♪ ♪ tonight on all in -- >> i'm now very close. we could bring some of these hostages home. >> a potential deal for hostages. >> it's not going to be done until it's done. >> tonight, the delicate negotiation going on in israel, it will take some time to get some of the hamas hostages home. then, the latest on the gag order against the ex president as authoritarianism keeps spreading beyond trump. >> i will rain hell on washington, dc. plus, the reason why the polls are so tight and why inflation just ain't what it used to be. >> we went to go buy a turkey today. it was $90 for a turkey! when all in starts right now. ♪ ♪ ♪ good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. we are having some big news tonight. it has been 45 days since the october 7th hamas attack on israel, which precipitated the nearly constant bombardment of gaza by the israeli army and a nearly full scale ground invasion. and today at this hour there is a glimmer of hope that some of the over 200 hostages can be returned and the fighting can come to an end, at least temporarily. right now, as of this moment, the israeli government is convening late into the night over a potential deal brokered by the government with assistance from the united states, brokered with qatar, with assistance from the united states to three some 200 hostages who have been in hamas custody since the attack on october 7th. we should stress that things are still in flux. we do not know exactly what a deal will look like if and when it materializes, though many of the parties to it indicate it was close. there have been reports in the media the discussions involve hamas releasing about 50 israeli hostages, primarily women and children, in exchange for 150 palestinian political prisoners in israeli custody, also women and children. nbc news has also learned the deal might include permission for the red cross access to the remaining hostages in gaza, access they have so far been denied, though they -- socked it out. the deal may also involve what is really prime minister benjamin netanyahu calls a pause in the war, possibly for five days, to facilitate the prisoner and hostage swaps. again, nothing is confirmed until we hear directly from the parties. if a deal is reached reached, it is subject to review by the israeli supreme court. top of this deal and then mounting pressure on the government of netanyahu, including protests outside his home. there have also been mounting calls to get more humanitarian aid for palestinians into gaza, and scrutiny over the increasing civilian death toll there. civilian death tollso far, then 14,000 dead in gaza, including 5000 children. that is according to health officials there. although those health officials were unable to even keep that tally through part of that period. the past few weeks there have been reports on negotiations for a hostage deal falling apart at the last minute, including one indicating that netanyahu had rejected a deal for a cease-fire, a five-day cease-fire in exchange for a release of some of the hall hostages in the early days of the war. now, the politics here are not straightforward. they are complicated. some hard-line members of netanyahu's far-right government oppose the current deal as well. but from what we know tonight does not appear as though there is enough internal resistance to stop such a deal. again, we must stress this all remains in flux. we are watching minute by minute to see what happens, as i imagine so many folks in israel whose family members are held right now, in those in gaza are as well. netanyahu has made it clear the israeli military intends to resume its bombardment of gaza following a temporary pause that might be struck in a deal, noting he believes israel remains at war with hamas, and multiple members of the government has said the utter destruction of hamas is the only instate they will accept the end of this conflict. still, the release of any hostages, or even a brief pause in the bombardment of gaza for 45 days, is honestly probably the first real break of hope. there were a few hostages released earlier but the first break of hope and the possibility of something other than death and destruction in what has been an unremitting dark six weeks. noga tarnopolsky, independent journalist reporting from journalism -- jerusalem, including new york magazine. you've been covering this very closely, particularly the dynamics around family members of hostages and the government. there is a very late night convening of the cabinet to assess the deal. do you know anything about what is happening? >> yeah, good night from here, chris. we know that minutes ago the israeli government did vote to pass the deal and it was not unanimous and netanyahu's most extreme right ministers including i think one or two from his own party did not support it. but out of the 38 minister government it past comfortably. they are expected to be very limited appeals to the supreme court presented even tonight. right now, at 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, and those appeals will be against specific names of palestinian prisoners who are going to be published in the coming minutes,, those that will be exchanged. and family members of the victims, those people have the right to appeal specific names. ironically, the right-wing organizations who were hoping to appeal against this whole decision said it