Summary
The IRS announced it has asked the Treasury Department`s inspector general to look into audits of two leaders of the FBI who dared to cross Donald Trump, James Comey and Andrew McCabe. Tomorrow at the U.S. Capitol, the January 6 Committee will take closed-door testimony former Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, which has become even more critical the investigation since the revelations from Cassidy Hutchinson last week. Police says the Highland Park murder suspect legally purchased the gun used in shooting. Republicans scramble to answer for post-Roe horrors. Democratic Pollster Cornel Belcher and MSNBC Political Analyst Tim Miller join Hayes to talk about the Democratic Party messaging ahead of the 2022 Midterm Election.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Richard Trumka and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. And that is just part of the list. It was a much-needed very, very good thing today. Congrats to all of the recipients. And that is tonight`s "REIDOUT". ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES starts now.
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
JAMES COMEY, FORMER DIRECTOR, FBI: The guy is a lying demagogues who you can`t trust, and so you want to be very, very careful about what you give him.
HAYES: Did Donald Trump use his IRS to try and take down the FBI? Tonight, as investigations begin, the Trump appointee who still runs the IRS response and the reporter who broke that story joins me live.
Then, Zoe Lofgren of the January 6 Committee on tomorrow`s big interview with Trump`s White House Counsel.
Plus, David Hogg on what we`re learning about the father`s role in the legal gun sale before the Highland Park massacre. And two weeks after the Supreme Court ended the federal right to abortion, the nightmare scenarios playing out across the country as we get new evidence of hope from a growing backlash when ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. You know, maybe 2022, but we have as of today a new official investigation into apparent or possible Trump administration misconduct. Today, the IRS announced it has asked the Treasury Department`s inspector general to look into audits of two leaders of the FBI who dared to cross Donald Trump, James Comey and Andrew McCabe.
They were both selected by the IRS, supposedly at random, for very rare intensive financial audits. To give you a sense of just how rare this kind of invasive random audit is, just one in 30,600 taxpayers are selected for it in any given year. Now, even though they`ve started an internal investigation, the IRS still run by the Trump-appointed Commissioner, claims it is "ludicrous and untrue to suggest that senior IRS officials somehow targeted specific individuals."
In light to this news, knowing how frequently Trump sought to punish adversaries using the power of the state, it is worth remembering that these two men were among the first people in the ex-president`s administration who refuse to go along with this mob tactics. James Comey had been the director of the FBI for nearly three years when he opened the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia in July of 2016.
He first met then-President-elect Trump in January of 2017 when he informed Trump about the evidence the FBI had collected. Comey was also tasked with telling Trump about the allegations against him in a secret opposition research report known as the Steel Dossier. Comey describe Trump`s reaction to that news in an interview in 2018.
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COMEY: I started to tell him about the allegation was that he had been involved with prostitutes in a hotel in Moscow in 2013 during a visit for the Miss Universe pageant, and that the Russians had filmed the episode. And he interrupted very defensively and started talking about, you know, do I look like a guy who needs hookers?
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HAYES: A few weeks after that troubling first meeting between Comey and Trump, on January 27, Trump summoned Comey to the White House for a one-on- one dinner, where he tried to extract a loyalty pledge from the FBI Director.
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COMEY: He said I expect loyalty. I need loyalty. And I just stared at him and I had this little narrative with myself inside saying, don`t you move, don`t you dare move. Don`t even blink. He said again, I need loyalty. And I said, you will always get honesty from me. And he paused. And then he said, honest loyalty, as if he was proposing some compromise or a deal. And I paused and said you`ll get that from me.
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HAYES: The next month in February, Trump asked Comey to drop the investigation into his just-fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
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COMEY: He asked me -- he said he hopes I can let it go.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ANCHOR, ABC: And when he said that you thought?
COMEY: He`s asking me to drop the criminal investigation of his now-former National Security Adviser.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Direction?
COMEY: I took it as a direction. His words were, though, I hope you could let it go. I took the expression of hope as this is what I want you to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Comey, we came to learn, immediately wrote a new email memo detailing that interaction. It was the New York Times reported a part of the paper trail that Comey created documenting what he perceived the President`s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation.
