Show: THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW Date: January 3, 2019 Guest: Hakeem Jeffries
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST, "ALL IN": THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Super fascinating show tonight, Chris.
HAYES: Thanks.
MADDOW: And exciting to have like traffic noise and nighttime noise around you. It gives a sort of urgent feeling.
HAYES: A lot of bustling. There is a lot of bustling today.
MADDOW: Well done, my friend. Thank you.
And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Happy Thursday. It is a historic day.
Today, the 116th Congress was officially sworn in two years after being exiled from power in a shocking election result that they did not expect and the Republicans did not expect, and pollsters did not expect, Democrats have now come roaring back with their biggest midterm election victory in modern history, and they now as of today have the majority in the House of Representatives. The 116th Congress is the most diverse class of lawmakers in the history of our country.
Today, both the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus swore in their largest numbers ever. The Progressive Caucus, members of Congress who proudly identify themselves as liberals or progressives, the Progressive Caucus is now on track to include about half the entire Democratic Caucus in the House.
A record 102 women were sworn in today to serve in this Congress, 35 of those 102 women will be serving in Congress for the very first time. Today, the youngest African-American woman ever to serve in Congress took her seat. So did the first Muslim women, plural, as did the first Native American women, plural.
There were a lot of firsts as the 116th Congress took their seats today. But I want to start with something today that has happened once before. Today, Nancy Pelosi took back the gavel to become speaker of the House. That puts her third in line to the presidency, second in the line of presidential succession after the vice president.
Nancy Pelosi, of course, has already been speaker of the House. She is the first person in more than 60 years to return to the speakership for a second time. Still, though, she is the only woman to ever hold the speakership, to ever hold the gavel.
And if little girl watching at home, if by some chance you ever find yourself in a similar position as Nancy Pelosi, God willing, may you be so lucky as to have a guy like this get the honor of introducing you and putting your name in nomination.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D), NEW YORK: The scripture says that weeping may endure during the long night, but joy will come in the morning.
Madam Clerk, it is with great joy that I rise today as directed by the House Democratic Caucus to place the name of Nancy Pelosi in nomination to be the next speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
(APPLAUSE)
JEFFRIES: Nancy Pelosi captained the ship that defeated the effort to privatize Social Security, rescued our economy in the midst of the Great Recession, saved the American automobile industry, provided affordable health care to more than 20 million Americans.
In the 116th Congress, she will continue to fight hard for the people. Nancy Pelosi will fight to lower health care costs, strengthen the Affordable Care Act, protect people with preexisting conditions, increase pay for everyday Americans, and enact a real infrastructure plan, clean up corruption, defend the Dreamers, fix the Voting Rights Act, and end the era of voter suppression once and for all.
(APPLAUSE)
JEFFRIES: We`ll fight for a country that provides for the poor, works for working families, makes sense for the middle class, stands up for senior citizens, innovates in the inner city and strengthens suburban communities. Nancy Pelosi is a woman of faith, a loving wife, a mother of five, a grandmother of nine, a sophisticated strategist, a legendary legislator, a voice for the voiceless, a defender of the disenfranchised, a powerful, profound, prophetic public servant, and that`s why we stand squarely behind her today.
Let me be clear, House Democrats are down with NDP. Nancy D`Alesandro Pelosi, the once and future speaker of the United States House of Representatives. I proudly place her name in nomination. May God bless her. May God bless the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That was Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York, placing in nomination the name of Nancy Pelosi to be speaker of the House, and getting a bunch of standing ovations for her and one for himself I think in the process. One for himself for placing her name in nomination in a way that multiple times brought people to their feet.
Honestly, though, the whole shebang today of swearing in this new Congress, of transferring power in Congress from the Republicans to the Democrats, it was kind of like that. Lots of lawmakers today wore these blue buttons to support Pelosi during the vote, madam speaker. People crowded around and took photos as the new plaque was installed over her office, naming her once again as speaker of the house.
When it came time for the official swearing in, lawmakers had a whole table of bibles and other holy books and law books and Constitutions to choose from. Freshmen lawmakers took selfies with each other as they stepped on to the House floor as lawmakers for the very first time, freshmen lawmakers and not so freshmen lawmakers.
