Summary
President Biden calling for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes as images of the atrocities in Ukraine by Russia shock the world. Graphic images are shown of mass slaughter of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha. As Evidence of potential war crimes committed against Ukraine has put a damper on the American conservatives who have celebrated Vladimir Putin, there is a much larger faction celebrating one of Putin`s key allies in Europe, Viktor Orban. Three Republicans, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, expressed their support to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sarah Palin announces to run for Congress in Alaska.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: But the rate of uninsured people in those counties is twice as high as in wealthier areas, a critical issue as federal funding for COVID dries up. The program that reimburses providers for testing and treating the uninsured stopped taking claims last month. It will stop accepting new claims for vaccinating the uninsured this week. The more you know.
And that`s "THE REIDOUT." ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voiceover): Tonight on ALL IN.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This guy is brutal. And what`s happening is outrageous.
HAYES: The world sees what a retreating Russian army left behind.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s a real crime. And Russia should be punished for this.
HAYES: Tonight, the new U.S. assessment of the latest Russian offensive. What we know about what happened to Bucha and the American right roots on autocrats as another strong man chokes off democracy.
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, FOX NEWS: Why would we take Ukraine side? Why wouldn`t we have Russia side? I don`t -- I`m totally confused.
HAYES: Then, the criminal referral for Navarro and Scavino move forward and is a potential Trump criminal referral necessary for Justice?
Plus, today`s big vote on Ketanji Brown Jackson for Supreme Court. And meet the new applicant for Leader of the House Republican MAGA caucus.
SARAH PALIN (R-AK), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: No more of this vanilla milquetoast namby-pamby, wussy-pussy stuff that`s been going on.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. It is only two days since the Ukrainian military was able to retake the Kyiv suburb of Bucha after the Russians retreated. And the name of that town is now already infamous and synonymous with war crimes.
There`s no way to tell this story without showing you the visual evidence of what is happening and has happened on the ground and Bucha, so this is a warning, you`re going to see some disturbing images in this reporting.
When the Russian troops moved through the town on their way to apparently try to capture Kyiv, but after they`re met with stiff resistance, they just stayed in Bucha for weeks unable to get to Kyiv and ultimately retreating. The images of the atrocities they appear to have committed started coming out immediately after Ukrainian troops move back into the area on Saturday.
Ukrainian Defense Ministry released this video showing the bodies of what they say are civilians lying in the street. The Associated Press took these photos of at least nine people in civilian clothes, who appear to have been killed at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs.
The mayor of Bucha told reporters that residents had buried nearly 300 people in mass graves. You can see what appears to be a 45 foot long trench near church and this satellite photo from Maxar Technologies. Remember, the Ukrainian parliament from Bucha recorded this video by the mass graves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello to everybody. My name is Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of the parliament from Bucha, which is town satellite of Kyiv. And you see behind me the common grave for more than 20 people, local citizens who were killed by Russian troops here. And that is one of the graves, there are more here. And that is local church of Bucha. That is an evidence -- one of many evidences of Bucha massacre. That`s a war crime. And Russian should be punished for this. It`s done by Russian oil and gas. It`s just when you see Russian oil and guess, remember these.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Sky News reporter Deborah Haynes has been an absolutely invaluable source for reporting on the ground inside Ukraine. In her latest reporting, she visited Bucha in the wake of Russia`s retreat and saw the horrors left behind firsthand.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEBORAH HAYNES, REPORTER, SKY NEWS: The broken body of a woman evidence of the terror that swept through this town and others north of the capital before Russian forces suddenly pulled back. The brother of Kyiv`s mayor documented what he saw.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not special operation. This is not military objects. This is civilians. That been shot in the head with a tied hands behind their back. This is a genocide of the Ukrainian population.
HAYNES: Ukraine says hundreds of bodies have been found some hastily buried. It`s accused Russia of being worse than Islamic State though Moscow has denied responsibility.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, Russia has denied responsibility for these killings, claiming while the town was controlled by the Russian of military forces, not a single local resident has suffered from any violent action -- that`s quite a categorical denial -- and that "the photos and video footage from Bucha are another hoax, a stage production, going as far as requesting the U.N. Security Council convened to discuss what it called a provocation by Ukrainian radicals in Bucha."