In March of 2017, Director Comey confirmed publicly for the first time the FBI was investigating potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia at a hearing before the House Intelligence Committee Comey also refuted Trump`s claim that he had been wire tapped by President Obama. And at a Senate Judiciary hearing in early May, he confirmed the Trump invest - - Russia investigation was still ongoing. But Donald Trump had had enough.
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LESTER HOLT, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: We begin with stunning late-breaking news. President Trump has fired James Comey as director of the FBI. It comes without warning and is sending shockwaves across Washington this evening. The President dismissing the man who was leading the investigation into his campaign.
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HAYES: In fact, Comey learned of his firing from the TV report while he was speaking with FBI agents in Los Angeles. Comey immediately headed home to Washington reportedly infuriating Donald Trump by taking an FBI jet. The very next day, Trump held a private meeting in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and he told them "I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That`s taken off."
This was just the beginning of a slew of attacks Trump leveled against James Comey who he repeatedly called a cheater and a liar, even claimed he should be tried for treason. A similar pattern then played out with none other than Comey`s successor Andrew McCabe. Shortly after McCabe took over, Trump summoned him to the White House for a meeting, where he reportedly asked McCabe who he had voted for in the 2016 election. McCabe replied he did not vote.
The Washington Post reports that Trump "also vented his anger at McCabe over the several $100,000 in donations his wife, a Democrat, received for her failed 2015 Virginia State Senate bid from political action committee controlled by a close friend of Hillary Clinton. McCabe understandably found the whole conversation disturbing. He later told 60 Minutes exactly what he was thinking during that meeting.
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ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER DIRECTOR, FBI: I was speaking to the man who had just run for the presidency and won the election for the presidency, and who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia, our most formidable adversary on the world stage. And that was something that troubled me greatly.
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HAYES: McCabe was so troubled, he almost immediately began both an obstruction of justice and counterintelligence investigation into Trump and his ties to Russia.
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MCCABE: The next day, I met with the team investigating the Russia cases and I asked the team to go back and conduct an assessment to determine where are we with these efforts and what steps do we need to take going forward? I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground in an indelible fashion that were I removed quickly or reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace.
HAYES: Now, within three months, Trump quickly chose Christopher Wray over McCabe to be Director of the FBI and McCabe returned to his previous role as Deputy Director. Then in January 2018, McCabe abruptly stepped down following months of taunting from Donald Trump about his wife`s campaign and alleged connections to Hillary Clinton, as well as an impending inspector general report that was expected to be critical of some of McCabe`s actions during the FBI investigation into Clinton.
McCabe plan to go on leave for several weeks until he was eligible for retirement in March. But just two days before his retirement date when he would be eligible for his full pension, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe and Donald Trump celebrated tweeting, "Andrew McCabe fired, a great day for the hard-working men and women of the FBI, a great day for democracy."
Now, it looks like Donald Trump`s campaign or revenge may not have stopped there. You see in 2019, James Comey wasn`t forced that he was -- informed he was chosen for the IRS audit the tax lawyers referred to as "an autopsy without the benefit of death." Two years later, McCabe received the same notification. The Times reports neither man knew that the other had been audited until they were told by a reporter. But now that they know, they want answers.
Andrew McCabe told Times, "I have significant questions about how or why I was selected for this." And Jim Comey said, "Maybe it`s coincidence, or maybe somebody misuse the IRS to get a political enemy. Given the role Trump wants to continue to play in our country, we should know the answer to that question. The reporter who broke this story for The New York Times, Michael Schmidt joins me now.
Michael, the big development today is a referral to the Treasury Department Inspector General to look into this. What does that -- what does that mean?
MICHAEL SCHMIDT, REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: So, this is a difficult question to answer because -- not the question you asked, but getting to the bottom of what happened here. And the Inspector General will have the tools to do that. You need to be able to go in and compel the IRS to give you internal documents, to give you access to IRS employees to speak with them and sort of the authority over the agency to investigate it.
And this Inspector General will have the ability to do that certainly in a way that in our reporting we didn`t have, and perhaps an even more invasive way than even Congress could have if they tried to do this. So, the Inspector General is probably the best position person to investigate it. You know, there`s -- we don`t have an example of criminality yet. We just have sort of an odd circumstance that looks very funny and curious.
