Summary
The January 6 Committee has issued subpoenas for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and four other GOP congressmen. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is caught trying to dilute the power of hundreds of thousands of Black voters in his state. With abortion rights at the very top of voters` minds, Speaker Pelosi is doubling down on reelecting a Democrat who opposes abortion rights. Chris Hayes discusses what he learned from his COVID experience after being gone for a few days.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: And that denial continues even now. And so, we end tonight by taking a moment to honor these one million lives lost, people who mattered to their loved ones into their country. A tragic toll we cannot repeat and should never, ever forget. And that is tonight`s "REIDOUT."
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voiceover): Tonight on ALL IN.
JOHN ROBERTS, ANCHOR, FOX NEWS: This is highly unusual to issue a subpoena to a sitting member of the House. What do you say?
HAYES: Subpoenas for five sitting members of Congress, including the leader of the Republicans.
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): I think that he has important information that needs to be part of any investigation.
HAYES: Tonight, what this escalation means for the investigation as the hearings approach and what the committee now wants to know from Jordan, Perry, Biggs, Brooks, and McCarthy.
REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): We have information from other sources that lead us to believe that each one of these individuals who are our colleagues have information the committee needs to tell the full story.
HAYES: Plus, Mark Elias on his court victory to block Florida`s racially gerrymandered congressional map. And what I learned from my bout with Coronavirus that could end up helping you when ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Today, the bipartisan committee investigating January 6 took the seismic step of subpoenaing the most powerful Republican the House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California. That of course, is the guy who is poised to become Speaker of the House should Republicans win the house in the Midterm Elections.
They also issued subpoenas for four of his colleagues and in fact, their colleagues, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. The latter four, in particular, are largely believed to have been key players in the ex-president`s plot to overturn the 2020 election.
In case it`s not clear, this is obviously a really, really big deal. We sort of dug back through the history here. As far as we can tell, this appears to be the first time a member serving in Congress has been subpoenaed by Congress, outside of an ethics investigation, let alone the man gearing up to be speaker. And for months and months, House Democrats have been trying everything to avoid getting too precise at this point which is why it`s worth looking back at just how we got here.
In the days after the insurrection, it really seemed like Kevin McCarthy understood the gravity of the situation. It`s apparent in the since leaked phone calls with his fellow Republicans from the days following the attack when McCarthy privately told allies he was thinking of asking Trump to resign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: And you asked if, you know, what happens if it gets there after he`s gone? Is there any chance? Are you hearing that he might resign? Is there any reason to think that might happen?
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): I`ve had few discussions. My gut tells me no. I`m seriously thinking of having that conversation with him tonight. I haven`t talked to him in a couple of days.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: McCarthy appeared to take the attack so seriously that he actually deputized his own ally, a member of the Republican House leadership, Congressman John Katko of New York to negotiate with Democrats on an official bipartisan 911 style commission. And the idea is that the two parties would come together, and they would create a serious 50-50 commission where neither side had a partisan advantage.
And after months of painstaking negotiations, we covered them closely on the show, Katko reached a deal with the Democrats. But during those months in negotiations, McCarthy`s political calculations changed. It became clear that Trump had a firm grip on the party. So, McCarthy encouraged his own caucus to vote against the commission that he had essentially greenlit and left Congressman Katco to fend for himself, standing alone, while he tried to fact check his own party on the commission.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN KATKO (R-NY): Now, another charge I heard was that a commission could be controlled by partisan staff hired unilaterally by the Commission chair. That is simply not true. There has been some concerns or arguments made about the criminal investigations. Make no mistake about it. This commission has nothing to do with the criminal investigations. This commission, by law cannot interfere with criminal investigations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It`s always going so strange about watching a Republican be like wait, my colleagues are lying about something? But no, no, no, that`s a lie. Now, Kevin McCarthy made a calculated decision. It`s clear to everyone, right? The facts of January 6, the (INAUDIBLE), the aftermath of the election, the insurrection, there were always going to be terrible for Republicans for Donald Trump. So bad, in fact that his only hope was to try to turn the investigation itself into something illegitimate and partisan.
Katko`s compromised did end up passing the House. It actually got 35 Republicans on board which again not that many but more than would vote for it today, that`s for sure. But then the commission died in the Senate after Mitch McConnell came out against it, whip votes against it, and Republicans filibuster.
