Summary
This year`s census, six states, Florida, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon gained one seat in the House since they gained population, Texas picks up two, and seven states California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia will lose one seat. North Carolina officials allow Andrew Brown`s family to view 20 seconds of the fatal shooting video. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a DOJ probe into the Louisville, Police Department. India reports record COVID cases for 5th straight day.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Dr. Farhan Bhatti, thank you so much. Good luck. Stay in the fight out there.
Before we go tonight, a quick programming note on Wednesday night, immediately following the REIDOUT, we`re going to be getting the band back together. Join me and my pals Brian Williams, Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace for President Biden`s first address to a Joint Session of Congress Wednesday night 8:00 p.m.
That`s tonight`s REIDOUT. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice over): Tonight on ALL IN.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They call it a Republican audit or an attempt to undermine the credibility of our elections.
HAYES: The Republican push to nullify Democratic voters continues in Arizona and beyond. Tonight, former Attorney General Eric Holder on the fight to protect the vote, and why today`s census announcement will shape elections for a generation.
Then, Robert Draper and The New York Times on the ongoing Republican subservience to Donald Trump.
CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Did he say to you, I guess some people are more concerned about the election than you are?
HAYES: Plus, new controversy over another police shooting in North Carolina.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They run-up to his vehicle shooting.
HAYES: As the Department of Justice announces a major investigation and police and big new developments on the push for America to help vaccinate India and the world when ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Today, we got one of the most consequential announcements in this country in the last decade. I speak, of course, the census results. One of the most important undertakings we do in this country make sure every single Americans counted so we know the total population.
And then, we use that data to make all sorts of big decisions based on the results from budgetary decisions to representational ones. For instance, the number of congressional representatives a state might have in Congress goes up or down depending on a change in its population. So, this year, six states, Florida, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon, all gained one seat in the House, that means they gained the population. Texas picks up two, and seven states California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, will lose one seat.
Now, just to get a sense of how much this count matters, right, we`ve covered on the show some of the litigation about the census, and whether they could ask a question about citizenship and the whole time. The people on the show said, look, these numbers really matter. They`re the kind of the fulcrum for political power in this country.
Listen to this, all right, New York, the state of New York, if the state had counted just 89 more people, they would have kept an entire Congressional seat, and Minnesota would have lost one instead. Those small numbers matter. Now, 10 years ago, of course, that would be 2010, 2011, last time we had a census, the Republican Tea Party wave meant they controlled a lot of state legislators, and they use that power to gerrymander both their state legislators and their congressional seats to lock in majorities that were in some ways, kind of, you know, voter proof, right?
And indeed, that has proven to be the key strategy for what has increasingly become the guiding ideology of the Republican Party particularly post Trump, which is use your power to retain power, even if it means building a barricade against how the voters feel about what you`re up to.
Look what`s happening in two states right now Texas and Arizona, specifically in two large urban counties, right? Maricopa county, that includes Phoenix, the most populous city in Arizona, and then Harris County which is Houston, also the most populous city in Texas. Those counties used to be Republican strongholds not that long ago. But both counties have recently trended towards the Democrats for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is the Republican Party has managed to alienate a lot of voters.
So, in the last election, Donald Trump lost in both those counties. And Arizona`s Maricopa County, that margin proved to be the difference. Joe Biden won the county by 45,000 votes and only won the state by 10,000. So, obviously, that Maricopa performance helped him a ton to win the state.
Now, in Texas` Harris County, Barack Obama won by less than 1,000 votes in 2012, right, so you`ve got basically a counting that`s a 50-50 even split. And then four years later, Hillary Clinton wins the county by 162,000 votes. And then four years after that, Joe Biden won by more than 217,000 in November.
That`s not a great set of numbers, right, for the Republicans in Harris County. Things are obviously not going in the right direction if you`re a Republican in Harris County. So, what are they doing about it? Well, they could do some soul searching, right, to find out how did we lose Maricopa, how do we lose Harris County, these used to be strongholds. How have we fallen out of touch with these voters? No, they`re not doing that. Instead, they`re trying to find out how best to sabotage the votes of the people in those large metro areas.
You know, a few months ago, we brought you the story of the incredible things that Harris County Judge, that`s the chief executive for the county, Lina Hidalgo was doing for voter access in her county, in Harris County. Things like 24-hour voting, remember, we have pictures of that drive- through voting, right, in the midst of COVID. And it worked, all right. Turnout in the county of Harris County was huge.
And here`s the other thing. It was huge, Democrats won that county, but Republicans still won Texas. They turned out across the state. So, OK, more people voted, great. All good all around, right? No, not all good all around. Republicans are now specifically targeting the cities of Texas with new restrictive voting legislation, "seeking to rollback virtually every expansion the county put in place for 2020. The bills, these are the ones Republicans are proposing, would make Texas one of the hardest states in the country to cast a ballot in."
