Summary
According to The New York Times, Windham "has been leading investigators who have been methodically seeking information, for example, about the roles played by some of Mr. Trump`s top advisers with a mandate to go as high up the chain of command as the evidence warrants." In Florida, the so-called Don`t Say Gay Bill, which went into effect today. In Michigan, five Republicans took the stage competing to take on Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer in November. The Supreme Court limiting the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions, making it harder for states to keep guns off the streets by massively expanding the reach of the Second Amendment, and overturning 50 years of precedent by ending the federal constitutional right for a woman to control her own reproductive health.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC ANCHOR: She`s got more courage than every man she worked for wore the white jacket in honor. Cassidy young lady, you may be young, but you got cojones sister, much more than Trump or any of his minions.
NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC ANCHOR: All of them.
REID: Nicolle Wallace, thank you, my friend. I cannot wait for your special.
WALLACE: Thank you, friend.
REID: Cheers.
WALLACE: Thank you so much.
REID: All right, that is tonight`s "REIDOUT" -- any time. Be sure to catch Ukraine answering the call this Sunday at 7 p.m. ALL IN with Chris Hayes starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC ANCHOR, (voiceover): Tonight on ALL IN.
REP. LIZ CHENEY, (R-WY): Person let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know he`s thinking about you.
HAYES: The mob boss playbook is exposed.
CHENEY: Attempting to influence witnesses to testify untruthfully, presents very serious concerns.
HAYES: Tonight, new details about the Trump world figure attempting to influence testimony and new reporting from David Rohde on the Attorney General`s supervision of the Trump case, and the case that a potential criminal prosecution is growing closer. Then, connecting the dots between new anti-gay laws in Florida to a right-wing mob`s attempt to storm a drag show and Elie Mystal puts this radical term to the Supreme Court into perspective. But ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAYES: Good evening from New York, I`m Chris Hayes. Welcome to this holiday weekend. I hope you`re kicking back right now and enjoying it. There`s a question that I`ve been wrestling with all week, which is why did Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump administration official, the star witness of Tuesday`s January 6 hearing, why didn`t she decide to come forward and testify publicly? Hutchinson was a Trump ally one might even say a loyalist.
And she already testified in three committee depositions, those are recorded behind closed doors. But then something happened and she agreed to come out and testify publicly and the committee felt confident enough in her testimony to make her the sole star witness of a special surprise hearing that they knew everyone would have their eyes on.
And the best we can tell is what happened was that she switched lawyers. Initially, Hutchinson was represented by an attorney recommended to her by Trump aides paid for with money from Trump`s political action committee. She then fired that lawyer after "he suggested she not testify publicly following the conclusion of 20 hours of closed depositions." Then, Hutchinson hired someone new, a Republican lawyer named Jody Hunt. Then she agreed to sit for a fourth deposition with the committee and it was in that deposition, reportedly, where she revealed new information which led to her public testimony this week.
And this shift begins to bring into focus. I think there are many ways to cooperate with the committee. You can testify publicly and incredibly forthcoming way like Cassidy Hutchinson eventually did. You can refuse to comply at all right? That`s one end of the spectrum of Trump advisors Stephen Bannon and Peter Navarro, both of whom face criminal charges from the Justice Department as a result.
You can also show up for the deposition but basically refused to actually comply by taking your constitutional Fifth Amendment Right to not incriminate yourself for every question. That`s what apparently coup plotters like John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, and former Trump National Security Adviser Mike Flynn did, that Mike Flynn plead the fifth to the question, do you believe in the truth peaceful transfer of power? Or you can get an expensive lawyer and comply with a subpoena or testimony or request technically.
You show up, you answer questions, but you know, you just find that you can`t remember that much. You blame your faulty memory for the inability to accurately answer all the committee`s questions who said what on what day? I don`t know. That short appears obstruction certainly, but it also appears to be the preferred outcome for Trump`s allies. And in fact, this week, committee chair Congressman Bennie Thompson in Mississippi tried to use Hutchinson`s public example to shame those who fell into that latter camp.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. BENNIE THOMPSON, (D-MS): I want to speak directly to the handful of witnesses who have been outliers in our investigation, the small number who have defied us outright, those whose memories have failed them again and again on the most important details, and to those who fear Donald Trump and his enablers. Because of this courageous woman, and others like her, you attempt to hide the truth from the American people will fail.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, it`s not very surprising that some witnesses close to Trump are hesitant to participate fully with the committee. We`ve known for a very long time that Trump runs his business and his political career, all of his operations-basically like a mob boss. That comes with the kind of no- snitching attitude that just pervades his organization, where those close to the ex-president are expected to keep their mouths shut. And we`ve seen tons of examples of this. We saw some examples of this for instance back during the Mueller investigation when, for example, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort broke his plea agreement by lying to investigators who have granted him a plea deal when he was supposed to be cooperating.