[20:05:16]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): After careful consideration, I`ve made the decision to oppose the House Democrats slanted and unbalanced proposal for another commission to study the events of January 6. As everybody surely knows, I repeatedly made my views about the events of January 6 very clear. I spoke clearly and left no doubt about my conclusions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Oh, well, Mitch, you know, if you`re done with it, then I guess everyone should move on. By the way, the unbalanced line is just literally unsure, like mathematically it was balanced. That was the whole point. So, Democrats were not willing to let an investigation of the attack go. So, then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi established using her power as Speaker of the House, a select committee to look into the insurrection to investigate it.
Now, that was less formal, the proposed commission, which would have involved both chambers of Congress. McCarthy, who was taking orders from Trump, decided to sabotage it. He then tried to appoint Jim Jordan to the committee, who of course, is now being subpoenaed for his very role in plotting the coup itself.
We know that Jordan spoke to Trump on January 6 multiple times. The committee he tried to join now says he is a material witness in the investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: Congressman Jordan may well be a material witness. He is somebody who was involved in a number of meetings in the lead up to what happened on January 6, involved in planning for January 6, certainly for the objections that day as he said publicly. So, he may well be a material witness.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So, obviously, it would be preposterous to put a member on a committee investigating an event that they were part of, right? Like, a juror who is involved in the crime setting the jury box doesn`t work. So, Pelosi vetoed his appointment, as well as Congressman Jim banks of Indiana who had spread Trump`s big live stolen election. In return, McCarthy took his ball and went home, pulled all of his Republican appointees off the committee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCARTHY: Speaker Pelosi has taken the unprecedented step of denying the minority parties picks for the select committee on January 6. This represents something that has not happened in the house before for a select committee by the historian. It`s an egregious abuse of power. Pelosi has broken this institution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: I mean, if we`re talking about precedent, no one had ever tried to appoint an alleged coup plotter to a committee to investigate the coup. It`s an interesting choice of words for McCarthy, considering the insurrection is of course, literally broke the institution, smashed it to pieces.
But of course, this was the party line now, right? The committee is a sham, its findings are illegitimate, we can safely sort of put it off in this other corner of the world. You there Republican voter don`t have to worry you`re pretty head about it. Of course, Pelosi did appoint two Republicans to the committee, so it`s bipartisan., Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
Both immediately became pariahs in their own party. Cheney, once the third most powerful Republican in the House, was on the phone with McCarthy when he contemplating asking Trump to resign, lost her position and party leadership. The Republican National Committee even censured Cheney and Kinzinger for "participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse. The kind of political discourse where you take a weapon to a cop said and bang it repeatedly.
Now, to their credit, seriously, to their credit, Cheney and Kinzinger, whose politics I do not like at all, were not deterred. And the bipartisan committee has remained determined, united and its purpose. It`s been plugging away for nearly a year now in the face of Republicans stonewalling, stonewalling from Trump`s allies, evasions.
We have this situation now where less than a month before the committee is set to go public with hearings, there`s one last step in its investigation. And that`s to find out what their colleagues knew, and their colleagues won`t tell them. And so, they are going to do the unprecedented thing to issue subpoenas to the Republican obstructionist, including with Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House, the man who helped block the initial commission in the first place.
Congressman Eric Swalwell is a Democrat in California. He`s a member of the House Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee, and he joins me now. Congressman, I don`t think anyone would deny this is a very big a significant step. What is your reaction to it?
REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Shouldn`t their oath have been enough, Chris? Every citizen`s responsibility when they witness a crime is to cooperate with authorities. This is the greatest crime against the Constitution we`ve ever seen, the most amount of arrests ever for a single a single act. And these individuals have information.
And so, shouldn`t their oath to the office that they serve when they raise their right hand and we`re sworn in on January 3 just three days before the insurrection, shouldn`t that have been enough? And it clearly wasn`t. They were asked to come in voluntarily, they refuse to do so.
And drastic times call for drastic measures. This was a day that we nearly lost our democracy, our freedom, our right to vote and have that vote means something. And if they don`t want to cooperate, then we`re going to have to press them with legal subpoena.
[20:10:20]
HAYES: Yes, I mean, there`s always the don`t make a threat you can`t back up question too, right? So, now there`s legal subpoenas issued, you know, if those subpoenas are safely ignored, as appears to have happened with say, Mark Meadows, right, who was subpoenaed, was cooperating, stopped cooperating, was criminally referred to Department of Justice, nothing has been forthcoming. We don`t know why that is, but it hasn`t happened. Do you vitiate the power of the House to enforce its subpoenas if that`s the situation you end up in here?