The idea here is we are not going to let the people of Harris County use their votes to take away the preference of the real Texans of the rural counties. And Texas is not alone. Republicans are pushing the exact same narrative in Arizona with the Maricopa County situation.
Now, on Friday, we told you about this utterly deranged and unnecessary audit they are doing of the 2020 presidential election results, 2020 presidential elections, five months after the election, right? Republican state senate subpoenaed it and turned it over the private company. As far as we can tell, the whole thing is totally unprecedented. It is still going on.
This is the live video of that continuing audit, OK, it`s basically been outsourced to a private entity that is run by people who openly tweet things like stop the steal, and almost no one in the election forensic universe has heard of this company.
Today, in fact, the contractor that`s overseeing the recount requested a judge keep its counting methods a secret. The same company also wants to hearing close to the media and the public. So, basically, no one will ever know how they reach whatever their final count is.
Keep in mind, they`re counting the actual ballots they have possession of, OK. The company that is doing this in Maricopa County also prompted the judge to recuse himself from the case by adding an attorney to its team who previously worked as the judge`s intern. So, now another judge is going to have to step in, it wasn`t clear immediately whether Monday`s hearing would be held scheduled, the court Web site showed no hearing on the calendar.
So, keep in mind, right, they`re doing the count, someone wants to get them to stop, they`ve now managed to postpone any judge weighing in on whether they should stop for an undetermined period of time as they keep doing this. And they say they`re counting methods and everything is proprietary, they can`t tell us about it.
And they are using this , they`re doing this right now with the actual ballots essentially using this bogus recount to,we think, ultimately advanced the narrative that oh, it was the corrupt city folk from Phoenix and Maricopa County, they oversaw a corrupt election and stolen the good righteous Trump people in the rural counties of Arizona.
Trump was banging this drum throughout the election, right, about bad things happening in Philadelphia, and in Detroit, yadda, yadda, yadda. Because the recount, the audit that`s happening in Arizona, they`re not auditing all of the results, just Maricopa County, right. So, this is the way the republicans increasingly deal with an underlying structural fact of American politics, which is polarization between big urban metro areas, including the suburbs, and rural ones.
So, Republicans are dealing with this by essentially trying to depress the vote, make it harder to vote or just outright undermine the integrity of it, people`s perception of whether it`s, you know, real or not in the metro areas. Think about if the shoe were on the other foot, right? Think about how -- think about how sort of insidious and gross this is that they`re doing this. Because the same dynamics of Democrats concentrated in metro areas and Republicans in rural areas, that`s true in every state in the Union, right? And it could be the case that Democratic governors and legislators start trying to find ways to, I don`t know, mess with voting in rural counties.
I`m sure if you put your mind to it, you could come up with some voting changes in rural counties that would make it harder to cast ballots there. But that`s not happening, right? That would be wrong and gross and anti- democratic, and we`d criticize them on the show as well. But there`s a total asymmetry here in how Republicans think about power in this country, about small D democracy.
Now, as egregious and dangerous as this phony recount is and these restrictive bills we`re seeing cross country from Georgia to Texas to Iowa, the thing to keep your eyes on, this returns us to where we began this evening, the real nuclear weapon state legislators have to overcome voter preference is gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering is a process of carving up political districts. It`s been done in politically ended advantageous ways as long as people are doing it. But partisan gerrymandering is the method of manipulating the boundaries of the congressional district for just pure partisan advantage. Here`s an example. Look at Wisconsin, right, quintessential 50-50 swing state, right? Every two years, it`s like what`s going to happen there, the Republicans have manipulated the state`s house districts to the point where in last year State senate races, right, 40 percent of the Wisconsinites had voted that day that showed up in that election and voted for Democrats, while just 38 percent of the seats went to Democrats.
I mean, Democrats have prevailed in every statewide election since 2018 for governor and lieutenant governor, they have attorney general, a state treasurer, a secretary of state, a U.S. senator, president. But Democrats are outnumbered by an almost 2-1 margin in the state legislature largely due to the way Republicans drew those districts back in 2011.
That is what we`re watching for as these states now take the census data and begin the process. They do once every 10 years of redrawing those districts again. Eric Holder, you remember, served as President Barack Obama`s first Attorney General, and this is now his kind of life`s work. He now chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee which spends all its time working to end gerrymandering to stop voter suppression heading into the next election. And he joins me now.
It`s great to have you on the program. Maybe let`s start with the census numbers which came out today. There was a lot of speculation about which states would gain and which states would lose. I think there was worry that New York might lose as much as two. And so, in that way, it sort of dodged a bullet, although 89 more people, it wouldn`t lost any. What is your takeaway from the census announcement and how much did the -- does the adding and subtracting matter in the redistricting project we`re about see undertaken?
ERIC HOLDER, CHAIR, NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REDISTRICTING COMMITTEE: Yes, I think it does. You know, the -- what`s going to happen in the state legislatures and what the House of Representatives is going to look like, I think we`re going to have probably some pretty close margins there. And so, the movement of one seat to one state and taking away from another one, I think can have -- can have a have an impact.
