trying to sell the senate seat that was vacated when barack obama became president. the former governor and president trump have something of a history. >> governor, i have great respect for you. i have great respect for your tenacity, for the fact that you just don't give up. and, rod, you're fired. >> he also pardoned former new york police commissioner bernie kerik as well. what's going to happen with roger stone, you might be asking? the president said he has not given a pardon any thought but thinks stone is being treated unfairly. joining me now, hans nichols at the white house. blagojevich commuted. his wife has been on fox news for the past several years, right, asking for this? >> reporter: and the president has hinted he has been leaning on this direction on blagojevich in the past. back in august he talked about how unfair he thought blagojevich was treated. he was prosecuted by mueller and

fitzpatrick. you see the blending of the president's distaste for robert mueller and some of his actions today. there's another important part in the issue, michael millken, former junk bond king prosecuted in the '80s by none other than rudy giuliani if my memory serves on that one. he pardoned bernie kerik, former new york city police commissioner. he was asked about mania for the, stone and flynn, the president tried to draw a distinction, saying those cases are ongoing, i haven't even thought about that. but he tried to draw a clear line with going on in the pardons and commutations he issued and those three former campaign aides that could potentially be on the receiving end of presidential clemency. the president expressed full confidence in his attorney general, basically defending himself on the way he uses social media. at one point there, he seemed to acknowledge ag barr's criticism,

saying that he probably does make the attorney general's job harder by his tweets. the president, in a moment of self awareness there. he also weighed in on afghanistan. didn't seem to necessarily think that that peace deal there was final. he said there's a lot of we'll see on this. i think we have to get through the pardons and see what's next. katy? >> hans, just to be clear, blagojevich was convicted of trying to sell a senate seat. >> reporter: yeah. correct. >> and bernie kerik pleaded guilty to the charges and he has pardoned him? >> in regards to blagojevich, what was caught on the tapes was it was a valuable thing he had and ultimately was found guilty by a jury of his peers. the president's ability to pardon is absolute. that's one of the reasons he likes it. it is vested in the constitution. president donald trump likes to do things in an administrative way where he doesn't need to get

congressional authority. the pardon is one of those. the president hinted there are more names on this list. we'll have to see. i don't know how many people are tracking, aside from michael millken's family, i don't know how many people are tracking that. there could be additional pardons. with all these pardons, we've seen how quickly a presidential pardon or commutation gets weaved into the president's campaign narrative. you saw that with alice johnson. this is a way for president trump to target groups, demographics that he thinks might help him on his way to re-election. katy? >> i wonder who will be convinced that blagojevich -- who is going to think of blagojevich as a reason to vote for the president, commuting his sentence? i don't know. hans nichols, thank you. >> reporter: we could have a great conversation offline on that. indiana, take other places where they think blagojevich has been mistreated. they think about this -- >> he was caught on tape saying a senate seat is a valuable thing. how can you be treated unfairly when you're caught on tape doing the thing that you're accused of

doing? >> reporter: i don't necessarily think it's my role to defend mr. blagojevich. i just want to make the point -- >> no, i know. >> reporter: look, the president likes the idea that he gets to be the good guy. he likes to be for forgiveness. it's part of a story he tells. you hear jared kushner tell the story, part of their redemption project. in that super bowl ad with alice johnson where she thavenged the president for his humanity and forgiveness. >> i don't think you can compare alice johnson to -- i think they're apples and oranges here. hans nichols, thank you very much. weeks of looming large, michael bloomberg will be on the same stage as his contenders in las vegas, new york billionaire has officially qualified for the debate in vegas. although he won't be on the ballot for saturday's caucus out there, he isn't competing until super tuesday, but that hasn't stopped bloomberg from dominating the national conversation. he spent tens of millions of