was illegitimate elevated for doing a law that netanyahu himself passed prewar. >> right. >> when he was trying to do his traditional overhaul. >> this is the times reporting on this on the possible palestinian prisoners who might be included in such a deal saying that negotiations the release of israeli women and children held hostage in gaza in exchange for palestinian women, the most recent arrests -- minors held in israeli prisons. many of the most recent arrests came during rates across the israeli west bank where protests and violence have surged including attacks and palestinians by israeli settlers. israel has said the rest are part of a carrier counterterrorism move, have warned that palestinian detainees are held without gazan or even subject to torture. it sounds like mostly would be women and children themselves. is there any additional reporting about the pause aspect of this, about there being some sort of cessation of hostilities for some period of time? >> there is. and as you said, we should underline how complicated this is. the understanding that i have here is that the initial batch of israeli hostages to be released counts, as you said, about 50, but they are not going to be released all on thursday. they're going to be released at about the pace of ten a day over four or five days. what hamas is promising is that if israel then extend the pause, it will search for more children in particular. it will search for more. israel has about 240 hostages. so the release of 50 would still leave 190 israelis or, i want to emphasize this, foreigners captured in israel, tourists, agricultural workers, aid workers, you name it. these people are not -- israel his said any non-israeli citizens are not counted in exchange for the palestinian prisoners. but these are all counted as israeli hostages taken from israeli territory. so i think that if the deal goes ahead and it proceeds well, what we are seeing is at least five days of a truce that i think will include also the cessation of israelis by drone activities over gaza, which leads to a lot of questions about what hamas is planning to do during that time and the plans to dangle this possibility of further hostage releases over several days, ideally for it to try and change this truce into a permanent cease-fire. >> let me just say that, you just had this one not only views anything they don't know, but nbc news now confirming in reporting that the israeli cabinet as, as noga was just saying, past the -- 38 ministers, a majority approve this deal. again, the contours of the deal are not public or written down anywhere. so we are still sort of figuring it out based on reporting. but the deal has been approved, it was not unanimous unanimous. some of the more far-right members of that government, including some members of netanyahu's likud party as well. the prime minister's office, the israeli government in the meetings just ended. this is the prime minister's office. the decision on the outline of the hostage deal passed by a majority of votes. that's what we have. we have approval, it seems. we have understanding of the basic contours of this deal, particularly about the sort of attenuated release of hostages in exchange for cessation of hostilities. i guess my final question, what political discourse around this has been like? obviously i can imagine right now family members of the hostages in this unbelievable intense and difficult period right now of wondering, is their loved one going to be one of the ones? >> that's right. the word for this is heartbreaking. it's heartbreaking. there have been aspects that have been disgraceful with some of netanyahu's ministers attacking his family, screaming you don't have a non-monopoly on pain, in this sort of thing. i have to tell you that, again, assuming this deal goes through, as you say, assuming you go through smoothly, what we're talking about is the israeli government and very few days finding itself in a squeeze organized by hamas in which either its spends military operations for longer or it has to look at close to 100 israeli families in the face and say yeah, your loved ones are still in gaza, and we're starting to bomb again. >> all right, noga tarnopolsky, always fantastic to get your perspective. i appreciate you staying up to this ungodly hour. thank you very much. >> thank you, chris. david remnick, of course, the editor of the new yorker. he's been writing about the -- and ayman mohyeldin has been the host -- and has lived in gaza especially during the 2014 war. they join me now. ayman, let me just start with you, your reaction. obviously the deal itself, and it's contours have been reported in the last few days didn't does look like the israeli government has proved it. nothing is done until it's done but it looks like it might happen. >> yeah, and i think for those of us who have been reporting on the negotiations, this started on october 8th, to be quite frank. so the truth is that the contours of the agreement have been ebbed and flowed, depending on who was gonna be released. at one point it's was gonna be the foreigners, all the israeli civilians, or non israeli, soldiers i should say. so the idea that the negotiation has been on the table for weeks now, it is very safe to say, this did not come out of anywhere and i think the real question going forward is what is changing in the calculation of the israeli