I`m especially concerned, if you look at a Texas, that`s going to get additional seats. It`s largely because of an increase in the Hispanic population, the African-American population, the suburban population, a young people, and yet, and yet, I suspect they`re going to try to draw the lines there in such a way as to not give full throat to the people who should have increased political power there. They`ll draw them in such a way to minimize the acquisition of power by those groups.
And so, you know, those additional seats that Texas is going to get I suspect will be, you know, they`ll attempt to gerrymander that, which means we`re probably going to end up -- end up in court.
HAYES: This is such a great point because it connects directly to exactly what I was just discussing, right? The population growth in Texas is being driven around these large metro areas that are growing very rapidly in Harris County, around Dallas Fort Worth, around Austin, Texas, particularly as well. And that`s the -- that`s the sort of population driver in that state.
But of course, what the Texas Republicans are probably going to do is they`re going to say, OK, great, thanks, census, we got two more members of Congress, but we`re going to try to take those and draw districts so like, we could net two more Republican seats.
HOLDER: Yes. I mean, that`s exactly what they did in 2011. If you remember what Tom DeLay was doing, I think they got two or three additional seats in 2011, again, largely because of the increase in the Hispanic population. The lines that they drew did not reflect in any way an increase in power to Hispanics in the state of Texas.
I sued when I was the Attorney General to try to reverse that. We then had the disastrous Shelby County decision. We had the change in who became Attorney General. We sued in the Obama administration when Jeff Sessions became the Attorney General. He put the Justice Department on the side of defending the state as opposed to suing it.
So, this is all about the Republican acquisition and retention of illegitimate power. That`s what this thing is all about. If you look at the first congressional elections after the 2011 gerrymanders, Democrats won about 1.2-1.3 million more votes nationwide for the House of Representatives, and you had a 33 seat minority. They were in the minority by 33 seats. And that was strictly related to the lines that were drawn in 2011.
Now, we are trying to make sure that in 2021, we don`t have that same kind of -- that same kind of disparate impact.
HAYES: Well, one of the issues here, of course, is that the Supreme Court has said that that partisan gerrymandering is not -- is OK. It`s not something the court is going to stop. And so, you know, if you have a state legislature -- and different states have different ways of doing it. Sometimes it`s the legislature and the governor, sometimes it`s independent commission. I think Iowa does the independent commission to route if I -- if I recall correctly.
But basically, the court has said, look, if you`ve got a bunch of like -- if you`ve got a Republican supermajorities and Republican governor and say Texas, and they want to try to come up with like, you know, a 9-3 or 15-5 - -
HOLDER: True.
HAYES: -- they could do it. And that`s basically the way the Supreme Court jurisprudence works now.
HOLDER: Yes, the Supreme Court in the disastrous, you know, (INAUDIBLE) case said that you can`t bring partisan gerrymandering cases in federal court. We can still bring them in the state courts using the state constitutions, which is what we did in North Carolina and successfully brought a case there. We did so in Pennsylvania, as well.
The Supreme Court has made it unnecessarily difficult. Now, we can still bring racial gerrymandering cases in federal court. And there is a congruence between what they try to do on a partisan basis and how they use race in order to gain these advantages. And so, we will have avenues open to us in terms of litigation.
HAYES: I want to ask you, since I have you and I don`t get a chance to talk to you that often, you were a former Attorney General, of course, under Barack Obama. Your Department of Justice was quite energetic in pursuing patterns and practice investigations of police departments that were suspected of having a pattern or practice of violating people`s constitutional rights.
Today, Merrick Garland, who of course is now the Attorney General announced that there would be such an investigation opened into Louisville. That comes just a week after announcing session investigation into Minneapolis. These are basically gone all but dormant under Donald Trump. Are you encouraged by the revival of this tool?
HOLDER: Yes, I really am. I mean, you know, it matches the moment where this nation is. You know, the George Floyd murder awakened the country to the reality of how people of color too often are treated by members of law enforcement. We brought a record number of patent practice cases while I was Attorney General. The Trump administration decided not to bring I think any cases during the four years that they were there.
There is a crying need for reform in this nation with regard to help people in law enforcement interact with the people they`re supposed to serve in communities of color. Pattern of practice cases are essential tools and bring that reform about. I`m heartened to see what Merrick Garland did today. I`m heartened to see who was flanking him when he made that announcement, Vanita Gupta and Lisa Monaco.
Vanita Gupta had an unfair journey through her Senate confirmation process. She`s a person who is steeped in these issues, who`s a civil rights attorney. And I think the team that you saw up every day will bring pattern and practice investigations and make criminal justice reform a priority again, for the United States Department of Justice.
HAYES: You know, I`ve become convinced that this gerrymandering question is one of the most elemental, sort of, fundamental questions of the core of American democracy at this moment. And I know it`s something you`re very passionate about, obviously working on, so please come back. You have an open invitation to come back and talk about this topic, former Attorney General Eric Holder. Thank you.
