JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Breaking 715th homerun in his home stadium in Atlanta and received an 11-minute standing ovation. A black athlete who exhibited incredible grace strength in the face of great hostility who`s now being showered with adulation in the Deep South, cementing his place in baseball and American history.
Hammering Hank Aaron was 86 years old.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight, on ALL IN, Joe Biden and the fierce urgency of now.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We`re in a national emergency. We need to act like we`re in a national emergency.
HAYES: Tonight, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield on the president`s call for action and the push for Democrats to employ the McConnell doctrine.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Winners make policy and losers go home.
HAYES: Then breaking news on the start of impeachment as Capitol insurrectionists attempt the "Trump made me do it" defense in court.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: After this, we`re going to walk down -- and I`ll be there with you.
HAYES: All that and the congressman caught trying to bring a gun onto the floor of the House.
And ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Happy Friday. One of the biggest differences between the last administration and this new one is the recognition at the very least of the depth of the crises we are in and the urgency they say they want to bring to fixing them.
We`ve seen that just with the executive actions the new president has taken in 2 1/2 days signing at least 28 executive orders, proclamations and memos on everything from immigration, the climate crisis, the economy, nutritional aid, response to the coronavirus. And now the basic facts of where we are right now is that, well, one party won and one party lost. But, of course, narrowly.
It`s a narrowly divided country. A deeply divided country and there are constitutional structures give huge advantages to the minority coalition. The party that lost which is, of course, the Republican Party. And that party and that coalition can use those tools to do tremendous damage to the country. I mean, we have seen them do it. We just made it through their attempt.
Remember a majority of congressional Republicans and the leader of the party, the former president, their attempt to use those tools at their disposal to overthrow the results of a democratic election, to install the loser over the winner against the will of the American people and therefore spell the end of American democracy as we know it.
And all of those Republicans who were part of that plot are now just sitting there as part of our federal government with no repercussions. And we can assume they would do the same thing again if they had the chance because basically none of them have apologized for their role in it. No one has come forward to say that was -- we shouldn`t have done that. That was bad. Joe Biden won. Bad thing we did.
And now we have these pressing crises bearing down on us. The most immediate and threatening being the virus. We lost almost another 4,000 people to the virus today. This last wave has been by far the most deadly and it has caused even more economic devastation. Economists and public health experts from all over agree we need a huge rescue package. This is not some left-wing fever dream.
The plan that Biden proposed is, and I keep saying this because it keeps being remarkable, it is endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce. Now if you`ve covered Washington, D.C., the Chamber of Commerce is very conservative. They don`t like big Democratic spending proposals. They are normally a very right-leaning group. And today, even the former Trump administration`s own senior economic adviser came out in support of President Biden`s $1.9 trillion rescue package.
Kevin Hassett, of all people, telling CNN he is, quote, "absolutely" in favor of the plan, quote, "There are so many businesses treading water, barely hanging on. Now they`re getting hit by another shock. You could end up in a negative spiral for the economy. We made it through last year without a total utter collapse of GDP because of extremely aggressive stimulus."
All of that`s true. Everyone knows it. President Joe Biden made his case to the American people today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: We have to act now. It`s not just to meet the moral obligation to treat our fellow Americans with the dignity and respect they deserve. This is an economic imperative, a growing economic consensus that we must act decisively and boldly to grow the economy for all Americans not just for tomorrow but in the future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Republicans know that both President Biden and Donald Trump`s economists are right on this one. I mean, they`ve already voted for rescue packages twice under the previous administration, the first one being the biggest when it was an election year and well, they wanted the economy to do well. But, again, this faction that controls a minority of the government, the same one that supported a leader who led an unsuccessful attempt at outright sedition which we`re learning more about every day, that party, that coalition and that faction is now trying to blockade the economic rescue that we very obviously need.
Multiple congressional Republicans from Senator Pat Toomey to Congressman Kevin Brady, top Republican in the House Ways and Means Committee, have publicly penned Biden`s proposal as a nonstarter. And if that is the way it`s going to be, look, there is no other option but to take all constitutional legal means necessary including getting rid of the filibuster if that`s what it comes to, to just allow the Democratic majority to govern because in the absence of that, all of the problems, the deep problems that brought us to this point will only get worse.
Joining me now from the White House North Lawn is Kate Bedingfield. She`s communications director for President Biden.
Kate, it`s great to have you on. Thank you so much for joining us.
KATE BEDINGFIELD, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Thanks for having me, Chris.
HAYES: So President Biden laid out the logic behind the $1.9 trillion rescue package today and I do think in the beginning there was a little bit of a question of, maybe you can get 10 Republican votes for this. Maybe this can be a kind of -- look, we all realize this has to happen. Am I wrong to feel like that sense is slipping away? What`s your read on it? What`s the White House`s read on it?