When Sharice Davids and Deb Haaland, the first native American women in the House were sworn in, they embraced, wiped away tears. Eric Swalwell held his 4-month-old daughter while he cast his vote for Nancy Pelosi. Had to kind of dance while he did it to keep her happy.
Ilhan Omar celebrated with her kids once she took the oath of office today. Abigail Spanberger showed her daughter today a scarf with pictures of all the different women who`d been on the ballot this year. I should mention thereafter, they were also spotted taking pictures with Flat Stanley.
One of Nancy Pelosi`s granddaughters almost stole the show herself today. She was so stoked to be there, so stoked to watch members of Congress vote for her grandma to be speaker.
When it was Nancy Pelosi`s own turn to vote for speaker, there was a little confusion at first. She did not realize right away that it was her turn. There was a lot going on. But her grandkids came in for the assist to make sure she would make her vote.
When Pelosi officially took the oath to become speaker, she did it surrounded not only by her own grandkids, but the kids and grandkids of all the other lawmakers who were there in the chamber today, all of whom she invited up to the dais with her when she called the Congress to order for the first time today, saying she was doing so on behalf of all of America`s children. Her granddaughter gave her a kiss at the moment she officially took back the gavel.
What happened today is something that a lot of people thought as recently as a year ago or less than a year ago, might be mathematically impossible because the House has been so gerrymandered in terms of congressional districts to ensure an almost unassailable Republican advantage and an almost locked in Republican majority. Also, Republicans had a sizable majority heading into this past election. Not that long ago, it seemed mathematically impossible for the Democrats to take back the House.
But the Democrats blew through those perceived constraints at a thousand miles an hour in this past election. They needed to flip a couple dozen seats in order to win the speakership and win the majority. No one knew until the very last minute if they would be able to do it at all. They ended up blowing past that and flipping 40 seats, more than they flipped in any election since Watergate.
And so now, today, power has been peacefully transferred. This is what it boils down to.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The tellers agree in their tallies that the total number of votes cast is 430, of which the Honorable Nancy Pelosi of the state of California has received the 220.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: The applause at that point went on for two minutes. Before they announced the runners up, the other people who received votes for speakership today behind Nancy Pelosi as she secured her place in history today.
In terms of getting to work today, the dynamics and the activism, the shoe leather work that got these members of Congress to this moment in the first place, those things are still at work right now across the country.
In Connecticut today, members of the local Indivisible group, they showed up with donuts and coffee at the office of Democratic Congressman John Larson. They ended up meeting with him by phone for about 50 minutes.
In Los Angeles, Indivisible activists dropped by Maxine Waters` office, leaving a message that she should not give $1 for the president`s southern border wall.
In Irving, Texas, Indivisible members were out in the rain to tell Republican Congressman Kenny Marchant that they are aiming to flip his seat in 2020. They`re saying "whose house? Our house."
In Bar Harbor, Maine, it was 29 degrees today and snowing. The Indivisible team there made a stand in the snow. Also in amine, because freshmen Republican Congressman Jim Hagedorn is not set up in office yet, his constituents did have a place to send him letters, so they literally made him a mailbox so they could drop off the mail they have prepared for him.
That`s the way Indivisible works. We have covered them over this very fascinating past couple of years in Democratic and progressive politics. The principle behind the Indivisible movement is that you talk to your own member of Congress, your own representative, regardless of whether your representative is generally someone you agree with or disagree, regardless of their party. That basic operating principle has meant that Indivisible groups across the country have pet pretty persistent and creative pressure on Democratic and Republican offices all around the country, especially targeting district offices of incumbent members, right?
Well, Indivisible turned the pressure on again today, hitting all of these district offices of Democratic members and Republican members. The only difference is this time, they are pushing in the context of a Democratic majority. And this time they are pushing not for Democrats to stay on defense, but a hard line on defense against what the Republicans in the Trump White House want to do. This time they`re pushing for the Democrats to be offense on policy.
The new Democratic majority will hold the nation`s first hearings on the idea of Medicare for all. You can see evidence of pressure on that account today as well. A reporter with Think Progress today followed supporters of Medicare for all as they showed up too at the Capitol Hill offices of freshmen members of Congress who had run saying they supported Medicare for all. Now is the time for activists to hold them to it.