SWALWELL: Well, Chris, again, if they`re not going to honor the subpoena, then I think the committee has already shown that they`re willing to keep pressing forward. So, that could mean yes, a civil case. You know, go up the courts of the civil case, or it could mean a criminal referral. It could also mean a referral to the Ethics Committee. I think they have a number of options.
But most importantly, if they don`t honor it, it means that they have something to hide. It`s an inference of guilt. And in a civil case, it would be -- it would be used against them that the only reason that they`re not coming forward, because an innocent person would, is because they have information that they want to conceal.
HAYES: There`s also this question, right, about the shoe being on the other foot. And this has always been sort of hanging over all this, right? The idea is that what binds the decisions the majority makes is the fact that it knows it won`t always be in the majority. We`ve seen Congress in the House move back and forth several times in the last 15, 20 years.
And there`s this threat that keeps happening despite the fact that I think there`s a real asymmetrical situation where you have like active insurrectionist in one party and not on the other, that punishment of their more aberrant members is going to be revisited upon the Democrats if, you know, the table is turned.
This is McCarthy threatening to strip you of your committee assignments back when the House voted to strip the committee assignments from Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar. McCarthy replied when asked -- yes, McCarthy replied when asked. That meant he will use standard Democrats have created by stripping Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar of their committee assignments to remove Swalwell from Intelligence and Homeland Security Committees.
How do you think about the sort of threat of it`s going to be even worse when we have the majority?
SWALWELL: Yes, they`re going to do that anyway. And I told January 6 Committee members before this decision was made was that I hope you don`t believe you`re protecting me or Mr. Schiff or Miss Omar by not doing the right thing here because you don`t want them to do that to me or anyone else in the future. They`re going to do that, anyway. And I go into that with eyes wide open.
But if the shoe were on the other foot and Republicans were in power, we`re already out of balance as a country. We are already in a position now where they would not allow another peaceful transition of power. They`re trying to write the laws in a way that they would never have to give up power and they may not certify Donald Trump`s -- they may not -- they may decertify the next time Donald Trump wins and have the votes to do it. And that really concerns me more than what retaliatory measures they would take against me or any of my colleagues.
HAYES: What do you think the goal -- you`re not on the committee, so you`re sort of one foot in, one foot out. But what should the ultimate goal here be in this next month as we approach the public hearings?
SWALWELL: To tell the story of what happened with witnesses who can animate that for the public as to how close we came to losing our democracy, who was responsible? Kevin McCarthy said that Donald Trump admitted responsibility to him. That`s why Kevin McCarthy is such an important witness.
So, who was responsible? What actions that Donald Trump take leading up to this? What did he know about violence that was going to occur? What actions did he not take that could have protected this from happening and could have protected the lives that were injured that day? And then what is the plan, knowing that Republicans are more comfortable with violence in voting going forward to make sure that a day like this never happens again?
HAYES: All right, Congressman Eric Swalwell, great to have you on. Thank you very much.
SWALWELL: My pleasure. Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: When we come back, at least five Republican members of Congress are attempting to hide what they know about the Trump coup. Next, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner and what we already know about their conduct and what these subpoenas mean for getting them to talk.
[20:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MO BROOKS (R-AL): Today is the day American patriot start taking down names and kicking ass. Now, our ancestors sacrifice their blood, their sweat, their tears, their fortunes, and sometimes their lives to give us their descendants an America that is the greatest nation in world history. So, I have a question for you. Are you willing to do that same?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That was Alabama Republican Congressman Mo Brooks at Donald Trump`s Ellipse rally on January 6 2021. And there`s no confusion given that tape which we all saw as to why the committee investigating insurrection would want to speak with him. But on that list of House Republicans subpoena today is at least one somewhat obscure name. That`s Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
Now, he is one of the central figures in Trump`s plot to stay in power. Perry features quite prominently in the Senate Judiciary Committee report on the efforts to overturn the election. Beyond amplifying Trump`s false election fraud claims and working to prevent his own constituents votes from being certified, "Perry acknowledged introducing Jeffrey Clark to Trump."
[20:20:18]
Now, Clark is a key figure. Remember, he was in the Department of Justice. He was the official who essentially tried to like pull off a coup at the Department of Justice where he would strong arm the Acting Attorney General into leaving or at least stealing the election by sending out these official letters to the Department of Justice, saying, "Georgia and several other states that it was investigating voting regularities and recommend that each state legislature call a special session to consider appointing an alternate slate of electors." Luckily, those letters never got sent.