BEDINGFIELD: Well, I do think you`re wrong, Chris. I think, as you said, this is a package that has gotten support from the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, you know, these are -- as you said, these are traditionally conservative groups who have been very supportive of this package and, look, we are in the midst of a tragic crisis in this country. We have 4,000 Americans dying every day from this virus.
They`re dying in blue states, they`re dying in red states. The virus doesn`t see party. The virus doesn`t see partisan lines. And people all across the country, Americans expect their leaders, including Republicans, to move to support a package that`s going to help get this virus under control, it`s going to get direct relief into the hands of people who need it. It`s going to extend unemployment insurance.
It`s going to get money that we need for vaccines. I mean, look, Chris, first and foremost, this is a package designed to fund a national vaccination plan. This is a package that is going to help get shots into the arms of the American people. This is critically badly needed help and we have every reason to believe that Republicans are going to support it because we`re in a crisis moment in this country.
HAYES: I mean, I`m just going to bracket that, whether there`s every reason to believe that Republicans will support it based on recent and further history, but there is a call that the White House is conducting this weekend that I thought was interesting. There`s this sort of caucus that`s formed, you know, bipartisan caucus has formed in the Senate and there`s going to be seven Democrats and eight members of the Republican Party on the call including people like Mitt Romney and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and I believe Joe Manchin will be on the call.
What`s the idea behind that call and what does that mean in terms of the crucial tipping point of those members?
BEDINGFIELD: Sure, well, the idea is to talk about how this package is going to help people in their states, is to walk through some of the key provision that are going to make a difference in people`s lives, that are going to help people who are struggling to put food on the table, who are struggling to pay their rent. I mean, we have Americans across this country in incredibly dire circumstances through no fault of their own because this crisis has hammered them.
So the idea behind this meeting is to walk through how this package is going to help people, how it`s going to help the communities not have to make a decision between whether they keep firefighters or essential workers on the job or fund the vaccinations. They`re going to talk through how this money is going to make a difference in the lives of their constituents. So, look, President Biden has said from the outset that he believes that we can get Republican support for this package, that people demand it, people all across the country.
And remember, President Biden ran on a message of unity and won a historic number of votes, 81 million votes, based on the idea that leadership should be about bringing people to the table, about finding consensus, about getting things done. You know, it`s not just unity for unity`s sake. It`s unity to get things done, to get relief into the hands of people who need it. So he`s going to continue to work.
We, as the White House, are going to continue to work with members of both parties to try to get this bill done and to move quickly because we need the funding for the vaccine, we need people to be able to get vaccinated, and people all across the country need the relief that this bill would provide.
HAYES: So if this is true, what you`re saying, the sort of urgency of this, which I`m persuaded of, of course I think you probably know that, right. This is actually urgent. Then the question becomes like, is it urgent enough that you just do whatever it takes procedurally if you have the votes? I mean, this is from the new chair of the Budget Committee in the Senate, Bernie Sanders, who says, when Republicans controlled the Senate, they used the reconciliation process to provide huge tax breaks for the rich and large corporations. We`re going to use reconciliation to protect working families, the sick and the poor.
Will you do what it takes to pass this if you have 50 votes?
BEDINGFIELD: Well, look, again, our strong preference, the president`s preference, what we`re working toward here is bipartisan support for this bill. Absolutely no question about it. It is urgent and certainly if the Senate and the House keep reconciliation on the table as an option, that`s understandable. This is an urgent crisis and we -- at the end of the day the thing that is most important is that we need to get this bill done.
We need to get this money into the hands of people all across the country who need it. So, again, the president`s preference and the thing that he`s working toward is getting Republican support for this bill. But there`s no question this is an urgent, urgent crisis, and there may be multiple ways to get to passage. But that does not mean that the president is not wholly committed to working to get Republican votes.
HAYES: All right. Kate Bedingfield there from the White House. Thank you for joining us. Come back whenever there`s a lot to talk about. Appreciate it.
BEDINGFIELD: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Chris. I appreciate it.
HAYES: For more on the urgency to get things done quickly, let`s turn to Ezra Klein of the "New York Times" where he`ll host the new podcast, "The Ezra Klein Show." He`s also an opinion columnist there, a little paper called the "New York Times." You might have heard of it. His latest op-ed is entitled, "Democrats, Here`s How to Lose in 2022 and Deserve It." Adam Serwer, staff writer at the "Atlantic," his latest piece is titled "An Incompetent Authoritarian is Still a Catastrophe." And they both join me now.
Ezra, you wrote a column sort of calling on Democrats to move swiftly and kind of clearly to help people and I thought -- I just want to read this section because it jumps off of the point here about speed which is of the essence.
"Three principles should guide their efforts," meaning the Democrats. "First, they need to help people fast and visibly. Second, they need to take politics seriously, recognizing the defeat in 2022 will result in catastrophe. Finally, they need to do more to talk about the importance of democracy, they need deepen American democracy."
Let`s talk about that first point which to me seems very pressing at this moment.
