Summary
Congresswoman Liz Cheney, Vice Chair January 6 Committee was annihilated as expected, losing by a resounding 37 points. Tim Miller and Mona Charen join Chris Hayes to discuss Cheney`s bid to save the Republican Party. Rudy Giuliani appears before Georgia grand jury for six hours after prosecutors named him as a target of the probe. Tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. a judge will hear on the bid to unseal the Mar-a-Lago affidavit.
Transcript
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she fears for our very democracy if Republicans win in November. Do you?
HAYES: The fate of democracy and the Republican Party in the wake of Liz Cheney`s loss.
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): I think we have to make sure that we are fighting against every single election denier. The election deniers right now are Republicans.
HAYES: Then, what did Rudy Giuliani tell a Fulton County grand jury?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe President Trump is the ultimate target of this investigation?
HAYES: And are we on the verge of seeing a roadmap to the government`s ongoing investigation of Donald Trump? Plus, raw politics at the greengrocer in Pennsylvania.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For those watching in Pennsylvania, you know, how particular many people are about their groceries? What happened with Wegman`s and Wegners? Can you explain that to them?
HAYES: And a Republican reckoning with extreme abortion laws that needs to be seen to be believed?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That weighs on me. I voted for that bill. These are affecting people.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. We now have of course the results from the Republican primary for Wyoming`s loan at large congressional seat. Congresswoman Liz Cheney, Vice Chair January 6 Committee was, well, annihilated as we expected. She lost by a resounding 37 points, 28.9 percent to 66.3. Wyoming voters overwhelmingly rebuke Cheney who, of course, stood up to Donald Trump after his insurrection, voting to impeach him and then helping to lead the committee investigating his actions.
Now, Liz Cheney has earned a lot of praise, especially in Liberal circles for taking a stand against Trump and his attempt to end America`s constitutional republic. Fellow January 6 Committee member Congressman Jamie Raskin has spoken incredibly fondly about her, recently telling The New Republic that she has acted with great honesty to confront the lies of the Trump machinery. Raskin also said about his unlikely friend, "She will follow Donald Trump to the gates of Hell if she needs to make sure that justice is done and that truth is known."
And there`s no doubt Liz Cheney has made genuine career political sacrifices on behalf of American democracy. That was evident last night almost as soon as polls closed. And what she has done is praiseworthy and important. But it`s also the case that, you know, Cheney is a bone-deep reactionary, a conservative to her core, and also, crucially, a partisan Republican. None of that has changed. And as strange as it may seem, she has, I think, taken this course of action in an attempt to save the Republican Party.
This morning on the Today Show, Liz Cheney laid out her case.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: Look, I think the Republican Party today is in very bad shape. And I think that we have a tremendous amount of work to do. I think it could take several election cycles. But the country has got to have a Republican Party that`s actually based on substance, based on principles, you know, based on a belief in limited government and low taxes and a strong national defense.
I believe that the -- that the family has got to be the center of our community and of our lives. And those are the principles I believe in. That`s what the party used to stand for. And we`ve got to get the party back to that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, I will leave aside my own significant quibbles with the definition of what the party used to stand for. You`ll notice just to make one observation, she admitted the torture program, the war crimes that were championed by her father and endorsed by her from that list. But the key point here is that in her own understanding, Congresswoman Cheney is standing up to Donald Trump not just for the sake of American democracy, but for the sake of the institutional vitality and indeed survival of the Republican Party itself, and I think she is right on this. And I think it`s under-appreciated how right she is by everyone.
Because here`s the thing, a Conservative Party in a two-party liberal democracy like ours, which is what the Republican Party is and has been, cannot continue to thrive or even exist if the MAGA authoritarian cult takes over. There is no space for that institution in the world in which Donald Trump is successful, in which he successfully overturns American democracy, which is to say, to save the Republican Party, you actually must save American democracy.
And somehow lose Cheney seems to be one of the only members of her party to grasp this elemental truth, or at least one of the only ones to act on it. The other Republican cowards cannot muster the same courage to do what she has done to save their own hides in the end. Instead, they have dealt with this tension between the need to again, preserve American democracy and their desire to win elections, retain their jobs by basically going along with whatever Donald Trump says, winking and nodding and evading sometimes pretending they didn`t hear it.
And that`s basically the consensus view. That appears to be the calculation that everyone from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made. Now, the Republican who has been the most forthright about his thinking on this actually is Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Graham, of course, not always a fan of Donald Trump. In fact, he has made a real U-turn since that 2016 campaign.