dollars on advertising, paid to the new york former mayor as a problem solver, arguably tied himself closer to president obama than any other candidate in the field, other than joe biden. including in a new ad just released this morning. >> a great president and an effective mayor, leadership that makes a difference. >> he has been a leader throughout the country for the past 12 years, mr. michael bloomberg is here. >> together they worked to combat gun violence and again to improve education for every child. >> that cropped image of bloomberg is about to widen out to include his record on race, gender and progressive issues. not to mention the years he spent as a republican. so the big question, heading into bloomberg's first night in the debate spotlight is what will voters across america make of the new york city mayor? joining me now, nbc news political reporter josh letterman, senior writer and msnbc contributor, jake sherman and the author of "the

washington post" power up newsletter, jackie alameini. josh, you've been covering bloomberg. the first time he has been on a debate stage since 2008 or 2009. this is a much different field of competition than what he has seen in the past. what has he and his team been doing to prepare for this? >> well, katy, the bloomberg campaign knows full well that he will be taking hits from all sides in tomorrow's debate. they've been signaling that he does not plan to sit back and take it without launching some pretty aggressive attacks of his own. we were on a briefing call that his campaign did for reporters early this morning, where one of his top officials said look, there are three people they think at this point stand a chance at being elected president next year, donald trump, bernie sanders and mike bloomberg. so that's where you'll see bloomberg's focus tomorrow, is on trump and bernie sanders. if you had any doubt that bloomberg planned to go pretty hard off bernie sanders in tomorrow night's debate all you

have to do is take a look at his campaign manager's twitter in which he tweeted today the opposition research on bernie sanders could fill real donald trump trump's empty foxconn facility in wisconsin. the bloomberg campaign sees sanders as the biggest obstacle to bloomberg winning the nomination. that's where he's planning to put his focus tomorrow night. >> are they worried about his ability to debate on that stage? are they worried about his performance or do they think that if it's not good it could potentially be wiped out by the money he puts into advertising across the country? >> reporter: look, they know that there's no doubt about it, that tomorrow night is a really pivotal moment for him, but bloomberg has actual ly been preparing for weeks for this debate, even without knowing until this morning whether or not he was actually going to qualify. and we know that today he has been huddled with advisers, who have been cast in some of the specific roles of his fellow

rivals who will be on that stage so he can prepare for what's coming at him. >> dick sherman, bloomberg has been hovering over this race for quite a while. his numbers at the beginning, before he announced were abysmal. >> uh-huh. >> his numbers when he announced were not so great. they have moved dramatically in the few months he has been in this race and has not competed in any contest. look at the latest ncpr/marist poll. is this something that is really going to be a game changer for this race, or could he be another flash in the pan? >> well, he spent today, as of today, more money than any presidential candidate in history. >> does that mean no matter what he is a contender? >> absolutely. here is a big question going into tomorrow. and josh and i were both on the

trail with him last week, josh more than me. can he paper over some of his long running problems in the public, right? mike bloomberg has been short with people in the past. he was short with reporters on the trail. >> short with reporters in new york city. >> right. he's not a retail presidential candidate. whether that translates to a stage, we don't know. if you have a guy whose entire strategy is predicated on the fact that he's going to delegate rich states, spending money, he's going to be a contender. the only person campaigning in arkansas, missouri, florida, texas. some candidates are in texas. he's puting a lot of money and time into these states. north carolina. i mean, it's a strategy we haven't seen before. we don't understand how it might or might not work but he has a head start, which is important. >> only other person whose numbers are rising right now other than mike bloomberg is amy

klobuchar. according to elizabeth warren, part of what people criticize her for, those who are outside advisers to her campaign, is the fact that she's kind of taken a step back and is not hitting back at her competitors. have you gotten any indication from your reporting out there that she plans on doing something different in tomorrow night's debate, to distinguish herself? >> look, i think warren and, in general, female candidates, have a hard time when it comes to making those sorts of decisions on the debate stage, right? they're in an impossible position, if they come across as combative and aggressive, then they're labeled one way, potentially by media watchers and maybe voters, who might be turned off by that. but if they take a step back and they're not interjecting, getting in there on the attack, then there are questions about where are they? why are they dropping in the polls? so, you know, it's unclear what

