speech on college campuses. all of these things are very much in the zeitgeist if not actually legislative solutions being sought by conservatives of the state level. >> when you understand the story of how roe fell like what was that, legislation to courts to law and american cultural transformation pipeline and you can understand okay, this makes some sense of these other big cultural transformative issues we are seeing play out and this other deluge of loss like you are mentioning. >> it is a blueprint and like i said, it is so comprehensive and the fact that you talked to the right about how they won the war or at least the battle makes it essential reading. "the fall of rome" is right now on bookshelves and kendall. thank you for being here tonight, ladies. that is our show for this evening. now, it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. >> good evening, alex. i just noticed adam schiff is here in his role as a member of that crazy house judiciary committee hearing today, but he is also going to be the next senator from california. he is the democratic nominee for senate in california and he's going to be joining us. andy kim is going to join us right after he won tonight in new jersey, the senate nomination -- democratic nomination for new jersey and jon tester is with us, who also has the democratic nomination running for re-election. >> you could pass a lot tonight. >> something close to a quorum on the show here. >> there's a lot of possibility for your hour of television. i will be watching to see what you guys cook up. have a good show. my first thought this morning was that house republicans were behaving like children once again, but i realized how wrong i was when i saw a c-span video of an actual child in the house of representatives sitting behind his father yesterday while his father spoke to an empty house chamber. >> regardless of one's opinion of the current republican nominee, we would be well served to remember the long and cherished tradition we have in this country is settling our political differences at the ballot box. for nearly 2.5 centuries -- >> the six-year-old was just having some fun after his father told him to smile at the camera for his three-year-old brother who would be watching and guy really is a great big brother because that is probably exactly what his three- year-old little brother wanted to see. that is what i would've wanted to see when i was three years old. it is fair to assume that guy wasn't paying any attention to what his father was actually talking about, but his reactions were perfect for more than half the country, who know just how absurd it is for a republican tennessee congressman john rose to praise the long and cherished tradition we have in this country of settling our political differences at the ballot box. because, on that same house floor on january 6, 2021, john rose voted to overturn the presidential election. john rose said no, this election was not settled at the ballot box. we republicans will settle it right here in the house of representatives. that is what john rose wanted to do and that is what john rose voted to do, and so anyone who knows that about john rose probably would have had a very similar facial expression to what we saw behind john rose when he expressed his reverence for that cherished tradition of settling our differences at the ballot box. turns out, the six-year-old in that video was the only honest person in the video and so no, house republicans do not behave like children because children are more honest than they are. today's republican -controlled house judiciary committee hearing was supposed to be about oversight of the justice department, which has more than 115,000 employees and a budget of 39.7 billion dollars administered by attorney general merrick garland. the attorney general got no questions about that budget, and that so-called oversight hearing, which began the way elementary school classes began, with the pledge of allegiance. the pledge of allegiance is something that no house or senate committee has ever found necessary until republicans won control of the house in this congress, and of course, the pledge of allegiance makes absolutely no sense in a body where everyone takes an oath of office. that oath to protect and defend the constitution of the united states has been repeatedly violated by many of the republican members of the house who so eagerly stood for the pledge of allegiance and the house judiciary committee hearing today. the pledge of allegiance pledges allegiance to the flag, not the constitution. the chairman of the house judiciary committee violated his oath of office on january 6 by voting to overturn the presidential election but jim jordan leads the performance art of pledging allegiance to the flag in the judiciary committee, as he did today. >> we welcome everyone to today's hearing on oversight of the department of justice. the chair recognizes mr. mcclintic to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. >> are pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. >> no harm in a little flag worship, right? except that they don't mean it. >> i have to say, i am pleased and a bit surprised to see that the flag in this committee is still flying right side up because they want to turn upside down even as they want to turn our justice system upside down. >> there pledge of allegiance to the flag is a lie. their allegiance is to donald trump and they have pledged that allegiance much more convincingly than their allegiance to the flag. they would turn that flag upside down in a second if donald trump ordered him to. none of those republicans have any problem with supreme court justice samuel alito flying that same flag upside down at his home in support of, and sympathy with the people who attacked the capital on january 6. the alito upside down flag, which mirrors the upside down flags carried by the attackers at the capital went upside down on the alito flagpole only after january 6. here is a flag that has never been upside down. that is the flag outside my office window. that is the shot of it today from my phone. that is the way it looked at about 6:00 p.m. tonight. the american flag, put that back up there, the american flag flying outside of fox propaganda headquarters would never be flown upside down, but everyone working inside fox has to now pretend that there is nothing troubling about the alito flag. we had a right to expect the supreme court justices did not have political views that were as extremist as the worst of the fox propagandists. who