0 school system to expand their mindset. >> well, jamiyah brown, good on you for standing up for yourself and for your fellow students. which we see young, to my brown, thank you both very much for coming to the last word. that is tonight's last word. i will see sunday on the sunday show starting at 10 am eastern. starting next weekend, you can watch me on the saturday show and the sunday show. weekends starting at 9 am eastern. only on msnbc. that's both days, saturday nine a.m. to ten a.m., and sunday at 9 am to 10 am. starting next saturday, february 18th. be there. set your alarm clock. and get your dvr! the 11th hour starts right now! >> tonight, new reporting about what the former presidents legal team turned over to the doj. a day after we learned jack smith sent mike pence a subpoena. then, misinformation campaign in full swing at the former vice president network. just how dangerous are the lies, the expert that watches and decodes fox news so you don't have to, is here. and from the wild week of politics from republicans, spend most of it fighting their own culture war. to the historic weekend ahead of us. our friday night cap is here to bring it all down as the 11th hour gets underway right now. good evening, once again. i'm stephanie ruhle. new signs tonight of a legal battle brewing for the special counsel subpoena to former vp mike pence. cbs news reporting that trump's legal team is gearing up to track -- on the grounds of executive privilege. we learned yesterday that the jack smith subpoenaed the former vp that wants him to testify under oath that his investigation into trump's role in january 6th. jack smith is also overseeing the investigation into donald trump's handling of classified documents. tonight, abc news reports his legal team gave federal agents a folder with classification markings found last month at mar-a-lago. they also turned over a laptop belonging to one of trump's current aides. abc says trump's lawyers told agents, the folder had been copied onto the laptop. so far, neither trump's legal team nor the justice department is commenting. nbc news has not confirmed this reporting. meanwhile, fbi found another classified document today at mike pence's house in indiana. discover during a five hour voluntary search that did not involve a warrant. that search came weeks after pence reported finding a small number of classified documents at his home. as all of this is happening, the current president is continuing to hammer republicans who floated possible cuts and changes to social security and medicare. here's what he said today at a meeting of governors from both sides of the aisle. >> we had somewhat of a debate on the state of the union. i was glad to see everybody support social security and medicare. i notice that have. hope that's true. >> this week, biden called out florida republican senator rick scott for an early proposal that would allow all federal programs to expire after five years. even said a gop leader mitch mcconnell has called it, a bad idea. today, rick scott conveniently came out with a new plan. when he says will protect seniors and safeguard funding from social security. the question is, protect them from whom? rick scott himself. with that, let's get smarter with the help of our lead off panel tonight. peter baker, chief white house correspondent for the new york times, professor melissa murray of nyu law school. she was a law clerk for on the federal bench. former nomination to the supreme court. stuart stevens joins us. a veteran of the mitt romney and george w. bush for presidential campaigns. now with lincoln project. his latest book, it was all a lie, how the republican party became donald trump. all right, we have a lot to cover guys. listen, in his book, mike pence wrote about the lead up to january 6th. the hill reported, he just grabbed pressure from trump and his allies who wanted him to intervene in certifying the election. here's what mike pence told all are only sean dodd. >> i have made my position clear for weeks to him that as vice president, i did not have the authority to return or reject electoral votes. >> explain to me how this works. he already put all of this out there in the public sphere. he profited in writing a book. how does he now claim executive privilege? is that possible? >> stephanie, he makes a very clear why he's appealing prospect for jack smith to have in the grand jury room. as you say though, it is going to make it much more difficult to assert executive privilege because he's essentially disclosed much -- it's also going to be hard for executive privilege for a number of other reasons. there's an ongoing in criminal investigation which means the government can exhibit a special lead under united states versus nixon, which is the prevailing president. so, that may suggest that because there is an existing criminal investigation and they might be certain rights of other people who are at stake here, his testimony is needed. and overriding the privilege, which has never been held to be absolute. in the event that donald trump is the one to assert the privilege, there could be questions about whether or not a former [inaudible] position to assert privilege. lots of questions all the way around. the personal question, as you say, whether or not it can ever be