direction elizabeth warren and amy klobuchar, for that matter, will go in. it did pay off for amy klobuchar in new hampshire. we saw a immediate bump in support. it put her over the edge. hundreds of volunteers showed up in new hampshire for her and it was a winning strategy. that being said, amy klobuchar faces much bigger problems going ahead in these diverse contests where she has virtually no support amongst voters of color. i did a bunch of reporting in south carolina last week where most of the people, voters, activists, lawmakers in the state i spoke with really had written her off, saying she doesn't stand a chance. when you're scrambling for attention, especially against the mike bloombergs of the world who have spent $400 million in advertising alone, that's something that i think is, you know, grappling with that stop in momentum is not going to be, i think, a recipe for success going forward. >> if you look at the polling,

if you watch cable news, if you listen to the talking heads of washington, it can almost seem like a foregone conclusion that bernie sanders is going to be the one to beat for this nomination. certainly the numbers have, so far, bolstered that case as well, what he has done in iowa, what he has done in new hampshire. although i'm sure pete buttigieg can make an argument for that as well, given his numbers. given that there is this narrative, though, that bernie has a solid base of support and it potentially will only expand -- if it doesn't expand it will get a plurality of votes, is there any conversation that's being had about what the rest of the field should do? if there is a desire to make bernie sanders not the nominee, is there a conversation that is actually being had, in earnest, among the campaigns about a way to go at this race where they don't end up doing what the republicans did in 2016 with donald trump? >> that conversation is not happening yet. it is still far too early.

especially with what a slow start we've gotten off to, with the chaos in iowa and really new hampshire, being the first defining moment of this race. especially because these candidates do appeal to very diverse electorates, right? you have candidates that don't register with people of color and then candidates that overwhelmingly do, like joe biden. there needs to be much more voters need to have their say here. this could go on well past super tuesday. what we are seeing, though, is that bernie has a plurality, but there are voters who haven't coalesced on the moderate side. mike bloomberg is potentially starting to run away with that, based on the national polling, but it's -- you know, it does show that sanders does have a significant weakness in that there are many more people who are searching for that moderate

alternative for someone else to co- coalesce around. >> how much does bloomberg get bloodied? the sanders/bloomberg fight is beneficial for each party. how does he answer these questions about being a republican in the past? some of these hits that have come out. he says, his advisers say privately he governed in new york as a progressive. they have a laundry list of examples. how does he get that across on the stage where he's getting completely bludgeoned. >> with two progressives, tried and true progressives on the national stage. >> yes. >> good to see you in person, josh letterman, see you in person tomorrow and jackie alemany, thank you very much. i'll speak with the national press secretary for bernie sanders about the very public back and forth between the two campaigns. and later why roger stone's sentencing will move forward despite the president's disapproval.

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doprevagen is the number oneild mempharmacist-recommendeding? memory support brand. you can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. othroughout the country for the past twelve years, mr. michael bloomberg is here. vo: leadership in action. mayor bloomberg and president obama worked together in the fight for gun safety laws, to improve education, and to develop innovative ways to help teens gain the skills needed to find good jobs. obama: at a time when washington is divided in old ideological battles he shows us what can be achieved when we bring people together to seek pragmatic solutions. bloomberg: i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message.

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michael bloomberg has set his sights on front-runner bernie sanders. bloomberg's campaign has hit sanders on the perceived toxicity of his online fan base and has attacked members of his campaign leadership directly for what it calls unacceptable attacks. let's bring in brianna gray. always good to see you. thank you for coming on. bloomberg is rising in the polls. we showed that npr/marrist poll that has him not where bernie sanders is, but much higher than where he was a couple of months ago when he announced. when you're on the debate stage tomorrow, how much do you take bloomberg into consideration, given the momentum he is building underneath him? >> first and foremost, i want to highlight the momentum that the sanders' campaign is building with a double-digit lead over the next most popular candidate. we have emerged as the front-runner in this race and have done so in large part