EZRA KLEIN, THE NEW YOK TIMES OPINION COLUMNIST: So if you go back to 2009, which is the last time Democrats had -- the last session in which they had a governing trifecta, they make a couple of mistakes I think they look back on with some regret. One is that they allow Republicans to filibuster almost everything. So they have for a period of time there, 60 votes, they can get things around a filibuster. But they get slowed down, they end up in a billion gangs, they get a lot less done, everything they do get done is much smaller than they should be.
Second, they make things very complex in part to get Republican votes, things like the Affordable Care Act, built around private insurance, the Mitt Romney model, because they thought they might get some Republicans. It didn`t. And things often take a long time to come into play. Again, the Affordable Care Act took about four years to begin delivering health insurance. You don`t get reelected for things that (INAUDIBLE) when the election happens.
In the stimulus, they had a tax cut in there that was literally built to be invisible. It was designed so people didn`t notice it was happening under the theory that it would get spent more effectively that way.
Democrats have no room for error. They have 50 seats in the Senate. If they lose one in 2022, they have no more governing capacity or at least not through the legislature. And I think most of them, your previous conversation aside, recognize that bipartisan help here is going to be quite unlikely. So there is a lot of pressure on the Democratic side to do things that are big, do things people know are out there, know are helping them and do them fast enough they can help them maintain seats in 2022.
HAYES: Yes. This is -- the big question here, Adam, I mean, the central truth about American politics right now, to me at least, which is true before the inauguration, after, is that like, there is a coalition, one of the two big ones, empowered by constitutional structures, a faction of which is essentially radicalizing against democracy and towards minority rule, and that`s like the ground truth that everything revolves around. And I wonder if the Biden White House understands that.
ADAM SERWER, THE ATLANTIC STAFF WRITER: I mean, I hope they do. I mean, look, you go back to Franklin Roosevelt. When he took office in a period where, you know, authoritarian governments were taking control all over the earth. You know, democracy was supposed to be an outdated system. It didn`t work anymore. It couldn`t meet the problems of modern life. And Franklin Roosevelt came in and he made the government work for people and he was very conscious of this.
He gave a radio address where he said democracy will save itself by proving itself to the average man and woman that it is worth saving. And that is basically Biden`s task right now. I mean, it`s more important for him to make -- to show Americans that the government, that democracy can work otherwise enough people will turn to someone who says, well, look, you know, I don`t believe in democracy very much, but I can help you. Everybody is corrupt. But at least I`m your corrupt guy.
And so it`s a dangerous moment. It`s imperative, not just in terms of relief, but in terms of preserving our system of government that Biden not allow the opposition party to prevent any aid from getting to the American people who need it.
HAYES: Yes, I think the three of us agree on that point and it goes to what you were writing, too, Ezra, like that delivering things for people at this point, at this moment of real peril, like we just got out of the car wreck. We`re still shaking ourselves off from what happened. We have a new story tonight about how close things came. Right? We`re going to get to that in a second. That actually delivering tangible results is actually an imperative for reinvigorating the health of the system that has been badly shaken.
KLEIN: Yes, and it`s really important how you think about reinvigorating the system. So there`s a book I talked about in there, "Presidents, Populism and Crisis," the name I can`t remember, but their argument is that internationally populists feed off of ineffective governments. And then one thing that is very dangerous in the aftermath of a populist right figure when the established party comes back into power, they often want to show the populism that the populist is gone by restoring decorum. If the populist broke boundaries, they want to reestablish it.
HAYES: Right.
KLEIN: If the populist went too far with executive authority, they want to show they`re not going to do that. If the populist thew bipartisan overboard, they don`t want to do that. They`ll be buried bipartisan. And that feeds the exact dysfunction that got you the populist in the first place. If government is not helping people, then people will not believe in that government and that opens the window for someone like Donald Trump to come in.
So one of the arguments I make in this piece, and I hope folks in the White House are thinking about, is they cannot stop the next Donald Trump. And by the way, there is a whole Congress, Republican conference in the Congress of people willing to be the next Donald Trump. They cannot stop the next Donald Trump by letting Republicans block everything for the next two years.
The way to stop the next Donald Trump is to show that when Democrats are governing, people`s lives are actually better, and by the way, not incidentally, to ensure that people have the right to vote, D.C. statehood. This should be a democracy. You want to not just restore that democracy works, they also want to make it a democracy for those for whom it isn`t and who are often voiceless when it comes to, say, a Senate election.
HAYES: Yes, and there`s also just the fact that, look, there`s going to be a certain opposition to whatever -- you know, this is another lesson I think Adam and Ezra and I, we all learned covering 2009, like they`re going to implacably oppose you basically on almost everything. I mean, Marco Rubio saying this is a radical leftist agenda in a divided country and will not help unify it, it will only confirm 75 million Americans` biggest fears about the new administration.
Like, Adam, like the Chamber of Commerce endorsed this. Kevin Hassett today, who was serving the White House, were amongst who endorsed it.
SERWER: Well, look, Republicans know that the deeper the hole that is left over from this in 2022, they know that the deeper the hole, the bigger the gains for Republicans in Congress.