cabinet? what is changing from the israeli military leaders who said it is not time how these are negotiations? a couple of weeks ago before the ground offensive, a similar proposal was put forward to the israeli cabinet, i should say to the israeli prime minister from the qatar mediators, and their position was not yet. they felt that hamas had not been genuine or sincere, but the release of the hostages but they also felt the pressure in the price that hamas had paid for what it did on october 7th was not adequate. it begs the question now, as we begin to understand the calculation of the prime minister, why he decided to accept this, so as noga well, saying the internal dynamic dynamics, it's what happening in gaza. >> david, in your reporting from israel and the west's with the west bank that you published in the new yorker, one of the things it's been so clear since the atrocity on october 7th and everything that has happened, is just the sort of brutal dark and implacable logic of reprisal in violence. seeing no off ramp. this parade of war and more death and destruction. this does, if it happens, at least signify the first opening for some kind of path that isn't just that. >> well, as noga can't tell you, with even greater experience and depth, the basic truth here is no one's going anywhere, no matter how this finally ends, there will be israelis, there will be gazans, there will be palestinians. and then what? so the question is, in short term and in the long term, what will prevail? will hatred prevail? will the urge for higher walls and bigger armies and create a rage prevail as politics in the middle east? or will there be some politics, both in gaza, if that's even possible in the term, and in the west bank and throughout the middle east, that finds some glimmer forward a reconciliation. today the new york times ran a piece about, was piece over possible in 2008 camp david and rent yet again, yet again through the details, narratives, and counter narratives of what happened then. but even greater and more complex problem is, what will happen the day after all this comes to an end? and that is the darkest, of deepest complexity, i would think. >> i want to follow up on that with you, ayman. but first, david, i want to just ask you about a contributor to your magazine who lives in gaza. i have been reading his stuff, vie in the new yorker and also just a remarkable guy, a poet, gradually syracuse university. he runs, the only english language library in gaza. he is a father of three. he was detained by israeli defense forces. you lost contact with him. >> here's what i know. >> please tell me. >> when i was in israel, thereafter, i was in contact with him, a 30-year-old poet with three children, a wife, and then extended family in gaza. he has lived all his life in gaza except when he was in the united states at syracuse university. it remarkable person, and he and his family who lived in northern gaza were headed towards the south, hoping to leave, hoping to go to rafah, which is at the southern end of the gaza strip. and along the way, he was apprehended by the israeli military for no seaming reason, and taken into custody with dozens of other palestinians. and according to my information, taken out of israel, taken to a military out spore outpost in negative, in the southern israel. he was there for two days, interrogated, and there are reports that he was beaten. i have not been able to speak with him. but my information, and i think this is absolutely true. he said he's been released and he is back in gaza, thank god, with his family. but, again, this is one very gifted poet. and there is relief in this. but of course, there are thousands and thousands of people who have been killed. thousands -- 1200 people have been killed in the most brutal way in israel. and so, the killing, the suffering is general. i hope the best for him and his family. that is one story in a much larger tragic picture. and, again, i think we have to start thinking about where this is going in terms of u.s. policy as well as israeli politics and palestinian politics as well. >> to talk to david's point, about the day after question, in some ways it's premature precisely for the reasons you articulated, i think almost unanimously across the board. almost all of israeli politics, with some exceptions, and particularly the unity government, they have said the destruction of hamas's and state that we will seek in this war. if there is a pause here, and it looks like there will be, that will be short of that. but then the question becomes do you continue that as the goal? is it an achievable goal? and if you achieve, it what comes after? >> so many good questions. those are enormous questions to sift through. but i will say this. i think this is why this one is so important. we are having a conversation. if you just listen to the story of musab and david talking about him, these are the stories the palestinians have lived with every single day under occupation. they don't get the international media attention. they're getting it now because of the warm because what is happening there. i think for us who have tried to answer what happened, to david's point, it requires an honest conversation about all of the parties involved in the conditions of life. what is, as you were saying, what happens the day after israel resumes military operations once that 200 plus hostages are released. >> hamas is not gonna do that precisely for the reasons you have enunciated. >> exactly. >> they are smart enough to know how this works. >> they're gonna they know how this works, they've been through this many times before. they're in games to be able to put the spotlight on the israeli government as a result of these are negotiations, and put them in a different corner to make about when this is gonna resume. but also, if you applied the logic of what has happened right now over the course of the past seven weeks, 46% of residential buildings and gaza have been destroyed. 