This means new congresswoman like Ayanna Pressley from Pennsylvania and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York. When activists supporting the same goal showed up last year in support of the Affordable Care Act, they were escorted out by police. This time, new day. They were welcomed in.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley`s staff telling these activists today to, quote, please count us as allies.
So things change, but then other changes follow. And I think in this era of Democratic and progressive policy, you will see the pressure continue. Now that Democrats are in control, it just means that they`ll be feeling the pressure too from some of the same activists and base voters and organizers who got them there. As of today, Democrats officially control the House. They are that much in power. One-half of Congress, which is necessary but not sufficient to get policy passed.
But in addition to the question of Democrats and policy, it was also an intriguing development today on the issue of Democrats and oversight, which, of course, is the other great responsibility and opportunity that the Democrats are in with this new majority. A couple of weeks ago, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, the man in line to be the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he took objection to the conventional wisdom that a sitting president can`t be indicted.
Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York is now chair of the Judiciary Committee, and he is openly saying that he does not believe the Justice Department internal guidance which says that a sitting president should be considered immune from prosecution. Now, whether those internal Justice Department legal memos from the 1970s and from 2000, whether or not those OLC memos about the possibility of indicting the president, whether or not those are binding, whether or not those would stand any sort of real test has been hotly debated by lawyers and constitutional scholars as the scandal surrounding this president have achieved unprecedented heights and levels of concern.
Two weeks ago on this show, Congressman Nadler raised eyebrows when he laid down that marker, though. He called that internal Justice Department guidance that a sitting president can`t be indicted, he called it, quote, a deeply un-American decision. He said on this show no one should be both the law, and if the framers of the Constitution had wanted to make the president immune from indictment, they would have said so in the American Constitution. He said that here to us a couple of weeks ago, and that is the head of the Judiciary Committee saying that.
And that, I mean, we`ll find out eventually, but to my mind, that means don`t give up on the possibility of the potential indictment of the president by prosecutors or the special counsel. Don`t necessarily focus only on the possibility of impeachment by Jerry Nadler`s House Judiciary Committee. Leave open, leave your mind open to the possibility of indictment as well.
Now, whether or not as a legal matter that is a bluff, whether or not that is something they`re going to pursue as a matter of policy or with hearings, whether or not that is something they`re going to pursue with the Justice Department, or whether or not this is a political stand that they`re taking on this issue, that is an important marker that has been laid down already by that really important member of Congress. It`s really important to know that Jerry Nadler thinks that, if you`re considering the potential fate this president over the next couple of years.
But now today, Chairman Nadler got some very important company in making that provocative argument.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NBC NEWS HOST: Do you believe the special counsel should honor and observe the Department of Justice guidance that states a sitting president cannot be indicted?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I do not think that that is conclusive, no, I do not.
GUTHRIE: So you think it`s possible that special counsel Mueller could legally indict a sitting president?
PELOSI: Let`s just see what Mueller does.
GUTHRIE: Could Robert Mueller come back and say I am seeking an indictment?
PELOSI: I think that is an open discussion. I think that is an open discussion in terms of the law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: I think that is an open discussion in terms of the law. I do not believe that that Justice Department guidance is conclusive.
So, first, the new Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and now the newly elected Democratic speaker of the house are signaling do not rule out an indictment for the president. That could have really big consequences for the whole question of whether or not Democrats would ever take up impeachment or whether they will work to keep the focus on federal prosecutors or the special counsel when it comes to the president`s accountability for the various scandals that surround him and the entities that bear his name.
So, we`re going to be talking in days and weeks ahead I am sure about this decision by House Democratic leaders to start making this point about the potential indictability of a president. But they definitely stuck a flag in that point today. Day one of the new Congress, and that is going to end up being really important down the road.
That said, there is stuff to get to before then. In the very short term, Democrats` first priority is to try to reopen the federal government. Tonight, Speaker Pelosi held a press conference in which she called the president`s proposed wall on the southern border an immorality. She said it is not who we are as a nation.
The speaker said, quote: The president cannot hold public employees hostage because he wants to have a wall. This is a live look at the floor of the House of Representatives right now. Democrats are about to hold two votes to reopen the federal government current funding levels. President Trump has vowed to veto any measures that do not contain funding for physical wall on the southern border. The Democrats are now holding votes.