The New York Times analyzed satellite photos of Bucha by Maxar Technologies, and they found evidence that at least 11 bodies of civilians seen in those videos, the ones that were recorded by the Ukrainian soldiers as they went in and released, had been on the street in the satellite images since March 11, OK. Russian forces were occupying Bucha until their retreat on March 30th. That means those bodies of dead Ukrainians, town residents of Bucha were in those streets as the Russians controlled it for 19 days.
Earlier today, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Bucha calling what he saw their war crimes, a message echoed by President Joe Biden.
[20:05:38]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: You may remember, I got criticized for calling Putin a war criminal. Well, the truth of the matter, you saw what happened in Bucha. This warrants him he is a war criminal. But we have to gather the information, we have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue the fight, and we have to gather all the detail so this could be an actual -- have a war-crime trial.
This guy is brutal. And what`s happening to Bucha is outrageous, and everyone has seen it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you agree that it`s genocide?
BIDEN: No, I think it is a war crime.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, are you going to do more sanctions on Russia?
BIDEN: I`m seeking more sanctions, yes, I`ll have time to announce that too.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you actually hold Putin accountable though? You called him a war criminal.
BIDEN: He should be held accountable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, for those who watched Russia`s brutal tactics, first in Chechnya and then Syria over a span of several years, it`s a reminder of the utter depravity of their tactics in those wars. The nature of Putin`s regime on the battlefield was evident in both of those venues. As horrible as these atrocities are, they are not, in that respect, surprising.
Which is why there`s just no moral excuse for the odious apologetics we have heard from the American right. And I`m not just talking about oh, we need negotiation, there`s a way out of the settlement, all of which I think is perfectly legitimate to argue for. It`s the sort of visceral siding with Putin, the admiration of him, including what Donald Trump said about Vladimir Putin just the days before the invasion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I went in yesterday, and there was a television screen. And I said, this is genius. Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine -- of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that`s wonderful. So, Putin is now saying it`s independent, a large section of Ukraine. I said, how smart is that?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So smart, genius. That`s the leader of the Republican Party calling Putin a genius as he prepares to commit war crimes. And those bodies on the streets, those ones in the mass graves, that`s what that genius looks like in reality. It looks like bodies on the side of the road, hands tied behind their back, and bullets in their head.
And of course, whatever Donald Trump says is going to get blasted out by the loudest mouthpiece on Trump TV.
CARLSON: Why do I care about what`s going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia? And I`m serious. Like, why do I care?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I tell you why.
CARLSON: And why shouldn`t I root for Russia. Because I am.
Hold on, why would we take Ukraine side and not Russia sides?
It might be worth asking yourself since it is getting pretty serious. What is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia?
HAYES: Yes. Why would anyone bear any animus whatsoever towards Vladimir Putin? It`s a great rhetorical question. As he stacked the bodies of Syrians like cordwood for years. Vladimir Putin showed us what kind of leader he was years ago, what his military was capable of. It is way too late to act surprise now.
Alexander Vindman is a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel who serves as the Director for European affairs of the U.S. National Security Council. Michael Newton is a professor of Vanderbilt University Law School. He served as Senior Advisor at the State Department, ambassador at large for war crimes issues. And they both join me now.
Lieutenant Colonel, let me let me ask you first about your reaction to this. Again, there`s a pattern here. There`s a history here. It is nonetheless, those images that they came out of Bucha on Saturday, I think you felt this way and everyone horrifying and shocking.
ALEXANDER VINDMAN, FORMER DIRECTOR FOR EUROPEAN AFFAIRS, THE U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: It is absolutely horrifying. And this is why there was -- it should have been such a greater press to try to see if we could first avoid this war because we knew the level of barbarism that Putin and his regime would apply to Ukraine.
And now, everything we can to help Ukraine end this war. This war is likely to play out over the course of months. What we saw in Bucha and Irpin and other locations, we forgot about Mary Opal and the bombing of the maternity ward earlier on the war, these are things that are going to unfold, and they`re going to increase as Russia gets frustrated.
Mariupol still is held out for six weeks, but it`s going to get pressed with considerably more combat power. And right now, the president has said the exact right thing. We need to give him Ukraine, everything we need -- they need, rather, to win this war, but that`s not happening. Otherwise, we will have many more of these types of catastrophic events.
