brown of ohio, thank you so much. >> chris, thank you, always. >> that is all in on this wednesday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now, good evening, alex. >> what is happened in the railroad companies. we all experts of the efficiency mechanisms of employed in the last decade. the stock buyback. -- >> it's exactly what, one of the things that happen in covid. system running in the background you don't think about. how did the chemical get across the country? the whole system of that. purplepurple around the country and powerful systems that want the public to pay for the risk as much as possible operating thin background and then a disaster happens >> between a potential rail strike and this accident it's blown the whole thing open and we're acutely aware of all the risks involved thanks to you at home for joining us tonight do you remember this photo

the iconic image of classified documents splayed out on the floor of donald trump's mar-a-lago home after the fbi searched it last august? the reason we've all seen this photo is because donald trump essentially forced the department of justice to show it in a court filing. that is how we got access to the photo last summer, a filing in open court there is literally no question as to its origin who made the photo public and why it was being made public, which is what made this exchange today between senator ted cruz and attorney general merrick garland, why it made it a little >> as you know the fbi raided donald trump's mar-a-lago home, and subsequent to that raid there have been multiple leaks about what was discovered there including a photograph of documents that were discovered there. did you know about the leaks? >> the photograph was a filing

in court in response to a motion filed by mr. trump. it was not a leak. >> it was not a leak. full stop. that was one of many exchanges from merrick garland's testimony on capitol hill, and we'll have more on what happened in that strange and contentious hearing later on in this hour. one of the consistent themes we've been hearing from republicans to ted cruz is the idea the fbi is now hell bent on taking down donald trump, the fbi has somehowdo caved to democratic political pressure and is part of a partisan scheme to destroy trump's political process. so it was notable on the very same day as this hearing was happening on capitol hill that we goten this brand new piece o reporting from "the washington post"in detailing exactly what s happening inside the fbi and justice department ahead of last summer's search of stmar-a-lago. and that reporting makes it clear thator the fbi had, in fa,

succumbed to some political pressure. but it wasn't pressure to investigate or damage donald trump. it was the opposite. fbi agents investigating the former president's retention of classified documents had been intimidated by trump's relentless attacks over the years and basically cowed into operating withwe extreme cautio. this is a quote from the piece. justice department prosecutors learned fbi agents were loathe to conduct ats surprise search. they heard from top fbi officials that some agents were simply afraid. they worried investigating trump could policemen blemish or even end their careers. one official dubbed it the cross fire hurricane. the fbi, the same fbi that certain republicans have been attacking was not chomping at the bitno to raid donald trump' beach house mansion. instead the agency was

proceedingag exceedingly carefully, and they were worried about the political implications of provoking the former president. and all this resulted in very heated battles between the fbi and justice department prosecutors who were advocating a more aggressive strategy to try and retrieve those documents down at mar-a-lago. according to "the washington post" it was only after a series of intense negotiations with justice department prosecutors that the fbi eventually moved forward with its search 467 and all along the way in spite of all the evidencee to the contrary, the fbi continued to give trump and his legal team the benefit of the doubt. "the washington post" reports some fbi field agents wanted to shutter the investigation all together in early june after trump's legal team asserted a diligent search had been conducted. but according to "the washington post," the just department prosecutors continued to push for a search of mar-a-lago. those prosecutors were ultimately vipdicated when the

eventual search in august when it uncovered classified documents some top secret fbi and doj investigators didn't have clearance to review them. so how does this new behind the scenes reporting change what we know about theng investigation d where it might be headed next? joining us now is reporter for "the washington post," one of the w bylines on this piece. thanks for making the time. it is a pit of exhaustive reporting, and i kind of came away with it confused and enlightened. what is your takeaway from having investigated all t of th in terms of the relationship with theth doj and the fbi on t topic of the trump mar-a-lago search? >> so i think there's a couple ways to think about it. one is that it's very common for prosecutors and agents to argue during the course of an investigation. now, what exactly to do, how