[20:05:22]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Here`s what I think. I think Donald Trump is a political car wreck.
He`s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.
He`s a jackass.
Donald Trump is not strong. He`s actually weak. He`s a bully. He`s a cartoon character.
Donald Trump is most unelectable Republican I`ve seen in my lifetime.
He shouldn`t be commander-in-chief.
He`s destroying the party. There to be a generation before we can overcome this, maybe never.
You know how you make America great again, tell Donald Trump to go to hell.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: No, Graham, I suppose to his credit has been very honest about why he has come around on Donald Trump. This is what he said at a right-wing pro-Trump summit just last month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRAHAM: If you think Trump is bad for the party, I disagree with you. I think President Trump is good for the party. Let me tell you why. President Trump has gotten people who wouldn`t give me or Romney or anybody else the time of day. They believe that he is on their side. I`m trying to move toward a strong America and he`s the vehicle to get us there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, this is really interesting, because actually, if you look at the earlier clips of Lindsey Graham and the latter ones, he`s making the same argument. It`s just about what Donald Trump does for the Republican Party, right? At first, he thought he was bad for the Republican Party. Now, he`s become convinced he`s good. And the argument is basically, what are you going to do, the base loves him.
And in the short term, to win elections for the Republican Party, Lindsey Graham is correct. The math just does not work for Republicans in this election or the one two years after to achieve reliable broad victories without Donald Trump and his supporters. It doesn`t work. But Graham and everyone who toes that line, right, they don`t seem to have thought through what happens next.
So, you win some elections. Maybe you get power. What happens if Trump and his people win? These are people who are, by their own words, right, fundamentally opposed to the American system. What happens if you have people who think that Hugo Chavez`s ghost hack voting machines, that the Chinese snuck in bamboo paper to steal an election? What happens when you have them running our elections?
We`re close to that. We`re on the precipice of that. Under the Lindsey Graham strategy, that`s what is going to happen if he`s right. People come out and vote for him. What happens when that succeeds, when Trump succeeds? What happens when Trump succeeds where January 6 barely failed? I`ll tell you what happens. And I think Liz Cheney would agree with me.
The Republican Party, the thing we know is that, will not be preserved. If Donald Trump succeeds in his project of destroying American democracy, it will succeed in creating something entirely new, something very ugly, and let me tell you, incredibly unpredictable. And it will not be a world I would be willing to bet in which people like Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell or a lot of the rest of them thrive.
Liz Cheney seems to be just about the only person of the party who recognizes this at a cellular level. Keep in mind, she is not a liberal in any way. She is a solid right winger. She was number three in House leadership. She voted in line with Donald Trump even more than Lindsey Graham did. She was with Trump just about every step of the way, even when he was essentially kidnapping children. She was with him until he tried to topple America`s constitutional republic.
But watching him attempt to assassinate American democracy made Liz she realize that you cannot keep the tiger on the leash because he will eat you. She realized there is no future with Donald Trump, even for her most selfish political, institutional interest the Republican Party to which she is an heir. What would there be left to rule except a kingdom of ashes if Trump is successful in his project?
And if enough of her colleagues have realized it too, if they had the fortitude and courage Liz Cheney has, they might have been able to do something about it. They had a moment if they had collectively struck when they had the opportunity during the second impeachment trial. If they had voted to convict and bar him from future office, I don`t think we`d be in this situation, but they were cowards. They were all cowards. And so, Liz Cheney is alone and we`re going to see all of us how the Lindsey Graham strategy plays out.
Tim Miller is a writer-at-large for the Bulwark and a former RNC spokesman. Mona Charen is the policy editor for the bulwark and a former speechwriter for Nancy Reagan. And they both join me now. First, let me just start with your response to that thesis that there -- that it is in the institutional interest of the Republican Party, as a conservative party in a -- in a democracy, for democracy to continue, and that Liz Cheney understands this and at some level is doing something that she thinks adheres to the benefit of what we come to think of the Republican Party. Mona?
[20:10:28]
MONA CHAREN, POLICY EDITOR, THE BULWARK: I have a slightly different perception of Liz Cheney from you.
HAYES: Please.
CHAREN: I think that she is being far less concerned about Republicans and the fate of the Republican Party and she`s really all about the fate of the country, recognizing that Donald Trump`s ascendance is a threat to our very democratic system, and therefore, she has really shed a lot of her partisan concerns.