would've guessed that a supreme court justice was more likely to fly the flag upside down after january 6th when the fox was. the republicans on the house judiciary committee today did not want to talk about a propaganda flag flying supreme court justice, or any federal judge, or anything about the federal judicial system. they just want to pretend that there was something wrong with the most criminal president in history becoming a criminal defendant after his presidency. the first republican questioner of the attorney general today said last year that he wants to abolish the fbi. >> we either get this government back on our side or we defund and get rid of, abolish the fbi, cdc, atf. >> abolish the fbi. that is the republican position. attorney general garland in his opening statement mentioned just some of the things that the abolish the fbi party does not care about. >> just 10 days ago we secured the extradition of one of the elite assassins of the sinaloa cartel, one of the most dangerous drug trafficking organizations in the world. just last month, we secured a 27 year prison sentence for a man who attempted to kill nypd officers in a terrorist attack in times square, 2022. in just the first three months of this year we charged seven members of a hacking group backed by the chinese government. we disrupted a bot net controlled by russian intelligence services, and we seized over $108 million and 500,000 barrels of fuel that would otherwise have enabled the government of iran to further support hamas, hezbollah , and other terrorist groups. we continued our work to drive down violent crime, work that we know is paying off. last year's historic decline in homicides, the largest one year decline in 50 years, is continuing, and the first quarter of this year we have already seen an 18% drop in murders. >> congress can -- congressman matt gates wants to abolish the fbi. he doesn't want the fbi to do any of that work. in fact, there was not a single republican on that committee today who supported any of the work done by the fbi. maybe the people of america are not living in a bubble. maybe we are. >> that was republican barry moore who was feeling his way toward the truth, that the republican members of the committee are indeed living in a bubble, a trumpet bubble. -- a trump bubble. >> there is lying and then there is republican line. >> i care deeply about the law. >> no republican on that committee has a more perverse relationship with the law then congressman matt gates. congressman gates echoed the republican demand that the attorney general garland release the audio recording of interviews with president biden about classified material found in his presidential papers which president biden immediately reported as soon as they were found. the special prosecutor found there was no criminal conduct or intent on joe biden's part and praised president biden's cooperation with that investigation. >> i just want to get this straight. mr. gaetz wants the attorney general to reopen and publicize evidence from an investigation that a donald trump-appointed prosecutor closed against president biden while at the same time mr. gaetz himself is being protected by the same doj policy refusing to voluntarily turn over evidence for mr. gaetz' trafficking allegation. >> he asked the inspector general about the most deadly criminal threat facing americans. >> i wonder if you might just opine a bit, or expound a bit on your work as it relates to gun violence. >> might [ inaudible ] has been helpful to combat gun violence leading to substantial numbers for having a sale of guns to minors. it has given us the authority to bring cases for purchasing that has led to crime guns and gun trafficking to criminals, and in those ways, it has helped drive down the numbers with respect to gun violence. we have set up a crime gun intelligence center so that our state and local counterparts can trace guns found at crime scenes to determine whether they were used by serial killers, by serial shooters to help us find out -- run the dna off of the casing so that we can find hits on those people and arrest them and prevent them from committing further crimes. there is a host of things the department has done, but the principle kind of violence we are worried about in the country is gun violence. that is what causes the enormous number of deaths we face every year. >> and republicans want to abolish the fbi. leading off our discussion tonight is andrew weissmann, former fbi general counsel and former chief of the criminal division of the eastern district of new york and co- author of the new york times best-selling book, "the trump indictments." this professor at georgetown law and host of the podcast courtside with neil, both msnbc legal analysts. i want to start with you, and are, because of your experience in the justice department and the fbi. to take this oversight hearing seriously today, the imaginary world in which this could be a serious hearing, there are so many serious issues of oversight that should be of concern to the house of representatives today at this point where the department is, but what is your reaction to the republican approach we saw to this hearing including members who actually have set out loud repeatedly, they want to abolish the fbi. >> i want to try and differentiate republicans now versus what i would say is democratic and republican traditional support for law enforcement and the fbi, specifically. prior to trump, the fbi was viewed as a political, and it is and was a political to its core. its sole mission is to protect the american public, and whether it is street crime, bank robbers, cybercrime, terrorism, murders, civil rights i mean, just a huge, wide array of crimes that need to be detected and prosecuted, and that is its bread-and- butter and they are 30,000 people who are dedicated employees and looking at them through a politicized lens is just so wrong and i want to say that is true for when you are dealing with democrats and republicans who supported the era. the question i got when i was general counsel, when i was dealing with politicals because the bureau only had one, which was the fbi director, the rest, no one is a political appointee. the question i would get is what do you operationally need? you did not have to worry about the politics of it, you just focused on your mission. i'm not going to say that during political season the so-called silly season, people didn't try to take pot shots and make those kinds of arguments but there was just, especially under robert mueller, who was