldn't answer any of them. That was very telling to me.

I got to ask, given what you're floating here, some of it's new, some of it there's been rumors of, some of it's been reported on. It just seems like this is someone who is deserving of a really thorough FBI background check, not just for Democrats, but also for Republicans and the people who are hiring him, the Trump administration. And yet, Jane Mayer reports in The New Yorker, for example, the FBI's background investigation failed to interview Fox News personnel who described Hegg sets to NBC News as smelling of alcohol in the job as recently as last fall. Instead, sources say that the bureau settled for an interview with a public relations official at Fox. Is that unprecedented?

No, it's outrageous, Alex. I haven't even seen the FBI report. They won't give it to me. They gave it to the chairman of the committee, Senator Wicker, and the ranking member, Senator Reid. But in my discussions with Senator Reid, it's very plain that the FBI He did not interview many people who had been directly identified in other documents that had been made available. They didn't bother to interview them. That is just outrageous. You saw Pete Hegset in the committee hearing today, he tried to say all these claims were anonymous smears. These are not anonymous smears. The materials that I've read with the allegations about his behavior, each behavior is connected directly to an individual who, in many cases, I believe, was got interviewed by the vetters. The individuals named in the documents we've received even include his own mother, who wrote him an extremely painful and blunt letter when he was undergoing a second divorce calling him a serial abuser of women. The facts just line up one after the next, whether it's what his colleagues, work colleagues in three organizations have said about him, what he has written or said about women in in his own books and writings, in the circumstances of his two divorces, in the circumstances of the criminal allegation against him, which did not lead to a criminal conviction, but it did lead to a settlement and a payment and a nondisclosure agreement.

There is real investigation that needs to be done by someone here. But even on a paltry record that is largely notable for what it omits rather than what it includes, the facts are extremely troubling about the character of this individual.

Senator Tim Kaine, you may not have the answers under oath, but you at least are asking the question, sir. Thank you so much for coming on the program tonight. Really appreciate it.

Good to be with you, Alex. Thanks.

In advance of today's hearing, Ben Rodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor for President Obama, pend this opinion piece in the New York Times, Pete Hegset is dangerous, but not for the reasons you think. Trump's choice of Mr. Hegset is born out of right-wing grievances that have been building for a long time over the failures of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The accusations of sexual assault and excessive drinking, which Mr. Hegset has denied, also converged with other MAGA interests, including being unburdened by woke social moors. What military emerges from this worldview? Presumably, one that seeks to roll back the social and cultural changes of recent decades within its ranks, disrupting cohesion and devaluing diversity as a source of strength, a MAGA military. Joining me now is Ben Rodes, of course, former Deputy National Security Advisor under President Obama. Ben, I feel like this is such essential reading because we're obviously talking about one aspect of Pete Hegset's nomination, but you put into context in a longer historical lens how Hegset is the fruition of nearly 20 years of conservative grievance starting after 9/11. Can you put that into a finer point on that for people who haven't yet read this great op-ed?

Yeah, I mean, the quick version, Alex, is if you're in the Pete Hegset, right, after 9/11, you are promised great victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, and you were lied to and misled by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. After the outburst of jingoism around those wars on the right, if you're a Fox news person, all you were told for the Bush years is we're on the precipice of some great victory, there was a lot of anger and resentment about how those wars turned out. But importantly, and this is not unusual when superpowers fail to win wars, that anger didn't get channeled to that foreign It got channeled at an enemy within. If you take seriously, as I do, what Pete Hegg said, that said and written for many years, he is railing against liberals, he's railing against Islam, he's railing against, quote, unquote, woke culture. He's trailing against women in combat, gays in the military. It's all these enemies within, and he shares that with Trump, and he shares Trump's interest in having a Secretary of Defense who's totally loyal. I think that these allegations of personal misconduct, of course, they're important. But I actually think that's the debate that the right wing wants to have.

Here are the Democrats trying to scold somebody over their personal conduct. I think we have to look at what he actually wants to do if he gets in this position, this immensely powerful position of Secretary of Defense, and I think what he wants to do is shaped by the same grievance mindset that Donald Trump has given voice to over the course of the last decade.

Yeah, he's an expression of that. What he practically wants or could do, you also outlined in the piece, what happens It's as if the military is asked to support the political interests of the President or participate in mass deportations or suppress political protests. The United States would struggle to return to an apolitical military serving a constitutional citizenry rather than an individual or ideology. Then there's some caveats in the piece, but that seems like a very real possibility, and reversing that would be equally difficult.