Glenn Kirchner is a former federal prosecutor who spent 30 years in the Washington D.C. U.S. Attorney`s Office, and he joins me now. I guess we should just start, Glenn, with this fact which I think we can skip ahead to kind of the obstruction is that a subpoena is a serious thing in any context. When you get a subpoena, you don`t just like throw it in the garbage. And that`s the starting point for how to think about what happened today.
GLENN KIRCHNER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: You know, subpoenas are supposed to be taken seriously. They`re not party invitations, Chris. And we can have the usual conversation about OK, what are the enforcement mechanisms now in the event these five members of Congress defy these subpoenas.
And we`ve been through this so many times. It could either be that they are voted in contempt and referred for criminal prosecution to the Department of Justice. But DOJ`s batting average is not very good at the moment. They`re only one for four when it comes to indicting folks who have been referred for prosecution.
Only Steve Bannon has been indicted. We`re still awaiting Mark Meadows, Peter Navarro, Dan Scavino. You then of course, have inherent contempt of Congress which is a long-dormant weapon in Congress`s enforcement arsenal. You know, will they pull out their weapon of inherent contempt and use it against some of their own members if they defy subpoenas? That would kind of be like just desserts.
And then of course, you`ve got civil enforcement, which can be a long, unwieldy process in the civil courts. So, you know, yes, they should be taken seriously. We have all the usual enforcement mechanisms, but it remains to be seen, you know, what will they do? Will they comply, or will they defy?
HAYES: So, let`s start with Brooks, just because Brooks is so obvious. I mean, one of the things -- in the -- in the world of executive privilege, right, there`s an idea of waiving it if you talk about the thing at issue. And there`s a little bit, it seems to me, a kind of parallel here, which is a Brooks has been going around blabbing because, you know, Trump decided to unendorse him because he`s doing poorly in his primary. And he`s going around telling everyone who will listen that Trump still wants to overturn the election. And at that point, you think like, well, you seem to want to talk. Like, you should just talk.
KIRCHNER: Yes. And, you know, the view that I have about why they chose these five members of Congress because they could have chosen others. We`ve heard about these, supposed reconnaissance tours given to insurrectionists. We saw, you know, Josh Hawley. He have the support for the insurrection. But they didn`t subpoena those folks. Instead, they subpoenaed these five.
I can only assume it`s because each one of these five brings something to the table about Donald Trump`s conduct and misconduct, not just their own. You just played Mo Brooks, inciting, you know, violence, quite frankly, expressly. But I think the other thing at risk right now, Chris, is that the legal landscape has shifted not so subtly in recent weeks.
Because a federal judge in California did announce in his finding that after litigating the John Eastman email issue, that there was evidence by a preponderance of the evidence, 51 percent, that Donald Trump and John Eastman committed two felony crimes together. So, now, I suggest that ups the ante on the McCarthy`s of the world if they decide right to refuse to testify against Donald Trump, when a federal judge has already announced by a preponderance there`s evidence that he committed crimes.
That actually constitutes two federal felonies in and of itself if you refuse to come forward and talk about the crimes that have been committed against the United States. Accessory after the fact, and misprision of a felony, which we haven`t talked about a lot. But that now comes directly into play, because a crime has been committed that is cognizable by a court of the United States. And you conceal it, which is what McCarthy and the others wouldn`t be doing if they refuse to testify, you`ve committed a three year federal felony misprision.
HAYES: We`ve also got evidence in some of the letters of just the degree of plotting that was happening, particularly this one sort of thread here with Scott Perry about the attempt to get pardons, which I think is also interesting because it sort of reflects a little bit of consciousness of guilt in the aftermath of this. This is reading from the committee`s letter to Representative Andy Biggs -- I`m sorry, not Scott Perry. This is Andy Biggs. Sorry about that.
That recent information from former White House personnel is identified an effort by certain House Republicans after January 6 to seek a presidential pardon for activities taken in connection with President Trump`s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Your name was identified as a potential participant in that effort.
We don`t know that much about it. We`ve only sort of seen this a little bit obscured through reporting. But the seeking of Pardons strikes me as quite significant in terms of what it shows about their consciousness of the gravity of what they had possibly participated in.
KIRCHNER: Yes, exactly. You don`t need a pardon for a peaceful protest or a normal tourist visit. You need a pardon for a crime. And of course, granting a pardon is some indication a crime has been committed and the Supreme Court has said, receiving or accepting one is some admission of guilt.