there for 12 years but even before him under louis frieden other people, it is a fundamentally a political institution. it is not that it doesn't make mistakes like every institution, but it is filled with people with good intent who are public servants. i think merrick garland did a really terrific job in highlighting the work of the fbi and the department of justice at the hearing today. >> neil, with your experience in the justice department, what would you want to ask, what would you want to try to eliminate in an oversight hearing like this today, on this calendar day for we are in our history involving the justice department and the attorney general's job and with the attorney general's responsible? >> i will tell you why wouldn't start. i would not start with the committee's claim that the justice department is weaponized. i know republicans love their guns, but the word, weaponization, does not even belong in the same sentence as department of justice under merrick garland. if we want to talk about weaponization of the justice department, the only attorney general the house needs to look at is bill barr and to me, the most important point here is how in the world can these people be saying that the justice department is politicized when literally today right now it is prosecuting the only living son of president biden, hunter biden , you know, so if i were to ask a question it would be about merrick garland. in a way, he represents the cautious best of our judicial system. before he was there he was chief justice of our nation's second highest court for 20 years, never overturned by the supreme court, no one is careful and meticulous. the question i would have is maybe have you been to careful? you know, you obviously want to avoid the legacy that bar and others try to impose on the justice department to go back to the traditions that andrew talks about, traditions that everyone i know that served in the justice department takes so seriously that independence and the avoidance of any appearance of impropriety, the question i have his house that failed? you assume good faith under congress and look at what these people have done. he grew up and i grew up in a system where people like orrin hatch for the judiciary committee chairs. they were republicans who, you know, understood institutions and who are cautious in their criticism and not kind of all over the place, baseless attacks which garland pointed out today could lead someone to get hurt. i mean, trump is now saying all this nonsense about mar-a-lago and the raid and how his life was threatened. it's the same exact protocol that was used for the president biden search, as well, so a lot of meandering and uselessness but also some dangerous stuff that came from congress today. >> to neil's point, could not be a worse week for the republicans to try to make the ridiculous claim that the justice department is being used politically. democratic senator robert menendez in the middle of his federal trial of charges brought against him by merrick garland's justice department, you have hunter biden on trial. you have a democratic member of the house in texas indicted, federal indictments all, and republicans had -- this is a rare hearing where republicans had almost nothing to say about hunter biden. they rarely mentioned him. >> absolutely. this is one where the contrast between donald trump and the way he wielded his power over the department of justice, whether you are talking about the roger stone case, his crony or the michael flynn case, where he sought to have the department dismiss that case was met with much resistance by the federal judge, a real abuse then of the pardon power to pardon his political cronies. at the same time you have an example of the current president, president biden, who is not pardoning, as neil said, his own and only living son, and he could any day of the week order his department of justice, he has the power to order the department of justice to say get rid of the case, and he has not done that because he believes in the rule of law. i think everyone should just step back for a moment and think about that. his own son, it is his last living son. he has the power because of the unitary executive, to take a step to say that he should not be held responsible, and he is leading the legal system step go forward because that is what it means to be in a country committed to the rule of law. he is living that principle even when it means his own son. you only have to look at that at the moment of the sort of clown show that we saw today in congress. >> thank you both very much for starting off our discussions tonight. coming up, congressman adam schiff was in the room today at the house judiciary committee hearing. he will join us next. hearing. he will join us next. >> it on medicare? have diabetes? when enjoying life's special moments are you left guessing which foods are right for you? with the freestyle libre 3 system you'll know your glucose and where it's headed no fingersticks needed. freestyle libre 3 manage your diabetes with more confidence and lower your a1c. so you can focus on those special moments. covered by medicare for more people managing diabetes with insulin. talk to your provider or visit freestylelibre.us/medicare nothing dims my light like a migraine. with nurtec odt, i found relief. the only migraine medication that helps treat and prevent, all in one. to those with migraine, i see you. for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of episodic migraine in adults. don't take if allergic to nurtec odt. allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. it's time we all shine. talk to a healthcare provider about nurtec odt from pfizer. they say it is unprecedented to bring charges against a former president. you are right, it is unprecedented. we never had a president of the united states who was making hush money payments to an adult film star than falsifying business records to cover it up. yeah, that's unprecedented. we never had a president withhold classified information than obstruct the investigation. that is unprecedented. we never had a president incite an attack on the capital. that is unprecedented and you know what else is unprecedented? the fact that so many leaders of that party are perfectly fine with all of that. >> joining art discussion now is democratic congressman alan schiff's from california. he's candidate for united states senate in california and former chair of the house intelligent committee and was impeachment manager for the first trial of donald trump in the