And this investigation will hopefully answer the question of, why is it that this happened? Did lightning strike twice in this -- in the same general area or did something was something more nefarious afoot?
[20:10:30]
HAYES: So, I want to read the IRS statement. I think it was from today. It says, "The IRS has strong safeguards in place to protect the exam process and against politically motivated audits. It`s ludicrous and untrue to suggest that senior IRS officials somehow targeted specific individuals for National Research Program audits. The IRS has referred the matter to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration for review."
And what this points to be, Michael, is, this is one of those -- one of those cases where it seems like, in the end, we`ll probably know the truth. Because if there was something improper, it would have had to be done in ways that a number of people knew about it precisely because, as the IRS says, there are safeguards in place.
SCHMIDT: I`m not sure. I`m not sure. I mean, you know, I guess any process can be corrupted. And who knows what this process actually looks like, and how many safeguards there are over it. Time and time again, when I was reporting this out, and I knew just about Comey`s audit, people that had worked at the IRS or worked at the IRS or dealt with them, time and time again said there were far too many safeguards there, and that it could not be corrupted as an institution.
And the only thing that I thought when I heard that was that there were a lot of people that made statements like that before the Trump administration came in that a lot of different things wouldn`t or couldn`t happen because they simply wouldn`t, because institutions and norms would hold. And we saw those, those norms frayed in wildly creative ways.
And so, because of that, and because of Donald Trump`s continued harping on these two individuals, it`s hard on the face of it to simply accept that this was random. If you didn`t have a Trump political appointee running the IRS at the time, and you didn`t have a president who accused these two men of treason and wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute one of them. He literally wanted to order the department to do that had to be stopped by his White House counsel from moving forward with that. So, because of that, it has eroded the day to day work of government.
HAYES: Yes, the Commissioner that you mentioned, Charles Rettig, who is a Trump appointee, what do we know about him and what his involvement has been with the with Donald Trump who, again, this is one of those appointments a little like, you know, the Federal Reserve where there`s -- they`re supposed to be kind of arm`s length distance, right?
SCHMIDT: Correct. So, Rettig was someone who represented wealthy clients and disputes with the IRS. He advocated in 2016 that Donald Trump did not need, or should not release his tax returns, because he was under audit, sort of giving credibility to the argument that Trump had made on the campaign trail.
He is someone who owns two properties at a Trump property in Waikiki, Hawaii. And he`s someone that I think Democrats and Republicans have both been able to work with. He was a respected lawyer in the tax world. People think very highly of him there. At the same time today, the White House Press Secretary, when asked whether Biden had confidence in Rettig to run the agency, fairly sidestepped the question, and basically said, look, he`s done in November. His term is scheduled to expire in November, so there was no -- you know, she sidestepped the question.
HAYES: The other sort of circumstantial facts that we should introduce in the discussion, it seems for context, is that this has been a temptation for presidents in the past. I mean, it`s a little like it`s a loaded weapon there sitting on the desk in the Oval Office. FDR, you know, had the IRS go look into political opponents add to JFK, and then most notoriously, Richard Nixon as part of the articles of impeachment, you know, even said out loud, he wanted a ruthless sob to run the IRS.
So, there is a history here because this -- you know, because an audit is so awful, because that data is so private and it`s such a powerful tool of the state for someone to abuse it.
SCHMIDT: Yes, look, to the -- to the point of how invasive this is, this took 15 -- the Comey audit took 15 months. They had to pay their accountant $5,000. There was -- the agent that worked on it did over 50 hours of work. Comey had to prove to the IRS that he actually had the children who he had claimed as dependents. And he had to do that by showing a picture, the family picture that was included in the Christmas card, the family Christmas card, to show that he actually had the children that he said he did.
So, they had to go to great lengths to recreate his financial year. At one point they were looking for a receipt from a printer cartridge he had bought in two years earlier. So, that gives you a flavor of how invasive and unusual this audit is.
[20:15:41]
HAYES: Yes. And the end, right, he ended up having the IRS owe him some money, right? He had overpaid on his taxes. Was that the end result if I remember that correctly?
SCHMIDT: Yes. I mean, for people who have watched Jim Comey, they said it was sort of the ultimate Jim Comey on brand moment where here he is. He had to spend $5,000 to hire an accountant to be told that he had overpaid by $300 on his taxes.