[20:05:00]
HAYES: Trump`s first National Security Advisor, the aforementioned Mike Flynn, did cooperate with investigators who might remember before he tried to withdraw his guilty plea for lying to the FBI and go on the offensive. Flynn went on to ingratiate himself with Trump as a believer of The Big Lie of a stolen election. And it`s worth noting that both of these men who initially wanted to say they were going to cooperate and tell what they knew and then didn`t, that both these men Manafort and Flynn receives presidential pardons at the end of it which, of course, plays in the notion that if you`re loyal, if you`re a good soldier, if you don`t snitch, Trump might reward you in the end.
That is worth keeping in mind when you consider the Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who clearly is just at the center of all this right, initially agreed to cooperate with the January 6 committee. Remember, he voluntarily turned over 8000 documents to the committee before appearing to suddenly shift gears and decide to Stonewall. Now, we don`t know why exactly Meadows changed his mind, why he changed direction. All we know in terms of what`s publicly reported is that just weeks after the January 6 committee formed, Trump`s PAC gave Meadows` nonprofit a donation of a million dollars.
So, one view of the situation based on the timeline could be Trump dangles the carrot for potential witnesses may hope for a pardon in the future or a donation or who knows what else in exchange for their silence. The ex- president`s tactics are not always of the carrot variety, right? Back in 2019, former Trump fixer, Michael Cohen, testified before Congress that Trump tried to intimidate him from speaking publicly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: By coming today, I have caused my family to be the target of personal scurrilous attacks by the president and his lawyer trying to intimidate me from appearing before this panel. Mr. Trump called me a rat for choosing to tell the truth, much like a mobster would do when one of his men decides to cooperate with the government. I hope this committee and all members of Congress on both sides of the aisle make it clear that as a nation, we should not tolerate attempts to intimidate witnesses before Congress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Cons compared explicitly the ex-president`s conduct to a mobster many times including this week, in response to this presentation from committee Vice-Chair Liz Cheney.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHENEY: We have received evidence of one particular practice that raises significant concern. Our committee commonly asks witnesses connected to Mr. Trump`s administration or campaign, whether they`ve been contacted by any of their former colleagues or anyone else who attempted to influence or impact their testimony. Here`s how one witness described phone calls from people interested in that witness`s testimony.
Well, what they said to me is as long as I continue to be a team player, they know I`m on the right team, I`m doing the right thing, I`m protecting who I need to protect. You know, I`ll continue to stay in good graces in the Trump world. And they have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts. And just keep that in mind as I proceed through my interviews with the committee.
Here`s another sample in a different context. This is a call received by one of our witnesses." A person let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know he`s thinking about you. He knows you`re loyal and you`re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It`s like something out of a mafia movie when the hired goon tries to scare the key witness out of cooperating with the Feds. Now Congresswoman Cheney did not say who those messages were directed to but two sources familiar tell NBC News. The second message Congressman Cheney read was a call to Hutchinson. Witness tampering, of course, is a federal crime. And this week, Congresswoman Cheney implied she expects the Department of Justice to be looking at potential criminal referrals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN KARL, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: So you think some of the testimony you received wasn`t truthful because people were threatened?
CHENEY: The way that I would put it is that it gives us a real insight into how people around the former president are operating into the extent to which they believe that they can affect the testimony of witnesses before the committee. And it`s something we take very seriously. And it`s something that people should be aware of. It`s a very serious issue, and I would imagine the Department of Justice would be very interested in and we`ll take that very seriously as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: First, we don`t know how involved the ex-president himself is in these schemes, but that`s sort of the point, right? I mean, after all, the mob boss is really the one who directly commits the crime. It`s not the mob boss who calls people up and says, you know, don`t tell them anything.
[20:10:00]
HAYES: But regardless of whether or not Trump was directly ordering his own cronies or intermediate years at cutouts to, you know, give a friendly call and say the boss knows you`re loyal to scare witnesses, it`s clear that in the case of Hutchinson, it didn`t work. And the thing is sometimes one person talks and I mean really talks like Hutchinson, all of a sudden, lots of others want to make sure they get their side of the story heard too.
Kyle Cheney is a Senior Legal Affairs reporter for Politico where he`s covered the witness intimidation allegations. Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for New York Times. She was one of the reporters who broke the story on Cassidy Hutchinson`s lawyers.