And you know, when you boil it all down, you`ve got even the Trump children testified before the J6 Committee and members of Congress are not going to testify in what is virtually their own living room? I mean, that tells us that they are really wanting to cover something up.
HAYES: Yes, that`s a great point. If Don Jr. can Zoom in and, you know, talk at his very rapid clip. Certainly, members of Congress can do the same. Glenn Kirchner, thank you very much.
Coming up, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is caught trying to dilute the power of hundreds of thousands of Black voters in his state. Marc Elias on the big redistricting win in court in Florida right after this.
[20:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Members we are back in session. As is obvious, we have members who decided they wanted to hijack our process today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So, that was a scene in Tallahassee, Florida last month, a Democratic revolt as the Florida Legislature ram through a new congressional map drawn up by Governor Ron DeSantis. And the complaint was that the DeSantis map reduce representation for Black Floridians by eliminating one congressional district represented by a Black Democrat and shrinking another.
Democrats took their case to court. And yesterday, a DeSantis appointed judge agreed, finding the map would, "reduce the impact of 370,000 Black voters in eight mostly rural counties," saying, "it diminishes African- Americans` ability to elect the representative of their choice."
And so as of today, the DeSantis map is blocked. And the question becomes what happens now. Marc Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket helped fight on behalf of Florida voters in that case, he has been in court pushing for fair elections across the country. And he joins me now.
Marc, tell me what the Florida Map proposal was, why the lawsuit happened, and what the state court found.
MARC ELIAS, FOUNDER, DEMOCRACY DOCKET: Yes. So, Chris, thanks for having me. It was actually more outrageous than you would even think because the Florida Constitution prohibits drawing maps that diminish the rights of minority voters. And the Florida Legislature knew this. The Republicans in the State House and the Republicans in the state senate actually did an analysis that said, the DeSantis map will diminish the ability of Black -- of minority voters.
And that`s why they originally passed a different map. They opposed the DeSantis map. It is only after DeSantis vetoed that and said it`s my map or no map that you saw the spineless, gutless Republican leadership in the statehouse and the state senate say, OK, we`ll go with your map.
HAYES: Right. So, they draw -- they draw essentially a constitutionally compliant map that doesn`t take away this one Black -- majority Black seat, right? And that`s when we`re talking about sort of selecting the representatives. That the language the Voting Rights Act. It`s been integrated into state constitutions as well, as they think about making sure that, you know, African Americans can elect representatives who are Black in majority and minority districts.
So, then DeSantis said no, you have to do this map that knocks out a Black representative from the congressional delegation because it advantages Republicans nationally more. What was the -- what was the mechanism of it? This is a state court finding, right? So, what happens now?
ELIAS: So, what happens now is, as you said, the trial judge, held a hearing and found that the map, violate state constitution and order to implement the map that our expert, Harvard Professor Steven (INAUDIBLE) had drawn that would preserve CD5 as it was.
The state has indicated that they are going to appeal. So, this will now will go up to the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court of Florida where look, they have a very simple choice. They are either going to strike this map down because it is clearly violative of the state constitution, or they`re going to ignore the state constitution.
I mean, the fact that the trial judge, as people have pointed out, including yourself, was appointed by Governor DeSantis, you know, is interesting, but he was applying the law as the state constitution as it clearly is spelled out in the state constitution.
HAYES: Well, also in a lot of this litigation, we`ve seen that the court striking down a map can be just the beginning of the story. In Ohio, of course, similar situation, although they`re not a racial gerrymander so much as a partisan one. But that violated a state, I think, either statute or constitutional provision that says -- that bans partisan gerrymandering.
The court -- the state court said no, this map doesn`t work. Ohio Republicans basically barely tweaked it and they basically are trying to ram it through now. They`re reapproved the map previously rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court. The map is the same one a federal court has said it will impose if the state redistricting standoff isn`t resolved by May 28. It seems like their defiance of the state court in Ohio is basically going to let them win that standoff.
[20:35:23]
ELIAS: Well, we`ll see. I mean, as you point out, they are in defiance of court order of the state Supreme Court. And we will see whether or not that court takes action on the motions to hold the state officials in contempt or not, because it`s really outrageous.
I mean, what`s happened in Ohio is the State Supreme Court struck down the map. The state Republicans are simply ignoring that by acting in bad faith and passing and repassing maps that the state Supreme Court has made clear are unconstitutional in hope to run out the clock. But we`ll wait and see. The court -- the State Supreme Court will have the last word on that.