because of the support from diverse populations, including latinos, who support, rather -- 64% according to recent polls and more over number two in black vetters and closing in fast on number one, with three points behind senator -- sorry, vice president biden. so, to your question about bloomberg, of course, we have to consider everyone who is on that stage. what's really great aspect of this for bernie sanders is that he has spent his entire career talking about the negative influence of money in politics, how people who are enormously affluent, like michael bloomberg, who have $60 billion in wealth, are able to do things like buy our democracy. i really look forward to a conversation about the difference between a candidate like bernie sanders, who has more people given to his campaign than any campaign in the history of presidential candidacies, compared to someone like michael bloomberg, who is

completely self funded and accountable to no one, not voters, americans, no one else. >> you will get that chance tomorrow night. you're going to get that chance presumably in debates going forward if michael bloomberg continues to qualify for those debates. how, though, beyond the debates, and in individual states where michael bloomberg is spending millions and millions and millions of dollars, where every commercial break in a tv show has a michael bloomberg ad, where everybody who opens up instagram sees a michael bloomberg ad or facebook sees a michael bloomberg ad or they're near a rally and see everyone walking around with mike bloomberg t-shirts given to them by the michael bloomberg campaign, how do you, in these individual states, go out there, especially on super tuesday when it's as many states at once, and compete on that same level? >> anyone who is concerned with an oligarch becoming president, anyone who is concerned with the fact that michael bloomberg has spent more than every candidate in this race, every

nonbillionaire candidate in this race combined on advertisements should be thrilled the fact that in bernie sanders we have a candidate that has that organic support that michael bloomberg is spending so much money to pay for. with bernie sanders, you have record crowd sizes, including the crowd we just had in washington state last night, with over 17,000 people in attendance. you have grass roots enthusiasm. you have volunteers coming out at record numbers. you have people, yes, posting and creating organic memes in support of the candidate. without that grassroots enthusiasm, without that kind of donor base, people who are giving small doern dollar donations, without a candidate like bernie sanders, who has more union support than every other candidate in this race combined, it's going to be an uphill battle beating someone like michael bloomberg, who can just use his enormous wealth to buy this election. >> you have the talking point of michael bloomberg as a billionaire and you believe he's

trying to buy this election. people who do not support bernie sanders will say i do not support a socialist. i know he calls himself a democratic socialist, but that can get lost in the mix. are you concerned that some of that labeling won't work to your advantage, in fact, will work against you when voters are considering between -- maybe if it is just michael bloomberg versus a bernie sanders? >> i think what will work to our advantage is the fact that every democratic presidential candidate in my lifetime, at least, has been called a socialist. including, we all remember, barack obama. >> but bernie sanders himself calls himself a democratic socialist. and he's not going to say i'm not going to call myself that any longer. i'm just going to call myself a democrat. >> of course. katy, the point that i'm making is that bernie sanders is the most trusted senator in america. he is one of the most liked politicians in america because people understand that he has nothing to hide. so, to exhibit that label was intended to imply someone has a

shadowy agenda, do you prefer a democratic socialist, many of them say no, but when you ask voters who you prefer, bernie sanders or other candidates in the race, the answer is bernie sanders, because they know what he stands for. they know when he talks about democratic socialism, he's talking about a theory of government that puts people first, that puts laborers first, workers first. health care as a human right and we shouldn't allow wall street titans like bloomberg to attack social security, as he has said he will do. someone will say he has never supported a minimum wage raise, as he has said repeatedly, someone who has backed a racist criminal justice regime in new york city, declared unconstitutional by new york courts as mayor bloomberg has do done, people trust what your record is. right now, bernie sanders has the benefit of having a long record to run on, whereas bloomberg has a long record he is trying hard to run away from. >> michael ploomburg does have issues in his record. he does have positives, though,