HOLDER: Thank you.
HAYES: All right, still to come, there are Republican leaders actively covering up Donald Trump`s role in January 6th insurrection. And there is another who tonight isn`t ruling out an anti-Trump presidential run. New York Times writer-at-large Robert Draper on the landscape of the MAGA wars next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: (AUDIO GAP) McCarthy would lower his voice and speak haltingly, wary of not casting Mr. Trump in a way that might upset him. Is this story going to be all about Trump, Mr. McCarthy asked, after back-to-back questions on him.
And then there`s Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who`s sort of well- conserved royalty, does not seem to have his liberal bone in her body and yet is now essentially being shunned by many of her party because she voted to impeach the former president after he incited a deadly insurrection.
Writer Robert Draper has an amazing piece in The New York Times Magazine on the fallout after that vote, and the party`s fear of Trump`s wrath. "Individual colleagues that confided in Cheney that most of the conference was only too happy to move on from Trump but saying so in public was another matter. To do so meant risking defeat at the hands of a Trump adoring Republican primary electorate or even, many of them feared, the well-being of their families. In sum, it risk getting the Liz Cheney treatment. That Cheney was willing to face Trump`s wrath called attention to the fact that most of them were not."
And Robert Draper, a writer-at-large for the New York Times Magazine joins me now. You know, Robert, one thing that came through in this great piece as I was reading it, and it`s something I think that you tweeted about is that I think a lot of us who, you know, consume media across all sorts of landscapes but are not steeped in right wing media -- like, Donald Trump`s off Twitter, and he`s not in the White House and he gives an interview doesn`t make much news, he just -- he`s sort of vanished in some ways. He`s not loomed that large.
But at the grassroots republican level, nothing has changed. He still looms that large. Tell me about what you sort of found in the reporting of this piece.
I think his audio is out. We have been having a little bit of audio difficulties and I believe Robert Draper couldn`t hear me. I also think I couldn`t hear him. So, I think what we`re going to do is this. I know that we already took a break. We are going to go to break again and try to get this fixed. Don`t go anywhere. I will be back with Robert Draper in a moment, fingers crossed.
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HAYES: All right, I`m back. Do you miss me like those commercials? We are here dealing with some technical issues. And I`m not quite sure I have audio because I did not hear it on the return, just the control room know that, but I think we have Robert Draper who I was speaking to before we were interrupted. Robert Draper who just wrote a great piece about the MAGA wars.
Robert, will you just talked to me for a second. I want to see if I can hear you.
ROBERT DRAPER, WRITER-AT-LARGE, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: Yes, sure. Can you hear me?
HAYES: I can. OK, Excellent. Wow, look at that. Good. So, you wrote this great piece about the sort of civil war brewing over Liz Cheney. And what was striking to me was how large Trump still looms as if he is still president and still has Twitter and still control so much amongst the grassroots of the Republican Party?
DRAPER: Yes. I mean, Chris, I think it`s almost a tautological question. I mean, you could argue that he no longer controls the party, but it`s a case of this, you know, if Republicans believe one thing, but don`t say anything, if they don`t make a sound, then is it so. At least for now, the loudest voices in the room are the voices that belong to Trump supporters and to members who are, you know, avid Trumpists.
Liz Cheney therefore, stands alone really as an individual. One to 10 who voted to impeach, the only House member who was called out by name by Trump on January 6h, and the only House member who voted to impeach. And so, she sticks out like a sore thumb, on top of which she`s a woman and I think, particularly as my story revealed in a special conference that was convened to talk about whether or not to remove her from her post, a lot of the comments really were very much of the kinds of things that one tends to associate with sexism.
And Cheney has borne the brunt of all of these things, and I think it remains an open question as to what her future will be in the Republican Party if a Republican Party continues to be one that in which as you say, Trump looms over it.
HAYES: Yes, I mean, there`s news tonight, just an interview with her at the New York Post considering a 2024 run. She says the Cruz`s in Hawley`s January 6th actions are disqualifying. She wants a nominee with the new clearance of the Constitution. But the problem is like, you know, there`s just no upside politically to be the anti-Trump Republican. Like, there`s just nothing there. There`s nothing there.
There is no base for that. There is no slice of the electorate, that`s going to rally to you substantial enough to get you anywhere.
DRAPER: I agree. I mean, it`s the -- I suppose there`s a scenario, Chris, where if first, she survives her own primary in Wyoming in 2022. And then secondly, somehow 2022`s results can be interpreted as a referendum against Trump, and I`m not quite sure what that formulation would be. Then yes, she is poised to be the leader of a post-Trump party.
But I`ve just described a series of hopes that she would have to jump through on top of which, that`s just kind of the bare minimum. I mean, there remains to be seen of whether or not, you know, any group of Republicans beyond the K Street establishment Republicans who have rallied around her will support her in sufficient numbers.