50,000 people are killed. 5000 of them are children. what is the endgame? to what extent? are you prepared to kill 2.2 million palestinians to eradicate hamas? that is the fundamental question. because if there is no end in sight, there has to be some limit. and that's the problem why they're comments coming out of the american administration would say there are no red lines, that has become extremely problematic. >> to the final point to you, david -- >> i agree, i agree. but israel could not be expected to go on. first of all, there was a great delusion that somehow you could quote unquote shrink the conflict. that was the phrase used in israel, not only by netanyahu, but by naftali bennett and others. you shrink the conflict, empower hamas, quote unquote, privileges to work in israel and it will go away. and then you concentrate on the west bank. that was what is weakening the palestinian authority. and we just get from one year to the next, well, that was a delusion, a gigantic delusion. and this was netanyahu thought himself as the great winston churchill of israel. now that has been shattered. but also israel cannot be expected to live on its border with the threat is the experienced on a tour seventh either. so how do you, again, we're back to the original question, how can israel live in security, and how can the palestinians be given their dignity and eventually their statehood and their own security and their own personhood? and that has to occur because neither of these people are going anywhere. and they both deserve to live decent, secure lives, and have decent and secure politics. and that is a question of immense complexity. >> yeah and the only way, the only way that you get there is one step at a time. and it does seem like perhaps a first little step in the direction away from more violence and more death, and some good news for parties across this conflict. we are still waiting on the details from tonight, exactly what is in the hostage deal. we are gonna bring you those details as we have them available. but i want to thank david remnick and my friend and colleague ayman mohyeldin. thank you both. we'll be right back. ht back. in order for small businesses to thrive, they need to be smart, efficient, savvy. making the most of every opportunity. that's why comcast business is introducing the small business bonus. for a limited time you can get up to a $1000 prepaid card with qualifying internet. yep, $1000. so switch to business internet from the company with the largest fastest reliable network and that powers more businesses than anyone else. learn how you can get $1000 back for your business today. comcast business. powering possibilities. we are following that breaking news out of israel this hour. and we put at the top of the hour, the israeli government has approved a deal to secure the release of some hostages in custody. notably, a deal is not final. until the israeli supreme court signs off on it. and as our previous guest noga tarnopolsky was saying, that review is limited, somewhat ironically, due to legislation passed or a law passed by the government of netanyahu. we are waiting more details of the nature of the deal as well as the official world worked from the government of qatar which help brokered. i want to bring back in david remnick of the new yorker and ayman mohyeldin, who is the host of ayman on msnbc. ayman, let me talk to you about the qataris here, which is to meet one of the most fascinating countries on earth. very small country, very rich country, the kind of place where you have both, like, members of the iranian government and members of hamas, and a u.s. army base. >> and the taliban. >> and the taliban. everyone is there. it's like the switzerland in the middle east. talk to me, to your point, there was some back channel conversations happening basically from day one. >> it has all been in qatar and it has held this foreign policy in the region that has actually agitated a lot of its neighbors for sometime, that it is trying to keep open lines of communications to some of the most hostile players in the region. and their position has been, we are doing that at the request of the americans. it is the americans who have asked us to have an office with the taliban. it is the americans who have asked us, and the israelis have asked us, to keep those indirect talks with hamas. if hamas did not exist in qatar right now, and if they were in iraq, and you imagine how hard these negotiations would be, to secure the release of hostages? so that decision has been that we are trying to maintain open lines of communication. now, with that, it comes activity that i think western countries would look at and say, well, that's a little bit questionable. the position is like, we have to build trust with