I mean, you can -- you can hear it in the interviews that, you know, you said she hasn`t become any less partisan. I don`t agree. If you listen to her, she`s really just about unity now.
HAYES: Yes, I think -- yes, I think that`s fair. I think she has -- she has become part of the popular front in defense of America`s constitutional governance, basically.
CHAREN: Yes.
HAYES: A broad -- which is broad as I like to joke. It goes from Noam Chomsky to Bill Kristol. It`s a -- it`s a big tent. She is -- she is in that, right?
CHAREN: Right.
HAYES: But I also do think that -- I guess the point that I think she grasps that others don`t, Tim, is like, I don`t think Graham and the rest can conceptualize Trump`s success. This is what I think it is. I don`t think they think he`s capable of pulling it off. And so, I think they think they will still be in the driver`s seat, that Mitch McConnell will get power back, and he`ll sort of run the show, and they`ll get their judges. And no one has thought through, like, what does it actually look like if they really pull it off, right?
Like, if the whole American experiment collapses in on itself, what`s life like for Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham? I think it doesn`t look as good as I think they might understand.
TIM MILLER, WRITER-AT-LARGE, THE BULWARK: Yes, I agree. I think that what`s so refreshing about Liz Cheney is that her view of Donald Trump is really not all that different from Mitch McConnell`s view of Donald Trump, right?
HAYES: Correct.
MILLER: They both think he`s dangerous. They both think that he`s buffoonish. You know, they both wish you would just disappear. But what Liz Cheney does is then act on that as if that`s a very serious thing that needs to be acted upon, right? And that has been the refreshing thing about her. And so -- and the frustrating thing for all of us, you know, over the past six years who know that our former colleagues and our former friends see him in the same way that we see him but aren`t acting on it, right?
And that I think relates directly to this threat assessment, right? Like she saw January 6 in the same way that we all did as a -- as a potentially an existential threat to the country. She sees all these MAGA Secretary of State`s and gubernatorial candidates that are coming up as an existential threat to the country. And I think that whether Lindsey Graham has convinced himself that he can nudge Donald Trump to the right direction, or whether he thinks that this is all too buffoonish and silly to actually come down, or whether he lives in this kind of privilege bubble, you know, that makes him feel like the American system will never be toppled and that`s not something to worry about, or some combination of all those things, they just are not acting on the reality that we all see and she is.
CHAREN: But, Chris --
HAYES: Well -- yes, go ahead. Go ahead, Mona.
CHAREN: If you -- if you as a Republican -- if you as a Republican can look at Donald Trump and say, yes, he represents a threat to our way of life. Yes, he represents a threat to this democratic experiment, but I`m going to go ahead and support him anyway because my reelection is at issue, then you really don`t care. If you really understand that when you know what`s at stake, then you really don`t care about the country in the end. That`s what it comes down to.
HAYES: Yes, and there`s also, Mona -- I mean, there`s a -- there`s a kind of tactical question to which I find -- which is so frustrating I think in retrospect, when you look at the 10 Republicans that voted for impeachment, for instance, among whom Liz Cheney is one of them, you know, that basically, there`s only two remaining candidates for reelection, the others have bowed out, like Cheney had been defeated by Trump-backed challengers, right? Like they have been picked off one by one.
But there was a moment after January 6, I remember sitting, you know, in front of this camera when news broke that Mitch McConnell was leaking he didn`t know how he`s going to vote on impeachment, right?
CHAREN: Right.
HAYES: If people had moved -- the collective action of people -- if people move as a group --
CHAREN: Absolutely.
HAYES: -- it might be different, right? But they all --
CHAREN: Absolutely.
HAYES: -- they ended up going out there and then turning around, and no one is behind them.
CHAREN: You know, and it`s funny because you know, they are these sayings on the Hill, you know, when they have like a tough vote, where they say, well, if we all hold hands together, then we can do it, right? Where if like across the aisle, you know, we`ll take some heat from our side, you`ll take it. And so -- but they never applied that principle within the Republican Party dealing with Trump. If they had just all held hands, they could have done it on two occasions. So, they didn`t.
[20:15:16]
HAYES: Yes. And they -- and they haven`t now, Tim, which means that they have -- they`ve got the tiger problem. I mean, this is -- this is really it, right? And it`s not -- it`s not a thing, and I think you -- all three of us agree on this. It`s not a thing that can be ignored or compromised or massage or synthesized. It`s a dividing line that can`t be bridged. And, you know, Cheney and Kinzinger and you two and others are -- you know, called that but very few others will.