Let`s talk about the lawyer angle here, Annie, because I do think it`s pretty interesting. And obviously, there`s nothing like, you know, people pay for other people`s legal representation all the time, that there`s nothing like illegal certainly about that and it`s not a completely uncommon arrangement. But in this case, it does seem to raise some questions, particularly given what happened with Hutchinson. What do we know about her switch of lawyers?
ANNIE KARNI, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, what you said, first of all, is true. There`s nothing illegal about a third party paying the lawyer`s fees for a witness. But there is questions that they could raise when the lawyer is directed to a witness by the third party, it does raise questions about whether that lawyer has the interest of the person paying his bills who directed him to a client, or if his client`s interests are driving him, so it can create some complex there.
What we know about Cassidy is that her first lawyer was paid for in part by the Trump PACs that had been offering to help younger -- especially younger staffers who don`t have the funds for big lawyers with their legal fees. And that you know her behavior completely changed when she switched lawyers to an independent lawyer and, as you said, did the fourth deposition and then just decided to testify publicly.
It has opened up this whole question of how much are these lawyers, you know, kind of feeling influenced. We talked to one lawyer for that story, who is representing Jed Deer (PH), another former Trump administration official who testified behind closed doors, who told us he has never been contacted by anyone. He applied for funds from this Trump-aligned group to help pay for the judge`s legal fees. He claims he`s never been talked to by any outside force.
But the Cassidy -- I mean, to switch lawyers and to have your behavior completely change opens up all these questions of the influence that Trump and outside organizations aligned with him are bringing to the entire proposition.
One more thing I want to say is that this committee is very, very interested in any pressure. They ask every single witness who comes in were you pressured by anyone before you came in here? They`re trying to build a criminal case. And as my colleague Luke Broadwater has pointed out, proving a conspiracy can be very difficult, proving witness tampering if there really is some, that`s a crime and that`s much easier to prove. We see Liz Cheney, in that interview, making it very clear that they want the Justice Department to get interested in this issue.
HAYES: Yes. We should note that again, I referenced the Mueller investigation. I mean, the Mueller -- the Muller team prosecutor Roger Stone for among other things, which are witness tampering successfully, secured a conviction by a jury of his peers for that. The messages he sent were a little spicier than those that Cassidy Hutchinson get -- got. But it was -- you know, it was not that different basically, and then, of course, Stone was pardoned -- commuted first and then pardon.
In terms of Meadows, I mean, Meadows is such a key figure in all this. Kyle, you`ve -- you know, there`s reporting that I think you have that Meadows was this -- an intermediary between Meadows and Hutchinson was one of the sources of this conversation. I want to read what I would describe as a kind of non-denial denial -- a slash denial slash confirmation from Ben Williams and a spokesperson for Meadows.
I should note, that all these people who rise to knock things down through their spokespeople could call a reporter themselves, could also just go to the microphone, could be on the record themselves, they`re not testifying before the committee so I just noted that before I read his spokesperson statement. No one for Meadows camp himself or otherwise has ever attempted to imitate or shape Miss Hutchinson`s testimony to the committee. And then the last line, any call or message us describing is it best deeply misleading. It sounds like there was a call, Kyle.
KYLE CHENEY, SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER, POLITICO: Right. As you pointed out, (INAUDIBLE) is a sort of non-denial leak. He denied sort of the character of this communication, but not necessarily that it occurred. And I think the important thing that you`ve highlighted is Liz Cheney, she used the word practice. So there`s a practice of this going on. So what we`re showing you on the screen is two examples.
[20:15:00]
CHENEY: And so that suggests that they have a larger body of evidence that this occurred with potentially other, people potentially additional outreach to Cassidy Hutchinson but they -- in addition to appealing to those witnesses to come back, and, you know, please tell us more, you know, fully your side of the story as Cassidy Hutchinson did, they`re also suggesting this may be a much larger web of these kinds of communications, that both fit together with those past examples like during the Mueller investigation but maybe throughout the course of this one as well.
HAYES: Yes. And there`s also this question about Ornato, right? And the -- Tony Ornato who is the Deputy Chief of Staff for operations, who had formerly been the chief of the Secret Service, whose plays a huge role in much of Cassidy Hutchinson`s testimony, including telling the story of that moment in the -- in the presidential motorcade, you know, there was this, again, this sort of through third parties anonymously saying, well, he didn`t see it that way.