HAYES: All right, this is a fascinating story. Great reporting, Michael. And thanks for coming on tonight to explain it.
SCHMIDT: Thanks for having me.
HAYES: Coming up, reports of a second January 6 hearing next week, all the details on that. Plus, the other hearing which we know the topic of, the coordination between Trump world and basically right-wing militia members and the committee`s upcoming interview with Trump`s White House Counsel tomorrow. January 6 committee member Zoe Lofgren joins me next.
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HAYES: Tomorrow at the U.S. Capitol, the January 6 Committee will take closed door testimony with White House Counsel to Donald Trump, Pat Cipollone, which has become even more critical the investigation since the revelations from Cassidy Hutchinson last week. As a country waits to hear his story, we are hearing reports of another hearing set for next Thursday. That`s a week from today. The Guardian`s Hugo Lowell reports that it will likely focus on what was happening inside the White House during the attack on the Capitol.
So, that would be two hearings next week. Tuesday, we have one confirmed. That`s been announced. That will be during the day, and then Thursday night, apparently according to Hugo Lowell`s reporting, in prime time. Now, Tuesday`s hearing will present evidence the Trump administration has ties to the far-right gangs like the Proud Boys who tried to violently disrupt the peaceful transfer of power during the insurrection.
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, member of the January 6 Committee joins me now. Good to have you, Congresswoman. Tomorrow, Pat Cipollone gives testimony. How significant is that?
REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): Well, I think it`s likely to be very significant. He was present at some of the key moments that we`ve already learned about from others who were in the room, the efforts to get the Justice Department to issue a bogus letter, the efforts to replace the civil servants with Jeff Clark who wrote the bogus letter, his efforts according to miss Hutchinson to try and prevent crimes from occurring on the sixth. You know, we`re looking forward to his full testimony. And I`m glad he`s coming in.
HAYES: Could you give some insight into what the process was to produce this? I know you`re not going to get into private negotiations, but presumably, there were some privileged concerns, I think, or some topic area concerns. Have you guys -- I mean, he will be testifying under oath, right, like other witnesses?
LOFGREN: Right. It`s a it`s a crime to lie to Congress. And all the witnesses are advised of that at the very beginning of their deposition. You know, I can`t say -- speak for him what changed his mind, but we have been in discussions with him for some time. He, as was disclosed, I think at one of our hearings, he did come in for a non-transcribed discussion. Our investigators took copious notes, but he was not until recently prepared to come in and have a formal deposition as he is doing tomorrow.
And whether it was Miss Hutchinson`s testimony, I don`t know. I would just be speculating. I do believe that he has concerns and wants to make sure that the office of -- that he has held it remains intact but as well remembering that that office serves the presidency, not the individual incumbent. And certainly, many of the meetings that we`ve learned about from others would not be covered by any kind of privilege.
There`s certainly no attorney-client privilege when you discuss matters with other people present. And he`s a good lawyer. He knows that.
HAYES: In terms of next week -- well, first, if you want to make some news and confirm, is there going to be a hearing on Thursday?
LOFGREN: I thought it best throughout to let the chairman make the announcements rather than random members of the committee. So, I think I`ll stick with that.
HAYES: OK. I don`t consider you random, Congressman, but I think that`s probably a good policy. Can you tell us a little bit about what to expect on Tuesday?
LOFGREN: Well, I think we will be connecting the dots as people know and as Mr. Raskin, I think, has indicated publicly. We`re looking at the connections between the various extremist groups. You know, this wasn`t just an event that unfolded. It was planned. Who did the planning and who were they connected with? How did it unfold? And I think we will be connecting dots. There`ll be new information that has not yet been learned. I think it`ll be worth watching.
[20:25:26]
HAYES: What is the -- what is the expected timeline for the -- for the public section of this? I mean, you know, should we anticipate some -- is there going to be some sort of closure and sort of things are wrapped up, and the committee then issues a report or do you suspect that there will be additional public hearings and there may be some later on? How should we think about that?
LOFGREN: Well, I think we`ve announced at the very beginning that we intend to have a report, and the report will be after the public hearings. So, I think towards the fall would be a good guess. And we`ll lay out everything that we`ve found out as others have mentioned. You know, people continuing to come in with new information. Some of it is valuable, some of it is not, but it takes a while to go through all the material and make sure we`re not missing anything. We want a complete report.