MILLER: You know, I would be in the metaphor to death that the tiger owns them now, right? I mean, they`re totally at the mercy of the tiger. They have no control over this. They might up for a moment, right, but now they`ve completely even given up pretending as if that they do. And I think that the thing that is so frustrating when I listened to your intro, Chris, is not only was it the right thing for morally and for the country for them to all hold hands and jump together during the second impeachment, but it was the right thing for the party in the medium term, right?
CHAREN: Absolutely.
MILLER: They could have very easily just moved on to Ron DeSantis, right? It would have been three percent of the party that would have been Donald Trump dead-enders, like the you know, last Japanese that still fighting the war, but most of the party would have gladly moved on to Ron DeSantis. The Trump run would have been done. A couple of them would have been sacrificed in the primaries. We would have needed a few more Liz Cheneys. That`s it. And that is the only thing that separates her from them is that she had the courage to say I will sacrifice myself on the pyre, and so she has.
HAYES: Yes, that`s my point. That is my thesis here is that all the other things aside, I don`t think the people that run the Republican Party have correctly adduced their own self-interest in a more medium term than just the next election. And I think, you know, everyone is going to pay for it in the end. Hopefully, not in the worst-case scenario.
CHAREN: Yes.
HAYES: Tim Miller and Mona Charen, thank you both.
CHAREN: Thanks.
HAYES: Coming up, the incredible scene outside a Fulton County Courthouse today down the state of Georgia. Donald Trump`s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani testifies for a Georgia grand jury. What did Rudy say and what does it mean for his old boss? Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:20:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUDY GIULIANI, TRUMP ATTORNEY: There`s overwhelming proof of fraud. It depends on you and it depends on your determination of credibility. 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 foolish 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, and in my view is part of the conservative plan, because certain cities with picked in order to carry this out where they thought they could get away with it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That was Trump lawyer, coup plotter Rudy Giuliani in Georgia back in 2020 with baseless lies and accusations, pretty close to slander actually, that the presidential election was rigged. Well, today, he returned to the state to testify in the ongoing Fulton County criminal investigation into alleged interference in the 2020 election, an investigation that we have since learned he is formally a target of.
As you can see, Giuliani was initially locked out of the courthouse, had to wait for a security guard to let him into the building with all the press around him assembled. When asked, Giuliani was non-committal as to whether or not he would cooperate with the investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you expecting to talk about here today?
GIULIANI: Well, they asked the questions and we`ll see.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will you be cooperative? You attorney in New York says you can`t promise how responsive you`ll be.
GIULIANI: Right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: And while he had much to say about Georgia after the election, it`s unclear exactly what he said today in his more than six hours before the grand jury. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Giuliani`s attorneys would not say whether he pleaded the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination."
Rebecca Roiphe is a former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney. She is now a law professor at New York Law School and she joins me now. Rebecca, first, I want to just talk about the situation Giuliani finds himself in which he has been informed he is a target of the investigation and also subpoenaed for testimony. Again, one plus one sort of seems like it adds up to two if you`re advising him legally. Like, how common is this kind of thing where a grand jury has a subpoena for someone that has also been informed by the prosecutor`s office as their target?
REBECCA ROIPHE, FORMER MANHATTAN ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY: You know, it happens and different states do it differently, but you know, it certainly happens most of the time under these circumstances. You know, any individual in the right mind would plead the Fifth because obviously, the investigators have told -- the DA has told Rudy Giuliani, that they have substantial evidence at this point to link him to criminal activity and that an indictment is possible. And under those conditions, it`s hard to imagine why he would be forthcoming.
Now, he had said previously that he was going to invoke the attorney-client privilege, but that would have only covered part of his testimony here because it only covers communications with a client --
HAYES: Right.
ROIPHE: -- confidential communications for the purpose of obtaining legal advice. There`s a lot of other information that they`re looking for that that doesn`t even come close to. So, the question is, does he plead the fifth or not? And, you know, it would be unusual to say the least if he was forthcoming under these circumstances.
[20:25:12]
HAYES: You know -- you know, I`ve spoken about this case a number of times, and it`s stuck with me one time when I -- we were talking about this case, and I was talking about that presidential phone call, particularly, Trump`s phone call with Raffensperger. And I said, you know, this just seems criminal on its face. And you said, look at you know, it`s there`s intense here. It`s not -- it`s not a slam dunk case by any means.