aggressive to goow after witnesses, how aggressive to go after evidence. that happens in a lot of cases. there's tension points, flare up, they get resolved and move forward. i think what's so different about the trump investigation is really two things. obviously this is a very high profile case. you know there's going to belot of attention paid to this and a lot of second guessing both inside the government and outside the government. and two, i think as you've seen in the discussions as we report then, there's a lot of tension and worry about making it the wrong move, and for the fbi agentsfb that often meant worryg about what if we go too fast, too quickly and make the mistake. and for the justice department prosecutors the worry was often we can't sit on this, we can't just wait and hope that the former president will do the right thing. and thosegh two worries and tho two types of concerns really were at odds sometimes.

>> devlin, i wonder what your final opinion on this is. on one hand it t seems like the fbi agents are reluctant to investigate, to raid or search the mar-a-lago property because they're concerned about the optics. they don't want to go in and raid a former president's home in jackets that say fbi. and then on the other hand it seems some legitimate belief that maybe trump and his legal team are cooperating and they have gotten everything they need. and mean how much of this reluctance to search mar-a-lago was due to political pressure, and how much p of it was legitimate belief that actually we have everything we need? >> so i think one thing to rememberg is the hangover cros fire lur cane and really the hangover investigations of 2016 into donald trump and into hillary clinton just permiate this whole discussion. and i think it's important to remember that as much as there

were political debates and political ret tribution there were also genuine mistakes made in the course of those investigations that the fbi paid the fact. after and so i certainly don't discount the justice department concerns that too much of the fbi's caution was based on the idea of political blow back. but i also think you have to keep in mind that there were inspector general reports that weree starkly sharply criticalf how c the fbi did past investigations of this type of profile. and so what you see in these back and forth, what our reporting shows is that there's a degree of really different approach, so much so that back in may even before the subpoena is sent for these documents some of the justice department officials want to do a search then, and the fbi thinks that's a bad idea, and then they get cooperation from the trump side, and the debate is how much is

this full cooperation, or is this partiall cooperation? and there again you see a difference of opinion. >> and eventually they get the securityve camera footage of people moving boxes in and around mar-a-lago and think maybe we don't have everything. there's some reporting you did lastti year and i'll pull up th headline. investigators see ego, not money, as trump's motive on classified papers. is it still your understanding prosecutors believe trump's motivating -- the reason he took these documents down to mar-a-lago was ego? and if so how do you think that informs the way they feel about the search slash raid at this point? >> first of all, i think we need to best clear, when you say it s ego as the most likely motive here, that doesn't get trump off the hook. obviously if you were doing

something for purely financial purposes, i think most people agree that's worse, but the bottom line how these documents are handled is they're not to leave secure facilities and the government safe guards around them. so our understanding is that reporting is still right where it is, which is that these t documents, these classified documents seem to be jammed in with a bunch of stuff and people don't seem to have been careful or thoughtful at all as to taking this volume of classified material out of government security, out of government custody. but big part of this case is what happens in the summer after the government formally demands the subpoena. and as you pointed out there's security camera footage reported that shows people moving boxes after -- boxes of documents after the subpoena has been received, and that's a big, red warning sign to prosecutors and

agents. and both sides for all the disagreements about this that may havesa existed at the time, both sides agree that security camera footage changed their view on this. >> it's too bad the time line because of all the internal arguments and of course a special master pushed back the charging decisions on the parts of the prosecutors and now we have a special counsel going to make that call. thank you for joining us tonight. greatjo reporting. a riveting account of what's been happening in an important investigation. thanks for your time. joining us now is a former national security official at doj and a former prosecutor on special counsel robert mueller's team. brandon,'s thank you for being here. what a time to talk to you about what is going on specifically this reporting. i wonder after you read it what stuck out to you? did the relationship between the prosecutors and the fbi agents sound like the experience you have had or was it different?