And eventually, the American public and the rest of the western world is going to get fed up. And that`s going to drive a probably an overreaction. So, this is all foreseeable. And we could have -- should take action to avoid this from becoming a protracted war with more of these types of incidents.
[20:10:39]
HAYES: I want to read a little bit, Michael, of some of the New York Times reporting on this. And again, there`s -- you know, when you first see these images, I think it`s a good idea to sort of take things slowly, a grain of salt, there`s this fog of war, and evaluate. But we`ve now had multiple time for reporters, human rights observers to come in and getting more and more confirmation.
This is the Times reporting. 13 of the bodies are men whose hands have been tied and have been shot at close range in the head. A coroner said he did not know the circumstances of their death, but believed, based on their apparently recent death, they were prisoners killed before the Russian army withdrew. They were civilians, he said, showing cell phone pictures of dead men in civilian clothes with their hands bound behind their backs and one case in the front.
You know, the term war crimes, I think, has a rhetorical meaning and then it has a technical international legal meaning. What do you, as someone who works in this space, what is your reaction to that term in application to what we are seeing and seeing reported in the streets of Bucha?
Well, if one accepts the prevailing narrative which is that Vladimir Putin launched this illegal war of aggression as a way of aggrandizing Russian power and Russian prestige and rebuilding a Russian Empire, etcetera, there`s hardly anything more corrosive to that.
MICHAEL NEWTON, PROFESSOR, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: You know, as a political term, it`s incredibly powerful and has the opportunity to galvanize the entire world as we`re beginning to see. But as a legal term, and as a prosecutor myself, I mean, I think it`s very important that we develop the body of evidence.
And when the Russians begin to lie as they are you are doing, we present them in evidence. We be transparent and we say, if you want to apologize, apologize, but come negotiate. Look at the evidence with us. We will prove to the entire world beyond a reasonable doubt that these are war crimes, or in some cases crimes against humanity. There`s no question of that.
Now, the real question is, which individual`s both political or military bear individual criminal responsibility for these kinds of offenses? That`s the real challenge lying ahead.
HAYES: Yes, just to follow up on that. We should be clear, I mean, these were -- these were acts that were committed by actual individuals by Russian soldiers under the command of Russian officers, under the command of the general who`s commanding the Russian army. I mean, how important is building that body of evidence?
NEWTON: Well, it`s vitally important. And I`ve been working for a long time with courageous Ukrainian human rights defenders on the ground. This is not new. Russians have been violating the law of occupation for a long time in Crimea and other parts of Ukraine. And now, you`re just seeing, I liked your word, the brutality of what they really do on the ground.
But that`s a far cry from building a cohesive criminal case which is a composite that this is a common heritage of mankind and we have to work together with all countries, with all comers to develop a comprehensive body of evidence that can be used in any court in the world. That`s why it`s important to remember you, of course, you got the International Criminal Court, but you also have domestic courts all around the world that have jurisdiction, and first and foremost, the courts of Ukraine and have jurisdiction.
We have to have a composite body of evidence that can be used in any court anywhere in the world that wants to prosecute a particular offender and can get personal jurisdiction over them.
HAYES: You know, there`s something very sick and so darkly cynical and almost nihilistic to me, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, about this as propaganda. I mean, obviously, if you`re the Russian forces, you know if you`re leaving bodies in the streets, you know, if you`re retreating with people`s hands bound and bullets in the back of their head.
So, to do that is to leave a message, is to -- is to make a statement and then to immediately deny it. I mean, you could not do that or you could do it and say yes, you know, behold our wrath and cower before us. But this combination of leaving it out for it to be found and immediately denying it, which is a sort of common trope here, is pretty enraging.
And on the public opinion front I think is going to increase the pressure across Europe to cut off oil and gas which is personally what you heard from that Ukrainian Member of Parliament.
VINDMAN: I think that`s right. But it shows a general kind of callousness for human life. The repression of 20 years, increasing repression of 22 years of Putin rule has bred this kind of mentality to the population. It`s a callousness that throws and spends tens of thousands of Russian soldiers for no gain, just to withdraw and reform for another offensive.
[20:15:10]
And it`s something -- if certainly, they`re callous with their soldiers` lives, they`re going to be callous with the civilians lives. So, it`s something that`s -- it a rot within the authoritarian world, within the authoritarian regime, within Russia that is indicative of really a broader struggle between good and evil.