Yeah. If you look at what Hegsat has said, he is advocating for the pardon of service members that were convicted of war crimes. He's essentially said that the US should not follow the laws of war. The Geneva Conventions were arrived at after the painful experiences of World War I and World War II. He said he doesn't think women should serve in that. He said that gays shouldn't serve in the military. He's lamented so-called diversity hires, in his words, that include, by the way, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who's Black, who he said should be fired. He has embraced the big lie of Donald Trump. We know that Donald Trump wanted to use the military to quash protest after George Floyd in 2020. We know that there's a potential that some people around Trump have talked about using the US military in the mass deportation plans that they have. These are very substantive questions about what the makeup and mission and nature of the United States military is, which is an apolitical institution that is supposed to serve all Americans and abide by the law. That, to me, is the real story of what is happening with this nomination and seemingly imminent confirmation.

I think that's what we have to be focused on.

Yeah, I think what needs to happen is the linkage between Pete Hegsas's past and what it could portend for his future. Yes. Both are very alarming. Ben Rodes, an excellent op-ed in the New York Times. Thank you for your time tonight, my friend. Thanks, Alex. We have much more to get to tonight, including Republicans playing politics with a disaster aid as the Southern California fires continue to rage. But first, how many of you have ever shown up to work drunk? That was a real question that a real United States Senator asked his colleagues today in defense of Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of Defense. We're going to have more on the rise of MAGA, Massacrement. Galinity, coming up next. Say yes to a summer holiday in France and getting there with Stiana Line. Early bookers get the best choice of fares and cabines on three weekly sailings from Rosler to Cherbourg, so you can get through winter knowing summer is sorted. From only a hundred Euro deposit, book your ferry trip at stenaline. Ie.

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What if you showed up drunk to your job? How many senators have shown up drunk to vote at night? Have any of you guys asked them to step down and resign for their job? Don't tell me you haven't seen it because I know you have. Then how many senators do you know have got a divorce before cheating on their wives? Did you ask them to step down? No. But it's for show You guys make sure you make a big show and point out the hypocrisy because a man's made a mistake. You want to sit there and say that he's not qualified? Give me a joke.

Give me a break. I mean, who among us hasn't arrived to vote drunk. Pete Hague says confirmation is not just about Republicans handing Donald Trump his first nomination win. It is also about the resurgence of patriarchal political power, something Donald Trump ran on explicitly. This highly retrograde tradition Traditionalism, for Pete Hegset, is rooted in a growing right-wing evangelical movement, one that seeks a theocratic state in which traditionalist Christian men lead the military and other essential government institutions. Joining me now is Michelle Goldberg, who's an opinion columnist for the New York Times. Michelle, thank you for being here this evening. Thank you. First of all, Mark Wayne Mullen. I guess everyone shows up drunk on the Senate floor, which tells you a lot about- It's astonishing that this isn't a matter of controversy, right?

No. That when Mark Kelly asked him over and over again, it wasn't, No, this is false. It was, These are smears. So no one's denying this.

Also, who doesn't cheat on their wives before asking for a divorce? I think he actually got the timeline wrong in that, but that I think was the essence of It goes to this notion that Republicans sanction the bad behavior and now are openly embracing it. And it has become a foundational value in this neo-trad family structure that they seem to be embracing.

I think part of the promise of Donald Trump, and it wasn't even that much... It wasn't even that subtextual, was the promise of impunity, was the promise that after the #MeToo era, we're going to go back to a time where this behavior won't be punished, where it won't be an impediment to your career. What's interesting is that on the one hand, Pete Hegset is this avatar of Christian nationalism from this extremely right wing church. But I think the innovation here, the part that makes it neo, is that it's all of the sanctimonious force of religious fundamentalism with none of the expected constraints.

Yes, right. Show up drunk, have affairs, but also be the patriarch. I I want to play a little bit of sound from this podcast that Pete Hegset was on. He is on the podcast. It is being hosted by a member of Pete Hegset's church. The church is called Pilgrim Hill. This is how they explain their theology.

Then the father is given the authority of the home, so in the family. The father has an actual authority over his wife and children, and then the wife has authority over the children, too. But ultimately, it's a patriarchal vision. Then the state, God has given authority, primarily the tool that God has given the state is the sword.

We see this in Romans 13.

They are to execute justice to protect the righteous from the wicked.

Two things are interesting. First of all, the patriarchy is outlined explicitly, but also it's the the embedded violence or punitive streak to this new form of traditional Christianity, neo-traditional Christianity, that strikes me as almost Just a playbook for people like Pete Hegset. If they come at you and they say you're unqualified, hit them back with your proverbial sword. Fight back aggressively.