>> well, what stuck out the most is that they were individuals, senior officials who were part of this deliberation that chose to leak this information right at the time that the department of justice and fbi are likely making a charging decision. a debate, deliberation, disagreement as mentioned is s common, does occur. but when you have a leak like this, it undermines the integrity of the u investigatio. importantly how do those individuals, those same individuals go into s the room d have an honest and candid discussion about charges knowing that there were people who if they don't -- if the decision goes against them, if there's a disagreements that they may ai their dpreefbances publicly? and i think it's sort of a

troubling thing to's learn, and think the does have an impact on the investigation. >> what how do you read? when i finished story i thought thest fbi or doj, everyone's operating out of an abundance of caution here. there was a whole series of negotiations. theyres waited until they had effectively an airtight case to pursue this searchir of mar-a-lago. if anything it refutes the idea that the fbi, the doj is somehow weaponized against trump. so wouldn't that lay the foundation for a charging decision that could potentially indictia the president or do yo think it's something else? >> this isn't -- the reporting shows a thoughtful deliberation that you just went through. i don't think this is about whether sort of the facts are ultimately drawing a particular conclusion. it's p the fact that deliberati discussions like this, they're

protected. they're privilege. they're not disclosed, and it's for a reason. because you want someone to be honest and say,eo look, my agen are concerned about conducting this raid because of retribution. you want people to be comfortable sayingnt that. it's true, like let's be honest about the fact that there are or may be negative consequences. it has happened in investigations. you want people to feel comfortable at least expressing those fears and concerns. and when people feel comfortable in those environments, disclosing that outside of that protective space, then it impairs the ability of i peopleo be honest, to throw those considerations in. and it's the reason why i think now ultimately everything we've seen from the department is ultimately they will end with the right conclusion and the right considerations, but it does affect the process. and it's the process i'm concerned about. >> there is an ongoing doj

investigation courtesy of special counsel jack smith. howl do you think what's happening behind closed doors at doj right now? >> i think there has to be frustration. i think there has to be those wondering -- the frustration this is coming out and think of the timing. a charging e decision in the next couple of months. we know that just based on the time line and with respect to the election. so this is all happening at a very sensitive juncture. it's also happening the morning before attorney general garland testified in front of congress where, you know, these very concerned -- this debate was brought out. so it seems very intentional now that someone is trying to air this information. >> and we know that senator i believe josh hawley was

questioning on the hoyle about this story say you siped off on this raid, you overrode the desireod by fbi agents. but to put the metainize narrative aside right now on what the implications of this story on present investigations iy wonder if you could break dn a little bit of the dynamic we see playing out in this piece, which is the doj worked so intently to propose it is an s apolitical organization and that the fbi works without politics, you know, on the landscape. but what becomes abundantly clear in this account and to be honest in other ones in trying to be apolitical the justice department sometimes makes very political decisions. is that a fairpo assessment? >> you know, i'll give you a defensive response, which i don't think that's a fair assessment. and i certainly -- that's not the take away i have with this

story. i think the story is that you have both the department of justice and fbi o proceeding carefully and cautiously as they should in conducting a search -- not a raid, a search of a former president's residence. it should be careful and cautious. and to that end it's important to note that the right decision was reached here. like, this search happened. and we talked about sort of the politics in this. the all the reporting from special counsel jack smith is that the investigation proceeding full t speed ahead aggressively bringing people in of the grand jury, bringing attorneys of the former president inrm front of the gra jury. and so it strikes me ultimately this is an investigation that should proceed carefully and cautiously, a and i don't think we've seen anything at least in this investigation that screams politics or sort ofn politics inappropriately or unfairly affecting the investigation.