And I thought, this is interesting for committee members, Stephanie Murray, she`s a Mr. Ornato did not have as clear of memories from this period of time, as I would say, Ms. Hutchinson, did if that`s a fair assessment. But we`re always happy to have folks who have recalled things to come back and talk to us. And it was that statement that got me thinking about the spectrum of communication, and cooperation you can get from witnesses when you`re asking them about things 17 months ago, too many things they could plausibly say I don`t remember.
CHENEY: Right. And I think you know, what you pointed out there and is notable again, in the Ben Williamson statement, two is the principles themselves aren`t the ones who have come out and denied things Cassidy Hutchinson said. There`s sort of anonymous suggestions that they might disagree with her or contradict her, they come out -- there`s been -- to be on people who have sort of picked apart her testimony. It`s never the person who is the subject of what she described.
HAYES: Yes.
CHENEY: Ornato himself has not said a word yet. And so that`s interesting and I think the fact is that you know, the committee is not going to take sort of that pushback particularly seriously unless it`s under oath now that Cassidy Hutchinson has set that standard.
HAYES: It`s a great point. And we also got some additional reporting today that would seem to suggest that at least the story of this happening in the motorcade was a known story in many circles around the Secret Service whether it happened precisely that way or not. Kyle Cheney and Annie Karni, who are both doing great reporting on this, thank you both, have a great holiday weekend.
CHENEY: Thank you.
HAYES: Still the come, a lot of news tonight in the Justice Department investigation, brand new reporting of the prosecutor who is leading the criminal probe, and the January 6 testimony that reportedly blindsided the DOJ. All that, coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:20:00]
HAYES: The man leading the Department of Justice investigation into the January 6 attack is a little-known federal prosecutor named Thomas Windham. He`s 44 years old and started on the investigation last year. He`s been working under the close supervision of Attorney General Merrick Garland`s top aides. According to The New York Times, Windham "has been leading investigators who have been methodically seeking information, for example, about the roles played by some of Mr. Trump`s top advisers with a mandate to go as high up the chain of command as the evidence warrants."
In the wake of two big recent moves in the DOJ, the seizure of the phone of John Eastman, the author of the notorious coup memo, and a predawn search of the home of Jeffrey Clark, a Trump official who was central to the DOJ coup plot, there`s no news from the New Yorker that Attorney General Garland receives a briefing every week on the department`s ongoing investigation.
Joining me now is the author of that New Yorker piece, David Rohde, executive editor of new yorker.com. David, first, let`s start with your reporting about this weekly briefing the Attorney General`s getting. I mean, what is -- what does that mean? What does that indicate? And what actually is it?
DAVID ROHDE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, NEWYORKER.COM: It`s a summary of the latest sort of developments as part of the January 6 investigation. And I`ll say this is not unusual. After 9/11, there were weekly briefings about sort of the biggest counterterrorism cases that the Justice Department was dealing with. But it is a sign that Garland is engaged and, you know, people from the Justice Department have told me they`ve been sort of frustrated that you know, there`s a sense that Garland is not engaged and that the Justice Department isn`t working on this.
And they say he means what he said in his speeches, he hasn`t said much, but that they will follow the evidence wherever it leads. They point out, you know, the hundreds of prosecutions and that he is engaged and if they`re -- you know, and then many people feel it might take him time. But if the evidence is strong enough and then Cassidy Hutchinson`s testimony changes that Garland will indict. But it`s just not clear yet how much more evidence will come out.
HAYES: Well, so you write a bit about the tensions between the committee and the Department of Justice. And you write about them being somewhat naturally born of different sort of institutional objectives. Of course, everyone knows, like, you know, movies where there`s a crime scene and there`s the cops and the Feds show up and the cops are mad at the Feds and the Feds are mad at cops over a (INAUDIBLE). You know, there`s a certain amount of that that just sort of comes with the program.
But here`s my understanding reading between the lines you are and other reporting and telling me how accurate characterization. What I`m getting is, people inside the Department of Justice look at the committee and they say, it`s easy for you guys, you don`t have an adversarial process, you don`t have to secure a conviction in front of a jury, you don`t have to like do all of the very difficult to meet evidentiary standards. And you`re making it look like we`re just some bumbling, slow walkers, with your presentations of the evidence, which you won`t even turn over to us and we`re mad at you for that.
[20:25:00]
ROHDE: Yes, I think that`s fair. And I -- look, I think there`s been a mistake by both sides here and so I think that Justice Department made a decision to start at the bottom, and they`ve, you know, prosecuted hundreds of people, I believe it`s at least 800 cases they`ve looked at. And there`s a question, why didn`t the Justice Department focus more resources on the top? You could argue they`re using kind of a classic prosecution strategy against a mob organization where you get the lower-level people, you get a Cassidy Hutchinson to talk and you hope that`ll cause Mark Meadows and Pat Cipollone to talk.
