Summary
We`re just 11 hours away from polls opening in tomorrow`s crucial primary election in Georgia for Governor and for Secretary of State. Former Vice President Mike Pence is in Georgia tonight campaigning for Trump- endorsed David Perdue`s opponent, incumbent Brian Kemp. Trump Lawyer Rudy Giuliani reportedly met with the January 6 Committee for nine hours on Friday. There`s news tonight that the January 6 Committee will only hold six public hearings next month.
Transcript
JASON JOHNSON, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: We`re going to end up losing a great member of Congress no matter what who ends up winning.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Yes, no matter what happened. That is such a shame. They are two solid candidates, and one of them is going to be no longer in Congress. Jason Johnson, Greg Bluestein, great conversation. Thank you very much.
And that`s it. That`s tonight`s "REIDOUT." Thank you all for joining us from beautiful Atlanta. And ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voiceover): Tonight on ALL IN.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Brian Kemp is it turncoat, is a coward, and is a complete and total disaster.
HAYES: As Republicans prepare to go to the polls in Georgia, it`s Trump versus Pence. The former president backing one candidate for governor, the former vice president backing another. Tonight, why the future of democracy in Georgia is on the ballot. And why for Trump it`s personal.
TRUMP: I just want to find 11,780 votes.
HAYES: Then, the impact of the threat to abortion as Texans head to the polls. And news tonight the January 6 Committee will only hold six public hearings next month. I`ll ask committee member Jamie Raskin about that when ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. We`re just 11 hours away from polls opening in tomorrow`s crucial primary election in Georgia. In the two marquee races, the Republican primaries for governor and for Secretary of State, two Trump back candidates are essentially running single-issue campaigns on the ex-presidents big lie of a stolen election.
You got former Senator David Perdue, a close Trump ally who lost his Senate seat last year. He`s challenging the incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp. And you`ve got far-right Congressman Jody Hice who`s hoping to oust the current incumbent Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
These races are notable not only as referenda on Trump`s attempted coup, but also to set the groundwork for the next one. Because out of all of Trump`s attempts to overturn the will of the voters and steal the election, it was the state of Georgia where he put his most effort.
Part of that, of course, has to do with how humiliated Trump appears to have felt by his defeat there. Not only because the election was widely seen as repudiation him and his movement, it had been years since a Democrat wanted, but also because he thought Georgia was a red Republican- controlled state. And in Trump`s mind, state Republicans were supposed to help deliver his win.
It all started almost immediately after NBC News declared Biden the winner, the apparent winner of Georgia. It was on November 13, 2020, and Trump`s meltdown began in full. He immediately started making baseless claims of widespread fraud in the state, which he says undermines his lost.
On November 19, the day before Georgia officially certified the election, Trump`s chief of staff Mark Meadows actually reached out to Secretary State Raffensperger presumably to get him to delay that certification, texting him "Mr. Secretary, Mark Meadows here, if you could give me a brief call at your convenience. Thank you." It`s funny he doesn`t put the ask in text. Maybe he sort of knows.
As far as we know, Raffensperger didn`t return the call, and the next day, Georgia certified Biden`s victory as expected. Trump later went on Fox News to publicly lambaste Governor Kemp for not playing along with Trump`s scheme to steal the election.
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TRUMP: They had judges making deals and they had electoral officials making deals like this character in Georgia who is a disaster, and the governor has done nothing. He`s done absolutely nothing. I`m ashamed that I endorsed him.
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HAYES: Now, a few days later, Trump actually called Kemp personally to pressure him into calling a special legislative session where state Republicans in the state legislature could throw out Biden`s victory and instead appoint a slate of pro-Trump electors, which you might remember, was also the basis of Trump lawyer John Eastman`s coup plot.
During this time, Kemp made an effort to publicly defend himself mostly honestly by just throwing the Republican Secretary of State Raffensperger under the bus. Get this. Here`s the statement. He releases it back then reading in part, "Georgia law prohibits the governor from interfering in elections. The Secretary of State, who is an elected constitutional officer, has oversight over elections that cannot be overridden by executive order."
Of course, we already know that Trump was targeting Raffensperger as well. On December 5, the same day that he called Kemp, Mark Meadows tried to get through to the Georgia secretary of state again. Meadows texting him, "Mr. Secretary, can you call a White House switchboard for a call? Your voicemail is full."