HAYES: So, in the case of Florida, you`ve got the timeline here. I mean, this will get appealed. Again, it seems pretty crystal clear, right? Like if you take a majority, minority district of an African-American -- predominantly African-American district away in a state that has not seen a significant decline in that population, like, you`ve clearly done something that pretty violative of the basic thrust of what we have post-Voting Rights Act, you know, standards for how -- for how to redistrict.
I guess the question is, how much faith do you have in the state court in Florida to do the right thing here, given that the trial judge was also DeSantis appointed?
ELIAS: Yes, so look. What the Florida constitution says is that you cannot reduce minority voting opportunities to elect. There`s no dispute on the facts. There was a district that minority voters could elect their candidate of choice in the Fifth Congressional District. That district has now by anyone`s analysis been taken away. That will no longer be a district where minorities can elect their candidate of choice.
The Democrats agree on that. The Republican legislature agrees on that. I don`t even think Ron DeSantis disagrees on that.
HAYES: Right.
ELIAS: So, the law clearly requires for that map to be struck down. Now, this will now go up to the Court of Appeals or directly to the state Supreme Court. And those courts will face the same choice with the trial court. Do you abide by the Florida constitution or do you ignore it?
And, you know, I oftentimes say to you and to others that democracy is on the docket, because we are ultimately left with the courts as the last bastion to preserve rights in a country where Republicans have become increasingly lawless.
HAYES: All right, Marc Elias who`s working on this and other cases, thanks very much. I appreciate it.
ELIAS: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: Next, Democrats already facing an uphill battle in the Midterms. And with abortion rights at the very top of voters minds, why is the Speaker of the House doubling down on reelecting a Democrat who opposes abortion rights? That race after this.
[20:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Today, one day after Democrats lost a major vote to codify Roe versus Wade at the national level, with the majority on the Supreme Court apparently poised to overturn that landmark ruling, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is once again reiterating her support for the lone member of the House Democratic Caucus who opposes abortion rights. Congressman Henry Cuellar representing the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, has a Democratic primary challenger named Jessica Cisneros. And Pelosi is on team Cuellar.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I`m supporting Henry Cuellar. He`s a valued member of our caucus. He has not pro-choice, but we did need him. We passed the bill with what we had. And by the way, this is one of the first congresses that we have had with a Democratic president with a pro-choice Congress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now I have to say, there is a little bit of tension between the message elect more pro-choice Democrats to prevent overturning Roe v. Wade. And also, don`t worry about this anti-choice Democrat, we have enough votes in the House. And yet the entirety of House leadership is giving money to or actively campaigning for this longtime incumbent Democrat to fend off a progressive challenger, who I should add, is pro-choice.
Abby Livingston is the DC Bureau Chief for the Texas Tribune and she joins me now. Abby, this was sort of a little under the radar I think in national politics. I`ve been paying attention to it. But now, the Roe v Wade leak of the Dobbs decision really puts a spotlight on this. And Cuellar is the lone remaining member and he`s bringing up the big guns of all leadership is down there helping him out.
ABBY LIVINGSTON, D.C. BUREAU CHIEF, THE TEXAS TRIBUNE: Absolutely. This could not have happened at a worse time for Congressman Cuellar. That said, I`m not surprised Pelosi is standing by him. She stands behind her members for a very long time. It usually has to become like a criminal situation which this is involved in. The FBI has become involved in the context of this race, but he has -- his attorney has told me and other reporters that he`s been informed by the FBI, he`s not a target.
Pelosi cares about one thing, power. That`s the name of her memoir, Know Your Power. She wants that gavel. And in the past, she and other Democratic leaders have recruited pro-life candidates and they haven`t come -- and he was one of the few incumbents left who is pro-life.
HAYES: Right. But I mean, let`s talk about the power questions. The FBI raided quasars apartment or his house, right? Now, again, this seems like a not great thing to have hanging over a candidate, so even if you take away -- take away abortion, you`re just thinking like, well, who do we want to come out of this primary?
Cuellar`s representatives have said like he`s not a target, but that seems like not the thickest assurance. Do we know anything about what the deal was with the FBI raid of the incumbent Congressman`s house?
[20:45:30]
LIVINGSTON: I have never worked the phones harder on a story and I have nothing on this. It was this is the strangest race I`ve ever covered. And I`ve covered hundreds of congressional races. And that happened in January. And that, again, was at a really bad time. And there are serious questions in the legal community over the propriety of the Justice Department doing it at that time. The name James Comey has come up in this context.