And I`m not sure if there was forethought and signaling in terms of leaving the bodies out they left under pressure to a certain extent. I think it was just a general callousness for one thing. But certainly, there were leadership -- there was leadership involved. The mass graves require engineers -- engineer assets or higher level assets, either at a battalion or brigade level. So, they`re already at that level. You have kind of a mid to senior-level officers involved.
And these things are occurring kind of not just in one location, but throughout the country. So, certainly, there`s an underwriting of this kind of warfare for Russia. It`s within their concept of warfare, end the war as quickly as possible using every means possible including brutality, because from their perspective, that is somehow humane. It`s a foreign concept to us.
HAYES: Alexander Vindman and Mike Newton, thank you both. I really appreciate it. Still to come, while the right is backing off its praise of Vladimir Putin a bit, they haven`t stopped supporting one of his allies. Next, what to make the right-wing factions celebrating the win of the authoritarian leader who essentially rigged the basics of democracy in order to stay in power, after this.
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[20:20:00]
HAYES: Evidence of potential war crimes committed against Ukraine has, I think, put a damper on the faction of American conservatives who have celebrated Russian President Vladimir Putin, though who knows how long that will last, there is however a much larger faction celebrating one of Putin`s key allies in Europe, the hard-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Orban has just handily won reelection sending him to his fourth consecutive term with his party holding onto a supermajority in Parliament. A victory that surely thrilled the likes of Tucker Carlson who has praised the budding autocrats policies or Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar last seen at a white nationalist conference zooming in who congratulated Orban on Twitter, or Georgia Congressman Margarita Greene who just came out and said it. Orban is leading Hungary the right way and we need this in America.
So, what is Viktor Orban doing in Hungary that these folks think we need an America? Well, he`s the architect of what he himself is called an illiberal democracy. He`s used the tools of government to reshape Hungary`s judicial branch, eliminate nearly all independent media and aggressively gerrymander parliamentary districts. The result is now functionally one-party state. And when American conservatives say Hungary is a model for U.S., we should take that extremely seriously.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history in New York University. She writes all about this phenomenon in her book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. Her newsletter, Lucid, is on Substack and is about the perils democracy faces.
Ruth, you spent a lot of time studying Orban and I suppose last night`s election wasn`t surprising in terms of the results. How do you disaggregate in this in the kind of rigged non-competitive democracy that he`s created what the people`s will is, right? Because the Orban fans are like, look, he got a huge -- he won another huge victory. This is what Hungarians want. This is this -- this is it. This democracy in action.
RUTH BEN-GHIAT, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: Yes, that`s true. Now, there were two things going on here that were kind of say, contingent. One is that for the first time the opposition united against him six parties. But part of that calculation backfired because part of that big opposition was the Jobbik Party, which was a far-right party trying to be more central. And voters of Jobbik defected to Orban`s party or even to a really hard right, almost neo-fascist party.
And this is what happens when you have polarization and there`s no center. So, they lost votes in that. And then there`s the war. Orban was very smart, one could say, in saying we`re going to be about Hungarian interests and trying to have this juggling act to see neutral. And that played well because you know, they`re on the border and it was very unsettling.
But that said, the system has evolved over 10 years or -- you know, he`s been there since 2010, 12 years, so that it`s very difficult for the opposition to win. And one reason is media. He has domesticated the media to an extent where it`s very hard for the opposition to get equal time. In fact, the European election security agency sent a record number of monitors. And they included there wasn`t a level playing field because the media didn`t have the same access.
And then there`s gerrymandering and other election trickery to make more, you know, districts favorable to his party, things that are familiar with - - to people who follow the GOP. And all of this pays off. And so, the results were similar to 2018 and similar to 2014.
So, he`s built the system which gives him not guaranteed success, but makes it difficult for others to prevail.
HAYES: He has been -- it was interesting. Zelenskyy called him out for the stance he take -- he`s taken which has been more tepid towards Ukraine than certainly the polish -- the nation of Poland, which is right there across the border which also has a pretty right-wing government, we should note, which has been much more sort of on Ukraine side opposed to Russian aggression.
Hungary has taken a much more kind of neutral stance, or at least has hedge its bets a bit. And Orban has been a real kind of ally of Putin for years. I mean, there`s a real connection there, right?