HAYES: Yes.
SERWER: People are going to punish the governing party if the governing party can`t govern. We`ve learned that in 2010. And if the Democrats haven`t learned that lesson to a fault, like complete -- like, if they have not internalized it, then they will be in very big trouble in 2022 and they won`t be the only ones who are in trouble. Our system of government, our democracy will be in trouble.
HAYES: Yes, this is a -- this is really, really important. I`m glad you guys made time for us tonight. Ezra Klein, Adam Serwer, great to talk to you both.
Right as we were going to air, the "New York Times" broke a bananas story about Donald Trump attempting to sort of stage a coup at the Department of Justice to get rid of the attorney general, to put in a dude who was willing to try to use the Department of Justice to overturn the election in Georgia.
The "New York Times" reporter who broke that story joins me next. Don`t go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: With all that we know about Donald Trump`s attempts to overturn the election, there are still stories to be told about his behavior that have the ability to shock, to make you pick your jaw off the floor. Katie Benner of the "New York Times" has this unbelievable scoop tonight published just 20 minutes ago.
"The Justice Department`s top leaders listened in stunned silence this month, one of their peers they were told had devised a plan with President Donald J. Trump to oust Geoffrey A. Rosen as the acting attorney general and wield the department`s power to force Georgia state lawmakers to overturn its presidential election results. The unassuming lawyer who worked on the plan, Jeffrey Clark, had been devising ways to cast doubts on the election results and bolster Mr. Trump`s continuing legal battles and the pressure on Georgia politicians. Because Mr. Rosen had refused the president`s entreaties to carry out those plans, Mr. Trump was about to decide whether to fire Mr. Rosen and replace him with Mr. Clark."
The reporter who got that amazing scoop, "New York Times" Justice Department reporter, Katie Benner, joins me now.
First of all, incredible, incredible reporting here. I had to read the story three times to make sure I was understanding it. But walk us through the story. What did you find?
KATIE BENNER, THE NEW YORK TIMES JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REPORTER: Sure, I mean, it`s very much like what you said in your introduction. It precipitated this crisis within the Justice Department when you saw one of the top leaders of the department basically working with president Trump to see if there`s something that could be done at the department in order to overturn the results of the election.
Now, this person, Jeffrey Clark, had been rebuffed many times by the acting attorney general Jeff Rosen and his deputy Rich Donoghue. They said this cannot continue. On New Year`s Eve they had a pretty stern conversation with him on New Year`s Eve, a stern conversation with him which they really tried to understand why he refused to use the department`s line that nobody had seen fraud. It had been investigated.
It was something that Bill Barr had said privately to the president and publicly to the president. And yet Jeffrey Clark having told them he reads a lot of things on the Internet, you know, said that he just politely disagreed with them and he continued.
HAYES: So this -- OK, you`ve got -- Rosen is the acting AG after Barr leaves. Clark is the head of the Civil Rights Division, which is in department leadership. It`s like it`s definitely up there, right?
BENNER: Head of (INAUDIBLE) --
HAYES: I`m sorry, the Civil Division. My bad. The Civil Division.
BENNER: Yes. Which is important. It defends the administration in court.
HAYES: Yes, that`s a very -- that`s a big part of the Department of Justice. Like that is up near the top of the leadership. And he apparently was like introduced to Trump by a Pennsylvania politician and they start interacting for Clark to be Trump`s guy in the Department of Justice to oust Rosen so that they could ride into Georgia with the DOJ to, like, write some letter on DOJ letterhead to say, you, Georgia, must overturn your results?
BENNER: Yes, well, first Mr. Clark asked Mr. Rosen to do it as the acting attorney general. And when that didn`t work, he had a conversation with Mr. Trump in which he came away from that conversation thinking that Trump would replace Rosen with himself and then he offered Mr. Rosen the opportunity to remain at the department as his deputy.
(LAUGHTER)
HAYES: He hatches a Department of Justice coup with the president and offers him -- the boss is going to make me the head of the Department of Justice so we can -- this is my words, not yours. So I`m just characterizing. The boss is going to make me the head of the Justice Department and the acting AG so we can pull off this coup. You can stick around as my deputy, but this is what`s going to happen. And then there`s a meeting in the White House with Clark and Rosen and the president?
BENNER: Yes. And this is sort of unusual timing because it happened on January 3rd which is the exact same day that Georgia secretary of State released, you know -- leaked the audio of his phone call the prior day with Mr. Trump. So you have the entire world listening to the audio of Trump and the secretary of State in Georgia having this bizarre conversation which Trump makes so clear that he wants Georgia to change its mind, change its mind to find votes that would make him the winner.
And then at the same time you have a split screen with this meeting taking place on Sunday evening where the president has set up an interesting situation where he has both Mr. Clark and Mr. Rosen there before him to present their competing visions for what the department should be doing. It was described by two different officials, former administration officials, as almost a bizarre version of "The Apprentice" in which they were -- which one had a better plan.