The White House put Raffensperger who was clearly ducking their calls on the backburner because they then had a new strategy. The same week Trump made those calls, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani went in person down to Georgia, pushing baseless claims of voter fraud surrounding a nonpartisan election worker named Ruby Freeman, who became the target of a slew of intense false right-wing conspiracies which inaccurately claimed she was stuffing ballot boxes for Biden in the middle of the night.
And even though those accusations were debunked, there was no evidence of fraud, Giuliani went to Georgia and said this before the State Senate.
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RUDY GIULIANI, TRUMP LAWYER: This is a terrible, terrible constitutional crisis we`re in. You don`t have to be a genius to figure out what happened. I don`t have to be a genius to figure out that those votes are not legitimate votes. You don`t put legitimate votes under a table.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
GIULIANI: Wait until you throw the opposition out and in the middle of the night, count them. We would have to be fools to think that. So, no need to push it any further, but there`s more than ample evidence to conclude that this election was a sham.
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HAYES: Again, all that completely bogus, right? There was nothing that Ruby Freeman did that was wrong. They caught her on some tape and made some huge deal about stuffing ballots. She wasn`t, OK. They counted the ballots, they counted them again. But Ruby Freeman`s story sadly does not end there. More on her in a moment. Giuliani`s claims were mostly laughed out at the state. His legal challenges of the election went nowhere, so Trump began working on yet another scheme. Again, all Georgia focused, right?
On December 28, few weeks after those hearings, the then acting-chief of the Department of Justice`s civil division, remember a guy named Jeffrey Clark, he`s plotting to have Trump installed him as the Acting Attorney General so that once in power, he could release a memo using the official letterhead and implied legitimacy of the DOJ to say there were election irregularities in Georgia, as well as other states, and to authorize the legislature to call itself intercession to throw out Biden`s victory.
Had that plan succeeded, it would have caused a full-blown constitutional crisis. I mean, it`s really hard to overstate the damage that would be done to our democracy for the Attorney General of the Department of Justice to falsely claim there was election fraud and say, hey, Georgia, you should know, you guys should call a special election because we just can`t say what happened there. Calling for legislators to go rogue and overturn the election.
Now, thankfully, the folks at the highest level of the Department of Justice understood this, and they threatened mass resignations, Trump and Clark back down. That was another failed plan. The clock was ticking. Trump was running out of time. So, by now, it was January and he finally made it through to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for that now- infamous call where he told Raffensperger to find the votes and griped about Ruby Freeman more than a dozen times.
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TRUMP: So, look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have because we won the state. 18,000 voters having to do with the Ruby Freeman that`s -- she`s a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler, Ruby Freeman.
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HAYES: She`s not those things just to defend Ruby Freeman who is being slimed. Now, to his credit, Raffensperger stood his ground, which is why he now faces the primary challenge tomorrow. Because Trump ally Jody Hice, who`s running against Raffensperger, sure seems like he would have found the votes Trump needed. That`s the implied rationale for his entire candidacy.
But since that plan failed as well, on January 4, just two days before the election was certified in Congress, a woman later identified as a publicist linked to the rapper Kanye West, showed up at election worker Ruby Freeman`s house.
Now keep in mind, Ruby Freeman has like people outside her house. She`s like, being berated on the internet, right? This person knocks at her door and says she`s representing powerful people and then threatened they would come after Freeman if she did not admit to stealing the election for Biden in the next 48 hours.
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TREVIAN KUTTI, PUBLICIST FOR KANYE WEST: We would like to let you know first and foremost we have put in place a way to move you, to securing you from what may be authorized over the next 48 hours. We have probably 48 hours in which to move you. We would do it on your schedule.
I cannot say what specifically will take place. I just know that it will disrupt your freedom and the freedom of one or more of your family members. You are a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up.
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HAYES: You are a lose end for a party that needs to tidy up. Now, again, Ruby Freeman didn`t cave, right? She didn`t sign a false confession. She showed an incredible amount of courage there under truly bizarre circumstances, under pressure from this person who`s representing herself as an emissary for the powerful, right? Ruby Freeman stands her ground. And another attempt by Trump and his allies to steal Georgia failed.
But we`re not done yet because that same day, January 4, U.S. Attorney from Georgia named B.J. Pak resigned. Now, that was weird at the time, we all kind of noted it. Like, that`s strange. That doesn`t usually happen. He later said he quit before he could be fired by Trump for, you guessed it, refusing to support Trump`s claims of election fraud.