>> yeah, and what i meant by that is the degree to which they had to entertain the reservations of field agents who werere scared of trump even thoh they had the evidence that, you know, a raid -- a search very much made sense. >> that's a great point, and i think it's great goingt, throug the time line at least according to the reporting which is there's an indication the department of justice in may wanting to proceed with a search warrant and instead the decision was made according to this reporting that let's do a spoona instead. and it turns out that going for the subpoena was the right decision. not only did they obtain evidence, but it turns out that this is where sort of the evidence of obstruction comes to light. in fact, it justifies -- further justifies this decision to conduct ath search. and so, in fact, just one other piece which is one of the

debates i find interesting in thes reporting is that the fbi even at that late stage in july said that there should be a consensual search. and i want to highlight from some of the filings that occurred last summer and fall that there was an opportunity for a consensual search. on june 3rd the department of justice was at mar-a-lago with three fbi agents, and they were explicitly prohibited -- explicitly prohibited from searching the storage room where the documents were. so there had been an opportunity for consensual search, and that time had passed. >>me they were given many bitest the apple as it were and basically made the case for their own obstruction over team trump. thank you so much forct coming the show and making the time. really appreciate the perspective. >> thank you. we have a lot more to get to this evening including a major win for people who need lifesaving medicationho at a pre they canat actually afford. plus senate republicans try

topl tussle with attorney gener merrick garland today, and boy, oh, boy. we'll have more on that just ahead. boy, oh, boy. we'll have more on that just ahead.

when you were sworn into office two years ago the office was embroiled in scandal. i expect we'll hear accusations

today from some of my republican colleagues to the contrary such as weaponization of justice department. >> your department is not trusted because it's been politicized. >> the department of justice has been politicized to the greatest extent i've ever seen in this country. and it is done a discredit to the department of justice, to the fbi, and the administration of law in this country. >> that is what attorney general merrick garland faced today when he appeared before the senate judiciary committee for an oversight hearing. now, garland's repeat appearance at this kind of hearing is a real return to how things used to work. by way of an example the last attorney general who appeared at one of these hearings is jeff sessions. remember jeff sessions. back in the year 2017 when republicans controlled the senate, today republicans took the opportunity to grill him on the issues they deemed most important to the country. senator chuck grassly focused on the investigation into hunter biden. senator marsha blackburn went

after garland in what she called the two tiers of justice at the doj and questioned why the department had not prosecuted a group of trying to bomb a crisis pregnancy center in her state. this is the exchange between senator blackburn and the attorney general. >> let's talk about the far left group because they claimed responsibility for that. they went so far as to spray participate their name on the wall. so do you intend to prosecute that? >> we intend to find them to do that. >> oh, so you can't find them? >> if you have information about those groups we're happy to -- >> that is your job. >> that's right. and we're putting heavy resources into this. >> meanwhile several other senators were concerned no

charges had been filed after protests outside the residence's supreme court justices in the wake of the leaked dobbs opinion to overturn roe v. wade. senator tom cotton appeared to question whether the doj was too preoccupied to take meaningful action. >> considering the efforts your department has put into tracking down everyone who was even on capitol grounds in 2021, you've dedicated millions of hours to study videotape, to go knock and do interviews. you can't allocate just a few agents to look at people's social media account to say they are present outside a justice's home, we're going to arrest them and charge them? >> our priority is violence and threats of violence and the protection of the lies of the justices, and that's what we're doing. >> joining us now is matt miller, former chief spokesman for the obama strus s department. matt, thank you for being here. just, wow, in terms of

everything merrick garland has to deal with. in addition to grillings like that on the hill let's refresh everybody's memory on what this man is dealing with. the special counsel's investigation into trump's handling of documents. the ongoing hunter biden investigation, the ongoing durham probe into the origins of the russia investigation. is it in this climate possible for merrick garland to wear all these hats, to manage all of this in a way that's going to convince anyone that the department of justice is not being politicized? you're never going to convince everyone it's not politicized especially there's going to believe what happened and you