I've been writing about Christian nationalism for a long time. This rhetoric is super familiar. It's almost standard. I think what's different is that the movement that he's part of used to be, at least a very explicit theocratic vision, used to maybe be more on the fringes of the conservative movement. Now it's at the dead center of the Republican Party. But It's also interesting the way, as you said, every time Pete Hegset had to answer for the many, many sins, frankly, mistakes, catastrophes, debacles that he's been involved in, he would talk about being saved by Jesus Christ. But at no point did he talk about that instilling any new, either figurative or literal sobriety.

His alleged controversies met with just a fierce zealotry, the proclamation of Jesus Christ and his lessons being visited upon him, but no moral reexamination or reexamination of his own morals. There are a lot of comparisons being drawn to the playbook that's being run with Pete Hegset and that of Brett Kavanaugh, not just in terms of the outside conservative money that's flooded this zone, but just in terms of, well, I'd ask you what you see as the thread that ties these two particular men together.

Well, I wouldn't compare these two because Brett Kavanaugh, although I wish he hadn't been confirmed, he was a plausible nominee. He wasn't a preposterous nominee. I don't think that Republicans in their heart of hearts saw Brett Kavanaugh as a joke that they were being forced to condone as a test of loyalty, whereas this is just such a farce. But I think what you see is that what happened to Christine Bazzi Ford was a a very powerful demonstration for anyone else who would come forward. When you think about the Republican organizer who filed this police report accusing Pete Hexeth of sexual assault, I would assume that she looks at what's happened to women like Christine Bazzi Ford and thinks, No, thank you. There's a reason I would assume that she has not come forward.

Well, and I would say that same pressure campaign in a different way is being exerted upon the Republicans who might stand in line and potentially talk to that victim. It is worth noting that the drivers behind this neo-traditionalist Christianity that people like Pete Hegset are a part of is the drivers are really interesting and they are cultural. The USA Today reports that the founder of Pete Hegset's church, Pilgrim Hill, said that one of the main drivers for enrollment in his church was the Black Lives Matter protests, which Pottinger characterized as a huge Satanic tactic to corrupt the gospel. He also mentioned that COVID-19 and the related lockdowns were also part of it. I wonder what that tells you about the political aspirations or the political implications of this Christianity being embraced by so many people who are at the top echelons of the Trump administration?

Well, I think that there's a broader cultural turn towards the manosphere among at least a lot of powerful men. You see Mark Zuckerberg talking about how they need to bring more masculine energy to corporate America. There's just this unbelievable backlash to the efflorescence of feminist activism that we saw during Trump's first term. And what this form of Christian nationalism does is it gives it a theological scaffolding.

Yeah, it does. Absolutely. To battle against literally any sociocultural progress or inclusivity that might be a hallmark of the 21st century. Here we go. Buckle up. Michelle Goldberg. Inauguration Day is on Monday. It's great to see you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you for your time tonight. Still to come this evening, even as deadly wildfires continue to rage through Southern California, Republicans are looking for ways to capitalize on tragedy politically. We'll have more on that next. Say yes to a summer holiday a day in France and getting there with Steena Line. Early bookers get the best choice of fares and cabins on three weekly sailings from Rössler to Cherbourg, so you can get through winter knowing summer is sorted. From only a €100 deposit, book your ferry trip at stenaaline. Ie.

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I do think it's worth being very Very clear-eyed, very realistic about what's going on here.

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Los Angeles is now entering its second week of fighting the largest fires the city has ever seen. The fires have already collectively burned an area more than two and a half times the size of Manhattan, displacing more than 100,000 people and killing at least 25. So while those fires are still actively burning, while authorities are literally still searching burned-out houses for the dead. How is the Republican leader of the House, Mike Johnson, how is he responding? He's threatening to hold hostage federal disaster aid.

I think there should probably be conditions on aid. That's my personal view.

We'll see what the consensus is.

I haven't had a chance to socialize that with any of the members over the weekend because we've all been very busy, but it'll be part of the discussion for sure. That was a speaker of the House saying that federal aid for these wildfires in California should have conditions. Mind you, Speaker Johnson represents the disaster-prone state of Louisiana. For the last year, we have data, 2022, Louisiana received $34 billion more from the federal government than the state paid the federal government. In that same year, California paid $83 billion more to the federal government than the state got in return. 2022 isn't an anomaly. California is the fifth biggest economy in the world on its own. The state literally subsidizes the rest of this country year after year. But because California is a blue state, Republicans want it to have California bend to the will of the GOP in order to get disaster relief.