It was a multipronged systematic effort. Over weeks and weeks and weeks, Trump tried every link in the chain to see what would break so that he could overturn the results of the free and fair election in that state. None of them worked, which is why he ultimately whipped up his supporters into a violence frenzy where they tried to overturn the election by force.
OK, next time, he`s hoping he doesn`t have to, right? Because his conception was if I have my people in Georgia, they will deliver the state for me. That didn`t happen. But what he wants is that if he doesn`t win outright next time, he wants to cleanly steal it the next time. And so, the first step for him is personnel, right? It`s replacing politicians like Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary State Brad Raffensperger who are political allies or Republicans who simply didn`t go along with the plan.
And on the eve of the primary election tomorrow, where this is the key thing that Trump is focused on, Kemp look safe for now, Raffensperger Secretary of State, the man who runs the elections, we don`t know. That could be a real race.
Amy Gardner is a national political reporter for The Washington Post, has been covering elections, including the runoff for Georgia`s primary tomorrow. Ian Bassin is the Executive Director of Protect Democracy, a nonprofit election administration watchdog, also served as associate White House counsel to President Barack Obama. And they both join me now.
Amy, let me start with you because there`s been so much focus on the Kemp race, understandably. High profile, you know, you`ve got vice president -- former Vice President Pence today stumping for Kemp. There`s been way less attention to me, and in some ways a more significant race, which is the Secretary of State race, precisely because in a gubernatorial race, you know, there`s a whole bunch of policy issues at play, right?
And the Secretary of State race is like, it`s pretty clear that Trump wants Hice to primary Raffensperger because he didn`t steal the election. What is the race look like from the perspective of Republican primary voters? What has been the texture of that race as someone who`s covered?
AMY GARDNER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: So, I agree with you that it`s a more interesting race right now because it does look like Kemp is in very good shape going into tomorrow`s -- into tomorrow`s primary. Whereas rapids Berger and Jody Hice are, according to the most recent polls, neck and neck.
And, you know, that`s actually remarkable given what we all thought a year ago, which was that he was sort of a dead man walking with the Republican electorate after having defied President Trump. But, you know, having spent a week in Georgia a couple of weeks ago interviewing voters and others, I really came away thinking that even people who support Trump and would vote for him again if he was on the ballot in 2024 are tired of the 2020 election grievance narrative and want to move on.
And I think that both Brad Raffensperger and Brian Kemp have capitalized on that fact by focusing on, you know, their conservative credentials, by not necessarily shying away from their decision to defy President Trump, both of them had a role in certifying the election in 2020, but by kind of skipping past it, and also embracing this sort of election integrity plank that has become a necessary element in many states for running for office as a Republican.
And I think we`ve seen that in both of these races. And I think that Brad Raffensperger, for instance, his top campaign issue this year has been making sure that non-citizens don`t vote in Georgia, even though there`s a vanishingly small number of these cases in any event. But that`s the kind of thing that you`ve seen him do to navigate this.
And what I -- what I understand from talking to voters, as made this as closer race as it is, is not that Republican voters don`t believe that there was something fishy about the 2020 election, despite the lack of evidence, is that they`re ready to move on and they want to hear about what folks are proposing about gas prices and inflation and, you know, recovering from COVID, and all of the other issues that Americans are facing right now.
HAYES: Ian, I wonder, you know, you -- your group has been very nonpartisan and has really worked, I think to sort of strengthen and cultivate relationships with people across the political spectrum who do stand for maintaining the fundamentals of American representative government, how you view these primaries, the secretary of state primary, particularly tomorrow? There`s going to be another secretary of state primary in Arizona, where you got the similar sort of issues. The Doug Mastriano candidacy in Pennsylvania where you`ve got people that are, you know, just sort of effectively an explicitly pro coup or pro big lie on the ballot.
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IAN BASSIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PROTECT DEMOCRACY: Yes, I mean, we`ve always known that Trump was symptom not cause of a problem that is roiling our democracy, that`s been roiling democracies around the world where people are unsatisfied with the ways in which democracy. It`s sometimes frustrating. As Churchill said, worst form of government, except for all the others, you know, doesn`t always deliver what people want at all times.