Democrats are holding these votes. We`ll see what Nancy Pelosi is able to pull off in terms of what she is able to pass through the House. Her past record of legislative achievement as you heard Hakeem Jeffries say there, as he was putting her name for nomination today, her past record as a person, as a legislator and a legislative leader is somebody who can count votes exactly, and who is not embarrassed by her own caucus, who can bring things forward on her own say so, knowing exactly how they will go because she understands her caucus when she puts things forward in public. We will see that in action now again with Nancy Pelosi as speaker.
That said, she cannot control the Senate, and Mitch McConnell has never been inclined to put forward anything that would put Donald Trump in any sort of a spot. And so, a new era begins, with Democratic control of the House. As of today, they will have to show what they can do for the people and the activists who helped put them back in power, despite amazing odds against them. They will also be looking to see what they can deliver for our country that wants to know if Democrats holding half of Congress can change this country, can change Washington even at all. More on that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: As the Democrats had their big day swearing in Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the house and taking control of the House of Representatives today, the president today did his best to try to seize back the spotlight when he pulled this sort of unusual stunt. He declared a surprise press briefing that he himself would conduct in the White House briefing room today for the first time ever.
This was not, in fact, a press briefing, despite that announcement from the White House because the president took no questions from the assembled press. He just talked and left. It`s not a press briefing if the press is just there as an audience.
Still, though, now that the Democrats have seized back partial control in Washington and a lot of the press attention that goes with that, it`s going to be interesting to see how the president tries to keep control of the narrative and tries to make sure that he is the center of all the attention, that he is the thing at which all news cameras must be pointed at all times. Yesterday, we saw that with his sort of Potemkin cabinet meeting, where a normal president might have been expected to invite in cameras to show a spray of the room as the president convene a cabinet meeting. Maybe some initial remarks off the top, but then a normal president would kick reporters out so the actual work of the cabinet, the actual substance of the meeting could take place behind closed doors.
Instead, what President Trump did yesterday was invite cameras in to stay the whole time while he invited each of his mostly acting cabinet secretaries one after the other to say nice things to him. And then he sort of talked for an hour and a half with the cameras there for the whole time, for the whole time. It was like an endurance test for the camera crews. And nobody`s quite sure what the point of that was, other than to keep those camera crews from potentially being otherwise occupied with other people in Washington who are not named Donald Trump.
But here is something maybe important that happened at that otherwise surreal and sort of meaningless exercise with the cabinet meeting, would-be cabinet meeting that was instead him talking in front of the press. We mention this on the show last night, that there was an odd topic that the president raised at that all for show cabinet meeting. It was not only a topic that was expected to be a topic of conversation, it was something that really appeared to take everybody in the room by surprise when the president went there out of the blue.
I mentioned it on last night`s show. Tonight, we actually need to update that story, because what last night seemed like just an odd riff by the president yesterday, now turns out to be something maybe more worrying, maybe even worrying to the point where the new Democratic Congress might end up taking a look at this.
Here is where the story starts. Right after the president was inaugurated, about two and a half weeks into the new Trump administration, there was a lot that was going wrong already, particularly on issues of foreign policy and international relations and national security stuff. There was that gigantic mess over the supposed Muslim ban. There was lots of breaking of protocol and screwing things up, including very awkward calls and missed calls with leaders of countries that are supposed to be our closest allies.
The White House doing really dumb, insulting stuff like getting the names wrong of foreign leaders, even our supposed best friends. They were getting their names wrong. But just two and a half weeks into the new administration, "Associated Press" published this story, which rounded up some of the bad news about all those things that were being screwed up and mishandled in the young administration.
And at the very end of that story, they tacked on a specific detail, which was a little bit like one of these things is not like the others. The thing they tacked on at the end of that story was something that actually didn`t seem like a mistake. It didn`t seem like a screw-up or a typo. It seemed like a point of intrigue.
The "A.P." reported this just two and a half weeks into the Trump administration. Quote, according to one U.S. official, Trump administration national security aides have sought information about Polish incursions in Belarus, an eyebrow-raising request because little evidence of such activities appears to exist.
And I remember two and a half weeks into the Trump administration, I was up in Boston, I think. See how the background kind of looks different there. I was not in our normal studio.