that people will point to. i'll name a few of them. he funds every town for gun safety, more than $3 million in 2018. he has put $110 million on democrats and their causes in 2018 alone, $200 million to fight climate and environmental issues, $100 million on anti-smoking initiatives. yes, this is his money, but there will be people who point to that and say he's leading and he's putting his money where his mouth is on causes that i deeply care about. he's getting things done. >> for years, michael bloomberg also funded republican candidates who were anti-climate change advocacy. he was a speaker at the rnc, in support of george w. bush and his war in iraq. and he is someone who is shown to pick a political team according to the particular whims of the moment and is not someone i believe americans can trust with an agenda that actually puts people first. he was very close friends and played golf frequently with our

current president, and now we're supposed to -- >> i don't know that they were close friends. i don't know that that's an adequate characterization. i know there are photos of the two of them out there. >> i'll leave it to him to characterize their friendship. he has spoken positively in the recent history in the many videos circulating around social media by americans who are very concerned about the direction this country is going in, that michael bloomberg isn't someone you can depend on with the faith, the confidence of the working class people in this country. the reality is that money that bloomberg has spent on charitable giving is equivalent to me buying a bus ticket right back to new york city. when you have someone worth $60 billion, who earns more in interest on his wealth in a year than the other billionaire in the race has in his entire wealth, you have to take these things into context, katy, and understand that he is able to purchase, trust or endeavoring, anyway, to purchase his way into the hearts and minds of americans in a way that is not going to hold up against the scrutiny of donald trump in a general election, who is going

to be able to exploit his record in the same way we saw him exploit the record of democratic nominee in 2016, accusing him of being a wall street candidate, accusing him of being in the pocket of big money interest and accusing him also of having a terrible record of criminal justice, et cetera. the democratic party does not need to be bogged down with that kind of negative history when we're supposed to be the party on the side of the people. >> i do hear what you're saying. i'll leave you with this. when i talk to voters, some who do not like all of michael bloomberg's record in new york city, they'll point to stop and frisk, they do look at him and say listen, i think he might be the best one to beat donald trump. they point to his money because of that. >> polls say otherwise. >> anecdotal versus polls. we'll see which one wins out. brianna gray, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, katy. what a federal judge said today about roger stone's sentencing, despite president trump's tweets. and what's next for attorney general william barr? ♪ upbeat music

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>> a sentencing hearing for the president's long-time associate roger stone will still be held thursday, regardless of president trump's actions.

the judge held a phone hearing, the first hearing since four prosecutors withdrew from stone's case last week in protest after ag william barr intervened and recommended a lighter sentence than they did for roger stone. tomorrow the national association of federal judges will hold its own emergency meeting about william barr's involvement in the stone sentencing. joining me, former chief spokesman for the justice department, matt miller. first off, that phone call, that emergency phone call, has that ever happened before? >> not that i'm aware of. i think it's completely unprecedented and i think you have to look at it in the context of all the warning signs we've seen over the last couple of weeks from judges. there was a judge in -- the andy mccabe case who said the handling of that case smacked of what happens in a banana republic, letter from over 2,000 prosecutors and the actions of the four prosecutors in the stone case, who withdrew themselves from the case.

it's a sign of how people who are most familiar with how the rule of law is supposed to work in this country, being very concerned that the guardrails are failing and they need to speak up and alert the public, push back against what they see from the attorney general and the president. >> right now the president's allies are complaining about what they say is a biased juror on roger stone's jury. isn't that on the prosecutors or the defense team to root out that bias before that person gets on a jury? >> it is. and, in fact, the defense team knew that this juror did have a political preference. she had run as a candidate, as a democrat prior to her service on the jury. they knew about it in the jury selection process. they had a chance to strike her from the jury and chose not to. so, their complaints that they didn't know about this now i think ring a little false and a little hollow. i suspect we'll see this motion under seal, we don't know everything that's in it. we assume it's about this juror and that's the reason they're