And of course, part of our obligation is to make recommendations for various legislative changes that would make the country stronger. And we`re working on that as well. I think it has been publicly reported that I`ve been working with Liz Cheney and looking at the Electoral Count Act, obviously, even Mr. Eastman admitted that what he was proposing violated the Electoral Count Act. But that doesn`t mean that we might not want to make a little harder for people seeking to do wrong to take advantage.
HAYES: Finally, you were a staffer on the congressional committee investigating Watergate. And of course, that was happening parallel to criminal proceedings, first against the burglars, and then eventually against some of the people in the Nixon administration, though Nixon famously pardoned by Ford. So, those parallel increase were happening.
Given that experience, do you have any concerns that anything your committee is doing might be imperiling or infringing on whatever the Department of Justice is doing to look into all of this?
LOFGREN: No, I don`t. And just a correction, I didn`t work for the committee, I worked for John Edwards, a member of the committee and did do some of the work for him in that capacity. Now, we`re a legislative committee. You know, we don`t have a legal right to indict anyone. That belongs in the Department of Justice. We will certainly, at their request, share at the appropriate time discrete pieces of information.
But they have subpoena power, and honestly, they`ve got a lot easier time getting their subpoenas enforced than do legislative committees. So, they`re not sharing with us where they are. That`s appropriate. If they find evidence that a crime has been committed, you should find out about that through an indictment, not through leaks, and they certainly hasn`t been sharing -- have not been sharing information with us and I think that`s the right thing.
HAYES: All right, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
LOFGREN: You bet. Have good evening.
HAYES: Still ahead, how the July 4 shooter was able to legally buy the guns he used to kill people at a parade. David Hogg is here on that next.
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HAYES: It seems like after every mass shooting, we see a graphic like this showing just how many of these massacres are committed by people who legally bought the gun that they used. This is not all a complete list, but in every one of these shootings you see here, the gun was purchased legally including the July 4 attack in Highland Park, Illinois where seven people were killed and nearly 40 others were injured, many of them still in the hospital tonight.
In fact, the Department of Justice found that as of 2019, of the known mass shooting cases, 77 percent of those who engage in mass shootings purchased at least some of their guns legally. In the case of the Highland Park shooter, back in 2019, police actually confiscated 16 knives, a dagger, and a sword from him after a family member told police that the shooter said he "was going to kill everyone."
State police issue firearm owners identification cards in Illinois FOIDs, and they received a "clear and present danger report on this individual, the Highland shooting suspect, after this incident yet -- and yet, he was able to still legally purchase the semi-automatic weapon used in the massacre because months later, the suspect`s father sponsored that permit application and State Police granted it.
David Hogg survived the shooting at his high school in Parkland, Florida four years ago. He`s a gun safety advocate and co-founder of March for Our Lives. And he joins me now. It`s great to have you on, David. And I got to say that it`s such a strange set of facts in this case, but it does raise some questions, I think, about the policy solutions every time that we talk about how to sort of rein in gun violence in America when you look at individual cases.
Here, you know, Illinois has some kind of -- you know, it`s not super easy to get a weapon like this, and yet still, he was able to get one.
DAVID HOGG, CO-FOUNDER, MARCH FOR OUR LIVES: Yes, well, I think it speaks to the fact that unfortunately, no law is perfect, but also that we have to continue doing all that we can to prevent these things from happening. I think it`s important to note, in many -- you know, in several states across this country where some of the strongest gun laws, even stronger gun laws than Illinois has, you -- some people have to essentially be interviewed by a police department before they are able to legally obtain a weapon.
It would -- I would be surprised if, you know, the police department was able to interview this individual and having known what they knew would still be like, yes, this person is OK to have an AR-15. And, fundamentally, Chris, what this comes down to -- and I`m not going to get into the specifics of the father and many of the details that are coming out as we speak still, but I will say what enabled this to happen is the fact that he was able to get the gun legally in the first place.
[20:35:47]
And there are many people who say criminals don`t obey laws. But why should we be making it easier for bad guys to get guns legally like this case by enabling them to legally obtain them in the first place? It doesn`t make sense to me. No responsible gun owner, no Republican wants this to continue. We have to find the common ground and act together.