[20:25:28]
BEN-GHIAT: Oh, totally. After the annexation of Crimea, he refused -- you know, he was very against E.U. sanctions. And right before the war started, he declared that 2021 had been the best year ever for Hungarian-Russian relations. And of course, he was against putting any kind of sanctions on Russian energy, because Hungary is very dependent on that.
But that too, he played to his advantage with voters because he said, we don`t want to get involved in this because gas and oil prices will go up and voters like that, apparently.
HAYES: I want to just play some of the -- I mean, there`s a lot of praise for him that comes in right. At one point, CPAC was saying they`re going to go to Budapest to celebrate. And here`s a little bit of the sampling. And just your thoughts on what it means to have the American right explicitly saying, look, this is our model.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: People are over Orban. They`re all over sometimes Salvini. And I`m a huge admirer of these individuals. I think they`ve just done a tremendous job.
TRUMP: Viktor Orban has done a tremendous job in so many different ways. highly respected, respected all over Europe. Probably like me, a little bit controversial, but that`s OK. That`s OK. You`ve done a good job and you`ve kept your country safe.
CARLSON: He thinks families are more important than banks. He believes countries need borders for saying these things out loud, Orban has been vilified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: The sort of celebration of Oban strikes me as chilling because, you know, he really has kind of figured out ways to use the rules of the game to essentially rig democracy such that it is functionally no longer competitive in Hungary.
BEN-GHIAT: Oh, absolutely. And the GOP lawmakers, you know, falling over themselves to congratulate him. They`re like kids looking at a toy store saying, I want that. I want electoral autocracy. And that`s, of course, what they`re pursuing. And then there`s, you know, they`re also ideologues too are all over his anti-LGBTQ, you know, policies, his pro-family policies.
And you know, what they never mentioned, you know, Tucker Carlson says, oh, he`s defending white Christians and he`s, you know, the defender of tradition. But they don`t mention that 300 churches have been closed in Hungary because the heads of those churches were not aligned with Orban.
So, Orban, he`s prevailing right now because he`s the non-Putin. He`s not anti-Putin, but he`s the non-Putin. He`s the palatable autocrat. And so, that is working in this atmosphere with what Putin is doing with crimes and everything. He seems OK.
HAYES: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, thank you so much for your time tonight.
Coming up, what does it mean the January 6 Committee is signaling there may be no criminal referral for Donald Trump. I`ll ask a committee member about the end game strategy to the investigation after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: We`re expecting the full House representatives to vote sometime next week whether to hold two former Trump aides in contempt of Congress. This after the House Rules Committee voted nine to four along party lines today to advance contempt resolutions for Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino over their refusal to cooperate in the investigation into the insurrection.
As for the ringleader of the insurrection after a ruling last week in which a federal judge said the evidence before him showed that Donald Trump likely committed crimes, the question is whether there will be a criminal referral from the January 6 Committee for the ex-president, what legal and political ramifications that would involve.
There are signs that committee name may not be ready to take that step. Committee Member Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren told Politico, "A referral doesn`t mean anything, has no legal weight whatsoever. And I`m pretty sure the department justice has read last week`s opinions so they don`t need to tell -- need us to tell them it exists."
Congresswoman Elaine Luria is Democrat of Virginia who serves on the January 6 Committee and she joins me now. First, let me just start on that and ask if you -- if you agree broadly with your colleagues reading on the situation.
REP. ELAINE LURIA (D-VA): Well, Chris, thanks for having me back. You know, I would say that I don`t agree with what, you know, some of my colleagues have said about this. And I think it`s a lot more important to do what`s right than it is to worry about the political ramifications.
And, you know, this committee, our purposes legislative and oversight. But if in the course of our investigation, we find that criminal activity has occurred, you know, I think it`s our responsibility to refer that to the Department of Justice. Even if they already know, even if 10 other charges or sets of circumstances have made that determination, I think it`s within the responsibility of our committee if we should find that evidence that we do refer it.
HAYES: Yes, I want to -- I want to read this quote because I think that I`ve seen some analysis in both directions. And it sounds like what you`re saying is, look, if the merits determine that, then you should say it, right? This was quoted in the -- in the piece in Politico. Former criminal referral from Congress in this situation could backfire. The Justice Department`s charging decision should not be influenced by political pressure. That`s how this might look of referral could make it harder for the Department of prosecute. What do you think about that?