asking for a new trial. i suspect that judge jackson will refer to the fact this they had a chance to strike her from the jury and did not do that, and reject this motion. >> regardless of what the doj recommends, the judge can give any sentence. >> she can take the full seven to nine years, she can offer something more if she wanted to. the full seven to nine years is probably unlikely, or she could do something in the range of three to five, as the justice department recommended. she has complete discretion to do whatever she wants, regardless of what doj recommends. >> do we know how this involvement from ag barr or the constant tweeting that the president has been doing about this case, how that might affect her decision making? should we expect it to? >> it shouldn't really affect her decision making, and i suspect it won't. what i'm curious about is whether she decides to dive into a little more into what happened. if you look at the way she has handled this case so far, i

think the best way to describe her is restrained. i remember that roger stone violated his gag order a number of times before she really reined him in. she has a lot of options. she could call the four prosecutors who withdrew from the case into her courtroom and demand to know why they withdrew. she can ask the attorneys who do appear for the justice department why those four prosecutors withdrew. she can call the u.s. attorney and ask for a sworn statement from the attorney general if she wanted. i don't know that she'll take those most aggressive options, but i would expect when the justice department comes in on thursday, she'll want to know what happened that led to the four prosecutors withdrawing and try to find out what is the justice department's actual opinion here? >> the president has said that he is not thinking of pardoning roger stone. he hasn't thought about it yet. although, you might question that, given how much he has been tweeting about roger stone and that pardons are on his mind. he did commute the sentence today of rod blagojevich, who i said at the top of the show, i'll say it again, was convicted of trying to sell a senate seat.

what do you make of that commutation? >> you know, when you look at all the people that he has granted pardons to, blagojevich, bernie kerik and add into the list right-wing operatives, he has granted pardons to people who very much deserve them, serving long sentences for nonviolent drug charges. it's a power that the president can exercise completely free of restraints. he has chosen to use presidential interference for people who, for the most part, are political allies of his, or who can get a friend or relative book ed on fox news or have a famous person come to the white house to intervene on their behalf. there are thousands and thousands of deserving individuals serving long sentences behind bars who i think would be much more appropriate people -- much more appropriately deserve a pardon. for me, i feel mostly sad that the president chooses to use his

pardon for people who are rich, powerful and happen to be friends of his or friends of friends. >> matt miller. matt, thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you. earlier this week, we told you about a nevada union that opposes medicare for all. next we'll hear from a union that supports it. later, the one we've been waiting for. charlotte altherr will join me, profiling the next generation of politicians who will lead america.

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extra operating individuals and also their households, as medicare for all will. joining me now, executive director of the seiu nevada, grace vergara-mctal. expand on what your statement said. why is your union deciding to support medicare for all when the culinary union out there was saying medicare for all would take away their health care coverage? >> thank you, katy, for having me. for decades now, seiu members and seiu has been fighting for health care for all. and, you know, that's just not for our members but also for everyone. we believe it's time for everyone in america to have access to quality, affordable health care, including long term care. that's what's at stake in this election in 2020. >> what do you say to a member who might be concerned about losing the health care coverage

plan they are currently on and instead get a government plan that they worry might not be as go good. >> i think most of our members at seiu, we are negotiating contracts right now. and health care is included. so, you know, i think it's a matter of having a quality affordable health care that we should have, that everybody should have. so the union members, they might have the health care now, but what happens if they lose their jobs? what if they get laid off? and it might have a health care now, but what about their parents? right? so i think it's a matter of if people have health care, that it will be under the table and will negotiate like safe staffing so our hospitals will have quality patient care acres workload, right? so our members at seiu cares

about having everyone in america to have health care. >> there are two candidates advocating for medicare for all. one is elizabeth warren, the other is bernie sanders. are you ready to endorse one of those candidates? >> at this time, we are not endorsing. our members are -- we want to make sure that they are part of the process. we have done a lot of member engagement. candidates have been reaching out to our members this last year since august and we've done a lot of town halls, walk a day, round tables. we want to make sure that our members hear from these candidates our demands and also the candidates hear from our members the demands that our union has, which is unions for all. we believe that everybody should be able to join a union, no matter where they work and no matter what the color of their