But that has led to Trump unleashing a movement, really Trump has metastatic sized into Trumpist around the country where you have candidates running for office who don`t just have a different policy, they have a different reality. Let`s recall that none other than the one America News Network, right, Trump`s favorite network, reported last week that there was no widespread voter fraud in Georgia in 2020. And yet, you still have these candidates running for offices that oversee elections based on a totally false reality.
As former Senator Moynihan famously said, you`re entitled to your own opinions, you`re not entitled to your own facts. But democracy requires a set of facts, a set of realities that have shared facts. And so, one thing, I think, if you`re watching this at home, and you care about a set of shared facts, you care about reality, you care about our democracy to do is if you`re not engaged yet in making sure that those people oversee our elections and those who are committed to our constitutional representative democratic form of government and our reality, get engaged.
And I`ll just name two places you can do that. Runforsomething.net is recruiting people to run for election offices who are committed to our democratic system and the rule of law. And Dems of state.org is another place where you can get involved in these. And this is going to take people getting involved to make sure we preserve our democratic form of government.
HAYES: Yes. I mean, a lot of the election administration we saw sort of up and down the chain, right, is volunteers, is folks who are doing it for no money or glory, right? They`re just doing this this much needed function often subjected to all kinds of wild slander, like in the case of Ruby Freeman.
In terms of the how the Republican establishment of Georgia has negotiated this, Amy, you mentioned the polling, we got a polling from April 10 to 22nd that has a neck and neck Raffensperger and Hice, but I noticed this in your reporting for The Washington Post that that Hice is not running ads, regularly goes days at a time without campaign appearances, which has given Raffensperger the opportunity to define the four-term congressman in the seven-figure ad campaign airing across the state are remarkable sum for what used to be a sleepy down ballot position. How have the sort of upper echelons of Republican politics position themselves with respect to this race?
GARDNER: Well, I think that one really important point for folks to consider as they watch what happens in Georgia tomorrow night is that these are two incumbents with name recognition and a lot of money. And in Kemp`s case, the backing of the Republican Governors Association and as my colleagues led by Annie Linskey reported this morning, a huge effort to push back on the Trump vengeance tour as they -- as Chris Christie called it.
And that`s a lot of power. And while it does provide a blueprint for Republicans around the country, who are potentially targets in his grievance tour, it`s not necessarily a working strategy for the --
HAYES: Right.
GARDNER: -- hundreds, literally hundreds of offices that are up this year around the country when it`s not an incumbent, when you don`t have name recognition, when you don`t have the ability to raise money. And I think a very open question right now, as we`re roughly halfway through the primary season is what will the ultimate -- what will the sort of final outcome be. And I suspect it`s going to be that the Trump grievance narrative prevails more often than it does not.
HAYES: Yes, that`s well said. And we`re going to look to Arizona where, of course, there will be an open seat in that Secretary of State race. And we`ve already got an attorney in Pennsylvania who was at the Capitol on January 6. Amy Gardner and Ian Bassin, thank you both.
So, as Amy was just saying, it does look right now like Donald Trump`s handpick candidate for Georgia Governor won`t be making a victory speech tomorrow. I mean, who knows? 30 point deficits, pretty tough to climb out of. That blowout alone would be pretty embarrassing for the former president, so it probably doesn`t help that is old VP Mike Pence is in Georgia tonight campaigning for Perdue`s opponent, incumbent Brian Kemp. That`s next.
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MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is great to be back in Georgia with so many patriots paving the way for historic Republican victory six months from now, when we will win back the House, win back the Senate, and reelect Governor Brian Kemp for four more years of the state house.
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HAYES: Does he always sound like he`s doing a politician cadence bid whenever he speaks? Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is down in Georgia tonight, stumping for incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp. In any other situation, this would be unremarkable the Republican former vice president campaigning for a sitting Republican governor, except of course that Mike Pence`s old boss, Donald Trump, is backing Kemp`s Republican challenger, former Senator David Perdue.
The thing is Governor Kemp is essentially a MAGA Republican on every issue except one. He did not give in to Trump when he put intense pressure on him to steal the 2020 election. That`s why Trump endorsed David Perdue in a now flailing insurgency campaign. But with Perdue trailing badly in the polls, Trump could not be bothered to actually go to Georgia for last-minute push. Instead, he held a tele-rally with Purdue a little while ago or people called in to hear from the disgraced former president.