privilege if it's been published. >> let's say he does make this claim, melissa. what options does jack smith have? >> if he does make this claim, jack smith has the option of fighting. it government has a very good argument to make here that there is a special need. that this is a criminal investigation. that this isn't a sort of information that typically would be subject to executive privilege after the court has held in the united states versus nixon, that executive position pertains to that information that really pertain to the exercise executive duties. diplomacy military secrecy, things of that nature. now whether you are going to pressure ear vice president to withhold a county of those during certification of the electoral college. that would be outside the scope of that realm. >> what about, melissa, this abc reporting. saying that a current trump aide turned overlapped up where material from classified material was copied onto that laptop? that seemed serious to me. >> definitely seems unorthodox, stephanie. nothing is ever really been unorthodox of the trump administration with documents and record keeping. perhaps, and surprising. again, unorthodox. should rates questions. again, the whole withholding of documents and failure to return them to the national archives is part of that broad probe, that special counsel is working on. it's not simply the run up to january six, what happened on january 6th. also includes the withholding of those documents and the cash of documents that was recovered from mar-a-lago. >> all right, peter. help of the politics of all of this? these two men were running mates. now, they could be rivals for the gop 2024 nomination. to this current investigation and any possibility of a presidential campaign for either of them? >> well, there's a lot to be seen. right? that depends on what happens here. obviously, for president trump, ultimately indicted some fashion. some damning discovery for this process that becomes public. that's one thing. you know, at this rate, we don't know. it's been more than two years since january 6th. we don't have a good sense of where [inaudible] jack smith are going to take this. ultimately, of course, jack smith as special counsel will be [inaudible] merrick garland to make the final decision, if there's a recommendation along those lines. as for pence, the problem for pence has always been, even before this, that he doesn't have a clear lane to running for president. if you are pro trump, you don't like. and there are people calling to hang mike pence on january 6th. if you're anti trump, you don't like him, because he's trying too hard. even now, to stick close to trump even as he continues to say, disagree with him on january 6th. he doesn't have a cleaning since to see here and most polls, so far. single digits. if he's mentioned at all. >> how about a clear lane, stewart, with regard to what history is. he writes the book, all about what happened january 6th and leading up to it. he goes on a huge media tour. in doing so, he tries to pretend that he was the savior that day. but he says to congress, nope, you have no right to my testimony. how does all of that play out politically for him now? >> well, stephanie, the fbi concern to mike pence's home every day for the next 20 years. they're not going to spy on mike pence. he's one of the more pathetic figures in american politics. he also was lucky. he was a guy who's about to lose his race for governor. picked out of obscurity. by paul manafort, picked him to run. he never had much of the following. he was evangelical, who had a radio show. he talked a lot about the evils of adultery. he teamed up to become vice president with a guy who seems to [inaudible] every ten years and talks about having sex with a daughter in public. really, pence was this sort of said character who should not forget, he was aware, as vice president of the united states, of a plot to and the peaceful transfer of power. what did he do? he called dan quayle. can i get away with this? he did call the fbi. he did call a press conference. he didn't warn anybody. it's just extraordinary. they got betrayed his own office. i don't think you should get credit because he didn't go all the way and help overthrow the government. it's like thing, we're not pass the 16 bags to get here, i didn't rob anything i should get credit. so, mike pence, i don't think the guy has republican politics. it's his own fault. >> churches where you go every ten years to marry a model. >> stuart, you might change my son's outlook on going to mass entirely. ron desantis and nikki haley, are they the big winners here if trump and pence are in this legal fight? stewart? >> i think this race is going to come down to donald trump and someone not named ron desantis. i don't think rhonda santas has any idea for what he's in for. he kind of reminds me of the chinese balloon floating over the country. he's not going to take much to deflate him. i think someone will merge that we're not thinking of now as a likely opponent for trump. i still think donald trump is going to be the republican nominee. >> that really is extraordinary. melissa, with all of that we're learning this week, what does it signal to you of where jackson at this in his investigations? his investigations into the man that