What is your assessment of the legal threat right now, not just -- not to Trump who obviously is not been identified as a target, but the people like Giuliani who do seem like they`re in the crosshairs?
ROIPHE: You know, I think since then, there has been a lot of information that may have changed my position somewhat. And most of that comes from the number of times from top advisors. He`s been told that he lost that election. And so, the notion that he honestly believed at this moment that the election was stolen, I thought when I last came on and said that, that was plausible. And I think it`s an increasingly less plausible defense here.
Now, in terms of Rudy Giuliani and whether he thought that, again, you know, it`s hard to imagine, especially given the fact that, you know, we`ve heard reporting that he said, you know, I don`t even -- I don`t even know whether there`s evidence, it just you know, seems like there has to be or something like that. So, clearly, you know, that doesn`t seem like a likely defense for him either.
And he`s a lawyer, you know. So, at a certain point for a lawyer, you say, look, you`re charged with understanding the difference between fact and fantasy. And you`ve -- if your defense is you bought into a fantasy, that`s a lame defense.
HAYES: I want to ask a question about another local prosecutor`s case with another Trump-related case, which is your old office in the Manhattan District Attorney`s Office, which is brought criminal charges against Allen Weisselberg who`s the CFO for the Trump Org and criminal charges against the Trump org itself. We`ve got word today that Weisselberg will plead guilty, apparently, tomorrow to a number of felonies, and will not cooperate against Trump personally, but reporting indicating that he will cooperate in a criminal trial of the Trump Organization. What do you make of that?
ROIPHE: You know, that`s big news because it makes it such that it`s hard to imagine what defense the organization has, because an organization obviously has no -- it has no separate existence other than through its employees. And so, you know, if a high managerial agent, someone in a position of power like Weisselberg is committing crimes and says that he was committing crimes on behalf of the organization, that strips the organization of I think almost any defense in this case, which then leads to, you know, a very likely criminal conviction.
And that`s a big deal because that -- you know, we used to say in the office, that`s a death sentence for an organization or a corporation. A criminal conviction makes it such that it`s very highly unlikely that the organization can continue. Now, I know that Trump Org. is complex and this does not involve every piece of Trump Organization, so with that caveat. You know, I do think it`s, it`s significant for Trump and his business and the future of his business in New York.
HAYES: All right, Rebecca Roiphe, as always, thank you.
ROIPHE: Thank you.
HAYES: Still ahead, the Justice Department has been tight-lipped about why they searched Trump`s retirement home. But tomorrow, a judge could reveal a lot more. Former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa breaks down what to expect next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:30:00]
HAYES: Before the FBI he got a search warrant to go through Donald Trump`s Florida residence last week, agents presented a judge with an affidavit. This is standard operating procedure in which presumably they made the case of why the ex-president`s home needed to be searched, what the FBI expects to find there, and how agents obtained their information. They presented all that to a judge who then issued the warrant, as we know.
Last week, that search warrant was unsealed. It gave us an idea of what was recovered at Mar-a-Lago. The affidavit, however, remains under seal. That`s why there`s a hearing set for tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. A judge will decide if that document should be released or not. The Department of Justice is fighting the release warning that "If disclosed, the Affidavit would serve as a roadmap to government`s ongoing investigation in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps. The fact that this investigation implicates highly classified materials further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the investigation."
Asha Rangappa is a former FBI Special Agent focused on counterintelligence investigations. She`s an attorney and senior lecturer at Yale University. And she joins me now. George Conway was on the program last night, Asha, and he said, look, there`s no chance this judge is going to unseal this. That seems to be the consensus. Is that were you are?
ASHA RANGAPPA, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Yes, that`s where I am. And I think that the government -- I think that`s typical in a case. The time for the government to show -- drop the money, I guess it were, would be at trial, right? If they choose to bring charges, that`s where they have to reveal their witnesses, let Trump confront them, give him all access to the evidence that`s going to be used against him.
But what right -- what is happening right now is that the investigation is ongoing. They are still building the case. And there`s a few clues in this government filing. As you mentioned, first, they mentioned the roadmap. The fact that this would disclose the direction and scope of the investigation, investigative steps, witnesses. And Chris, this tells me that this probable cause was based on a number of factors, not just one source. They have a lot of different pieces of information which would be expected if they were asking a judge to approve a search in this case.