HAYES: So what -- it sounds to me from reading your article that enough people at DOJ get read into this plan that they essentially rebel en masse and threaten to all quit if it`s pulled off? Is that right?
BENNER: Yes. So Sunday -- we`ll just go through the chronology. Midday Sunday, Jeff Clark says to the attorney general -- acting Attorney General Rosen, I believe that the president is going to remove you and put me in your spot. And then a few hours later, Mr. Rosen`s deputy, the deputy attorney general, calls an emergency conference call with the remaining top leaders of the department.
He reads them into what`s going on. He explains what Mr. Clark has been up to and they discuss what they`re going to do if in the coming hours the president fires Jeffrey Rosen and replaces him with Mr. Clark. They decide that the only option is to leave and so that was really powerful information because in this meeting with the president that happened a couple of hours later, other officials including the head of OLC, Steven Engel, was there, they were able to tell the president, listen, if you do this plan, it`s going to blow up this way. It will cause this kind of chaos at the Justice Department.
If nothing else, nobody is going to pay attention to the Jeff Clark letter to Georgia, they will be paying attention to the fact that you have created a Saturday massacre and that was one of the compelling arguments to Mr. Trump.
HAYES: OK. One last part of this, a little bit more of the puzzle. One of the -- there`s this crazy thing that happens, right, which is that the U.S. attorney in Atlanta abruptly resigns amidst all of this. And everybody thinks, well, that`s weird. It looks like there`s something afoot here. And we`ve been getting more and more reporting on that. It seems that that resignation which we`ve now learned was essentially because he refused to - - you know, prosecute some nonexistent voter fraud, that was sort of connected to this entire undertaking.
BENNER: Well, I mean, I think that what we saw was that the president was obviously very, very obsessed with Georgia in particular the counties that included the city of Atlanta which is where that U.S. attorney`s office was and where that U.S. attorney served. And so it was -- he was informed not as part of any knowledge of what was going on with Jeff Clark or this strange plan to get rid of the attorney general.
HAYES: Right.
BENNER: But he had been told separately that, you know, former President Trump was very obsessed with his district and that it was not going to be tenable for him to stay on. He could stay at the U.S. attorney`s office, but he wouldn`t be able to be the head of the office just because of all the heat. And I think also he did not feel that he wanted to be in a position where he was constantly scrutinized by the president.
HAYES: So just for the final -- to put the point on this because I want to make sure I understand the plot here. The idea was that the president was going to fire the acting attorney general, a guy who was just serving for a very small amount of time after Barr resigned, replace him with the head of the Civil Division, this individual named Jeffrey Clark who was amenable and sympathetic to the president`s conspiracy theory, completely fraudulent conspiracy theory, and then use the Department of Justice to essentially like structure Georgia legislatures on behalf of the department that they had to overturn their election?
BENNER: Well, no, to instruct Georgia legislators that the department was investigating serious allegations of voter fraud that were so serious that it made it pretty likely that the electoral results in their state would not stand.
HAYES: Gotcha.
BENNER: And you know, advised them that they should act accordingly.
HAYES: I see. I see. So this would be -- this would give them -- it would give them some sort of evidence that they he could point to so that sympathetic lawmakers in that legislature could say, oh, look, the Department of Justice is here and now we`re going to have to go and, you know, not seat these electors or uncertify the results.
BENNER: Correct. And keep in mind that such a letter to Georgia legislators would be completely opposite of what the former attorney general, Bill Barr, had said at a press conference, that he didn`t see the kind of fraud that would change the results of an election. It would -- you know, it would be in opposition to things that Attorney General Barr had told the president privately, it would be opposition to things that Jeffrey Rosen had told the president for weeks privately.
You know, acting Attorney General Rosen was in constant conversation with Trump about this issue even before this -- the idea of the Georgia letter come up. You know, Bill Barr announced that he would be leaving the department on a Monday and that he`d be there for another week. Jeff Rosen`s people thought he`d have a little bit of a reprieve because Bill would be in the building for another week and it would be OK.
But in fact the president hauled Jeff Rosen into the Oval Office the very next day to start a pressure campaign asking him to do, you know, to appoint a special counsel to look into Dominion, the voting machine company, to appoint a special counsel to look into voter fraud in general and, you know, to file -- have the department file legal briefs that supported the things that his team was doing in court.
So that pressure campaign started not after Jeffrey Rosen became the acting attorney general, but it started the day after Jeffrey Rosen was announced to soon become the acting attorney general.
HAYES: The whole article is up on the "New York Times," NewYorkTimes.com. Katie Benner, what a remarkable bit of reporting. Just a truly incredible scoop and a shocking set of facts that you have unearthed and presented to the world. So thank you for taking time with us.
BENNER: Yes. And thanks so much for paying attention to the very strange end of the Trump era.