HAYES: You`ve been talking about common ground in your sort of journey through advocacy on this issue after the awful tragedy that happened in your high school and there has been some progress on that. I mean, there`s two things that have happened. Public opinion does seem to be moving in a certain direction. And there was that bipartisan gun legislation which is the first that we`ve seen in many, many years. What`s your reaction to that?
HOGG: Look, I think the legislation that we passed is a good half step of 1000 that are needed to successfully address gun violence in this country. But it shows that Americans are not divided on this issue. The most divided people in our country on addressing gun violence are not in red, and blue, and purple states, across our country, they`re the 100 senators that are on Capitol Hill. That`s who`s divided on this issue.
And as Americans, as Republicans, as Democrats, as gun owners and non-gun owners, we need to understand which we already do that we don`t --we don`t completely agree on this issue in how to address it, but we fundamentally do agree on that something. Something must be done to address this, because we know that doing nothing is only going to allow this to continue in the first place.
We have to work together to make as much progress as we can and demand that our senators do what we already have as Americans, which is agree that we need gun safety in this country. Responsible gun owners do not want gun violence to continue, nor do Republicans or Democrats for that matter. We have to work to find the common ground and demand, demand our senators act and act in a bipartisan manner because we have to have 10 votes to overcome the filibuster.
HAYES: What do you think changed after Uvalde in the political calculation or the -- or the ability to even get that to have those negotiations happen? What -- as someone who`s been working on this for the last few years, what changed?
HOGG: I think the conversation changed. You know, the immediate reaction -- for one, it`s obviously the incredible tragedy that children -- that were barely children, that were essentially babies were slaughtered and the horror that brought, and the immediate action that Americans brought to say, look, you know, we had -- we had tens of thousands of gun owners tweeting out that they were gun owners for safety, saying, you know, I`m a gun owner, but I know that there`s no reason why our kids should be in danger in our schools and communities. And me owning a gun and preventing these horrifying tragedies are not mutually exclusive in the first place.
We saw Republicans coming out and speaking about it. We saw even individuals like Joe Walsh and Michael Steele talking about it. Joe Walsh was even marching with us, you know, to change this. It was the bipartisan pressure that we put on the -- on the senators combined with the tragedy. And to be completely frank with you, the closeness of an election that Republicans felt pressure on that enabled that to happen.
But we have to go out there again and continue to demand it, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans that are united to protect what we care about most, our kids.
HAYES: David Hogg who has been working with March for Our Lives, thank you very much for your time tonight. I appreciate it.
HOGG: Thanks.
HAYES: Coming up, new evidence that there may actually be hope for Democrats in the Midterms. That`s ahead,.
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HAYES: We are less than two weeks since the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion, and in many states, the absolute worst case nightmare scenarios are already coming true. As of today, Mississippi`s only abortion clinic has closed. And abortion is either outright ban or severely restricted in more than a dozen state. That`s already.
Both the college -- American College of Rheumatology and Lupus Foundation say they are aware of reports of patients being unable to access the drug Methotrexate which is used to treat long-term conditions like lupus and arthritis because it can also be used and high doses or mixed with another drug with medical abortion.
There was also a devastating report out of Ohio which has been haunting me since I read it in which a 10-year-old victim of rape who was six weeks and three days pregnant with the child of her rapist, had to travel across state lines to Indiana to secure an abortion, because she could not legally access that`s in Ohio.
This is not an abstract case. This isn`t a thought of expert of a worst- case scenario. This is a real child, and a real thing that happened just days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. And the explicit position of many republican leaders is that a 10-year-old child should be forced to carry the rapists baby to term. Just listen to Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine squirm when pressed on the horrifying reality in his state.
[20:45:13]
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GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): Well, I`m assuming that this has been referred to Children`s Services. I assume this also been referred to local -- whatever the local law enforcement agency is. We have out there an obviously a rapist. We have someone who is dangerous, and we have someone who should be picked up and locked up forever.
And again, I don`t not knowing all the facts of the case I`m just assuming that that process has in fact -- has in fact been followed.