stewart believes will be the gop presidential nominee? >> stephanie, i'm still back on matt over models and getting their every ten years. i think it's fair to say that we had checks myth going dark for a little while before wondering what he was up to. he apparently has been doing quite a lot. the subpoena, obviously, took a fair amount of work. probably had to be brought up the chain, definitely had to be run up the chain at the doj to make sure they would fly with attorney general. there has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes. we just haven't heard about it. i think things are heating up. that's what this says to me. he's been underground, but he's been working. >> peter, you have a thought on any of this? including massive models. >> i'm going to stay with the mass in the models. i think a lot, obviously, really valid issues to raise. have a hard time saying nikki haley, necessarily profiting. she too has been so many different positions when it comes to donald, trump difficult to see which lane she lives and. immediately, after january six, denounces trump or what he did. saying we should never have became our nominee in the first. place change her mind. saw immediate mar-a-lago to make up -- i'm not sure how she finds a lane for herself. desantis is a different guy, obviously. he has his own strengths and weaknesses right now. he's the one person who gets strong, you know, ratings in the poll. i think trump voters are looking for somebody who they believe is like trump but more of a winner. if this point, trump doesn't look much like a winner to them. they think desantis is up a 19-point victory in florida, maybe that person, whether he can hold up -- you know, travails of the campaign, we will see. he's never been through national campaign. it's a lot tougher than it looks. >> all right, peter, new topic. not the chinese balloon that stewart has likened to rhonda santas, but the president today ordered another flying object of sorts shot down. this is days after the chinese balloon from last week. tell us what you know about what happened tonight. >> yeah, very interesting. starting last night, they tracked this object heading into u.s. airspace around alaska. president gave in order to go head and sit down. today, they shut it down. it's not the same thing as what we saw last week. it's not -- first about, we don't know if it's a balloon or not. it's the size of a car, they say, as opposed to last week's chinese balloon, which is the size of three trucks. they don't know for a fact whether it was chinese or not. they don't know whether that it had any kind of propulsion or any ability to maneuver the way the other objected. so, they're still trying to figure that out. the good thing for them, their point of view, they shut it down over the water, just off of alaska. it's frozen water. whatever wreckage they have, it will be retrievable. they can examine it and decide what to make of it. for now, it's a curiosity and mystery. if we decided to china, sending a second one in the wake of that first one, especially provocative given the sensitivities over the last week. we don't know that that's the case. that's one thing, obviously, that they're looking at. >> all right, before we, go last topic to, stewart, this battle over social security and medicare. biden has struck gold, going after rick scott and other republicans. who clearly, in the past, have laid out policies to sunset social security. big claiming they didn't. we know they did. how does biden keep the focus on this? >> you know, i'm really glad the president is focusing on this. more before the election in 22, when scott put the plan. mitch mcconnell is going with the trump campaign and who scott is. ahead of the republican senatorial committee. he was running the entire operation to reelect republican senators. he put out a plan that clearly said that every five years, you should vote whether to continue voting for social security. so, the root of all of this, stephanie, is it is no president program republicans are running on. there are no new ideas. there's nothing innovative here. it's a family feud over whether or not a guy who put out a plan that was printed, really believe what he said to mitch mcconnell, it system as. until they find some positive directs here, it's going to be back and forth like this. >> stuart, stevens, ending our thing on a high note. great to see you on this friday night. when we come back, fox news tries to throw a lifeline to republicans who are feeling the heat over their plans to cut entitlements. here's the problem, all of it, all of their efforts, are rooted in lies. we have a very special [inaudible] with the master of decoding fox news. later, an effort to settle scores backfires big-time for major world as they try to distract from the real issues with their own culture wars. our nightcap, breaking it all down. the 11th hour, just getting underway on this friday night. then getting on the dexcom g6 is the single most important thing you can do. it eliminates painful fingersticks, helps lower a1c, and it's covered by medicare. before dexcom g6, i was frustrated. all of that finger-pricking and all of that pain, my a1c was still stuck. my diabetes was out of control. i was tired. 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