HAYES: Of course, the president`s efforts there to overturn the election which he tried in a million different ways and we`re learning more about it, it ends up culminating, right, on January 6th. He`s failed to get the Department of Justice to help him. He`s failed in his lawsuits. He`s failed to bully Brad Raffensperger in Georgia, and ultimately the last ditch attempt is to go tell a crowd to march down to the Capitol with the hope that they will intimidate the people in the Capitol including his vice president Mike Pence into overturning the election and stealing it for him.
That results, of course, in the Capitol riot and siege, five people are dead, including a police officer, hundreds now have been arrested. And the president is then impeached for his incitement of that insurrection, of that riot. Now one of the House impeachment managers who will help make the case against Trump when that case starts February 8th, the date announced today, is Congresswoman Diana DeGette. She`s a Democrat from Colorado, and she joins me now.
And, Congresswoman, I know that "The Times" reporting obviously is outside the purview of the specific charge. But it is of a piece with the pattern of behavior that begins before the election, into election night, after the election and up until the incitement of the riot. Just your reaction to this new revelation.
REP. DIANA DEGETTE (D-CO): Chris, thanks for having me. And I will tell you, this is just part and parcel of what Donald Trump was desperately trying to do, which was find any way he could to overturn the results of a fair and legal election in this country. And when I just saw this "New York Times" story, it`s just part of the whole conspiracy that he had to try to stop the counting of the ballots, to try to stop the certification, which as you say culminated in him -- inviting the crowd to Washington, inciting the crowd to come to the Capitol and then doing nothing after they got here.
So it was very, very dangerous. And the more -- the more facts that come out like this, it just shows how desperate he was.
HAYES: We got clearer timing today on the trial itself. My understanding is that those -- the article, the single article, will be walked over to the Senate on Monday. It will be read into the record on Tuesday. And then there will be a pause and the trial will start on February 8th. That`s a deal that was struck by Senator Schumer and I think McConnell, to start it there.
What is your and the impeachment manager`s preparation look like right now?
DEGETTE: Well, so, we were all appointed by Speaker Pelosi on the day the House passed the impeachment article. We`ve been working every day since then as a team. So we`re ready to go to trial. We were ready to go to trial last week. And so it looks like now Senator Schumer is going to accept the articles and then give a couple of weeks. Even more evidence, like this "New York Times" article, will probably come out. So we`re ready to go.
We think we have a strong case that is -- I mean, here it all unfolded right there on TV and social media. And we really have to convict Donald Trump and we have to make sure he can never run for office again. Somebody trying to manipulate the Department of Justice which is supposed to be the independent legal watchdog for our country is just appalling.
HAYES: There are sort of buckets of evidence that we`ve been sort of collecting, right, since the actual thing unfolded. And I wanted to ask you about two of them. So one of them is, I don`t know if it`s evidence so much, but there are multiple people who have now been arrested who have said, as part of their official defense like Donald Trump told me I could do this. Donald Trump invited me. We thought we were there at the president.
We have recordings of people in the Capitol of people saying to Capitol Police we`re here from the president. The president invited us. I wonder, is that evidence to you? Is that the kind of thing that you want to present to the jury to make this case?
DEGETTE: Sure, it`s part of the evidence of the conspiracy. And, I mean, again, these people are just confirming what we already knew which is Donald Trump told them in advance, come to Washington on January 6th. Stop the counting of the certified election results by the states. Then he invited them to the White House and at the White House he said to them, we`re going to march up to the Capitol and we`re going to stop the counting of the results.
It`s just -- it`s so -- it`s in such plain evidence that you almost forget that it`s just incitement of the riot that happened and an attempt to stop the Democratic counting of this certified results.
HAYES: Final question, there`s other evidence that I think we have an incomplete picture of that I think I would like to see which is, his resistance to calling it off. I mean, there`s reporting saying he`s watching it, desperate calls from various lawmakers saying you have to do something, you have to make a statement, you have to let the National Guard get over there, and I wonder how much that evidence plays as well?
DEGETTE: Well, we do have evidence already that he did nothing while the riot was happening in the Capitol, while people like me and most of the senators were all running for our lives. And we have evidence that he was just sitting there watching it happily. So, again, more evidence is coming out. In a way, the impeachment managers without going into how we`re structuring our case, we have an abundance of evidence.
And frankly, Chris, the American people have seen all of this evidence on TV and on social media.
HAYES: Yes. Yes, it was a crime committed in plain daylight on national television.
Congresswoman Diana DeGette --
DEGETTE: It was on TV.
HAYES: Thank you so much for making time tonight.
DEGETTE: Thank you for having me.
HAYES: All right. Lots more to get to this evening. Don`t go anywhere. We`ll be right back.
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HAYES: Yesterday President Joe Biden unveiled his administration`s plan to ramp up the fight against coronavirus, signing new executive orders to lay that groundwork for a federalized response. The quote of the day came from a source who told CNN the new administration had to start, quote, "from scratch" in building a vaccine distribution plan.