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HAYES: Oh, the process has been followed. Well, to make matters worse, Indiana where this girl secured an abortion legally is preparing its own abortion ban. Its Republican attorney general is pushing for one without any exceptions, which means that the next elementary school aged child who becomes pregnant by her rapist in Ohio may not even have the same option of driving to Indiana.
But as I said, not every Republican is squirming about this. Some actually think that a 10-year-old should be forced to carry an abusers child to term. Republican Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota which has also banned abortion without exception seems to agree with the policy.
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GOV. KRISTI NOEM (R-SD): What I would say is I don`t believe a tragic situation should be perpetuated by another tragedy. And so, there`s more that we`ve got to do to make sure that we really are living a life that says every life is precious, especially innocent lives that have been shattered like that 10-year-old girl.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: I think it goes without saying that this is just wildly out of line with where the American public is on abortion. Consistent majorities of Americans around 60 percent in basically every survey oppose overturning Roe. According to recent Monmouth poll, 85 percent of Americans, 85 percent think at the very least, abortion bans should include exceptions for rape, incest, and in life saving situations.
And according to recent reporting in the Washington Post, Republican candidates are looking for ways to avoid talking about their incredibly unpopular abortion stance which forces 10-year-old children to give birth on the campaign trail. Well, Democrats, even those governing, are campaigning in red states, like governors Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, they`re all going on the offensive on this issue firmly standing up for abortion rights unapologetically.
We`re going to talk about how this might play out with the Midterms just four months away next.
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HAYES: Given what we`ve seen in the past six years, all political polling should be taken with an enormous grain of salt. What you can use polls for, I think, usefully as opposed to predicting who will win an election by what margin is to measure broader trends in public opinion or political trends over time.
So, right now, there are two trends in national polling. The first, which you probably seen, is that President Joe Biden`s approval is going down. According to Monmouth, his approval rating has fallen to 36 percent. That`s pretty low. Then then there`s the other trend, though, that we`re seeing is that the opposite this thing is happening on what`s called the generic congressional ballot. That`s when you ask people whether they`re going to vote for the Democrat or the Republican in Congress.
Now, normally, Midterm election performance is pegged to the incumbent President`s approval rating. But in that same poll, 47 percent say they want Democrats to control Congress, 11 points higher than Biden`s approval rating and also an improvement from that reading in May. Broader polling has borne that out. FiveThirtyEight`s (INAUDIBLE), the polling aggregate, over 43 percent support Democrats on the generic battle -- ballot.
Right now, Monmouth has a President`s approval rating among Democrats down to just 74 percent. That`s pretty low for people in the party. I think the decline in his own party`s approval is because Democrats are frustrated with the way things are with Biden over losing federal abortion rights, among other things. But I`m also betting those same Democrats are still pretty ticked off and ready to vote in the Midterms, which creates this interesting dynamic for the two parties messaging this fall.
Joining me now, democratic pollster and strategist Cornell Belcher and Tim Miller, former RNC Spokesman and author of Why We Did It: A Travel Log From the Republican Road to Hell, which debuted at number two on the New York Times bestseller list this week. Congratulations, Tim.
Cornell, let me start with you on these -- on the trends we`ve seen because take away Roe v. Wade and you`d have a pretty straightforward story. I mean, you know, inflation is seven percent, there`s a lot of post COVID disruption, there`s a war happening in Europe that has made gas prices super high. The President can`t really control any of that stuff. It`s kind of served up to the challenged party to just rail against that stuff and say vote for us if you want to change. It`s simple enough.
It does seem to me Roe is so monumental, and then the broader sort of sense of sort of peril and cultural assault, guns, the court, Trump lingering there, does change the picture a little bit than from a normal Midterm. What do you think?
CORNELL BELCHER, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: I do think you -- look, if you -- if you go back to the beginning of the year, you had generic horse race, you know, Republicans opening up a really sort of wide gap in the generic horse race. And typically going into -- going into a midterm, if Dems aren`t in the generic horse race, it`s really problematic for them.
And -- but over the course of that -- over the course of the -- since the beginning of the year, what have you seen? You`ve seen, you know, Republicans fight restrictions on guns. You`ve seen Supreme Court take away, you know, women`s rights. And by the way, Republicans are cheering that and Republican governors and state legislative bodies talking about taking away even more freedoms and rights from women. And that story that you did just before this -- before the segment is really heartbreaking. So this is really hitting home.