[20:35:19]
The second compelling reason is that they say, revealing these witnesses or sources could put them in danger. And there`s a footnote here that actually cites to the attack on the FBI Cincinnati`s office. So, this is a way in which Trump and his supporters` rhetoric is actually working against them in this legal argument. And then, finally, as you mentioned, they mentioned -- they say that this implicates highly classified information. So, there`s a national security interest here.
And I think this is definitely what tipped the balance in the government`s favor, because there`s a lot of deference given when the government is trying to protect national security, and a compromising of an investigation that is trying to protect national security would be harmful to the entire nation.
HAYES: Let me ask you about the Department of Justice more broadly, Merrick Garland. I mean, you and I, again, we`ve spoken a number of times. I think you`ve been in the camp of -- a little bit in the camp of like, what exactly is going on over there, you guys? Are you guys watching this January 6 hearing? Are you -- are you moving along on this? It does seem like there`s sufficient, you know, predicate for an investigation all that.
You know, in the intervening weeks, we`ve now got lots of activity of that grand jury, January 6 grand jury. In DC, we`ve got this search of the Mar- a-Lago home. Have you changed your perspective on what your understanding of where DOJ and Merrick Garland are on this?
RANGAPPA: So, Chris, I`m not sure if you`re asking about where they are on this in terms of the Mar-a-Lago investigation or January 6 because I think they`re a little bit different.
HAYES: OK.
RANGAPPA: I continue to believe that Merrick Garland is very Hamlet-like. Like, I think he thinks about this and struggles with it. And, you know, I think he understands that this is a historical moment. I think that the normal considerations that we`ve talked about before with the January 6 investigation pursuing Trump, he had to put those aside in many ways because this involves, again, national security concerns.
In other words, he had no choice but to recover these documents because they are so sensitive, and because doing so could seriously injure the United States or help one of our adversaries. So, I think in many ways he was forced to take the step. That`s why I think it is still an open question whether he is going to actually pursue charges, because when you have a national security interest, there`s competing goals here. National security interests are a little bit different than the criminal punishment deterrents, all that kind of stuff.
They recovered the documents, so there`s a possibility that he could say, look, goal achieved, mischief managed. You know, we now have these. We can assess the damage. We can move on, focus on these other investigations. I think the filing to go back to the affidavit, their argument is that it`s inappropriate to unseal an affidavit before charges are filed, and that this is an ongoing investigation, which again, suggests to me that they believe that the fair part -- the part where Trump`s interests will be vindicated and his rights etcetera will be when charges are filed.
HAYES: Right.
RANGAPPA: So, I think it might be moving in that direction in this case mainly because I think it would look really bad if he didn`t -- if he wasn`t ready to go all the way. I still am not completely sure about the January 6 investigation partly because some of those criminal charges are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. So, I think it really depends on the evidence that they accumulate among other factors.
HAYES: Yes. Speaking of that evidence, we should note the New York Times just reporting right before we went on air that federal prosecutors have issued a grand jury subpoena to the National Archives for all the documents the agency provided to the January 6 Committee. That seems to be playing a little bit of catch-up, but obviously, that`s also a huge cache of documents. So, that -- you know, we are learning about things. I think this actually subpoena was issued back in May. So, we`re learning about things a bit lately in terms of what that grand jury has been up to, but it has been quite active as well.
Asha Rangappa, thank you so much.
RANGAPPA: Thank you.
HAYES: Still to come, why is Dr. Oz having so much trouble connecting in his very recently adopted home state of Pennsylvania? It might have something to do with his grocery shopping habits. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:40:00]
HAYES: The Pennsylvania Senate Race, Democrat John Fetterman, the Lieutenant Governor of that state, has demonstrated from the get go a very clear vision of how to run against his Republican opponent, millionaire, TV doctor Mehmet Oz. Paint him as a rich, out-of-touch buffoon who does not live in nor understand the state he is ostensibly running to represent.
Back in April, Oz released a video, sort of standard stuff, attacking Democrats for high prices of the grocery store, and it has resurfaced this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEHMET OZ (R-PA), SENATE CANDIDATE: So, I`m at a grocery shopping. I`m at Wegner`s. And my wife wants some vegetables for today, right? So, here`s a broccoli. That`s two bucks. There`s a ton of broccoli here. There`s some asparagus. That`s $4.00. And carrots, that`s four more dollars. That`s $10 of vegetables there. And then, we need some guacamole. That`s $4.00 more. And she loves salsa, yes, salsa, they`re $6.00. There must be a shortage of salsa.