HAYES: Yes. And one of the things that comes through in your great reporting in this piece is just like, the entire -- you know, the constellation, you know, rotates around Trump. Like, it all -- everything - - every political calculation that`s made, every town to every level is still around him whether -- you know, the GA example is another great one, right?
You`ve got Doug Collins who has been this totally loyal, you know, Trumpist member of Congress, wants to run for Senate. And now, everything is frozen because Trump says he wants Herschel Walker, the former University of Georgia football star who doesn`t live in Georgia to be the nominee.
DRAPER: He doesn`t live in Georgia. Also, his thoroughly unvetted were Doug Collins has gone through a number of races. And as you say, has been the Trump de latte, but he`s not Trump`s pick, and so he`s caught in a squeeze where he already quit because it`s required that you resigned from one race if you`re going to run for another. A good law, I think, but it`s one that now has disadvantaged Collins, so he`s a person with no place to go.
And, yes, you`re right. I think the language of the party, and you can see it most acutely with Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, who`s every move seems calibrated along the lines of will this offend Donald Trump.
HAYES: Yeah, it`s -- I have to say it`s like, deeply -- I find it difficult to watch. It`s almost viscerally humiliating and pathetic in almost the like, Greek tragedy sense of the term. I mean, it`s not a tragedy. He`s a grown-ass man, and he made his decisions and he has to deal with them. But it`s --
DRAPER: Sure.
HAYES: But it is -- it is so humiliating, it`s so utterly abject, it`s the bowing and the scraping is so intense. And Trump, of course, keeps demanding more, right? Like, there is no amount of supplication that will ever actually satisfy him.
DRAPER: As has always been the case with Donald Trump. And I think Kevin McCarthy is just taking it one step at a time. He believes that the easiest path to 2022, To him actually holding the speaker`s gavel, which has been a an ambition of his from way back, is to appease Trump, to keep his temperature down, and to have Trump on his side rather than against him.
He will then leave for another day the question of just how do you dispose of Trump? The problem is, the more you feed the beast, you know, the stronger the beast gets. And allowing Trump to play in 2022, allowing him to have the outsized role that he continues to have only sets up a situation where McCarthy may get to hold a piece of wood, you know, may get to be particularly the speaker, but we`ll have really no power as a speaker.
HAYES: That`s a great point. And I also think -- there`s another aspect that`s to me. You know, in many ways, there is the -- there is the argument that the sort of dividing lines of the Republican politics have come to completely represent whatever Trump`s grievances are, right. I mean, whatever his likes and dislikes are, whether his views to the extent he has them, which is always a little unclear, but we`ve seen, you know, real changes on polling, on trade, for instance, among Republicans.
But it seems also the case that Trump is also just reflecting back a lot of what people feel anyway. You know, in some ways, he`s as much a prisoner to it as well. Like, he`s constantly obsessed with feeding the base and not getting crosswise of them. Everyone is riding the tiger.
DRAPER: Right. And every one of us who covered Trump`s first campaign, you know, came to learn this very quickly, Chris, that he took do note of which lines were applause lines and, you know, clawed to those, the immigration being the obvious case and point. But what you`ve just described as a party that basically is based on whatever Trump wants him to believe -- wants it to be at any point in time, is by any other name of personality cult. And Liz Cheney has articulated that quite clearly and said and a Zoom fundraiser that I was able to overhear that that`s something we`ve never seen in this country before. And we certainly have seen it in other countries, and it`s to be avoided at all costs.
HAYES: Yes. And the piece makes that really clear. And I just thought it`s useful because I think it`s correct and appropriate and really kind of a blessing that we don`t have to like talk about Donald Trump all the time. But I think there`s this -- sometimes there`s sense that like he was entirely a fabrication of mainstream media attention. And one of the things you see in the grassroots is like, that`s just not true. Like, the hold is still there as much as it was. That`s -- and that`s not going anywhere because the forces are larger than him.
Robert Draper, thank you so much for your patience and for sticking with us. I appreciate it.
DRAPER: Sure thing. My pleasure, Chris.
HAYES: All right, the family of Andrew Brown Jr., a 42-year-old black man shot and killed by police in North Carolina last week were shown body camera footage from the incident today, and they describe the short amount of footage they saw as a quote execution.
Now, the local sheriff says an officer shot Brown on Wednesday while they were serving him drug-related warrants. The family`s lawyer say Brown, a father seven was shot in the back of the head as he attempted to flee. Officials agreed to show the family the video this morning, then abruptly delayed that viewing saying they needed more time to redact it.
And after the family was finally allowed to see just 20 seconds of the footage later in the afternoon, their lawyers expressed outrage of the lack of transparency and horror the sequence of events the video depicted.
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BEN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR FAMILY OF ANDREW BROWN JR.: We only saw a snippet of the video when we know that the video started before and after what they show the family. And they determined what was pertinent.