And then the criticism of the -- of the, you know, January 6 committee would be that, yes, they`re doing this for TV. There`s snippets of, you know, dramatic testimony, but you`re right, there`s no cross-examination. They can use hearsay. A lot of what Cassie Hutchinson, you know, said couldn`t be used in a trial because it wasn`t something Donald Trump said directly to her.
I`m trying to say that I think both processes are working. And I think you know, and some commentators told me this, patience, that the January 6 committee is informing the public and making a case to voters, prosecutors are working slowly. And just, Chris, it`s such an insane moment. I mean, you have a former president who`s determined it seems to regain power, who clearly attempted to carry out a coup, you know, can that be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court again, as the remaining question.
And I -- it`s Cipollone is the biggest name to me. You know, he has a chance to be the John Dean of this moment with John Dean was the White House Counsel for Nixon, and he saw -- Dean saw crimes and he went public. And I wish Pat Cipollone would do the same thing.
HAYES: Yes, that`s a good point about Dean`s role being White House Counsel and Cipollone being now subpoenaed by the committee. The committee was essentially in treating him to talk on air. What we`ve heard from Cassidy Hutchinson, what he said to her this is not hearsay, this is stuff he said to her is that he was -- you know he said will be prosecuted for every crime imaginable if the president goes. So he was -- he was pretty aware. And also his deputies -- associate White House Counsels have talked to the committee and some of the most colorful testimony has come from them. So again, that -- I agree that is an enormous shoe to drop one way or the other. David Rohde, thank you very much.
ROHDE: Thank you.
HAYES: Coming up. As of today, Florida`s so-called Don`t Say Gay Law is now in effect, and already the results are both ludicrous and dangerous. How it`s playing out? After this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:32:26]
CHRIS HAYES, NBC NEWS HOST: We are living through a reactionary moment and we have an increasingly militant reactionary movement mobilizing within American conservatism. If it was not clear already, in the wake of a conservative Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, it was made even clearer by Justice Clarence Thomas, when he basically announced in a concurrence that decision to desire to roll back the entire rights revolution of the post 1960s order.
The goal is to carry out that rulebook in every space -- rollback in every space they can find. Lately, they`ve been very focused on children education.
And you remember, it started about a year ago with what was at least initially and at least for broad consumption, like the Virginia gubernatorial race, a putatively centrist kind of milquetoast critique of the ideological excesses of the radical left of something called critical race theory that was teaching kids to hate America and dividing little children by race.
It didn`t take that long for the master drop, and for Republicans to push for full right-wing indoctrination of children as a solution.
Now, we`re seeing what it looks like when that indoctrination is made into policy.
So, in Florida, you`ve got the so called Don`t Say Gay Bill, which went into effect today. The extensible argument for it was protecting children like those little kids you see there, from hearing things deemed inappropriate and really, who could object to that?
But people warned that it is in fact a radical and poorly drafted bill that will lead to some really nasty workplace bigotry.
Rolling Stone chronicle the chaotic reality was staff in one district asking if they could "wear rainbow articles of clothing" or have safe space stickers on classroom doors even display photos of the same sex partner.
"The answers to all those questions has been an emphatic no, according to representatives from the local teachers union."
In Leon County, which is in the Panhandle of Florida, the school board there "unanimously approved a guide that promises to alert parents if a student who is open about their gender identity is in a gym class or an overnight trip." It allows parents to seek accommodation if they disagree with that student`s presence.
As critics note, just about everyone is open about their gender identity. So, it makes no sense. But really what this is about is outing trans-kids to the entire school community so they can be ostracized and scorned in a systematic fashion.
Meanwhile, in Texas, lawmakers passed a bill to impart prevents students from feeling "discomfort in the classroom". Who would want that?
So, as the new curriculum is being developed, the Texas Tribune reports that one committee of educators recommended "that slavery should be taught as involuntary relocation during second grade social studies instruction."
[20:35:05]
HAYES: Now, that language was spotted by an education board member. The proposal was sent back for revision according to Tribune.
This is what it looks like. This is the angle. A weird new, ultra conservative form political correctness where you can`t wear a rainbow t- shirt and the evil of slavery is chillingly transformed to involuntary relocation, because they`re little kids and it caused them discomfort to hear about what slavery really was.
And then, even in places where the right doesn`t have power over policy like California and Nevada, we`ve now have what amounts to the fascist street gang over the movement, the Proud Boys physically intimidating people.