[20:25:11]
And since it looks pretty unlikely Trump`s guy is going to win and Trump needed to pad his endorsement stats a little, so this weekend, get this, he backed three incumbent Republican congressmen from Georgia Buddy Carter, Rick Allen, and Barry Loudermilk. Loudermilk notably just asked to appear for the January 6 Committee in regards to a tour they claimed he led through the Capitol the day before the insurrection. But the endorsements are also notable because none of the three men is facing a primary challenger and all are in safe Republican districts. Sometimes you just need an easy win.
Tim Miller served as communications director for Jeb Bush`s 2016 presidential campaign. He`s now writer at large for The Bulwark, and he joins me now Tim, I cracked up when I saw that, you know, Trump clearly watching the win-loss record. He`s like, well, let`s just endorse some primary Republicans who are uncontested so we could just get some W`s on the -- on the board.
TIM MILLER, WRITER-AT-LARGE, THE BULWARK: Hey, sometimes you got to take an easy win when you can get it, Chris. Just jump in front of the parade and declare yourself the Grand Marshal.
HAYES: So, the Pence dynamic here is interesting to me because again, I have no illusions, and I think it`s fairly consistent that like MAGA-ism is the dominant force in Republican politics. It is the force of law. It is what Republican politics is. The personal appeal of Trump, I think, is a little bit diminished and attenuated. And I wonder your read on -- or maybe not, you just win. So, what do you think?
MILLER: I guess a little bit diminished maybe from its all-time high when he was getting Saddam Hussein level numbers within the GOP primaries. But I think that if you look at say, his victory -- his landslide victory in 2016, when I was working for Jeb and the percentages that he was getting in states back then, you know, his numbers and head to head races are above where he was when he won easily in 2016 over Cruz and Rubio and Jeb and others.
So, you know, I think it`s a little bit diminished. We had some -- we listen to a podcast called the Focus Group, we listened to actual primary voters. And this week, we did the GA raise, obviously. And there`s not a lot of evidence when you listen to any of these focus groups of Republican primary voters that they don`t like Trump. There are sometimes other things that they consider like any other voter, right?
HAYES: Right.
MILLER: Some of them either want to move on. Some of them like him in the Mike -- excuse me -- Brian Kemp example. He`s an actual governor with an actual job. Like, the fact that Brian Kemp is that he did -- he didn`t do the COVID restrictions. He was very similar to Ron DeSantis without the -- without the fanfare about it.
They liked that he put in the voting in the so-called election integrity bill to respond to 2020 that triggered, you know, the left and caused Major League Baseball to leave the state. They liked, you know, the fetal abortion bill that he signed this year. So, this is different in the eyes of these voters than like their House member, Marjorie Taylor Greene where they think her only job is to just tweet, right?
They, they liked the actual job that he did. And so, I think that is really the story of this particular race, and it`s less about Trump himself.
HAYES: Yes, I agree with the Kemp situation. I also think he just picked a fight that was a hard one for him to win. And to what Amy Gardner was saying last -- in the last block, I think in different races, open seats, you know, lower name recognition, there`s much more danger.
I just think that like, again, like this is a sort of intuitive thing or just to kind of hunch feeling, but like, a little bit like, you know, like a TV show for season one. And then like he just for whatever reason don`t watch it and season two or season three. Like, there just seems to be a little bit of -- there`s just a kind of staleness or like -- it`s not like there`s some big revulsion against Trump or like it`s terrible that he brought up American democracy to his knees, which is what I would like to say.
I just think there`s just like a little bit of waningness generally because of the lack of novelty, because the fact that everyone increasingly sounds like him, etcetera.
MILLER: Sure. You know, sometimes you get back on board for season five, OK. I just did a Better Call Saul recently, though, you know, you get a little bored with the brother plot, and then you get interested again. Look, I mean, here`s the thing with Trump. I agree with you, right. He`s not at the height of his powers within the party.
There`s certainly -- when you listen to these focus groups, when you talk to Republican voters, they`re certainly ones who say, I like him, I like some of the policies, I`m ready to move forward. Here`s the -- here`s the thing, though. There is nobody in any of these primaries in any races who wants to meaningfully move on from him who is successful.
That Ohio Senate race was the one example. I think I was on this show talking about that. You know, look, even in the -- in the Kemp race, I have this quote, here`s Kemp today during a press conference, "I had a great relationship with President Trump. I never said anything bad about him. I don`t plan on doing so. I`m not mad at him."
HAYES: Right.