these people if you want to have a taliban office here, if you want us to have hamas offices here, you have to allow us to interact with them in a confidence building measure. and in one of the ways that people have been critical of the qatari government has been that they are giving money to hamas. that base money that is sent to hamas with the approval of the israeli government. that is important, let's be very clear, it's not money that's transferred there. some of the money has been delivered in cash and it's been dealt with the blessings of israel and netanyahu and they wanted hamas to be -- and their position has been we are trying to serve as a intermediary in all of these conflict zones that are in the region that the u.s. and the west would like us to play an intermediary role. >> david, you mentioned this about the u.s. posture towards this. you know, the biden administration, biden himself, and members of the administration have been, from the seventh on words, essentially zero space between us and the israelis. we stand with them. they are our allies. they have the right to defend themselves. i think it's been clear from my own reporting and others that there is a somewhat different posture perfectly. but it's also the case that this has been a real investment of the u.s. government in these talks and pushing towards some release. n thes talk s and pushing towards some rele>> so, you're not only dealg with qatar, which is a very complicated country to say the least. but you are also dealing with benjamin netanyahu. and u.s. administration after u.s. administration has come to sadness in various ways by doing this very same thing, which is having this outward public support. and then thinking that they can persuade netanyahu to do one thing or another in private. you remember, during obama's time, they thought that the united states thought it was making progress toward pushing netanyahu towards some kind of accommodation or at least negotiations with the palestinians. netanyahu played that string like a master, infuriating obama and finding that americans had had it. biden, living through that, he knows this scenario very well. he's not foolish. but this is what you have an office, and you have not only netanyahu, but you have a cabinet that is stalked with people and you can't just describe them as right-wingers, but really far, far right wing nationalists. those players are gonna be very important as we go forward in israeli politics as are the settlers, as are a growing center, one hopes, in israel. so, how these politics of the united states evolve, as well as the middle east, that's gonna be instrumental in the future not only of gaza, but also the region itself. >> yeah, there is a great hebrew word which -- is mug or sucker, you don't want to be the fryer. and i think there's many in the u.s. administration who have been the fryer in those interactions. david remnick and ayman mohyeldin, it's great to have you both. thank you very much. we're gonna keep watching this news and see if we can get any more details. and we will be right back. ht back. here in the u.s., we have reached a landmark moment in the explicitly fascist unveiling of donald trump's reelection campaign. in fact, yesterday, the paper of record, new york times, all the news that fits the print, use the effort in a news article to describe the ex president's rhetoric. as peace reports on the quote, scholars and democrats in umpublicans or asking a new how much mr. trump resembles grin strongman abroad and how he compares to authoritarian leaders of the past. perhaps most urgently, theyare wondering whether his rhetorical turn into more fascist sounding territory is just his latespublic provocation of the left, an evolution of his beliefs, or dropping of the veil. good sentence. and to be clear, this is the correct, unavoidable assessment of donald trump's words and actions. fascist sounding, that's a good description. in recent weeks he has compared his political opponents to vermin, threatened to use the power of the state to prosecute his enemies. has publicly discussed plans to round up intimate immigrants and concentrate them in camps and deport them by the millions. if the man doing all this wasn't also the man launched a violent coup to stay in power, maybe you could dismiss him as just talk, but we all saw it. he already tried to topple american democracy, and he's going to try it again. he keeps telling us. that is the language and the behavior of fascism. maybe some different form of it, some 24 century american -- 21st century american incarnation, related, but it's always been there. lately it has become even louder. in this moment the true menace of a fascist kind of movement in this country is becoming more apparent. it's not just emanating from donald trump or his fans. we see it and hear it in these sort of concentric circles emanating out from the ex president. now, there are some people in the republican party politics chiefly who just don't have the courage or the moral backbone or the sense or the wherewithal or even just the dignity to fight. there is just gladly resigning to it. it's pathetic but that's how most of them are. some are actively pushing fascist ideas in the hopes of executing them from positions of power in the new trump administration. here is an example more or less, this dude, conservative mike davis. he's got a resume