And so it is strange, but it had kind of died down. And so -- and then the Roe v. Wade thing blew up. And so, this is an incredibly hard race for Henry Cuellar to win. I wouldn`t count him out. He`s a very good politician, but it is -- he`s had the kitchen sink thrown at him by the gods.
HAYES: Yes, we should -- Jessica Cisneros, his challenger, it`s the second time I think she`s challenging him. She`s young, progressive lawyer. She was on the "MEET THE PRESS," and she was describing the fact that it`s not just on abortion, right? I mean, he is a sort of Mansion-esque figure in the house caucus, I think it`s fair to say, to the right, the furthest right of the caucus on everything. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JESSICA CISNEROS (D-TX), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: The last thing we want is to hold on to a slim Democratic majority and then have someone like Henry Cuellar who`s going to keep siding with Republicans, not just on this issue, but he`s done it on things like the Pro Act. He`s voted to, you know, fund the border wall. I mean, has an A rating from the NRA.
There`s so many key issues where he`s always siding with Republicans. And he could become the Joe Manchin of the House. We don`t want Henry Cuellar to be the deciding vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, the question, right, of course, is it`s hard to imagine a Democrat other than Joe Manchin winning West Virginia. What is the district, the new line of the district in the Rio Grande Valley look like in terms of how swinging it is?
LIVINGSTON: It`s pretty swinging. I was around some Democratic operatives last night. And that`s the first question they asked me is what I thought. This is could be a tough race no matter who wins it. David Wasserman of The Cook Political Report has pointed to Cuellar as the more electable one in the fall.
That`s an open discussion. I`ve talked to Jessica Cisneros and (AUDIO GAP). So, I think it`s very much up in the air and very unsteady going forward in South Texas.
HAYES: Yes. I would -- I would say like the lack of clarity of why the guy`s house was raided by the FBI does really cast a pall over the whole thing that. Like, if I were just backing a horse want to hedge a little bit, but hey, that`s just me. Abby Livingston, thank you so much for your time.
LIVINGSTON: Thank you for having me.
HAYES: You may or may not have noticed, but I`ve been out for a few days. A huge thanks to Ayman Mohyeldin and Alicia Menendez for stepping in to host the show because last week, after successfully dodging it for two plus years, I did test positive for COVID. I`m thankfully feeling, I think sounding much better now.
But there`s something I learned while I was sick I think everyone should know about. So, stay right there. We`re going to talk about it next.
[20:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: In 1991, legendary basketball star Hall of Famer Magic Johnson was going to die, or at least that`s what everyone thought. On November 7 of that year, Magic announced that he had contracted HIV. It was an awful, tragic, painful revelation that stun the world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM BROKAW, FORMER NIGHTLY NEWS ANCHOR: Good evening. The news is so shocking and so unexpected. It is difficult to absorb it even as we report it. Magic Johnson has tested positive for the HIV virus. That`s the first step to AIDS. Magic Johnson, a basketball superstar is so beloved, so well known. His first name was all he needed well beyond the world of sports. Tonight, Magic announced that he is retiring from basketball because of his condition.
MAGIC JOHNSON, FORMER NBA PLAYER: Because of the HIV virus that I have attained, I will have to retire from the Lakers today. I think sometimes we think well, only gay people can get it, only -- it was not going to happen to me. And here I am saying that it can happen to anybody, even me Magic Johnson, it can happen to you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: All around the country, people were scared and upset. It was all everyone talked about the next day. Nightly News highlighted an AIDS hotline that was inundated with worried calls.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At aids hotlines in Los Angeles and elsewhere, the phones were ringing off the hook. People asking all sorts of questions about the disease.
RANDI SWINDELL, AIDS HOTLINE VOLUNTEER: People are frightened. People who previously thought they were not vulnerable to this realize that they are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, at the time, contracting HIV was essentially a death sentence. There were some drugs available that could sometimes delay the progression of the disease, but there was no cure. And that was a reality that Magic Johnson faced in 1991. And he did return to the court playing at the 1992 Olympics and in 1985. He played one more season for the Lakers. He went on to tour with the All-Star team. He of course became an entrepreneur, launched a successful media career.
And along the way, Magic Johnson went from being a man facing certain death with a world was preemptively warning to just a normal guy, albeit a very, very wealthy and famous one because thanks to a lot of research and the development of new drugs, HIV became something you could live with.
We have not eradicated HIV and AIDS. We have converted it from a death sentence to a manageable virus. With the minification is now available, people who contract HIV can live full regular lives. And Magic Johnson was one of the first, maybe the first highly visible people who demonstrated that to the world.