In Nevada, the group protested at a Drag Storytime outside a library. Attendees, including children were forced to run inside when a man and Proud Boys garb carrying a gun approached the event.
In California, a group of men identified as Proud Boys tried to disrupt a drag show at a bar spewing homophobic slurs. In response, some attendees pepper sprayed them.
The Proud Boys are of course at the center of January 6th, part of this embrace of fascist political violence. Violence has become a frighteningly central part of a lot of right-wing discussion.
I`ll talk to the journalists who spend some time talking to those folks, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:40:57]
HAYES: The base the Republican Party has been emboldened by among other things, the rollback of Roe and you can see that play out in Republican primary debates across the country.
In Michigan last night, five Republicans took the stage competing to take on Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer in November, among their conservative bonafides, backing a Michigan abortion ban from nearly 100 years ago and advocating for gay rights to be rolled back to.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RALPH REBANDT (R), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE OF MICHIGAN: I`ll support that 1931 law, exactly what you said. Life of the mother that the baby can`t come out with the VSC section but it`s at the moment of conception.
RYAN KELLEY (R), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE OF MICHIGAN: 1931 law is great, but there`s very few cases where the mother`s law life would need to be saved. Very, very few instances.
REBANDT: I have no exceptions. Raise your hand if you believe at conception.
KELLEY: I believe that the federal government needs -- the Supreme Court needs to start ruling back a lot of those things and give the power back to the states where it belongs.
The Michigan Constitution defines a marriage between one man and one woman. And that is my belief also.
REBANDT: Michigan Constitution says that for the betterment of society, marriage is between a man and a woman. I draw the line where God does and that`s where I stand.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Well, that was going on in Michigan over in Wyoming. Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney face for challenges for her seat in the wild conspiracy theory wing of the party was on full display.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIET HAGEMAN (R), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE OF WYOMING: I think that Mr. Fauci is one of the most corrupt individuals in Washington D.C., which is saying a lot.
ROBYN BELINSKY (R), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE OF WYOMING: The coronavirus was actually -- it`s engineered to attack what we are susceptible to.
HAGEMAN: You have the Department of Education pursuing radical gender ideology, and pursuing things that are -- that again, are so anti-American.
ANTHONY BOUCHARD (R), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE OF WYOMING: What about Facebook using the system to steer people? We know for a fact all the major internets do that.
BELINSKY: What people are concerned about in terms of the January 6 committee is just totally unfair. And so contrary to everything that our country stands for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: I mean, look, wherever your politics are, you got to say, that`s an impressive group. That`s just a sampling of what Republicans think their voters want to hear right now. It`s an ultimate reality the Vanity Fair contributing editor Jeff Sharlet witness firsthand, as he traveled around the country talking to Donald Trump`s true believers, finding a lot of people who think "the insurrection was an act of faith". Ashli Babbitt is a martyr and white is not only a race, but a spiritual state.
You have Sharlet whose book about all this titled The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War is out next year, joins me now.
Jeff, you`re a reporter I`ve long read and admired and the dispatches you`ve been sending about this had been pretty upsetting.
You`ve been talking to people who are quite radicalized I think and quite militant, whose ideology I think is the sort of the hardest of the hardcore. What do you find when you talk to them?
JEFF SHARLET, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, VANITY FAIR: A full alternate reality. You know, one of the things I did driving across the country is I just made sure to stop in at a lot of churches.
And I wasn`t -- I wasn`t Googling ahead to see where to go. I was -- as I would tell them, I was letting the spirit lead me.
The first church I went to in the story Church of Glad Tidings, there`s no crosses, the pulpits made of swords. Some people seen this church because they presented General Michael Flynn with a customized AR-15, about which he joked, I`d go -- I`d go hunting in Washington, he`s going to go look for people in Washington.
The pastor has a customized AR-15. And they describe themselves as prepared for Civil War. They believe that it`s a full alternate reality, they believe that Hillary Clinton is already dead. And Donald Trump is still president awaiting their next action.
HAYES: What ties this -- I mean, I guess the question is, the thing I can`t never quite put my finger on is look, in any population large enough, there will be people that have believed all sorts of stuff. And that`s true across lines of culture and difference. It`s true different places you go in the world. And that`s true in America and America has all sorts of traditions of wild conspiracy theories. I mean, from the -- back to the Salem witch trials, right?
[20:45:09]
HAYES: What is this now? What is producing this very kind of violently fantasizing form of reactionary fantasy in this moment?