Do you expect, though, that Congress and Republicans will still help these Americans in need, even if they don't like their local politics in the party?

I expect that there will be strings attached to money that is ultimately approved.

We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who have been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior.

They don't deserve anything, to be honest with you, and unless they show us they're going to make some changes.

Not to belabor the point here, but the Republicans who just heard there were Senator John Barroso of Wyoming, Representative Zack Nunn of Iowa, and Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. All representatives of red states that receive far more money from the federal government than they give the federal government. While, again, the blue state of California literally subsidizes their existence. Just last month, Congress allocated $100 billion in disaster relief to help the six states impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton. All but one of those states is led by a Republican governor, and that aid did not have conditions. Apparently, the moral calculus was very clear. But now that the blue state of California needs help, well, Republicans think disaster relief should be a bargaining chip. Dan Pfeiffer, former White House Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama and co-host of Pod Save America, joins me to discuss how Democrats should respond to this coming up next.

Multiple times, Mr. Trump has threatened to withhold aid for California wildfires, both as President and now, again, as President-Elect. Are you worried that he might actually do that?

Well, I mean, he's done it. Utah, he's done it in Michigan, did it in Puerto Rico. He did it to California back before I was even governor in 2018, until he found out folks in Orange County voted for him, and then he decided to give them money.

That was California Governor Gavin Newsom speaking about his fears that as of next week's, next week, his state's recovery will be in the hands of President-Elect affect Donald Trump. House Speaker Mike Johnson and even some Republican members of California's own Congressional Delegation have signaled that they may demand conditions before sending any more relief money to California. Conditions that, at least according to Speaker Johnson, reportedly may include tying recovery money to one of Donald Trump's key political demands, raising the debt ceiling. Joining me now is Dan Pfeiffer, former White House Senior Advisor to President Obama and co-host of Pod Save America. Dan, thank you for being here. I have a lot of strategy questions to ask you because, first of all, what is the right response from Governor Newsom on down? When Republicans say, You can't have money to rebuild your burn-down city and help people find homes again unless you raise the debt ceiling. Should they play ball?

Absolutely not. Look, let's start with how you respond to this. That begins with pointing out very clearly, very forthrightly, that what the Republicans are doing is they're playing politics with people's lives. California is a blue state, but there are 6 million people in the state who voted for Donald Trump. Those are the people they are denying aid to as well. We should call that out. We should point out that every other time, strings have not been put on aid for states because that is what we do in this country, because the fires may be in California, but the impact of that is felt across the country, just like with hurricanes in North Carolina and hurricanes in Florida. We just have to call out what they're doing here. Then you get to the specific point of the debt ceiling. That is an absurd idea. I'm not sure that idea is going to fly. I don't know that the Freedom Cau is going to fall for that. I don't think the Senate is going to fall for that. But we should call that out again. This is about people's lives. People need help now. And trying to use the lives and livelihoods of people suffering from one of the worst wildfires in this country's history to solve a political problem for Donald Trump is ridiculous, but we have to be vocal about that fact.

I'm with you. If the past this prolog, Trump was convinced to release disaster aid when his aides pointed out, Orange County was affected and they voted for you. But you now have members, as Politico is reporting, of California's Republican Congressional Delegation saying, Yeah, no, you should tie disaster relief to a debt ceiling raise, or you shouldn't establish conditions before you release the funds. It seems like Trump and his allies, the misinformation they've been spinning about democratic mismanagement of the state has caused even Republicans in the state to believe the lies enough so that they're willing to sacrifice the immediate release of relief aid. I guess I wonder how much you think misinformation is giving Republicans a leg to stand on here, the suggestion that Governor Newsom didn't let enough water into the state because he was protecting smelt row or whatever, all of which Governor Newsom has set up a website to debunk. But how critical is that as a foundational aspect to the denial of aid?

Well, misinformation is a huge problem, and it's one that, as Mark Zuckerberg made clear the other day, it's going to get much worse as time goes on here. I think what is causing problems with these Republican members of Congress is as much as their attempt to be as loyal to Donald Trump as humanly possible, to be as obsequuised as Donald Trump as humanly possible as it is misinformation. So there are two issues here. There are strings on the aid, and then there's a debt ceiling. Let's put the debt ceiling aside for one second. What strings are they talking about? None of these people have mentioned them. They just keep saying strings. What is it they actually want? What do they think is What is going to help here? What is going to solve? What is the problem they are trying to solve? We should push back on that and call that out. What are they actually talking about? Because there are answers to this. The smelt issue is an absurd issue. The water from Northern California doesn't go to Southern California. It's not where the water comes from, the reservoirs of all their answers to all these things.