that is like, you know, one in 100. you can find tons of guys like this. he helped confirm supreme court justice neil gorsuch. he helped couldn't -- chaired the judiciary committee, a guy who was like in charge of shepherding judicial nominations. he wants to be donald trump's next attorney general. he is laying out his plans for a reign of terror, in his own words, when he gets there. in his ow words, when he gets there. >> during my three-week reign of terror as trump acting attorney general before i get chased out of town with my trump pardon, i will rain hell on washington, d.c.. number one, we are gonna fight. we're gonna fire a lot of people in the executive branch, in the deep state. number two, we are gonna indict joe biden, doctor biden, and james biden, and every other sleaze ball biden. number three, we are gonna deport, we're gonna deport a lot of people, 10 million people and growing, and her babies, their parents, their grandparents, we're gonna put kids in cages. it's gonna be glorious. >> that's an offensive term for american citizens. after my colleague mehdi hassan highlighted this, he said mehdi hassan is on my list. i also i have a spot picked out in the d. c. gulag. this is almost like comically pathetic chest beating of a creepy dork. again, the history of fascism is kind of full of creepy dorks who came into power and then because they expect you been their whole lives as aping creepy dorks and then use the power to act outdoors to despicable fantasies. -- of course that most recent threat against my friend and colleague mehdi, came and a platform owned by the wealthiest man in the world who perhaps you've been hearing some of it, also clearly just aligned himself with this fascist tendency. elon musk has welcomed back neo-nazis who had been banned from the site ex. he defended white supremacists, compared george soros to a jewish marvel super villain. he endorsed the greek anti-semitic replacement theory the motivated mass shooting is the actual truth, that's the one about the cabal of nefarious jews colluding and puppeteer-ing minorities in order to extinguish white people. was the inspiration for the mass murder that happened at the tree of life synagogue. musk has state power on his side. yesterday takes its journey ken paxton, the guy who just managed to escape an impeachment, announced investigation into the -- group, media matters in the wake of their report about ads for major brands appearing next to the pro-nazi -- content on x. that's what it looks like. when people in power, with state power, abuse that power to persecute their political enemies. and again, this is the message. this is what they are running on. this is what donald trump and his allies are promising to do over and over, like, every second they are in front of the camera. one of the most maddening features of this era is knowing that and watching this happen while polling suggests that most americans don't care. and donald trump supporters have not been swayed. i have to say, we do have some new data that sort of paints a different picture, courtesy of nate cohn in the new york times. nate was very very smart and runs a great polling operation in the new york times. he tried this experiment in polling to measure how much democracy matters to voters. so when he asked undecided voters if they would support a democratic candidate who say or who says don trump is a unique threat to democracy. or a republican who's said we should move on, the republican led by 15 points. when they change this to a republican candidate who tried to overturn the election, the hypothetical democrat led by three points. the strong evidence that they are repelled by anti-democracy candidates. again, this result isn't just comfti abstraction. you've got data on this in the real world that fits with recent eleioresults, where anti democracy fascist sympathizing candidates have faced defeat after defeat. americans, by and large, maybe not by enormous margins do in the main remain in favor of democracy. that is cheering. in the end, this has been the case since 2015 when the guy first came down the staircase, escalator. and it's been the case throughout the american experiment that we are, us, all of us together, are our own best hope. but the forces on the other side are increasingly loud about what they want to do. and it is as important as ever that we resent. next year will be an even more explicit referendum on the future of american democracy. yet, there is this maddening set of rhetorical incentives driving all different factions of the american electorate and institutions and media to criticize the person representing the pro democracy forces and that referendum, president joe biden. as a writer david roberts puts it, quote, there is no faction in u.s. politics, barely even elected democrats, for whom praising democrats is socially advantageous. it is for most uncool, just try it on twitter to see it for yourself. and joining me now is david roberts, author of the fantastic vault newsletter, host of a podcast about clean energy and politics. david, i thought your tweet the other day was fascinating, the order rhetorical in sentence that a whole variety of factions existentially on the center left or in the establishment of the american right have their views of the current incumbent president and what to say about him. run me through your argument. >> this