Now that`s not strictly true insofar as just yesterday, the United States did administer 1.3 million vaccine doses and another 1.4 million today. But it`s true in a sense that everything we`ve done up until now has been completely distributed down to the states and totally insufficient. So when it comes to building a sufficient federal centralized response creating the infrastructure to sustain that, well, yes, the Biden administration is basically building that from scratch.
But what that can and should look like, I want to bring in Dr. Peter Hotez, dean from National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, co-director of the Texas Children`s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and who is also working on a coronavirus vaccine.
Let`s start, Doctor, with the scale of the problem and what the timeline should be. As President-elect Biden had pledged 100 million doses in the first 100 days. Well, right now we`re doing 1.3 million, 1.4 million a day. My sense from the people I`m talking to is that`s not ambitious enough. What should the number be? What should we be targeting?
DR. PETER HOTEZ, CO-DIRECTOR, TEXAS CHILDREN`S HOSPITAL CENTER FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT: Yes, Chris, I mean, here are what the numbers look like. We have to vaccinate we think three-quarters of the U.S. population in order to have any hope of interrupting virus transmission. We know those who get vaccinated, it will save their lives in terms of keeping them out of the hospital and the ICU because of the virus neutralizing antibodies but to do the second part to interrupt transmission, we have to vaccinate three- quarters of the U.S. population.
That`s roughly 240 million people. Many of those vaccines are two doses. You`re looking at half a billion immunizations. And if you want to do that by the summer, we`re talking five or six months. So that 100 million over 100 days, if you divide 500 million by five or six months, it`s really 100 million a month. So we really have to get to around three million immunizations a day.
Look, I think it`s great that they set some targets. It`s good to throw a number out there and it`s good to have goals. But the real numbers are actually far higher and I know the Biden administration gets it. They`re really working aggressively to put that infrastructure in place.
HAYES: Right. So that -- I mean, that`s very useful for me as a benchmark. Right? Like if we`re hitting three million a day, we`re on track, and if we`re short of that, we`re not. And we need to get up to that. What -- I know you looked at the Biden plan, there`s money in this COVID relief bill if it gets passed. And there`s a more proactive look at it, like, what`s the difference between where we are now and three million a days in terms of what has to happen?
HOTEZ: Well, you know, if you look at the five -- the 0.5 billion is the aspirational goal, the target that we really have to reach, remember, we have to do that in a hurry now because we have new virus variants coming along and we want to immunize before they continue to accumulate. And we`ve only administered around 20 million doses or so, 20 million divided by five billion, Chris, you know, that`s a rounding error. We basically haven`t done anything.
HAYES: Yes.
HOTEZ: We`re starting from zero more or less. So we`re going from zero to half a billion. So it is one of the most daunting tasks ever faced by an incoming presidential administration. There`s a good team in place. It`s going to require going beyond the pharmacy hubs and the hospitals, we`re going to have to get in some high throughput immunization centers and I know that`s being worked on in collaboration with some of the cities and the federal government, and, and we`re going to need additional vaccines.
We`re not going to have enough of the MRNA vaccines to make this happen. We have to get the other vaccines released through Emergency Use Authorization. The Adenovirus vaccines, particle vaccine, we have a vaccine. And that`s got to happen pretty quickly as well.
HAYES: Right. So we`ve got the two right now, Moderna and Pfizer. There`s a Johnson & Johnson vaccine which is a single shot. I mean, it seems key here both from just a supply and also availability that as we`re moving into the spring to have three or four or five vaccines that people can get?
HOTEZ: Yes, that`s exactly right. And I think we can get there. I think the J&J vaccine will get up soon. Hopefully the AstraZeneca-Oxford. You know, we`re -- we`d like some more help getting our recombinant protein vaccine into the U.S. We`re scaling it up to make 1.2 billion doses in collaboration with Biological E in India. And if we can get some help from the U.S. government on that, that would be great. The particle vaccine from Novavax.
So it`s all possible. A lot of stars are going to have to align. We`re also going to need an unprecedented level of communication that`s simply not there right now and that`s got to ramp up and probably streamline some of the restrictive guidelines because that`s creating a lot of confusion. Remember, think high, high throughput, and getting a lot of people through as quickly as possible.
HAYES: Yes, and the messaging, I mean, that`s -- it`s a great point. Like we just don`t -- there is no blanketing the airwaves of vaccine talk. It just seems like it should be a huge thing that the government is doing, telling people like the vaccines are available, here`s how you can get them, they`re safe and effective.
HOTEZ: Yes, we have to change the culture. Remember, Operation Warp Speed was a good program from the development point of view, but it never had a communication plan. The communications were left to the pharma CEOs who are not strong communicators. So you`re absolutely right.
HAYES: No.
HOTEZ: We should be hearing those pretty regularly. And also, you know, every elected official right now, every public official should be able to answer the following question. What are you doing when you wake up in the morning to help the American people get vaccinated? This has gone beyond a public health concern. This is a full-on homeland security crisis. People are scared. They`re angry. They`re calling Sam`s Club and Walmart and Rite Aid and CVS, how do I get my mom vaccinated, how do I get my brother vaccinated, how do I get vaccinated?