Guys, that`s $20.00 for crudites, and this doesn`t include the tequila. I mean, it`s outrageous. And we got Joe Biden to thank for this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:45:20]
HAYES: Oh, I`ve watched that like 40 times now. It just keeps paying off. First, there`s no store called Wegner`s which is what he says he`s at. Oz probably meant to say Redner`s, which is a Pennsylvania-based supermarket chain, but he got it confused with Wegmans, which is a fancier grocery chain in Pennsylvania and throughout the Northeast with many locations in New Jersey where Oz, of course, actually lives. And so, Redner`s and Wegmans became Wegner`s.
It didn`t end there. Oz was just trying to make the point that inflation was causing higher bills at supermarkets. His choice of crudites, a French raw vegetable platter, was not the most relatable shopping experience. Oz showed a head of broccoli, a bunch of asparagus, and a very large bag of full-sized carrots. You can get those little, you know, cocktail ones.
But when you realize, the grand total was not that expensive. You can almost see him kind of panic midway through and go for the pre-made guacamole and salsa to just get those numbers up. Fetterman has been having an absolute field day with the video since it resurfaced earlier this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA), SENATE CANDIDATE: In PA, we call this a veggie tray. And if this looks anything other than a veggie tray to you, then I am not your candidate. And I`m serious. Dr. Oz doesn`t even know the name of the grocery store that he`s in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Fetterman`s campaign is also now selling these Wegners stickers captioned, "Let them eat crudite, which have contributed to a more than $500,000 fundraising hall for Fetterman`s campaign since that video went viral. Even the conservative outlet, the very conservative outlet Newsmax won`t give Oz a pass for the gaff.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let`s talk crudite if we can. Is Dr. Oz relatable to the everyday hard-working men American there in Pennsylvania?
OZ: I joked about crudite which is a way of speaking about how ridiculous it is that you can even put vegetables on a plate in the middle of a campaign who will do whatever we need to do to make sure that people of Pennsylvania respect what we`re about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t mean to fixate on it, but I -- just for those watching in Pennsylvania, you know how particular many people are about their groceries? What happened with Wegmans and Wegners? Can you explain that to them?
OZ: Yes, I was exhausted. When you`re campaigning 18 hours a day, you`ve -- I`ve gotten my kids names wrong as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So, there`s now another Oz gaffe making the rounds. The TV doctor recently said he owns two homes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many houses do you own?
OZ: Well, I legitimately -- I own two houses. But one of them we`re building on and the other ones I rent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So, Oz claims he legitimately owns two houses and rents the other properties but investigation by The Daily Beast found that he actually owns, I make this up not, 10 houses. He rented some of them out to other tenants as a landlord, but he`s not renting them from someone else. Anyone who`s ever rented understands there`s a big difference between renting from and renting to.
Now, it is still early, but this all explains why polling currently has Oz down double digits. The gap will narrow, we should consider this. And every single battleground race statewide basically close to a dead heat until election day. That`s my operating assumption. But if Democrats are going to pull off a miracle and keep or even expand their Senate Majority, they are going to need lots of help from walking talking caricatures like Dr. Oz.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:50:00]
HAYES: There`s been an enormous backlash across the country in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade. We`re seeing it in blue states and red states alike. Earlier this month, in red Kansas, voters rejected a ballot measure that would have removed the right to an abortion from the state constitution. They were the first state to vote squarely on abortion in that kind of referendum after the court`s decision.
And yesterday in South Carolina, the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee met to consider a near-total abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest, which is where a Republican South Carolina lawmaker gave this moving speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEAL COLLINS, REPUBLICAN SOUTH CAROLINA STATE REPRESENTATIVE: A 19-year-old girl appeared at the ER. She was 15 weeks pregnant. Her water broke and the fetus was unviable. The standard of care was to advise her that they could extract or she could go home. The attorneys told the doctors that because of the fetal heartbeat bill, because that 15-week-old had a heartbeat, the doctors could not extract.
There`s a 50 percent chance -- greater than 50 percent chance that she`s going to lose her uterus. There`s a 10 percent chance that she will develop sepsis in herself and die. That weighs on me. I voted for that bill. These are affecting people. And we`re having a meeting about this. It took -- that whole week I did not sleep.
I followed up with the doctor a week later. She had heard nothing, did not know about the 19-year-old. Thank God, I followed up two weeks later, she did return to the ER. They did extract the now non-beating fetus. What we do matters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:55:04]
HAYES: That committee voted 13 to seven to advance the bill. Five Republicans including the man you`re just watching didn`t vote.