[20:35:10]
LURIA: You know, I think that the purpose of this committee is to lay out the facts. And if in those facts, we find evidence that criminal acts, that crimes occurred, I think we have to include that in our report. And I think that we have to forward that to the Department of Justice because they`re the ones that have to deal with crimes.
HAYES: Two big issues coming up. There`s the -- there`ll be the vote on Navarro and Scavino on whether the Department of Justice moves ahead on those -- on charges there. But there`s also the question of hearings and whether there`ll be sort of primetime televised hearings. I wonder if you can give us a sense of what the committee`s members or your member -- your thinking is on that.
LURIA: Well, Chris, you know, I think that this is a really important issue. It`s fundamental to our democracy and protecting our institutions of government. I think it`s important that every American has the opportunity to hear the work of this committee, the facts that we`ve uncovered, and we would like to lay those out in a way that reaches the most people possible.
So, the hearings will definitely be televised. The exact timing and schedule is something that we`re still working on as we continue interviewing witnesses. But you know, our goal is for this information to reach every American.
HAYES: What are the stakes -- I mean, what do you view as -- what would be success for you in this investigation when it`s all said and done? How are you defining success as a lawmaker, as a citizen?
LURIA: You know, I want to know the facts. And I think that, you know, the committee is doing a very intensive investigation, following a lot of different paths to reach the truth about what happened on January 6, leading up to January 6. And the purpose of the committee as a committee in Congress is to provide recommendations to prevent something like this from happening in the future.
So, you know, I think that the work of laying out the facts is the first step. But then the legislative work of determining, you know, what recommendations we can make, what type of laws can protect our government, our election in the future is very important as well. So, I think both of those elements are key to the success of this committee.
HAYES: I mean, I`m being only slightly tongue in cheek here. But isn`t part of making -- I mean, electing Donald Trump president again would be very dangerous and go a long way towards possibly reproducing the conditions this would happen again. I mean, that -- it seems like there`s no getting around that fundamental fact. Whatever structural factors there were or whatever, oversight there was on the day and why we`re in police more prepared, like, fundamentally, the most powerful person in the country in the world was intent on subverting American democracy, and this was the result.
LURIA: You know, I agree with that assessment. But you know, that`s up to the voters and you know, after we`ve had the opportunity to lay out all these facts for them to understand, you know, what went into essentially an attempted coup to overthrow the government to steal the election and to disrupt the proceedings that certify the electoral count, and then resulted in violence that led to death and destruction of property. You know, if people can watch that and would then choose to vote for him or someone who shared his values in the future, you know, I think that`s very concerning as well.
HAYES: Well, and there`s also the question of the Republican Party more broadly, which does seem has, in certain ways, managed to kind of wriggle out from the taint of this, you know, awful, awful thing that the leader of their party did, and would do again in a heartbeat, and is currently plotting.
LURIA: You know, certainly, there are those in the Republican Party who have embraced this, and they continue to double down. They`re very clear. Others have had a lot of courage like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, who served with us on that committee, those who did vote in the second impeachment.
And, you know, I think as an American, I would hope that, you know, there were more people in the Republican Party serving in office today who could look at the facts of what happened and uphold their constitutional duty to implement our laws not to undermine them.
HAYES: Yes. I think there will be a moment to sort of focus a beam of attention during these hearings, if and when they were to happen. We look forward to seeing how that plays out. Congresswoman Elaine Luria, thank you very much.
Still to come, Sarah Palin is back and running for Congress. How the one- time candidate for VP walked so MAGA party could run, in just ahead. Plus, Ketanji Brown Jackson finds Republican support in the Senate. We`ll tell you that tally and what it means for her confirmation vote after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:40:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-RI): Last week, Judge Jackson set the gold standard for patience and courtesy from a Supreme Court nominee.
SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): Throughout her career, she has not just favorably impressed, but demonstrated superb and exceptional professionalism and capabilities.
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): How qualified you have to be double Harvard? How qualified you have to be clerking at all levels of the federal judiciary? How qualified do you have to be three times confirmed by the Senate in a bipartisan manner?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It was a historic day in the Senate Judiciary Committee as senators considered Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson the first black woman nominated at the Supreme Court. The vote in that committee went along party line, 11 Democrats in support to all 11 Republicans voting against, which then forced Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to hold a floor vote to get the Brown Jackson nomination out of committee.