It`s two and a half weeks into the new administration. I remember doing this big long segment that night on this show trying to raise a red flag about how worrying that line was in that "Associated Press" piece, right? Even though that seemed like some sort of arcane national security matter about countries we don`t think about that much, the reason that leapt out at me at the time as so strange and potentially very worrying is because the only people in the whole world who were saying at that time that there was any risk that, what was it, that Poland might invade Belarus? The only people in the whole world who were saying that was a potential problem that people ought to look out for, the only people who were talking about that as a possibility were Vladimir Putin`s government.
Putin`s government at that time was running a military intelligence disinformation campaign to try to mess with Belarus by convincing Belarus that Poland was about to invade them. This was not something that was a real threat. This was not something that was a real potential.
Poland really wasn`t going to do that. It wasn`t something of concern to anybody in the Western world, most particularly not the brand-new Trump administration who literally didn`t know that the prime minister of Britain has the first name Theresa. They honestly couldn`t even figure out if Taiwan and China were the same thing, but they knew to be worried about the possibility of Poland invading Belarus?
That was a made-up thing that Vladimir Putin was pushing as part of an information warfare offensive against a country that Russia wanted in its orbit, absolutely obscure and in fact made up anywhere outside of Putin`s immediate propaganda orbit. And that is something that senior level Trump national security aides took up at the highest level within the first two weeks of them arriving at the White House? Like as one of the major things America needed to have on its radar on the world?
It was such a weirdly revealing and worrying moment. It was like -- you remember during the Republican primary when Trump started telling reporter that he had seen information, pretty good proof, that Ted Cruz`s dad assassinated JFK. Do you remember that moment? On the one hand, it was oh my god, I can`t believe he just said that about Ted Cruz or Ted Cruz`s dad or JFK.
But on the other hand, it was oh, this is the proof we needed that Trump reads the "National Enquirer": and believes the thing is in it are true, because that`s where this story came. Senior officials were apparently trying to track down in the first two weeks of the Trump administration, what they were trying to track down was something that was completely foreign to and external to the United States in every way. It was only a Russian propaganda campaign. It wasn`t a real thing. How did they even know that propaganda campaign existed?
So that was an early sign. That was two and a half weeks into this administration. But that was kind of the first hole in a nine-hole golf course. Things like this have happened numerous times now. There was another weird moment we had as a country last summer where again the president brought up something super obscure and utterly foreign to all American political discourse when he volunteered to the Fox News Channel that the people of Montenegro, where?
Montenegro, stay with me here, President Trump volunteered to the Fox News Channel last year that the people of Montenegro are an unusually aggressive people, and we should fear that they might start World War III, the Montenegrins. I know you think I`m making this up that somebody like president Trump couldn`t even say the name of that count without really embarrassingly mispronouncing it, but no, I swear, he absolutely did this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people. By the way, they`re very strong people. They have aggressive people. They may get aggressive, and congratulations, you`re in World War III.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Where did that come from? I mean, ask yourself in your heart of hearts, do you believe that President Donald Trump has such a nuanced understanding that he has detailed heartfelt opinions about the innate characteristics of these specific and divisible populations of each of the Balkan states so he can just drop into conversation casually the inherent national characteristics of the Macedonians versus the Montenegrins versus the multiple slices of the Albanian populations he could temporize on if you like him to. Where did that come from?
Montenegro is a small country in the Balkans. It`s roughly the size of Connecticut. It has a population near a million people. One thing you might know about Montenegro, in 2016, there was almost a coup in that tiny little country.
The same day that country was holding a parliamentary election, the coup plotters planned to take over, they planned to storm the building where everybody was voting. They planned to arrest the prime minister, if they couldn`t and arrest the prime minister, they planned to kill him. That was their plan.
But a few days before that coup was supposed to kick off, one of the people who was supposed to be part of it got cold feet, turned himself into authorities. That`s how we know what the coup plan consisted of. Montenegro arrested more than a dozen people in that alleged plot to overthrow their government and assassinate their prime minister.
As a result of that foiled coup, as the result of the investigation that followed into how that country`s democratically elected prime minister almost got himself murdered, we got to know quite a lot about how that plot came together, what Montenegro ultimately discovered was it wasn`t just a random group of upstarts who one day decide they were going to grab a bunch of guns and take over the Montenegran parliament and kill the prime minister. What they discovered was this whole coup effort had been backed by Russian military intelligence. The coup plotters were allegedly recruited and funded by Russian military intelligence, by the GRU.