MILLER: You know, so like, this is the guy that`s supposed to be moving on. He`s like begging Trump not to be mad at him.
HAYES: Yes, right.
MILLER: So, that`s the thing. Yes, there`s a little bit of wane in his popularity but he still has a hold on them.
[20:30:03]
HAYES: Yes. And I think that`s a great point. No one will defy him in some ways ends up being more meaningful in terms of the policy and in terms of the policy and in terms of the direction of American democracy than anything else. Tim Miller, thank you very much.
Coming up, with Mike Pence is split with Donald Trump extent -- will it extend beyond the campaign trail under the January 6 investigation. Committee Member Jamie Raskin on new reporting about upcoming public hearings and Rudy Giuliani has nine-hour testimony after this.
[20:35:00]
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HAYES: Since last July, almost 11 months, the bipartisan January Subcommittee has been investigating the insurrection, they have received over 136,000 documents conducted over 1000 depositions in interviews, including most recently with Donald Trump`s lawyer and major big lie proponents seen earlier in the show, Rudy Giuliani.
He reportedly met with the committee for nine hours on Friday. But now, as the committee is moving into a new phase of the investigation, the long- awaited public hearings where we learn about all they have uncovered. The Guardian got its hands on a draft hearings schedule which shows six hearings scheduled for the month of June with only two during primetime hours.
Congressman Jamie Raskin is a Democrat from Maryland. He serves on the January 6 Committee, and was the lead impeachment manager in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump for inciting the insurrection. And he joins me now. Congressman Raskin, my sense is that you can`t comment on this sort of stuff, but I`ll ask anyway. Is the -- is the leaked schedule correct?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Hey, Chris, well, I`ll just say, in general, a lot of the leaks reporting, although not all of it has been correct. We`re very eager to get going with these hearings. You should know that the hearings are going to be about the events of January 6 and the causes thereof. But the whole question of recommendations for policy changes to fortify ourselves in our institutions against future attacks will come later.
So, I think there will be the opportunity for us to have hearings on other aspects of our charge under House Resolution 503 after this cluster of hearings.
HAYES: I saw the news about Rudy Giuliani and again, I don`t know what you can or can`t confirm. But it is striking to me in some ways when, as we near the end of this, the number of people close to the President that did end up cooperating with either invitations or subpoenas from the committee.
RASKIN: Well, everybody`s got a legal duty and civic duty to be there. And we have made ourselves perfectly clear that we will hold people in contempt and try to get contempt prosecutions brought against them for violating their legal obligations here. Rudy Giuliani, I should tell you, it`s not much news. But you know, he is he`s no Michael Tiger. He`s no Bruce Cutler as mob lawyers go.
But he definitely has a lot of information about what was taking place during those days. And, you know, I`m hopeful that he`s going to tell or telling us everything that he knows.
HAYES: The only thing in the world basically that I`m like genuinely an expert on is basically primetime political news programming. I have an interest in the hearings in that -- in a sort of professional capacity, obviously, but I do wonder like how you are thinking about them. Because people will talk about the Watergate hearings, and the thing I always say in response is look, back during the Watergate hearings, there`s like 50 million people watching Tonight Show every night. It`s just a different universe.
That`s true I think even the Benghazi hearings, you know, five or six years ago. Like, it`s a different universe right now in terms of how central to the attention one can make a thing. How are you on the committee thinking about that? What do you think is a goal of the public part of the hearing?
RASKIN: Well, I`m with you on that. I think there`s something even kind of quaint about the phrase prime time because the, you know, those electrifying moments of television exchanges between legislators and witnesses are moments of real epiphany and conceptual breakthrough or moral breakthrough. Those will get replayed all over the internet, all over all of the channels and so on.
So, it`s not as if you need to be watching every moment in order to see everything that`s going to happen. It`s also the case that we can put out more material even than we`re going to produce for the hearings themselves and make it available to people. And those people who are real students of insurrection and coups in 21st century, America can study all of it.
You know, the thing about primetime that you could perhaps explain to me, Chris, is how networks decide when they`re willing to give up their regularly scheduled programming and when they`re not. And I think that I assume that that`s been part of the negotiation between our communications people and the networks.
HAYES: Yes, I think that`s an interesting point. What do you -- do you think -- do you imagine in your head a set of people who are persuadable about the gravity of this who are as yet to be persuaded but can be persuaded by the public portion of these hearings?