BAKARI SELLERS, ATTORNEY FOR FAMILY OF ANDREW BROWN JR.: One body cam, 20 seconds in execution.
HARRY DANIELS, ATTORNEY FOR FAMILY OF ANDREW BROWN JR.: 20 seconds is not transparency when you got multiple officers gunning down a man with his hands on the steering wheel and trying to get away.
CHANTEL CHERRY-LASSITER, ATTORNEY FOR FAMILY OF ANDREW BROWN JR.: Andrew Brown was in his driveway. The sheriff truck blocked him in his driveway so he could not exit his driveway. They run-up to his vehicle shooting. He still stood there -- sat there his vehicle with his hands on the steering wheel while being shot at. He backs out, goes around them, and they`re still shooting at him while he`s driving off. He drives off the car, runs into a tree, and they`re still running behind him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: I just stressed, that video footage they`re describing has not been publicly released. We have no way of verifying what is on it. Seven deputies have been put on paid administrative leave from the police department in that city, Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The mayor declared a state of emergency as local authorities wait for court approval to release the video to the actual public.
And Harry Daniels is one of the attorneys for the family of Andrew Brown Jr. You saw him in that clip there and he joins me now. Mr. Daniels, can you tell us what the back and forth has been with the sheriff`s department since Mr. Brown`s death last week?
DANIELS: It`s been a very difficult struggle of this -- best answers. You know, that simple how many devotees were there, how many deputies were involved? You had a first incident saying that first report that one deputy, then subsequently, it was multiple deputies. So, we learned that obviously you can see that seven deputies on administrative leave, two resigned, and one retired.
So, there`s a lot of things is going on that we don`t know. 20 seconds of the video was shown today. As the soundbite stated, it was -- it was an execution. Mr. Brown was compliant and they were still shooting at him. He -- and let me be very clear. He was not fleeing. He was trying to save his life by getting away because he was not doing anything to have them to shoot at him. So he was doing like anybody -- what anybody else would do. He was trying to get away and he still shot and killed him.
HAYES: You`re referring -- you were one of the people that saw the actual footage, is that correct?
DANIELS: No, no. I was -- I was not actually one of the individual who saw it. The individual who saw it was Chantel Lassiter, one of the attorneys here in North Carolina.
HAYES: OK. And the family members and that attorney were shown the footage. Can you -- can you just describe the conditions as best the family knows of just the basics of what happened? Mr. Brown was driving and he was pulled over?
DANIELS: No. A search warrant has been executed by the Pasquotank Sheriff`s Office in conjunction with Davie County, another county close by. Mr. Brown`s vehicle was backed up in his driveway.
HAYES: I see.
DANIELS: The vehicle was blocked. He was in his car. The officers get out - - the deputies got out of the car and surround him with guns. He has his hand on the steering wheel and a shot went out while his hands on the steering wheel. He decides to try to back away not going towards the officer. So, make no mistake about it, he was not trying to injure anybody.
Even while he was shooting at him, he was conscious enough to try not to injure and hurt them. He`s backup, try to drive away and they just unload on him, shoot him in the back of the head. The car is riddled with bullets. He strikes a tree and dies. They pull him out the car and he was lifeless. It`s -- the way to describe me and I counsel very trustworthy, very smart, one of the smartest people I`ve ever met, she was in tears. The Counselor was in tears on what she saw. It was horrific. It was -- it was wrong. It was wrong.
HAYES: What is the sheriff department`s position as far as the family understands about the sort of status of this footage. There was talk today -- I know there`s back and forth, an expectation that would be shown the footage, a delay, something about redaction, only 20 seconds, there`s a question about whether it will or should be made public. What is your understanding of the sheriff`s position and what is the family`s position on those questions?
DANIELS: The sheriff seemed to be very open of having a video out. The person who was the blockade today was the county attorney. Now, when I say the county attorney, he was -- he`s also that was used, that could be the county commissioners. We don`t know. But the person delivering a message was a county attorney.
So, the issue -- quite frankly, we don`t know who`s trying to stop this information, but we do know no transparency whatsoever is taking the place. The officers` face were blurred. I`ve never -- Chris, I`ve never had any body cam footage where the officers were concealed. You may have innocent bystanders or minors being blurred out but the officers face were concealed by trying to protect the officers. But Mr. Brown face would not conceal at all. You can see his face.
HAYES: You said that there`s -- there were seven deputies placed on administrative leave. And then you said something about retired or resigned?
DANIELS: Yes, my understanding that two deputies resign, one deputy retired, and seven is placed administrative leave. Now I don`t know the retiring deputies -- deputy or the resigned deputy, what involvement they had. So, I`m not going to speculate they were the one who was involved.
So -- but seven deputies were placed on administrative leave. So, that was inferred that those definitely was definitely involved in this matter. So, nevertheless, what was shown today and what -- with the very snippet -- so let me be very clear. We have more answers. When the video came on, according to his son and attorney Lassiter, they`re always shooting at him. But when he was shooting him, he had his hands on the steering wheel. But they`re still shooting at him.