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And you also look throughout the Southwest states like Georgia, battleground states like Georgia, you have Republicans really sort of take -- trying to go after the voting rights of poor people and minority voters. So, this is becoming classically you want this to be a referendum on the President. If you`re Republicans, you want to be a referendum on the president, just like in 2018, we wanted to be a referendum on Donald Trump. And what you have is now -- this has become a referendum on Republicans. And that -- and that`s the thing -- I think that`s why you see the horse race sort of tightening. And I think that`s why you see Democrats better positioning because it`s less about Joe Biden and is more about Republican overreach.
HAYES: Yes. And Tim, I mean, I think McConnell has the theory of the case correct here, right? He just very clearly wants to just take things off the table and just basically say to voters like, do you like eight percent inflation or not, right? Like, that`s it. Like, that`s all I want you to think about? It`s all I want to talk about. And if you like it, then vote for the Democrats. If you don`t like it, vote for us, right? That`s the position he`s best in.
But he`s also got this problem of candidate quality in a lot of these states. I mean, Herschel Walker, is just a disaster of a candidate. And that should be a very winnable race for Republicans in the state of Georgia in the year of our Lord 2022. But I don`t -- that guy is a rough guy to put out there as your nominee.
TIM MILLER, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think that`s why Democrats should be looking better in the Senate. If you look at FiveThirtyEight, it`s showing that, right, the Democrat`s chance to hold the house is pretty low but the -- with the Senate, it`s a coin flip. A lot of this is because of candidate quality.
You know, I want to look -- sometimes in America, we get so myopic about American politics, but something like this just happened in France, right, where Macron had very low ratings, but you know, in the final run, he was put up against Le Pen who is insane, racist, unacceptable. And so Macron wins kind of handily despite his low personal ratings.
This is the model that the Democrats need and the Senate races where were you disqualify the Herschel Walkers of the world is too extreme, maybe this Blake Masters who wins in Arizona. You can see this Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, Ron Johnson who we talked about -- last time I was on the show, Chris, and all of his kind of conspiratorial mindset. You tried to disqualify these people as extremist using some of these, you know, social issues even and support for, you know, very far right positions on guns, abortion, and some of these issues, and get voters who might not be that happy with Joe Biden, might not be that happy with the economy, to kind of hold their nose and vote for the Democrat because the Republican candidates is so far out there.
I think that`s a very realistic model for the Democrats in the Senate. It`s harder to do that in House races because name ID, you know, and the familiarity of the candidates is lower.
HAYES: But -- and then when you look at statewide like gubernatorial races where these two things really come together, Cornell like, you know, Josh Shapiro is running in Pennsylvania against Doug Mastriano. You know, he was on my program and he said something which is flatly true and every voter of every stripe of ideology in Pennsylvania should know it.
If Josh Shapiro is elected Governor of Pennsylvania, abortion will likely almost certainly remain legal in Pennsylvania. And if Doug Mastriano, the Republican is elected, it will be illegal. They will outlaw abortion in that state. Like, Mastriano is very clear on that, there`s Republican legislators already. So, in that case, you know, as looking at this polling about the salience of abortion and choice for Democrats which has gone up tremendously in this PRRI polling, right, like will you only vote for a candidate who shares your views? That I think is going to play a pretty big role, I think, if the messaging is correct, in those gubernatorial races in places like Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
BELCHER: Well, and even if you look at sort of the NBC polling from earlier on, you see the issue of abortion raising as a top tier issue consideration. You were saying that in polling all across the country where the issue of abortion before the Supreme Court started to overturn this, it was not a second or third -- second or third place issue consideration. Now, it`s a top tier issue consideration. And I think goes beyond the governor`s races.
Look, in 2010, you know, women broke for Democrats by one point. In 2018, they broke by for Democrats by almost 20 points. And so, that`s a difference. Where`s that gender gap going to be? I find it hard to sort of sort of believe that women voters aren`t going to break for Democrats by double digit margins because of the Roe v. Wade decision.
HAYES: Yes, it`s going to be very interesting. Cornell Belcher and Tim Miller again, whose book is getting rave reviews, thank you both for coming out. I appreciate it.
MILLER: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Thursday night. "MSNBC PRIME" starts now with Ali Velshi. Good evening, Ali.