Now it's time for the last word with Lawrence O'Donnell. Good evening, Rachel. So the Democrats are doing everything they can. You know, I haven't been one of those people complaining about why aren't they doing more. And it may be because I've internalized just how much powerlessness there is in a congressional minority. When you're in the minority in the House, minority in the Senate, and when I worked in the Senate, I served in the minority for six months, and I could not

take a seventh month of it. And that's what I left. But I wanted to know what it was like in the

minority. And it's utter powerlessness. But you have these kinds of moments of basically

seizing the Senate floor on a nomination like this and making your point and driving home your

point. They also today did something else that I've been waiting for. I've been expecting.

They're not allowed to hold hearings. Technically, hearings can only be convened by the chairman

and the majority party. But the Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee held what looks like a

hearing. It's not a hearing. It's actually not in a hearing room, but it really looks like one.

And all the Democrats showed up, no Republicans showed up, to hear real experts who formerly worked at USAID,

explain to them what is really happening,

what Elon Musk is really doing. And I think we're going to see more of those kind of informal hearings that Democrats in the House and the Senate will be having. They are going to be, I think,

as important, if not more important than the official hearings that committees are having.

Because what the Democrats did in that unofficial hearing today, which we're going to be showing a lot of later in this hour, is more important than anything we heard in the official Republican-controlled hearings.

And so they're doing everything they can do in this very strange condition of being in the

minority in the Senate in the House.

I mean, I feel like, you know what?

They all still have constituents.

They all represent hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. And the one

thing for sure that doesn't work is doing nothing. And if it's really important that something

get done, no, you can't guarantee that everything you're going to do is going to have X outcome,

but do everything you can. You never know exactly what impact you're going to have.

Try everything. And try everything fast in the case of somebody who's trying an authoritarian

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