And Russia`s apparent goal in supporting that coup was to stop Montenegro from deciding to join NATO. Russia is fixated on NATO. They do not want NATO any bigger than it is, right?
Russia sees NATO as its main military adversary in the world. They want NATO dismantled. They certainly don`t want any new members. We since learned more about how in addition to Russian military intelligence trying to foment a coup in Montenegro, Russian oligarchs close to the Kremlin also funded pro-Russian political opposition in that country in an effort to block them from deciding to join NATO.
The coup failed. Montenegro ultimately did decide to join NATO, and the Montenegran prime minister who was not assassinated, he got to go to his first NATO summit in 2017. He is obviously stoked to be there as you can see from the look on his face there.
I will interject for a second right now. If you are watching dishes or grooming the dog or doing something else while you are listening to this and you`re not actually looking at the TV, you may want to look up at the TV for this next piece of tape, because at that first NATO summit with the new Montenegran prime minister, this is what our new president did to him.
Watch. Watch Trump. What did he do? He literally shoved the prime minister of Montenegro, look, watch again, he shoved him out of the way on the main stage at the NATO summit. Welcome to NATO. Get out of my way.
What`s he doing? He grabs him and shoves him behind himself. That was a super weird moment for our new president. What the heck does he care about this guy from Montenegro. Why does he push him and none of the other guys? What has he got against Montenegro?
And then this summer, that same American president randomly volunteers to Fox News that Montenegro is a nation of aggressive people who are going to start World War III since they are part of NATO now. It was a truly bizarre, out of the blue thing for this American president to say. And I mean that in a specific sense.
I mean, calling Montenegro and Montenegrins a threat is not part of American foreign policy. It`s not part of conservative American policy, liberal foreign policy, the moon is made of green cheese American foreign policy. I mean, the president is not reading that in his briefing books, no matter who is writing them. He is not hearing that from anybody in the American Congress. His advisers are not whispering in his ear about the aggressive Montenegrins and the threat of World War III.
The only place on earth that has been pushing any line like that Montenegro is unusually aggressive and will start World War III if they`re allowed to join NATO, the only place on earth articulating that is the Kremlin under Vladimir Putin. So where did he get that from, right? Who planted that?
Poland`s going to invade Belarus? No, they`re not. Putin made that up.
Montenegrins are unusually aggressive if they`re allowed to join NATO? No, they`re not. Putin made that up. Where are you hearing this stuff?
Seeing this happen a few times now over this Trump administration, and now it has just happened again. It`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: This is a thing that happened. Just tell me why you think this happened. The president yesterday in front of the assembled cameras in the cabinet room, he volunteered to the assembled press and to the somewhat bewildered members of his cabinet that he believed it was a good thing that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan back in 1979. His exact quotes on the subject were, quote, they were right to be there, meaning the Soviet Union was right to invade Afghanistan. He said, quote, the reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia.
That is what the president said yesterday in the cabinet room. And you may not care at all why the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. That is fine. But the president randomly volunteering that analytical take on that matter that day ought to pique your interest, because that view does not exist in nature in this country.
No one, no liberal, no conservative, no contrary out-of-the-box policy foreign thinker, nobody in American politics, in American academia, in American media, in American fantasy football chat rooms -- look, I spent the day looking. This is not a live issue anywhere in U.S. politics. It is not a live issue among weird conservative fringe media figures that you might not know about that the president might love. There is no Fox pay- per-view podcast where Judge Jeanine sits around in the studio with other pals cooking up revisionist history justifications about why Soviet special operators needed to raid the presidential palace in Kabul in Christmas 1979.
I mean, nobody thinks Russia invading Afghanistan in 1979 was good move. Yes, they had to do that because of the terrorism. It`s not what happened. And there is nowhere in America, nowhere where President Trump might have picked up this idea. But there is one place not in America.
Next month, the United Russia Party of -- which is the party of Russian President Vladimir Putin, that party will sponsor an official resolution to rehabilitate this infamous part of the history of the Soviet Union. They will introduce a resolution to make the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan retroactively no longer a mistake. This new regulation on the 30th anniversary of the withdrawal of Afghan troops -- excuse me, of Soviet troops from Afghanistan will call the invasion justified looking back at it now because of the threat of terrorism.