[20:40:12]
RASKIN: Absolutely. And the reason I know that is because I have heard, certainly from hundreds and perhaps thousands of people who wrote to me after the second impeachment trial to say, they were either independents, or they were Republicans, or they were teachers, they were professors. They were really watching to see what was happening.
And they found that the evidence of Donald Trump`s guilt was overwhelming, that we had refuted any and all of the frivolous legal and factual arguments that had been attempted by Trump`s lawyers. And so, I know there were tons of people who were in movement then and I think there are even many more people in movement now.
As we see, you know, what was an insurrection attempted coup that took place in January of last year, continues to be an attempt to delegitimize our constitutional order in our elections. And there are people like the Republican nominee for a governor in Pennsylvania today who participated in these events. I think that Mastriano rented three buses to take people down to Washington for the stop to -- Stop the Steal events, who are now being promoted up the ranks of the GOP.
So, the situation is far more dire than it even was then as Donald Trump has continued to double down on the big lies and the polemics and the disinformation. And his party continues to go with them and to roll with these deranged theories.
HAYES: Congressman Jamie Raskin who sits on that committee that will be shifting into public hearings very soon, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
RASKIN: Thanks for having me, Chris.
HAYES: Still ahead, the primary race in Texas where abortion rights loom large as the only remaining anti-abortion Democrat in the entire House caucus faces a runoff primary challenge. That`s coming up.
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HAYES: You may have seen this story about a tragedy in New York City this weekend. A 48-year-old man named Daniel Enriquez was shot and killed on a subway train in what appears to have been a totally unprovoked attack. The suspect remains at large after he fled when the train pulled into a lower Manhattan station, according to police.
It`s a brutal and horrifying crime. And in light of the spike in gun violence in recent years, as well as national interest in New York`s new Mayor Eric Adams, the story made headlines across the country understandably. There was another terrible tragedy here in New York that has not received as much coverage.
On Saturday 32-year-old David Reichman died after completing the Brooklyn half marathon. Police say he collapsed shortly before 9:00 a.m. after crossing the finish line at Coney Island. Reichman was transported to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. We don`t yet know the cause of his death. The medical examiner is still investigating. But we do know the Fire Department took 16 other runners to the hospital and that the race took place amid concerns and warnings about unseasonably warm weather.
New York Road Runner is the organizers of the half marathon, urged participants for repair for the forecast of heat. According to the National Weather Service, during the first hours of the race, temperatures were in the low 60s -- in the low 60s, low 70s, but the relative humidity was above 95 percent.
And by the afternoon, New York City saw a near-record high temperature for this time of year reaching 90 degrees in Central Park. Extreme heat, particularly when combined with extreme humidity is brutal on the human body, just a physiological fact. And it is getting hotter all the time around the world.
Just look at what has been happening in South Asia which also hasn`t gotten a ton of coverage. This March was the hottest March in India since the country began keeping records more than a century ago. Pakistan had its hottest April since records began. In some areas, temperatures have soared past 120 degrees, and the effects are awful and wide ranging. At least 90 people have died from the heat across India and Pakistan.
But also a melting glacier in the Himalayan Mountains triggered flash flooding, destroying houses and farmland, and causing this bridge in Pakistan to collapse. Increased demand and stress on the power grid in India is causing widespread power cuts. And the heat also scorched India`s wheat crop, leaving the country the world`s second-largest wheat producer to ban exports at a time when the war in Ukraine has increased concerns about wheat shortages.
Of course, extreme heat of this kind is just precisely what climate change looks like. It`s what it is. It`s here now. A new study from the British Meteorological Service shows that, "Human influence on the climate has increased the likelihood of extreme temperatures in the region by a factor of about 100." And that means a record heat event that would occur approximately every 300 years now occurs about every three years.
Having now lived through two years of a deadly pandemic, we`ve all seen up close the difference in attention for the kind of diffuse havoc wreaked by infectious disease and the gruesome spectacle of a mass murderer shooting like the one in Buffalo last weekend. Now, the climate crisis will produce its fair share of spectacles, but a lot of the damage is and will be more like the slow moving tragedy of COVID.
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There`ll be more frequent and more severe heatwaves and devastation and death will follow. And this is an urgent crisis every bit as urgent is a very real threat posed right now by gun violence. And as a society, we must figure out how to focus our attention on it before it`s too late.