SHARLET: It`s an old metaphor, the metaphor spiritual war concretized made real, so that -- I mean, literally, at the beginning of the story, I went to a rally for Ashli Babbitt, the woman killed on January 6th, justice for Ashli. And there was a crowd of Proud Boys there and they were there to fight. They were wearing steadied gloves. They wore masks and they fought. They fought with protesters who were there to celebrate Breonna Taylor`s birthday.
And they -- but that`s their idea, they said what we`re doing is sacred, what we understand our calling as is fundamentally a religious one. It`s no longer politics for them.
HAYES: And we should note that like this isn`t -- this is not super far removed from mainstream electoral politics. One of the people that you just saw in that montage is a guy named Ryan Kelley, who`s one of the candidates for governor who was arrested for his role in January 6, post that arrest. He has seen a surge among Republican primary voters.
The Kelley surge, which has early echoes of Doug Mastriano`s recent primary victory in Pennsylvania, suggests the GOP could soon nominate another election denier who was on the Capitol grounds on January 6 to lead a major battleground state.
How do people you`ve talked to understand January 6?
SHARLET: There`s a range and they like to say that, they like to say, look, we`re not lockstep. Some believe that -- many believe it was a false flag. Those who were there and I spoke to many who were there, for instance, George Reilly (PH), an indicted January sixer who -- he takes umbrage at the fact that everyone knows about the man who put his feet up on Nancy Pelosi`s desk, he likes to say, and he`s indicted for doing so, that he took his pants down and rubbed himself on Nancy Pelosi, his desk.
So, he knows it wasn`t a false flag. But he does see it as very much they were called by -- they were called by Trump, and they did what they were supposed to do.
And that this was the beginning, this was not a failed coup. This was the beginning of a long coup that we`re still in the midst of. That`s why I think of it as sort of a slow Civil War.
HAYES: You are someone who has spent much year reporting career, reporting on faith and the ways that it refracts through human life and human habit.
You know, one of the things that`s interesting about Trump, right, is that there`s a sort of secularized appeal to him because he`s such so obviously not a pious man, not a believer, there was always this sort of arrangement of convenience with the religious right.
But the people who are the truest believer do seem to be quite religiously, quite faithful, quite fervent, the people that you`ve talked to.
SHARLET: Some, yes, they`re quite fervent. They`re not all church going and you know, in the story, I ended up attending a number of sort of large churches, with, you know, some with their own militias.
But you talk to other people too, I don`t go to church, but they see this as a God led moment. Some of them you know, we`ve been through this before, they -- some of them see Trump as divine. Some of them see him as a tool of God. And some of them see -- and I think it`s important, Trumpism is now bigger than Trump. It`s far beyond Trump. They are leading the movement, not Donald Trump.
HAYES: All right, Jeff Sharlet, as always, great to hear from you. Thank you.
As we mentioned earlier, we`re not just seeing this radical escalation local level, it`s also coming straight up the opinions in the rulings from the nation`s highest court, which just had really one of the most consequential terms in modern history. If not, ever.
We`re going to break it down with Elie Mystal, next.
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[20:53:54]
HAYES: We`ve just concluded the most consequential Supreme Court turn certainly since Bush v. Gore, 22 years ago, arguably since ever? The six- three conservative majority court handed on huge decisions just within the last week of its term, limiting the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions, making it harder for states to keep guns off the streets by massively expanding the reach of the Second Amendment and overturning 50 years of precedent by ending the federal constitutional right for a woman to control her own reproductive health.
The court also agreed to hear a case that could give state legislatures new powers over federal elections. Potentially setting up exactly the kind of power grab that Trump and his cronies were trying to pull off in 2020.
This group of right-wing justices, five of them elevated to the Supreme Court by a president who came to office by losing the popular vote are now in a position to fundamentally change the country.
As Elie Mystal, the Justice Correspondent for The Nation Magazine put it yesterday: "The Supreme Court as an institution defines its own power. It`s now run by people who think the federal government was a mistake. And yet, people in the federal government are not willing to check this institution. What do you think is going to happen?"
[20:55:06]
HAYES: And Elie Mystal, author of the bestselling book Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy`s Guide to the Constitution joins me now.
Well, Elie, you take no pleasure in being right about what this court would be. But this was -- basically, this term was the nightmare scenario, the nightmare that all of us felt like it was possibly leading to, the nightmare that felt like a little bit put off, because they were being a little careful that first term, and there were these decisions that people thought, oh, well, maybe this was it. This was just about as bad as it could possibly be, right?