I mean, that is the only place in nature where that idea even exists. President Putin`s party and the communist party in Russia who are jointly supporting that resolution to rehabilitate the whole idea of the Soviet Union waging a war in Afghanistan. That`s the only place in nature that idea exists in the Kremlin. And it just came out of our president`s mouth in this country, in the cabinet room where he brought it up unprompted, apropos of nothing.
Where is the president getting this stuff? It is possible that contrary to popular perceptions, he is a wide-reaching reader of what you and I might think of as obscure or even picayune international conflicts and historical inflection points in your recent history. Maybe. Or someone is stove piping this stuff into the president`s ears so it pops out of his mouth at the most unexpected times.
What do we do with that?
Joining us now is Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia under President Obama.
Mr. Ambassador, it`s a real pleasure to have you here tonight. Thank you for being here.
MICHAEL MCFAUL, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Sure. Thanks for having me. Happy New Year.
MADDOW: Happy New Year.
You are a Russian expert, and I am not. And it is my perception as I just explained that the view that the Soviet Union had to invade Afghanistan because there was a threat of terrorism and it was actually a good move, it is my perception that that is an idea that doesn`t exist in nature in the United States, that there isn`t anybody who espouses that view. Is that true?
MCFAUL: To the best of my knowledge, Rachel, that is correct. But I have to say what an incredible team you have to have found where it does exist in nature, because I didn`t know what you just reported about, the United Russia resolution coming. That`s an incredible investigative work. Congratulations to your team.
MADDOW: No, it`s not me. Actually, let me give credit where secret is due there.
MCFAUL: OK, where did you find it.
MADDOW: Jonathan Chait of "New York Magazine" wrote about this because Vladimir Kara-Murza, who, you know, a Soviet dissident, a guy who almost died for being a dissident in Putin`s Russia.
MCFAUL: Yes.
MADDOW: He wrote a piece about it in the first week of December for "The Washington Post`s" world politics section saying, hey, you should know that Russia is trying to revise this part of history. Kara-Murza reported it. Jonathan Chait picked it up, Steve Benen picked it up for our staff, and that`s the reason I`m able to bring it.
But it is -- that shows you how obscure it is.
MCFAUL: Yes.
MADDOW: It`s not the sort of thing the president would stumble upon in his everyday reading.
MCFAUL: Of course. I mean, of course. I mean, it`s remarkable.
I mean, just to be clear, everything he said was false about what happened and causality here. The Soviets did not invade Afghanistan to stop terrorism. You know, as an educator, it just embarrasses me when I hear the president say things like that.
But to your point, it is striking that he does pick up on these very strange ideas in conversations with leaders, most certainly Vladimir Putin. I know because I remember an idea that Putin floated to him last July when he said wouldn`t it be a great idea to interrogator a bunch of Americans in response to the Mueller indictment -- if you remember that story.
And, you know, President Trump came out and said that`s a great idea. So, there is a pattern here of him picking up these very strange ideas from people like Putin and then stating them as if they are facts.
MADDOW: And you were one of the Americans who President Putin thought should be allowed to interrogate.
MCFAUL: Yes. That one I caught. That one caught my attention, believe me.
MADDOW: Well, I`m -- does this happen with other presidents? Is this not that unusual?
Obviously, world leaders do have conversations. They meet at summits. They have phone conversations maybe that we don`t necessarily know about. Presumably there are leader-to-leader communications where these sorts of things might be picked up.
To me, it is striking because I feel there have been a number of iterations now where the president has volunteered something, sort of injected something into the American bloodstream that no other American would ever articulate, and it seems to only make sense in a sort of Russian mindset, in a Kremlin mindset.
Have you ever seen this with any other president?
MCFAUL: No. I`ve worked for one president for five years. I worked at the White House for President Obama.
Sometimes, there were strange things said, but, of course, somebody like President Obama would then ask his staff. He would ask somebody like me about the validity of this.
So, there are two things I think are striking here. One, that other leaders have figured out that this is a way to work with President Trump. You know, the pull-out of Syria allegedly is through a phone call he had with President Erdogan.
But secondly, where is the staff? Where is John Bolton? John Bolton knows that that`s not true. Why is he not pushing that stuff aside? Why isn`t there better staffing for the president so he doesn`t say things that are just factually untrue?
So, I think we need to wonder about what kind of process is going on within the White House as well.