has been striking for years and it's only gotten more acute lately, i think. obviously, anytime you watch right-wing media, republican media, it is criticism of democrats. even more so than criticism of republicans, it has been the core of fox reason for being since it was born. and then, you have the left, this sort of far left, the progressives, who for good reasons i think want to move the democrats left and went to be the democrats more ambitious, and so they're constantly criticizing democrats from the left. and to the point that it has become a rigid habit that they do regardless, no matter what happens. and then, you have this sort of thoughtful, centrist then pundits all of whom need to show the other thoughtful centrists dems, condense, how independent they are on the facts are not partisan, they're not team players, they're thinking for themselves. and the way to do that is by criticizing their own party. and so if you go down the list you will notice that there is no one left who actually wants to go tell voters what democrats have accomplished, what dems, who wants to actually be partisan for democrats. so, it's a weird thing that there is one of two political parties that has effectively very little spokespeople in the media. everyone has incentive to criticize them. no one has incentive to defend them. >> i should say, obviously, there is people who do that. there are people whose job it is, to speak about them. and there's also the fact that, look, you know, the guy that is in power, the american president, i'll be not happy with the policy on israel, and hamas, and the gaza war from different directions. that comes with as heavy as background -- and as difficult as the guy that's running the most powerful country on earth. >> and you could think at least you can balance that out. i'm not the last person to say don't criticize dems. i've been criticizing democrats for decades. but it would be nice if it was balanced out by an appreciation of what dems have done. if you look at these polls, they are saying the same thing over and over again which is a bunch of swing voters saying, we're even court democratic voters saying, it sure would be nice if dems we would do x, y, and the. and then you notice, hey, wait a minute. that's exactly what they've done. this is what you hear from swing voters. i want a party to do what democrats are actually doing. they just don't know democrats are doing it. >> it is true. i will say that, joe biden is a very good president. he is one of the most, like, underpopulated parts of the american political discourse. like, it's a very sparse part of the squadron, like, and i think, i just speak for myself, on the mystic policy in particular, he has done an exceptionally good job under extremely difficult circumstances. and that view, again, that is an under populated view. >> yes, and obviously, from my perspective on climate and energy stuff, he passed the biggest climate bill in u.s. history, a climate bill that i've heard foreign secretaries say is a bigger deal than the paris agreement, galvanizing internationally. it's a huge, huge epic deal. almost no one knows about it. they don't even know it happened. and yet, when biden approve the willow oil exploration project of alaska which a lot of environmentalist think it's bad, everybody heard about that instantly. i heard from everybody from youth, environmental groups, they instantly knew about that and they were angry about it. and i just reflect why did the good thing he did apparently reach no one. and the bad thing he did instantly reached everyone. and that is just one example. but i think you can run down the list. he's done a lot of things that people legitimately approve of if they know he did it. >> and one of the places where i think you saw this was in those swing races in 2022 when you had frontline members like elissa slotkin who was in a swing state in michigan, now is gonna run for senate in that state, running ads, he was like the battery plant that he built with the money that came from the bill i voted for. people didn't like that. and the question, the question remains, how much a campaign concentrates on precisely that? but, david roberts, who is always an important observer of our discourse of reality. i appreciate you coming on. >> thanks, chris. still to come, as prices tumble ahead of the holidays, to david's point, that should be good news for the incumbent president, right? so why is a certain news channel trying to argue the opposite, next. dealdash.com, online auctions since 2009. this playstation 5 sold for only 50 cents. this ipad pro sold for less than $34. and this nintendo switch, sold for less than $20. i got this kitchenaid stand mixer for only $56. i got this bbq smoker for 26 bucks. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save. 