saw that today a lot of the questions the attorney general supplied answers to and the senators who asked the questions didn't want to hear those answers and continued to ask the questions over and over. this isn't just a merrick garland problem. this has been true for attorneys general going back for years and years and very much true for eric holder when i worked for him, and true for janet reno. because the issues the department handles are so sensitive and political and so important they raise tempers on both sides of the aisle. >> with all due respect to those years and your service, and thank you for that service, it feels like the investigations garland has to pay particular attention to, things like the durham probe, right, which from all outside accounts didn't fiend anything. an investigation into the investigators who looked into the trump investigation, the hunter biden laptop story which remains an investigation at the department of justice, even how

resources at the department is allocating the pregnancy centers at the precise moment women's reproductive rights are under attack in this country it feels he has to dedicate resources to these investigations, to these conflicts, if you will, in a way other attorneys general might not have had to. do you think that's a fair assessment? >> i think he has to spend time thinking about them and getting questions from reporters. one of the things really important in this job you not let political pressure bludgeon you into doing things you wouldn't otherwise do. you have to remember when you go up and take these attacks on the hill to focus on things you can control and things you can't. you can't control what people say about you and what attacks they launch on you. i think some of it most recent attacks has been when it let

political pressure push it into doing things and handle an investigation in ways it wouldn't otherwise conduct, and the hillary clinton investigation probable the most prominent example but probably not the only person in the department who made decisions about that case because of the pressure they were getting from republicans on capitol hill. once you start departing from the way you would conduct investigations and start doing things because people on the hill are saying put resources here, not where the facts or the law justify resources being spent, you really start to make mistakes that can come to mark your tenure and have very difficult to undo. >> i wonder what you made of tom cotton's saying they're too busy and they should spend some of that time in human capitol investigating people who were protesting outside justices home after the supreme court dobbs decision. >> thursday an answer to that. no matter what you think about

protesting outside a supreme court justice's house, it's not illegal to do so. it's illegal to threaten a supreme court justice and the department arrested and prosecuted someone who threatened justice kavanaugh outside his home. but it's not illegal to protest there. it's illegal to enter in an insurrection. there's a lot of apple and oranges comparisons that get made up on the hill. as the attorney general made very clear, if we can find evidence of someone who fire bombed a crisis pregnancy center, we'll very much prosecute them. the difference between those cases and the prosecutions that they have brought of people who have blocked access to abortion clinics is evidence. they have evidence, they can see the people who have blocked access to abortion clinics. the fire bombing of this crisis pregnancy center happened in the middle of the night, and they don't have suspects but thore very much investigating it. it goes to that point i said at

the offset oftentimes you get questions from people who don't want answers and attacks made be meme who don't want the actual truth. >> i would say it's more along the lines of apples to chicken nuggets but that's just my interpretation of all this. matt miller, thank you, my friend, for joining us tonight. we have a lot more to get to tonight including new revelations about the activist arguably responsible for the conservative majority on the supreme court and who suddenly got very, very rich during the trump years. plus the pressure on one drug manufacturer to lower the price of insulin appears to have worked. we'll tell you all about it. that's next. we'll tell you all about it. that's next. with a majority of my patience with sensitivity, i see irritated gums and weak enamel. sensodyne sensitivity gum & enamel relieves sensitivity, helps restore gum health, and rehardens enamel. i'm a big advocate of recommending things that i know work.

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his middle finger up. but the trolling tweet that caused the most real life drama that day was this one. an account pretending to be one of the largest manufacturers in the country eli lilly said we are excited to announce insulin is free now. within a day the stock had fallen 5%. the fake tweet sparked a panic. company officials scrambled to contact twitter representatives and demanded they kill the viral spoof worried it could undermine their brand's reputation. and there there's good reason the eli lilly was worried. insulin has been around for around 100 years now. it costs drug companies roughly $10 a vial to make, but for decades it's been raising the price of insulin, charging hundreds of dollars for a product that takes only ten to make. and eli lilly isn't alone.