skin. part of our demands is also environmental justice. we want to talk about real comprehensive immigration reform and, of course, health care for all. it is a real important topic for us and the candidates need to listen to our members. we want our members to be involved in the process. this is a member-driven organization and members who want to be involved. >> bottom up, not top down. grace vergara-mactal, thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. a much different outlook on life and this country. columbine, september 11th shaped their world view. this new generation is starting to make its political will known, it is also starting to take on leadership roles. the new book "the ones we've been waiting for" contrast youngest politicians, pete

buttigieg and congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez. just as pete had rooted his campaign in his experience of 9/11, school shootings and the war on terror, aoc rooted her endorsement in her own experience as a working class millennial waitress ofw student debt. representatives from city and state government. joining me now, time magazine national correspondent charlotte alter, author of the new book "the ones we've been waiting for:how a new generation of leaders will transform america." i also found it really not only inspiring, but also kind of hit home for me because i'm a millennial, and the events that you base this book around are events that i experienced when i was basically the same age as

many of these -- as many of the people you profiled. tell me, what did you learn about millennials and what they want? >> so this is exactly the point, right? social scientists have found that people actually base their politics on the events that they experienced in early adulthood. and once you reach kind of your late 30s, early 40s, really even your mid 30s, most of your attitudes are set. so it's not really about being young or being old. it's what events shaped your perception of america and its role in the world? for a lot of people our age it was 9/11, the great recession, the wars that followed 9/11, which made a lot of people our age skeptical of foreign interference abroad. >> hasn't been optimistic over the few decades. >> no, it's not been great. but in there you had the election of barack obama, transformational for a lot of millennials and then given rise

to the progressive movement as we know it now and rooted millennial activism in this kind of networked, nonhierarchial structure that helps us understand how they see power differently than their parents did. >> how do they see -- and this is -- you don't only profile democrats. elise stefanik is in it, crenshaw is in it as well. most millennials are much more progressive than baby boomers or even generation x, if i'm not mistaken. how has that shaped what they're looking for and what they will lead, how they will lead in the future? democratic socialism is not a scary term for them? >> exactly. one of the things i try to get at in this book is the extent to which 20th century attitudes that our parents and grandparents had, are sort of evolving and even crumbling into the 21st century. for example, socialism means something different now than it did in the 1980s. and the oldest millennials were

8 or 9 when the berlin wall fell. they don't have any of that cold war context around socialism that our parents and grandparents might. attitudes around the free market, attitudes around foreign interference, attitudes around morality, the morality of the christian right in particular, even the republicans i spoke to seem to have kind of moved on from the issue of marriage equality. they're just like, that's over. that's settled. we're great with marriage equality. let's move on. there are certain issues, for example, climate change, racial equality and marriage equality, in particular, that millennial democrats and republicans agree on. >> crushing student debt, which is why you see aoc talking about what it means to go to college, what it means to be paying for college for the rest of your life. that is not something that baby boomers had to deal with.

it's not something that the greatest generation had to deal with. people weren't going to college at the same numbers they are now. >> yeah. when mitch mcconnell graduated from college in 1964, tuition cost $360. so the sheer cost of college has gone way up and $360. so just the sheer cost of college has gone way up. and the funding for public universities has gone way down. >> you tell millennials to suck it up, because they had to do it, even though they didn't have that debt. >> the swing from the center right politics in the '80s and '90s, that was defined by reagan on one side and clinton on the other. it's swinging back to the left. a style of politics that may be defined by aoc and pete buttigieg in the middle.