The phones either are not being answered often or that they`re saying, well, why are you calling us? We don`t have any vaccine. And they referred to some outdated list that has no relevance. This is not a good situation. And so we`re going to have to fix this very quickly.
HAYES: Dr. Peter Hotez, as always, thank you for sharing your expertise with us.
Still to come, as House Republicans object to metal detectors in the wake of the Capitol riot one of them is caught trying to carry a gun to the House floor. Matt Fuller of HuffPost broke that story and he joins me next.
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HAYES: Even after the Capitol was attacked by a violent mob seeking to stop the peaceful transfer of power, a majority of House Republicans, 139 of them, along with eight Senate Republicans voted to do what that mob wanted which was to block the seating of the electors that made Joe Biden president. None of them have expressed remorse or regret.
And in the House a battle has been ratcheting up over whether some of those Republican who sided with the mob can bring guns on to the House floor. It started when metal detectors were stationed near the House chamber after the riot. Some Republicans refused to go through them or to be checked with wands if they set them off.
Members are not allowed to carry guns on the House floor. And then came a culminating moment yesterday. Republican Congressman Andy Harris was caught trying to carry a gun on to the floor and barred from entry. U.S. Capitol Police tell NBC News they are now investigating.
It`s worth noting that Harris almost got in a fistfight with other members on the night of the riot when Democrat Conor Lamb criticized Republican members for their election. And the reporter who saw all this go down is Matt Fuller, who covers Congress for HuffPo and he joins me now.
So before we get to this moment, just describe it -- it`s very clear, and I`ve gotten this largely from your reporting along with others, you know, it was a new thing to put these metal detectors on to the House floor. It was in the wake of this very traumatic event where people were scared. It`s become this point of contention, right? Where Republicans hate it and they try to walk around it. Like what built up to this moment?
MATT FULLER, HUFFPOST CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Yes. So the first move after the January 6th riots they installed these new metal detectors and frankly I`d say about half of the Republican caucus just ignored it. Side-stepped it. Walked through quickly. I saw, like, 10 of them at one point just sort of bum rush the thing and just kind of walk through, and the cops are kind of this impossible position where they don`t really know if they have authority to stop the members and make them go through the metal detector. There`s apparently some constitutional questions about, you know, arresting a member of Congress on the way to a vote. So there`s all sorts of issues here.
They`ve slowly -- this has been escalating now for two weeks but they`ve put some desks on the sides, some velvet ropes and they made it a lot more difficult for members to sort of bypass the security. And, you know, yesterday I think was the hardest I`ve seen it and there was really only -- I only saw three people gelt through the security without being wanted down. And there are steep fines coming. Eventually there`s going to be $5,000 fine for the first time and $10,000 fine thereafter.
But basically it`s very difficult for them to get through and Harris has been one of those members who has been just sort of rushing through, not stopping for the police, and yesterday with, you know, the new measures in place a cop sort of stood in front of him, blocked him and he was just sort of forced to be wanted down. And at that point they found a gun on his side.
So this is certainly a concerning thing, particularly as you noted, because he`s, you know, a member who almost got into a fight two weeks ago.
HAYES: So he gets wanted down. They find a gun. There is a detail you had that he just like went and tried to give it to a colleague? It was like, I don`t want your gun?
FULLER: Yes. So I mean I think a normal person going into the House chamber if they were trying to bring a gun, they`d be tackled to the ground, arrested. With the member of Congress, it was sort of a quick conversation where he`s very close to the cop. The cop sort of signals to another officer, he`s got a gun on him, and Harris just sort of walks away and he`s in this sort of vestibule area where there`s elevators, and he`s kind of just like milling around.
I kind of followed him in and I saw him have a conversation with Republican John Katko, who`s a former U.S. attorney, and he was basically having none of it. Basically Harris asked him to take his gun for him and Katko said, I don`t have a license for that, I`m not going to do it, and Harris kind of, you know, he milled around a little bit more and then he made a couple of comments about he reminded his staff to tell him to take off his gun or something and then he got in an elevator and he left.
And seven minutes later he was back and I don`t know where he put the gown. I don`t know if he put it back in his office. But he got back on the House floor, he went through the metal detectors with no problem.
HAYES: Yes. I mean, House rules are that you can`t bring a gun on the floor. There are places in American life where you can`t bring guns. And Republican Matt Gaetz saying they`re trying to disarm Lauren Boebert on the floor of the House of Representatives because ultimately they`re coming to disarm many, many more.
I think the House floor seems a good place not to have a gun. That`s just me.
Matt Fuller, who is our great set of eyes and ears on that House floor, thank you so much for being with us tonight.
FULLER: Right. Appreciate it.
HAYES: That is ALL IN for this week. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now.
Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated.
And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Super happy to have you here on this Friday night.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END