american manufacturers charge exponentially more per vile than manufacturers in other countries do, and because so many diabetics need these to live paying these prices isn't really choice. last year millions of americans were forced to ration their insulin, a cost saving amount that can lit rel be deadly. the truth is that activists and democrats have been trying for years to fix this with legislation. last year president biden managed to cap insulin prices for seniors who use medicare at $35 a month, but republicans voted against allowing that discount to apply to the millions of americans under 65 who need the drug to live. with republicans in control of the house this year there wasn't a ton of hope that new legislation would get passed anytime soon. but now it looks like it might not have to. today they announced they're voluntarily capping the price of their insulin at $35 a month whether or not you have insurance effective immediately.

the company's ceo said the decision came as a result of conversations between the company and members of congress. the company may also have been spurred to act because now non-profits and startups and even the california state government are all set to start making their own cheaper insulin imminently. now all of that would probably not be happening if it weren't from everyone to activists to internet trolls being incredibly loud on this issue for years now. we shouldn't lose sight of that. public pressure works. still to come tonight, explosive new reporting and investigation into the man nicknamed donald trump's judge whisperer. that is coming up next. whisperer. that is coming up next

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has single-handedly changed the face of the judiciary under the auspices of many of the people who started the federalist society. he has many hats. that isn't even all he does. he doesn't even tell all he does, but i know enough to know the man is a force of nature. >> that was the wife of supreme court justice clarence thomas, and the man she was talking about is a major conservative fund-raiser and judicial activist and a friend of the thomas', a man known as donald trump's judge whisperer, leonard

leo. leo was the source of president trump's list of approved conservative nominees for the supreme court. that is how we got justices neil gorsuch, brett kavanaugh, and amy coney barrett through trump's judge whisperer. through leonard leo. and in an epic new report today politico gave new meaning to ginni thomas' statement about leo. soon after leo became trump's advisor in 2016 he amassed a sort of unnatural amount of wealth. he bought two multi-million dollar mansions in maine, four new cars, spots in private schools for his children and a wine locker at morton's steakhouse. i don't know what a wine locker is but it sounds fancy and also unnecessary. mr. leo certainly didn't tell the public how he bought all of that, but thanks to politico we now have a pretty good idea.

leo's personal wealth appears to have skyrocketed in tandem to major victories on the road. one day after the senate took a controversial procedural vote clearing the way for kavanaugh's appointment to replace kennedy, that was the day leonard leo bought his first mansion up in the state of maine. that lifestyle upgrade was reportedly funded by leo's network of non-profit organizations. based on dozens of records from 2000 to 2021 plit cefound after he became a trump advisor in 2016 leo erected a for-profit ecosystem around his long time non-profit empire shielded from tax. a network of political non-profits formed by leo moved at least $43 million to a new firm he is leading raising serious questions about how his conservative legal movement is fund. and that new firm declined to say what services it provided for the $43 million payments. a tax law told politico that's a

classic type of situation the irs looks into it if it appears you via non-profit are shoveling money to yourself in a for-profit context. politico reporters say they sent leo multiple requests for comment, he did not respond. we also reached out to leo tonight about politico's reporting. we have not heard back. but all of this together looks kind of bad, and it certainly raises questions about the influence of dark money on the nation's highest court. joining us now is melissa murray, law professor at new york university and cohost of the strict scrutiny podcast. thank you for being here tonight. every time i was saying to you before this started, every time you're here there's something explosive and terrible happening at the supreme court. can you tell me how you read this? because as i see it, what i sort of glean from this piece, it sounds like leonard leo who's the architect of a conservative takeover of the judiciary not just at the supreme court but at federal courts across the country is getting money from

donors to maybe pick judges that have conservative donors interests in mind and then paying himself out to the tune of millions of dollars. >> so i don't know that i was necessarily surprised to read this blockbuster reporting from heidi pres bola. there's been a lot of discussion around the years around this empire he's constructed around himself mostly a non-profit empire in 2016 when as you note he begins this for-profit extension where he has these consulting firms and now the for profit firms are paying them but to the tune of $43 million. >> i believe that was one year for services that remain unexplained. >> it's, again, this is a man we all knew had extraordinary outsized influence in washington particularly around the federal judiciary. your reporting mentioned only