ELIE MYSTAL, JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT, THE NATION: Yes, I have this as the worst Supreme Court term since 1857. That`s the court that unleashed the Dred Scott decision which basically unleashed the Civil War, but I don`t think we have to go back to 165 years ago. I think we want to go back to 30 years ago, to really understand what`s happened.
30 years ago in 1992, Planned Parenthood V. Casey, Roe v. Wade is upheld albeit with new restrictions in a five to four vote. Those five votes in the majority were justices all appointed by Republican presidents.
In fact, the 1992 court was appointed by justices, eight of whom were appointed by Republican president. And yet, they upheld Roe. Why? It`s not like they liked abortion. It`s not like they liked states` rights, they had a confederate view of states` rights.
The difference is that conservatives 30 years ago believed in practicality. They said repeatedly in Casey that the practical realities of abortion of what the government can do and can`t do were such that they had to uphold the law just because of the facts on the ground, to defeat Roe, the modern conservatives.
What the Republicans realize is that they had to start appointing judges who did not care about the practicalities, who did not care about facts, who did not care about reality itself. And that is how they found justices who are now willing to overturn Roe and that decision finding justices who are willing to do that, that`s what explains everything else.
And once you have a justice that`s not willing to look at the practical realities of abortion, that`s how you also have a judge who wasn`t willing to look at the practical realities of climate change, who isn`t willing to look at the practical reality of gun violence.
What we have, it`s like a bad science fiction novel, Chris, it`s like, when -- you know, they release an invasive predator to defeat some other predator. We`re at the release the bat stage, right?
And the problem with those science fiction novels is that once the thing finishes eating, whatever you sent it to eat, it keeps feeding. And that`s all these conservatives are going to do. They`re going to keep feeding on the rights and dignity of others until somebody in the government, somebody in the other branches of government stops them.
HAYES: Well, let`s talk about that. And that`s an apt metaphor. I think John Roberts himself is probably going to be on the table pretty soon for their -- for their delectation.
I mean, you know, you mentioned Dred Scott, we quoted from Lincoln`s first inaugural, which is a fascinating text, because Dred Scott, of course, which basically says that black people have no rights, that you can escape slavery and be whisked back. But not only that, but that just the Constitution was meant for white people, essentially.
That is a radicalizing moment. It helps to precipitate the Civil War, it helps to precipitate formation of the Republican Party, and one of the first things that Lincoln has to do is bring the reactionary court to heel, he expands the court.
The other big example of this, of course, is the Lochner era court, which in the new deal is striking down legislation over and over again. FDR famously tries to expand the court, there`s a huge fight over it, he loses that fight. But there`s some evidence to suggest the court was intimidated by it and basically reverses their jurisprudence.
What`s the lesson there about what checks a court that is sort of dead set on this kind of like reactionary marauding?
MYSTAL: The court has no money, it has no power to tax, and it has no army. The person who can stop the court is the executive of the United States, the President of the United States.
But right now, and I`m not -- I want to say that I`m angry at Biden right now. I am sad. I am sad that right now, because you know, who remembers 30 years ago, Joe Biden? Joe Biden remembers the hokey past of bipartisanship, where he could reach out to conservatives who were concerned about practical governance. Those people don`t exist now but Joe Biden never got the memo.
And so, I`m sad that in this crucial moment, we have a president who is unwilling, who is so ossified in his past thinking that he won`t stand with his people at this critical moment to take power back, not for himself, because he doesn`t matter, but to take power back for the American people from these unelected, unaccountable judges.
HAYES: Yes, and for constitutional governance, Elie Mystal, thank you, have a great weekend.
[21:00:01]
HAYES: Before we go, quick programming note on Sunday, NBC presents "UKRAINE: ANSWERING THE CALL", an hour long special executive, produced by our own MSNBC`s Nicole Wallace. Special guests like Alicia Keys, Brad Paisley, Brandi Carlile and more.
It`s going to be raising funds for those affected by the ongoing war, so be sure to tune in this Sunday 7:00 p.m. on NBC, 10:00 p.m. on MSNBC.
And finally, finally, before we go, we have a lot of people come and go on this show, turnover is natural, and I don`t do stuff on the show about it every time but a very, very special member of our team Tiffany Champion, who has been with us from the beginning is leaving, and it`s a huge blow.
And for the old timers, the ones who were here from the first day who spent the whole career before us. If you`ve liked this show through the years, Tiffany was a huge part of the reason that you did and we`re going to miss her a lot.
That is ALL IN for this week, "MSNBC PRIME" starts now with Ali Velshi. Good evening Ali and I`m sorry I`m throwing to you late.