MADDOW: And wondering if that staff will ever have to give us the American people any sort of account of the ex-parte communications from others that are stove piping this stuff to him.
MCFAUL: Exactly.
MADDOW: I find it very unsettling.
Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, thank you for joining us tonight, sir. It`s very nice to see you.
MCFAUL: Sure. Thanks for having me.
MADDOW: We`ll be right back. Stay with us.
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JEFFRIES: Let me clear, House Democrats are down with NDP, Nancy D`Alesandro Pelosi, the once and future speaker of the United States House of Representatives, I proudly place her name in nomination. May God bless her. May God bless the United States of America.
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MADDOW: That was the get up off your seat, get up on your feet crescendo ending to Congressman Hakeem Jeffries formally nominating Nancy Pelosi to be speaker of the House today. Congressman Jeffries is himself number five in House Democratic leadership now for this new Congress. He`s been elected chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.
And Congressman Jeffries joins us live from Capitol Hill tonight.
Sir, thank you so much for your time. I know this a very busy night.
JEFFRIES: Good evening. Great to be on with you.
MADDOW: First of all, I have to get to the urgent business. I know you have to go vote in a second. Can you tell us what`s going on right now with the votes to try to reopen the government?
JEFFRIES: Well, we successfully passed a continuing resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security through February 8th. That vote passed with four or five Republicans actually joining Democrats in a bipartisan way to do that, which was a very positive step forward.
And currently, we have successfully reached the 218 number in terms of passing the other six bipartisan appropriations bills that would reopen the government with respect to all the other departments aside from the Department of Homeland Security. And so, we expect that in short order, that vote will close, and we`ll send that bill over to the Senate where hopefully they will act.
MADDOW: In terms of that hopefulness, Senator McConnell has not signaled he is likely to act on these bills, saying that the president won`t sign these bills because they don`t have funding for the president`s southern border wall. And if the president isn`t going to sign these bills, then Senator McConnell won`t pick them up. What`s your take on that?
JEFFRIES: Well, here`s the thing, the House and the Senate are separate but coequal branches of the government. The Senate is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump administration and it shouldn`t function as such. And the bills that we`re sending over to the Senate are bills that they themselves have already signed off on in terms of adequate funding for the departments that are currently closed.
We need to reopen the government, and then we can work out the issues that exist as it relates to border security and our broken immigration system. But we should not hold 800,000 federal workers hostage because Donald Trump wants to build a medieval border wall that will be ineffective. It`s a 5th century solution to a 21st century problem.
MADDOW: Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, I know that you are squeezed right now and you have to go vote. I`m going to let you go, but not without a promise that you`ll come back soon to talk about your plans for a new Congress, sir.
JEFFRIES: It would be an honor to do so. And thank you for all that you do, Rachel.
MADDOW: I appreciate it. Thank you very much, sir.
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, as I mentioned, has a new leadership role. He`ll be number five in House Democratic leadership. He`ll be chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. He brought the House to its feet today putting Nancy Pelosi`s name in nomination to be speaker.
We`ve got one more really good story to get to tonight on this big news of the news. Stay with us.
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MADDOW: A third of the Senate runs in the midterm election, so about third of our nation`s U.S. senators got sworn in today in batches of four on the Senate floor. And afterwards, they posed one-on-one for a reenactment with the vice president, sort of a ceremonial swearing in. That`s when you get your pictures with the V.P. and with your family members.
That led to kind of an amazing moment with Arizona`s new Democratic senator today, Kyrsten Sinema. Just watch this.
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SEN. KYRSTEN SINEMA (D), ARIZONA: Can we get a spouse? Just kidding.
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MADDOW: Can we get a spouse?
Senator Kyrsten Sinema, incidentally, the first openly bisexual U.S. senator in U.S. history. She went on to swear the oath of office today, with her hand on a law book containing the Constitution of the United States in her home state in Arizona.
And Mike Pence had to smile for the cameras through all of it. Absolutely priceless.
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MADDOW: Just in the last few moments the votes have officially closed, so now we can say that as the first two official acts of business in the new Democratic House of Representatives, the House has passed two bills to reopen the federal government without funding for a wall on the southern border. Your move, Republican Senate.
That does it for us tonight. See you again tomorrow.
Now, it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL".
Good evening, Lawrence.
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