So, what happened before they started shooting. That`s not transparency. That`s a cover-up. Anybody can see it. Anybody can see it`s a cover-up, a cover-up for what reason, to protect the killers? We shall find out. We should find out.
HAYES: Harry Daniels is an attorney for the family of Andrew Brown Jr. Thank you so much for taking time in a very busy day. I appreciate it.
DANIELS: Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.
HAYES: The second time in less than a week, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the Department of Justice will be launching a pattern or practice investigation into a major U.S. police department.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL, UNITED STATES: Today, the Justice Department is opening a civil investigation into the Louisville Jefferson County Metro government and the Louisville Metro Police Department to determine whether LMPD engages in a pattern or practice of violations of the Constitution or federal law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: This announcement comes more than a year since Louisville Police shot and killed Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman in her own home while serving a no-knock warrant. While two officers involved have since been fired from the department, one remains on the force, none of them have been criminally charged in connection to her death.
And last summer, her death sparked protests across the country coinciding with protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The Louisville probe comes just five days after the DOJ launched the same type of investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department. These announcements marked a major shift in DOJ policy.
For four years under the Trump administration, the Department of Justice basically refused to exercise this power they have over local police departments. But now, under new leadership, they are finally back at it using this key tool to try to enact some much-needed reform.
Joining me now is a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General on the Department of Justice`s Civil Rights Division under the Obama Administration, Julie Fernandez. Julie, what`s your first reaction as someone who`s a practitioner in the department when you hear the Attorney General making announcement like this?
JULIE FERNANDES, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION: Well, my first reaction is Thank God. Thank God that Merrick Garland is in the position that he`s in to be able to once again have a vigorous program of civil investigation of police agencies that are engaging in patterns of practice of misconduct.
I want to say one thing also, Chris. What`s going on here with policing in our country, we`re having a crisis but the tragedy is this crisis has been going on for many, many, many, many years. And the difference now is that we have more video cameras, more body cams, and more people see it.
Folks in the Black community and LatinX community, we`ve seen this. This is -- this is what it looks like. And so thank God that we have Merrick Garland in a position, and recently we had confirmed Vinita Gupta as the Associate Attorney General, who can really take a serious run at trying to have police reform.
HAYES: There are different ways in which these pattern or practice investigations can happen in terms of relationship between the Department of Justice in the police department, an issue or the city along the scale of sort of like active resistance and hostility on one end, which is some police departments, and then some police departments that at least in public say we welcome this, we`re going to partner on this.
Louisville, at least, seems more towards that, at least, in its public pronouncements. And I wonder, in your experience, how much this -- how much that matters?
FERNANDES: It matters a lot. Because really, what we`re talking about is these are not -- the reason why we have this statute at all is because Congress determined in 1993 the criminal prosecutions were not going to address the problem because the problem is systemic. So, the systemic problem need a systemic solution.
And the only way you`re going to really get a systemic solution to be durable is if you have leadership within that jurisdiction that is interested in having a systemic solution that`s going to carry it all the way, carry it once the cameras are gone and once people are off to the next crisis, they will continue to implement transparency, progressive policies, partnership with communities, and all the things that have to be an ongoing part of how police agencies can operate in our communities consistent with the Constitution.
HAYES: So, I`ve seen criticism, I`ve been reading some interesting critiques of these investigations as they`ve been undertaken in the past from sort of two different sources, from law enforcement folks who are skeptical of the federal government and Department of Justice, and then from people who are sort of politics on this are more radical and are skeptical policing as a current institution can really be reformed.
And the synergy between these two critiques is that the idea that this becomes a kind of bureaucratic hamster wheel in a way, that there`s -- you know, there`s forms to fill out and papers to do and kind of boxes to check, but it doesn`t actually get at real change to the department. I`m curious what you would say to that.
FERNANDES: I mean, I don`t know. I mean, I don`t think that anything is a panacea, Chris, but I feel like if we`re not diagnosing the problem at a level that is a little bit bureaucratic, that is about training and supervision and accountability and data collection. If we`re not doing that, it`s really going to be hard to figure out what we need to change.
It may be that for many of these agencies -- and maybe wholesale, we need a radical change. But I kind of -- diagnosing the problem beyond the obvious problems of systemic racism, but the other problems that layer with systemic racism to cause us to be in this perpetual crisis, I just think we`re not going to get to a get to a comprehensive solution. That`s just -- but I don`t think it`s a panacea. I think it takes more than that, definitely.
HAYES: Julie Fernandes, who works at the Department of Justice -- I would agree by the way. I find the reports that have been issued just -- I`ve read a bunch of them for the last book I wrote. They are -- they`re eye- opening, to say the least. Thank you so much, Julie. I really appreciate it.