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at a clip of about three and a quarter percent. >> our place in the world right now is trying to figure out what we can afford for the thanksgiving dinner. that's our place in the world. whether or not we can do a go somewhere to see family because of gas prices. >> americans are still feeling inflation pains ahead of thanksgiving next week. >> we want to go buy a turkey today, it was $90 for a turkey. >> $90 for a turkey. by the way, it turned out to be a super, super fancy turkey, which is pretty funny. one of the biggest issues surrounding any inflation discussion is that anything other than deflation feels like a lot of people that the situation keeps getting worse. let me explain. the rate of inflation, you can see it dropping on the right side of the screen, ever since it peaked at 9% in june 2022. but the rate is just how quickly things are getting more expensive. they're getting more expensive more slowly. the problem is that people want the actual prices the come down. the price level as what we feel on our daily lives, not the rate of change. here is the thing, right now, we are seeing the actual price level, not just the rate, starting to change materially in some areas. here's an example. keep prices going down, not just going up. price for a gallon of regular gas is down 15% from september, almost down to what it was a year ago. well below the 2022 high of more than $5 a gallon, which is to say, not just that inflation as declined, it has deflated. gas is cheaper now than it was last year, cheaper now than last year. holiday air travel prices, also down, according to the travel deal site, thanksgiving airfare is down 14% from last year and even 7% less and then pre-pandemic in 2019. christmas airfare, likewise, down 12% from last year. again, these are drops in prices. and as one at the mascots of the holiday season, the price of turkey, what he managed to spend $90 for, is also down. the first page at the wells fargo thanksgiving report, it's, says, retail turkey prices went from $1. 47 per pound down 9% or 15%'s per pound from october of last year. again, that is not the rate of increase learning, that is actually it being cheaper this year than last year. the problem is that everyone seemingly has an incentive to hike the rise in prices, so there is very little coverage no coverage one costco down. i think leaving people with the impression that things are just materially worse in every category, you're at the year. betsey stevenson served as president barack obama's economists and chief economist for -- chief economist of the department of labor and he joins me now. let's talk first, betsy, about this idea, the difference between a slowing inflation rate, a declining rate, which is clearly happening, and people like yourself and macroeconomic policy thing, words like myself, are excited by the. looks good, but it does not mean that things are getting cheaper. but then there are categories of things actually getting cheaper, and how much that matters. >> chris, i love everything that you're talking about here. first of all, last month, it was a big goose egg. prices did not go up at all for consumers, and that is not because everything was flat but because some things went down, turkey, gas, energy, air fares, and other things one went up. and on average, prices in the month of october did not change at all. so the average, though, is masking the fact that a bunch of things are going down and some things are going up. and i think it's important that we take a look at all of that. but you're also pointing out that on average, we're not going to see prices coming down, and the reason that is so hard to bring the entire price level down on average, is will have to be bringing peoples incomes down on average too. nobody really wants to. if you want to think about that, i think the easiest way for me to wrap heads around it is, the price in used cars has declined 7% over the last year. that means if you sold that car are not using that much a year ago, you would have gotten 7% more than what you got today. i don't know about you, i actually have an old car in my garage that i wish i sold a year ago. i kind of feel bad the prices are going down, because that means it's worth less than me. you can now imagine, if all the things are going down, the prices of our houses, our stocks, our incomes, that might not feel good, even though we might be able to pay less for something's in the store. and that is why we are not going to see the overall price come down. we just want to see the rate of inflation come down to that nice and easy 2% a year. >> put your finger on why the paradox at the center of this discourse, which is that it's totally reasonable to people want actual deflation. they want the prices to like. they want to see cut some prices, but in the aggregate, deflation across the board would mean a recession. the biggest deflation the country has ever seen was the great depression. and boy howdy did the prices fall and that's because all the money was going away. so, from the perspective of solving the problem politically, it's you can't actually solve for that because you will make everyone worse off. the best you can do is slow inflation. >> i think the most important thing politically, i would be frank, is for the prices that are most salient for people to come down. gas prices have to be lower, because people just stare at that pump and it gets them all riled up. we're gonna have food prices coming down and we are gonna have gas prices coming down and that's the most important thing for people. but the problem is we have things like medical expenses are flatlining, and people don't really pay that much attention to that. even though it's lining. and we should note the things that have been these high salient issues, i read like a million egg stories and now they're down 22% and i've heard no egg stories. that is "all in" on this tuesday