But we have to push the Republicans, specifically the Republican bearers of Congress from California, on what it is they're actually talking about here. So they're not just vomiting up talking points in the hope of getting invited to a White House reception in two weeks.

No comment on that, the vomit or the reception. But I wonder what you think the road ahead looks like for blue state governors independent of this particular disaster in California, as Trump tries to use the federal government to try to weaponize the federal government to enact his political agenda. If you're a blue state governor and Trump wants to conduct federal mass deportation or deport workplace raids in your state and you want to stand against it, but you also need help from the federal government or at least cooperation on urgent matters, whether it's disaster aid or something like that, is there a choreography? Is there a choreography here? Can you do both? Can you both be an adversary to Trump and serve your state in a time of need? Do you think such a thing is possible knowing what you know about Donald Trump?

It's a tricky balancing act, and Governor Newsom is in a very challenging position here. He has been aggressive about pushing back on some of the misinformation for calling out, as in the clip you played the previous time, Donald Trump has played politics with disaster aid, but he also has Trump coming to a state next week. And he knows that unlike in any previous presidency, other than Trump's previous one, politics are going to play a role here, and you have to walk that fine line. Ultimately, I think Democrats cannot avoid calling out Trump for what he is doing when it's wrong. You have to do your politics. We saw a lot of people doing this during COVID, unfortunately, about whether you're going to get PPE or masks or whatever else from the federal government when Trump was President. But you're going to have to walk a fine line. One thing I think Democratic governors can do here, and I think Newsom has done a pretty good job of this is in times of crisis, when there is misinformation flying at you at all times, the way to respond to that is to overcommunicate, to be out all the time, as much press as you possibly again, to grab every single microphone and bullhorn you can find and shout out the truth.

It's not always going to work. They're going to be people who have motivated reasoning to believe what they want to believe. You have members of Congress who will say what will get them in good favor with Trump, but be out there all the time. Houston has done a very good job of that. I think some other California officials, particularly down in LA, have done a less good job of that. But that is the model for how you communicate, especially when you have a President of the United States who is using his microphone or an incoming President of the United States to push that very same misinformation.

Everything, everywhere, all at once. That's the new playbook, both sides of the aisle. Dan Pfeiffer, thank you for joining me tonight, my friend. I appreciate you. All right. Still to come this evening, a view of the vast devastation left behind by wildfires in Los Angeles. Nbc correspondence Ellison Barber joins me to discuss what she saw and what is expected next. That's coming up. Parts of Southern California are embracing for another critical fire warning tonight. And joining me now from Pasadena, near the Eaton Fire, which has been burning for seven days and is currently 35% contained, is NBC news correspondent, Ellison Barber. Ellison, what can you tell us about the expectations for tonight?

Hey, Alex. Yes, so we moved and we're actually in an area, we're in Malibu, and it's just because this is where we got off of a helicopter that we flew on with Cal fire, looking at some of the damage, but we've spent most of our time since we've been here reporting this team in Altadena, near the Eaton Fire. The expectation heading into tonight is still the concern about those high winds. They weren't as high as expected today, and that is good, but fire officials have been very clear. Weather forecasters, that threat is not over. The high risk warnings for wind continues until tomorrow. The fire officials, they have said they have prepositioned fire engines and patrol all across the LA region, particularly in unimpacted high-risk fire areas, because the concern is the possibility still for new fires. But they say they are ready for them, and they have prepositioned to be in a position to be able to respond. But when you look at the toll here, and that's what we saw today when we were flying with Cal Fire, of how How hard this community has been hit. We talk so much in numbers, right?

Over 12,000 structures have been destroyed, mostly in the Eaton and Palisades fire. And structure sounds so bland. But when you go and look in these communities, when to fly above them, you are reminded that we are talking about homes, we are talking about businesses, we are talking about familiar sites that have been integral parts of these communities for years, decades, generations, even now entirely gone. For so many people, Alex, they're trying to get through tonight, worried about what could happen in other parts of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles County region, and also trying to just process how they pick up their lives because they have nothing left here.

Alex. Just a staggering amount of destruction. That video footage from the helicopter gives you a sense of those wind gusts. Nbc news correspondent, Allison Barber, doing some real essential reporting on the ground. Thank you for hanging late tonight. I appreciate it. That is our show for tonight.

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