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HAYES: It was right around this time, like literally at this hour 21 days ago that we got that bombshell report from Politico on the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion which would overturn Roe v. Wade. And tomorrow, we will get our first real look at how that bombshell has reverberated and how it might play in the Midterm elections.
The lone anti-abortion rights Democrat in the House, Henry Cuellar of Texas, is defending his seat against 28-year-old immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros. Now, money has been pouring into this campaign since it started, over $7 million for the two candidates. According to the latest FEC filings,l Cuellar has raised $3.1 million, Cisneros $4.5 million. And in the days immediately following the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion that would ban abortion, well Cisneros raised nearly three times what Cuellar pulled in, more than $342,000 to just over $136,000.
Cecile Richards is the former president of Planned Parenthood, co-chair of American Bridge 21st Century, born and raised Texan, now the National Finance chair for Beto O`Rourke`s campaign for governor. And she joins me now.
Cecile, obviously, we`re in a strange interregnum period between the leak of that opinion and when it might come out. We don`t know if that`s going to be the final ruling or not. But it is very much focused, I think, everyone who cares about abortion rights, and even those who don`t think about a lot on the -- on it.
How do you view this race tomorrow night where you have the last Republican -- the last Democrat opposed to abortion rights facing a primary challenger who is pro-choice?
CECILE RICHARDS, CO-CHAIR, AMERICAN BRIDGE 21ST CENTURY: Well, I think Jessica Cisneros has been a fantastic candidate, and she`s generated enormous enthusiasm because of her support for women`s rights and worker`s rights. You have to remember though, Chris, too this is a district that was really -- it was drawn by Republicans. Henry Cuellar was Rick Perry`s Secretary of State. They managed to draw this district, so it`s heavily centered in Laredo where he`s from, where his brother is the sheriff. So, he has that big advantage. But I just -- I think that she`s running a really strong race, and we will see.
HAYES: Yes, I mean, it`s going to be an interesting -- it`s an interesting test case. It`s the first time you`ve got this on the ballot since this has happened. And I guess the broader question, right is, look, this is obviously important to millions of people, women, but not just women, in the Democratic Party and outside the Democratic Party, people who are active voters and aren`t.
And, you know, there`s this question of what does it mean if this happens, this seismic reversal of a fundamental constitutional right. What does it mean politically? And I don`t think anyone knows the answer. But as someone who`s worked in this space for years, how are you thinking about it?
RICHARDS: I think that`s exactly right, Chris. And I don`t think this one particular congressional run off is going to tell us because, of course, what`s happening now is people who live in states where abortion rights have always been secure, which is not the case in Texas, are now waking up and realizing all it takes is a Republican governor and a Republican- dominated legislature and you could lose all of your rights.
I mean, Pennsylvania is, of course, a perfect state to look at where they`ve now nominated a Republican nominee, who is for ending all abortion access in the state of Pennsylvania. And that is -- you know, this is where you look at independent voters, people who weren`t necessarily motivated to go vote -- who are going to vote this November because of this issue.
And I think that`s true in a lot of the battleground states, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. Suddenly, the thought that your state can become a state where safe and legal abortion is no longer available, is just beginning to sink in on voters.
HAYES: Yes. There`s reporting about Democratic Party allied groups spending $6 million early on Mastriano who you just mentioned. And it seems to me like, you know, this is as tangible as it gets. Like, as Josh Shapiro said on this program, and he`s running against Mastriano to be governor, you know, there will be a full abortion ban bill that will pass out of the Republican legislature in Pennsylvania, and it will either be signed into law by Governor Mastriano or vetoed by Democratic governor. And those are the stakes this fall like right away should Roe be overturned as it appears it will be.
RICHARDS: Exactly, Chris. This is not a theoretical question. And you look at the voters that we need to energize, Democrats need to energize going into November, young people and women, and Mastriano his candidacy is going to do just that. And it is becoming very clear that the Republican rhetoric around abortion is not the -- not the question anymore. It`s what they have now promised to do in state to state.
So, it`s -- I think there`s going to be a lot more to happen in these next months to come as abortion bans begin to get passed throughout the country.
HAYES: Yes, we saw one passed in Oklahoma incredibly severe. Also, the bands that are -- that are currently popular are some of the most aggressive, even more aggressive than anything pre-Roe which is another thing for people to keep their eyes on.
Cecile Richards, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
RICHARDS: Good to see you.
HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Monday night. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts now. Good evening, Rachel.