Now, more than two years into the COVID pandemic, after a million deaths just here in the U.S., millions more around the world, I`ve been thinking about that example because I think it`s a way to start to see a world where we can live with this virus too.
Now, as you probably noticed, I`ve been out for a few days. I had COVID, which is not a certain death sentence by any means, obviously. I`m vaccinated and boosted. The first 36 hours or so, I was pretty knocked out. I felt like having the flu. But then my doctor prescribed me the antiviral drug you may have heard about called Paxlovid. And I got to say, my symptoms rapidly improved.
Now, when Paxlovid first became available at the end of last year, there`s very limited supply and the drug was reserved for patients at high risk which made complete sense for rationing a scarce resource. But as with the vaccines, the problem right now in this country isn`t supply, its demand. Paxlovid is wildly underutilized and is just sitting on shelves.
Now, we should say there are limitations. It`s authorized under emergency use authorization. It has to be taken within five days at the onset of symptoms in order to be effective. So, you got to get it just about as soon as you test positive. There have also been somewhat worrying recent cases of patients relapsing after completing their five day course, which obviously needs to be studied further.
Right now, doctors are still limited by the FDA regulations. The agency authorized Paxlovid for people at high risk due to certain health conditions, like heart disease, and obesity, although the list is quite long and largely covers a really big chunk of the population.
But the fact that there are millions of doses of this drug just sitting unused is kind of insane to me. I mean, this was the therapeutic that we`re kind of waiting for, at least the first generation of something really does work, a drug that when taken right away, can really minimize the symptoms of this virus.
And I can tell you, I took it, it made a huge difference for me. It shows a lot of promise as a way to dramatically reduce the danger and disruption of a virus that it seems is just going to keep circulating forever.
A new poll shows that less than a third of Americans are worried about getting COVID while cases are once again rising around the country. People are over it and I get that. Almost no one wants to talk about COVID anymore, certainly not politicians. Basically, no one wants to like close down bars, and things like mask requirements are either struck down by courts or just dropped.
But the virus is not gone and we have basically abandoned any and all public health measures, non-pharmaceutical interventions to stop it from circulating. Now, the good news is that we now live in a world in which the overwhelming majority of folks can at least theoretically, be vaccinated and boosted. And everyone who comes down with COVID, again, could theoretically get this antiviral drug right away, feel much better, much faster, dramatically reduce risk.
If this were the reality, near 100 percent boosting rate, and universal automatic access to antiviral therapeutics, it would massively improve the situation for all of us. And again, it`s not unlike what happened with HIV. But for years, a cure seemed practically impossible. But slowly, with a lot of very hard work, we develop therapeutics that have made it completely manageable.
If treated properly, patients can be asymptomatic. And there was no like magic cure announced from one day to the next. It wasn`t Jonas Salk with polio. But even as the drugs were developed, there was also a multi decade fight to get those drugs to be made cheaply enough to be accessible to the world`s poorest people.
But today, we even have a highly effective medicine to prevent people from getting HIV in the first place. There are commercials for it all over TV. It`s as commonplace and as accessible as statins to lower your cholesterol.
Effective COVID treatments like Paxlovid at least now appears to be should be the same, right? I mean, the early days of HIV and AIDS, it was all focused on non-pharmaceutical interventions, safe sex to stop the transmission. We then develop tools to deal with it in a medical and pharmaceutical sense, right? So, we`ve got COVID now. We should be continuing efforts to develop more treatments and even better vaccines, and to keep educating the public about the importance of boosters and vaccination and the availability of Paxlovid.
But that`s not what we`re doing. Instead, Congress just put COVID funding on the backburner cutting it out of the package with funding for Ukraine. In Missouri, the legislature there recently passed a bill, and I`m not making this up, a bill making it illegal for pharmacists to tell patients that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are not effective treatments for COVID even though that has been shown by multiple studies.
So, if we`re going to let COVID circulate relatively unchecked, which appears to be the current policy consensus, well, then for the love of God, we need to do everything we can to use the tools that we have, which we have, we have developed, to reduce the risk and disruption it poses. That means really putting our back into the effort to develop the next generation of vaccines and drugs and getting once we have like Paxlovid to everyone who needs and wants it.
It is an abomination if Congress, particularly the Republicans in Congress who are balking at this, walk away from that basic duty.
That is ALL IN on this Thursday night. "MSNBC PRIME" starts now with Ali Velshi. Good evening, Ali.