And guess what, three Republicans actually joined that vote somewhat of a surprising number, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, which is a good sign for the final passage vote that should come on a Friday. We expect it to be 53 votes in approval.
And that said, today, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham admitted that if Republicans were in control the Senate, listen to this, Ketanji Brown Jackson`s nomination would have never even gotten a vote.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): If we get back the Senate, and we`re in charge of this body, and there`s judicial openings, we will tell our colleagues on the other side, but if we`re in charge she would not have been before this committee. You`re going to have somebody more moderate than this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Well, Merrick Garland is pretty moderate and he didn`t get it hearing either. What he`s saying there just so people realize is the quiet part out loud, right? They won`t even hold a hearing for a Democratic president`s nominee, a stark moment from a Republican Party that has become accustomed to pulling all manners of stunts to maintain their political power.
In fact, Graham had a front-row seat riding shotgun on the Street Talk Express for it feels now like the moon landing of modern Republicans` stunt politics.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What insight into Russian actions for particularly in the last couple of weeks does the proximity of the state give you?
PALIN: They`re next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Yes, Sarah Palin says she wants back into electoral politics, next.
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[20:50:00]
HAYES: The longest-serving Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives died a little more than two weeks ago. And now, more than 50 candidates are running to fill the seat of the late Congressman Don Young of Alaska. One of those 50 is a familiar face, former half-term governor and failed vice- presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Last night, she perhaps unsurprisingly got Donald Trump`s complete and total endorsement. And it feels like the Republican Party has come full circle here. Back in 2008, when the John McCain campaign was scrambling to find a running mate, the team landed on Sarah Palin, the little known even by the campaign first-term governor of Alaska was a huge hit first, until she became more known.
We all discovered Palin was a candidate, well, seemingly entirely disinterested in the realities of governing. She lacked basic knowledge about foreign policy or even how Washington functioned. But she made up for it with right-wing populist rhetoric and a willingness to take an overtly racist tone towards then-candidate Barak Obama.
The Republican base loved it even when Palin had moments like this one with Katie Couric.
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KATIE COURIC, JOURNALIST: When it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand world --
PALIN: I`ve read most of them, again, with a great appreciation for the press, for the media --
COURIC: But like what specifically, I`m curios that you --
PALIN: All of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: As my next guest notes, the fact that Palin was obviously unfit for office was kind of why the base like her so much. She made the right people angry. She started to draw larger crowds than McCain himself in rallies that looked a lot like the ones Trump would hold eight years later.
After losing in `08, Palin resigned as Alaska`s Governor before her term was up, not to run for president in 2012 as many speculated, but to focus full time on posting on social media and a reality show which he used to reach her base outside of traditional news outlets, a tactic that would help Donald Trump win the presidency in 2016.
Now, the Palin model failed as it was, a proud lack of political knowledge mixed with attention-grabbing antics, also set the mold for today`s Republican troll caucus, the likes of Marjory Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn, Lauren Colbert, and Ted Cruz.
And now 15 years later, after creating the genre, Palin is back trying to make a run to join them. She`s already started the audition process.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PALIN: We need people who have cojones. We need people, like Donald Trump, who has nothing, nothing to lose. Like me, we got nothing to lose. And no more of this vanilla milk toast, namby-pamby, wussy-pussy stuff that`s been going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Jeremy Peters is a reporter for The New York Times who traces the link between Sarah Palin in 2008 and Donald Trump in 2016 in his new book Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party And Got Everything They Ever Wanted.
And there are a lot of similarities and really a straight line from Palin to Trump. You do wonder though, like, it`s one of these can you go home again kind of moments whether the shifting of the politics in the direction of Trump and sort of Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert figures means it`s easier for her and whether this is sort of a natural fit, or maybe it`s hard to pull off?
JEREMY PETERS, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, that was kind of the thing I wondered when I was reporting this book is like, was Sarah Palin the canary in the coal mine or was she kind of an anomaly? And it turns out, she`s not an anomaly. Sarah Palin is the Republican Party.