Shefali Luthra is a health reporter of The 19th, an independent news organization which doing great reporting on this where she covers the intersection of gender and health care. And she joins me now.
Shefali, first, I wonder, because you`re sort of in the weeds on this and reporting on this, and there`s a lot of different stories to track the sort of general view of what`s been happening in the states, particularly Republican-controlled states that didn`t have some automatic law that just, you know, flipped on after the Dobbs decision, what they`ve been doing in those states, which all seems to be moving mostly in one direction towards, you know, outlawing abortion?
SHEFALI LUTHRA, HEALTH REPORTER, THE 19TH: This has been really complicated and very difficult for these states that were theoretically prepared to move forward and start passing abortion bans. We saw this in Indiana, right, where exactly what you (AUDIO GAP) divided amongst not Democrats, but Republicans over whether to include rape and incest exceptions really derailed it for a while for the bill that now as passed and will take effect soon. Republicans are really, really torn over this.
In West Virginia, the House and Senate passed competing abortion bans, one with rape and incensed exceptions, and the other without, and they haven`t been able to reconcile that. And it is, in fact, such an intense debate that it has, (AUDIO GAP) passing this ban that they were called back into session to make law. And I think what`s really striking is that this has been such an essential issue for Republicans for a long time, right? We`ve been passing abortion bans since Roe was law of the land, right?
And we heard so many governors and political leaders talk about calling a special session as soon as Roe is overturned, to pass these new bans and new restrictions, and a lot of them (AUDIO GAP). There was supposed to be this wave of new laws that came about this summer. And right now, what`s instead of happening is that Republicans too are really grappling in some cases for the first time with the personal and pragmatic and also the political consequences of these kinds of laws.
HAYES: That`s a really interesting point. I mean, there`s also of course, the politics of this I think as they grapple with that. I mean, this new -- there`s new polling today for the Marquette poll, which was polling the statewide Senate race in Wisconsin, but it also asked people about abortion. Obviously, that`s a very closely divided state. And, you know, do you basically -- do you to favor the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade? Are you on the side of the court here? Only 62 percent of Republicans favor it, 28 percent oppose. That`s a huge number. Among Independents, two- thirds oppose it. Among Democrats, 92. Overall 60 to 33.
We`ve seen, you know, numbers like that in state after state after Dobbs, which I got to imagine is part of what`s entering the mix as these states are moving in some cases fitfully to criminalize abortion.
LUTHRA: This backlash has the potential to be really potent, right? It`s what Democrats are counting on to hold on to the Senate, right? You hear Senator Elizabeth Warren talk all the time about Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, in particular, as states where she really sees the backlash to the overturning of Roe v Wade as a chance to pick up seats.
We`ve heard this from the Democratic Senate campaign arm, right? They really hope that this is something that voters are going to react to. And the polling is often tricky, right, because polling on abortion is always complicated. And it depends on how you frame the question. But I think you`re absolutely right, that there is a real chance that this sort of breaks something that had been holding the Republican Party together for a long time. That`s really what we saw in Kansas.
HAYES: There`s also, of course, the human aspect of this, which is harder to report on obviously, because all of this is shrouded in privacy as it should be. But this latest story out of Louisiana where a woman named Nancy Davis says her baby was diagnosed with Acrania, which is a rare and fatal condition where the baby`s skull fails to form in the womb.
And according to health experts, babies with this condition only survive minutes to hours after birth. But because the want -- the mother`s life is not in danger, she does not qualify for an abortion. She was denied one and she now has to carry the baby to term or cross state lines to get an abortion.
Again, these are just one of the stories that we`re hearing, but we know with certainty there are others like this. What effect do you think these kinds of individual stories are having on people`s perception of this?
LUTHRA: I think they`re tremendous. I think for a long time this has been seen as this really abstract issue, right? It`s something that happened to someone else and not to your loved one or a sister or spouse or child. And now people are reading these stories. They`re seeing themselves, right, because this could happen to anyone. And they are horrified that have no exceptions for the death of the fetus. They`re horrified by these laws that are so unclear that doctors can`t provide health care they expect to be able to give.
HAYES: Shefali Luthra who has been following this closely at The 19th which has been a great source for this that I`ve been depending on, thank you very much for your reporting.
LUTHRA: Thanks.
HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Wednesday night. The Alex Wagner -- no, "ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT" starts right now. Good evening, Alex.