>> you talk about how millennials are trying to put it back together in a way that's not going to ruin their lives and the future. >> exactly. one of the things the book gets into, over the course of the decade, the social contract has radically changed and they -- threw austerity and budget cuts, they've removed a lot of the social safety net that they and the parents had when they were growing up. >> i love in the beginning how you talked about u.s. politics. we look at leaders now, we tent to think of older people, older white men mostly. and you write this, the u.s. policy feels especially claustrophobic, given that america's most visionary leaders have been young. alexander hamilton was 32 when he became the head of the

treasury secretary. and jfk was 44 when he promised to send a man to the moon. what happened? why did we suddenly start looking at 30 something-year-olds and thinking they are too young to lead? >> it's hard to know. one thing that might have happened is that at the exact same time millennials are coming into the world with an immense amount of student debt and finding it harder to get a job that pays well, that's the exact same moment when it became unbelievably expensive to run for office. again, look at somebody like michael bloomberg, we now have a system where you need to either be a millionaire or have a lot of friends that are millionaires in order to be able to afford to run any kind of political campaign in this country. and this generation simply does not have those resources. >> why doesn't our generation vote in large numbers? >> i think it's because, first of all, millennial turnout did

double in the 2018 midterms. it's certainly going in the right direction. one reason is that barack obama was a transformative figure for people. and he was for many people our age about the first presidents got behind. and he made voting into an ability of love. i don't think millennials think of voting as their duty, they think of it as something they only do for something they care about and believe in, that makes it really hard for somebody like a michael bloomberg or joe biden to attract millennial voters, because they don't believe in them that much. >> you believe the system is it broken and you want to fix it, have you to participate in the system. >> i agree with you. >> it's a really great book. the ones we've been waiting for, how a new generation of leaders will transform america. i've been enjoying it, and i hope you guys will as well. when it comes to deregulation, one of the nation's largest utilities has told the president thanks but no thanks, next. does your broker offer more than just free trades?

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the trump administration is running into a new and surprising roadblock as it tries to roll back environmental regulations. one of the biggest utility companies is now that roadblock. according to the washington post, exelon told the epa its efforts to change a rule that's cut emissions and mercury and other toxins is an action that is entirely unnecessary unreasonable and universally opposed by the power generation sector. joining me now jake devine. if the industry doesn't want this, it's saying it's a bad idea, why is the trump administration planning to go through with it? >> well, it's good to be here katie. this reminds me a lot of what we've seen on other environmental roll backs. that industry advocated for, the

trump administration rolled them back. something like the paris agreement, which the trump with drew from. and the entire business community went up in arms saying, they wanted the united states to adhere to the paris agreement, and here again, we have skmen mercury and air toxic regulations, which not just one electric power company, but the entire industry has said we dpontd want this role back, we don't need it, we don't want it, we've spent billions of dollars to come into compliance. those billions of dollars have reached more in public health benefits, and it's not something we want. >> let me read one of the side effects of what may happen. the rule in question known as the mercury and air toxic standards. targets a powerful neurotoxin that could affect the motor

skills of children even in utero. from the reporting it seems like the only thing that may benefit from the role backs is the coal industry. >> that's right. president trump is close with a number of cole executives, yeo's like the ceo at murray corporation who has personally lobbied on this issue. and the add ming station has been quite responsive to it. but one of the things i think it would be a mistake to chalk it all up to just one person, because there's something even trickier, and even more pernicious going on in this roll back, which folks at epa are just as comfortable letting happen and driving. which is this regulation weaponizes an alternative interpretation of the law, which essentially says, we're going to count costs and benefits in a totally different way, and we're not going to count all kinds of co benefits, collateral benefits

from the reduction of not just mercury, but soot and particulate matter, which create up to -- the last administration calculated between. and $90 billion in benefits from the reductions of mercury and those pollutants. >> there are clear industry objectives that play here, but there's an underlying current that's dangerous and important for people to know about. >> and it affects kids. at least this roll back could affect kids. >> babies. >> jake levine, thank you for joining us. chris jansing is here, hey, chris. >> what an extraordinary turn of events. former new york mayor michael bloomberg will indeed take the debate stage in las vegas tomorrow night after a new national poll puts him in second place, a mere 12 weeks after he entered the race. the poll has senator bernien sad iers