the three trump justices, but it goes much deeper than that. donald trump -- the most successful aspeth of his agenda was the nomination of judges. it was really the only thing he was able to actually do as president on the domestic agenda and leonard leo was absolutely pivotal to that, not just recommending and identifying individuals for the supreme court but for the lower federal courts as well, they did this amazingly well. they nominated and confirmed 54 court of appeals judges in four years. barack obama in eight years nominated and confirmed 55. the trump administration basically did that in half the time and a lot of it was leonard leo. and a lot of it was vetting individuals through leonard leo's federalist society. so all of this is sort of deeply intertwined. the judicial croesus network which is the concord fund is related to the society which leonard leo was the chairman of for many years but stepped back as he runs this for-profit

consultancy. there's these shadow organizations providing funding no one understand. and we don't understand what it is between the for-profits and the nonprofits. >> and these price tags are massive, right? >> that should raise red flags for the irs, the idea as that tax professor who was mentioned in the reporting said when you have a non-profit funneling this amount of money at this scale to a for-profit that is somehow related or at least in the orbit of a non-profit it would raise red flag. but you've also seen over the last year the republican party and conservatives raising red flags about the irs. it's partisan justice. it seems not looking into something like this is that a correction, an overcorrection in response to claims the irs is somehow acting in a partisan fashion, who knows. but it does seem the idea of discrediting the irs is maybe related to something like this, not allowing them to be viewed

as legitimate if they were to investigate this kind of behavior. >> i mean, leonard leo reaped a $1.6 billion wind fall from a single donor in what is likely the biggest single political gift in u.s. history. he's getting $1.6 billion at the same time that the supreme court now focused there is issuing some of the most conservative opinions it ever has and reshaping american life. now, $1.6 billion is a hefty price tag, but if you think about what they're getting for their money potentially i mean do you think there's going to be any oversight of the court, of what leo's doing? i mean what is the road forward here and what seem so questionable at least on the outside? >> i think every time i appear on this show to talk with you about the supreme court i always wind up saying at some point this has got to be a really bad day for john g. roberts, the chief justice of the united states who more than anyone views himself as the institutional steward of the court. this is terrible for the court. we've already had over the last

year reporting about a campaign to influence supreme court justices, buying buildings across from the court and now this. i mean if the public was already disenchanted with the court wondering if something's up with the court maybe this is not the neutral arbiter we thought it was, this is not going to help, and it's not going to make john roberts job as chief justice the steward of the court's institutional legitimacy any easier. >> $1.6 billion. thank you for your time tonight. thank you for your outrage with me. i need it. coming up, i took a trip down to the sunshine state over the weekend and i'm going to give you a sneak peek coming up next. m going to give you a sneak peek coming up next or you could see, everything that could be. go. baker tilly.

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this past weekend i travel today sarasota, florida, to visit new college, the liberal arts school at it center of republican governor ron desantis' war of academic freedom and wokism. i was impressed. new college is a beautiful place and its students are bright and they are really, really engaged in the world. i talked to several of them all from different backgrounds and despite what governor desantis would have you believe, these kids are not going to new college to be indoctrinated in leftism or enroll in silly courses of what the governor calls zombie studies, whatever that is. they're studying neuro science and marine biology and applied mathematics and economics and finance. these kids and their parents pick new college because it's a

good school with great professors and offers an education almost unheard of for anywhere else especially with the low cost tuition. now governor desantis is trying to take over the school and turn it into a religious college parents and students at new college are fighting back with everything they've got. they're launching social media campaigns. they know what's at stake here. tomorrow i'll bring an in-depth conversation with the parents and students of new college about this fight and what they think of governor desantis and his war on woke. be sure to tune in. that does it for us tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. but, here's how i see it under my predecessor republican congressmen voted three times to keep paying america's bills without preconditions. they paid america's bills and then so why won't they