All right, meanwhile, we are still in the midst of course of a global coronavirus pandemic and nowhere is more dire right now than India. Cases are climbing at the fastest pace in the entire world. That line going practically vertical, reporting more than 300,000 cases a day, crematoriums burial grounds cannot keep up with the number of dead bodies.
"Authorities are getting requests to start cutting down trees in city parks for kindling as ambulance after ambulance waits in line to cremate the dead." There is of course as we watch this unfold and we know firsthand what this could look like. Our country was hit extremely hard by the virus. There is an urgent moral and strategic political reason for the U.S. to do everything we can`t help.
Yesterday, the Biden administration announced they would be sending India raw materials for vaccine production along with medical supplies. And then in other vaccine news today, the U.S. Senate would begin sharing its 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine with other countries, something public officials have been urging for weeks. We don`t have a domestic authorization to even use the vaccine.
But here`s the thing. The accelerating pace of vaccines is going to take a while. That is true about shipping doses. It`s true about intellectual property waivers. So, there`s a bunch of folks in Congress and throughout the government who are pushing to do everything we can to help as fast as we can.
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal is one of them and she joins me now. Congresswoman, thank you so much for coming on tonight. I just want to start by asking about your family. And my understanding is you were there recently in India, and your parents are there, and they are in the midst of this. So, just tell us a little bit about what that trip was like and what you saw.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Yes, thanks, Chris. It was rough. I`ve got to say both my parents are there. They`re 80 and 90 years old.
HAYES: Wow.
JAYAPAL: And they were both diagnosed with COVID. They both ended up in the hospital. My dad needed oxygen. And I think you know, now in retrospect, I`m almost glad -- it`s a strange thing to say that it happened when it did, because they were at the beginning of the surge. And I`m not sure they could have gotten into the hospital or gotten oxygen had they not been.
They are thankfully home and recuperating. They`ve made it through the roughest time. And I think the fact that they got the first dose of the vaccine four weeks before actually helped to limit their symptoms. But we saw it happening. I was there as the cases started ramping up. I`m talking to my parents every day and I`m hearing, you know, just the fear that everyone has because this is so extreme, it`s coming so quickly. And we pushed very hard to make sure, and we`re grateful to the President for making sure that we can get those raw materials over there.
But the overall situation of vaccines, it`s not just India. I mean, out of the almost 900 million doses that have been administered, only 0.3 percent have actually gone to low-income countries. Almost 81 percent of those doses have gone to upper income and middle-income countries.
So, this is a problem everywhere. And if we don`t solve the global issue of COVID, we`re also not going to solve it for ourselves. So, not only is it a moral responsibility, it is also the right thing to do if we`re going to beat a global pandemic.
HAYES: Right. I mean, there`s-- so there`s a bunch of things, right, there`s -- on the vaccine front. I mean, first, just have to stay with India specifically. I mean, you know, we all now -- we`ve covered, we`ve gone through cycles of this and we`ve seen it, you know, whether it was in Guayaquil in Ecuador, or was in Lombardy, Italy, or if it was in New York City, countries have different wealth levels.
But that the virus does the same thing to everyone. At a certain level, it jams up the hospitals, it makes it impossible to find a place to bury the dead. It makes short supplies of oxygen and PPE and things like that. It does seem like the most pressing thing now for India is this immediate triage need for oxygen, PPE, medical supplies that we can get to them.
I know there`s some agreement from the Biden administration that we are going to be doing some of that now. Is that your understanding?
JAYAPAL: That`s right. And the President made a really strong statement yesterday. And so, those things are going to start happening right away. The CDC is also sending a team to -- has offered to send a team to assist India. And so, that is immediate because there are no hospital beds. I saw it just in my little area, that hospital was completely full.
Even for my father to keep his hospital bed in the ICU, you know, we were never sure if he was going to stay there for as long as he needed to. And so, this is really -- the hospital beds, the PPE, the doctors are exhausted, and obviously, the population is enormous, right? So it`s 1.2 billion people.
So, just the scale and the magnitude of deaths, they -- we think that the deaths are being really undercounted, as well. And so whatever you see, some people are saying double it at least because it is -- you know, it is really, it`s -- my heart, my heart is just breaking watching.
HAYES: And your point here about that -- I mean, there`s the immediate issue and then there`s the long term issue, or the even the medium-term issue and that we have seen -- you know, there`s so many countries, I think, say in Sub Saharan Africa where there was a lot of worry that this would ravage parts of that continent for instance.
The public health officials there have done a pretty amazing job in many cases. There`s parts of India that have done an amazing job as a public health level in countries with very little per capita income. But eventually, the virus is -- like, unless we get the world vaccinated, the virus is going to win and India is an example of that right now, which the why I agree with you.
We need to be shipping out virus -- vaccines and waiving intellectual property patents. Congress Pramila Jayapal who is back from India, her parents are doing well, thank goodness. I`m glad to hear that. Thank you for making time tonight.
JAYAPAL: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: All right, that is ALL IN on this Monday night, always an adventure. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.