And I think that you don`t need to go very far back into Republican Party history to understand why she clicks with voters. She has always been somebody who has been seen as one of you, right? When she was in Alaska, she clicked with voters because people saw themselves in her. She was a mom. She had five kids. She was -- she talked like them. She didn`t have like, a lot of elitist areas about her.
And really, that`s what Republican voters saw in Donald Trump eventually. I think that what happened to her is another story when, you know, as she became the 20 -- 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee. She kind of lost her way a bit. But she is now back on stage. And I think that she`s somebody who needs to be taken very seriously as a contender for this congressional seat.
[20:55:41]
HAYES: But there`s -- I mean, there`s some distinctions there, right? So, like, what`s interesting about her is that she is -- you know, she was not -- she wasn`t faking it, right, as governor of Alaska. Like, she was from where she was from, she had sort of worked her way through like first running for local office. I mean, Donald Trump was like a multi, multi, multimillionaire like never set foot outside of New York, right?
So, what`s interesting is like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump were sort of tapping into the same thing, but it wasn`t just like, you can`t chalk it up to like lack of pretension, or folksiness. Particularly now, she`s sitting there giving that interview in a house who`s sitting room is like, larger than the block I live in Brooklyn.
Like -- and I think, you know, you document this here, right, that there`s something going on here. Journalists covering Palin`s rallies kept documenting the vitriol that was erupting from her crowds. Some of it is so ugly the Secret Service had to look into one incident as a precaution. Reports documented people shouting Obama Bin Ladin, treason, off with his head.
Now we`ve got, you know, the sort of ritual two-minute hate that happens at the Trump rallies where they all jeer. Like, hating the right people and being hated by the right people seems to be the defining thing she tapped into that has become so definitional for a lot of the Republican Party.
PETERS: That`s exactly right, Chris. And that was always her appeal in Alaska as far back as 2004 when she was not quite Governor yet and not a major figure. She clicked with people because somebody called her and her fellow denizens of the Wasilla Valley, valley trash, right?
It was -- it was an early version of the deplorables. And she wore that as a badge of honor, not as something that like, oh, how dare you say this about me? They appropriated it. Then they took this as a badge of honor. And it worked for them just like it did with Trump supporters because they felt as if the mainstream Republican Party was looking down on them and not representing them.
And that`s what ultimately Trumpism is, right? Trumpism is not an ideology. There are no fixed set of policies. It is about making people believe that a set of elites look down on them. It`s very populist, as you know. And that is what she ultimately tapped into and has been very good ever since then at perpetuating.
HAYES: Yes, I mean, it`s interesting. Because she left politics, right? I mean, she did the reverse Donald Trump, right? So, Trump is a reality star -- he`s a celebrity first, and he sort of is able to convert that into a political campaign. And I think that allowed him to pull this thing off that is very hard to pull off and very hard to replicate actually.
Palin went the opposite way, right? She was sort of became a celebrity through politics. She then monetize that. She left -- I mean, she didn`t even serve her own terms. She left. She made a lot of money in a reality show. She was, you know, sort of became this kind of celebrity figure. Now, she wants to go back into politics.
And I think it`s interesting when you compare to Gaetz, Boebert, Cawthorn, Marjory Taylor Greene, right, these are people who are getting elected in super, super safe seats, in you know, deep red seats, where they win a primary and then they romp. A lot -- it`s a lot more complicated. It`s a statewide election. It`s got a very complicated system. It`s an interesting test case of how feasible this model is statewide.
PETERS: Well, it`s also an incredibly important seat. Like, one of the things that probably most people don`t appreciate is that this is a lone congressional seat in the entire state. There are only a handful of states in the country that have one congressional representative. That seat is more powerful than the senator`s.
So, more powerful than Lisa Murkowski, more powerful than Dan Sullivan. Like, that`s a big deal. So, I think there are going to be a lot of guns out for her there that she`s going to have to look out. You know, I don`t know what ultimately ends up happening in this race, but she has come to this moment understanding what Trump ism is in a lot of ways better than Donald Trump did. Let`s not forget that Trump sought her out in 2007 --
HAYES: And he got an endorsement early.
PETERS: -- because he knew how powerful and how popular she was. And that`s where we are right now. It`s come full circle, Chris.
HAYES: All right, Jeremy Peters, thank you very much.
That is ALL IN on this Monday night. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" with Ali Velshi starts right now. Good evening, Ali.