Summary
The cult of Trump is examined. After Democrats were accused by Republicans of lying about a 10-year-old pregnant rape victim, the story is confirmed. A generation of young Americans asks older Democrats to pass the torch. The majority of Republicans in Congress vote against creating a national Amber Alert-type system for active shooter situations.
Transcript
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: And keep people distracted from thinking about who are the other people that we want to memorialize.
If you have further thoughts about this or the program, you can always find me online @AriMelber.com or on social media @AriMelber, if you want to get in touch.
Keep it locked. THE REIDOUT WITH JOY REID starts now.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on THE REIDOUT:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SGT. AQUILINO GONELL, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE OFFICER: It`s outstanding, the lack of urgency and of disregard that he had to protect the Capitol, protect the national security of this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell speaking the cold hard truth about Trump`s January 6 culpability.
And yet-, just like a cult, many of the people who condemned Trump that day are still working for him.
Also tonight: Democrats were accused of lying about a 10-year-old pregnant rape victim. Now that the story is confirmed, what it tells us about the terrifying future of reproductive rights in America.
And JFK said the torch has been passed. Now another generation of young Americans is saying loud and clear, pass the torch to us.
We begin THE REIDOUT tonight with the January 6 Committee`s eighth public hearing expected to air on prime time one week from tonight, the final chapter for now have a damning and horrifying story about Donald Trump electrifying a violent mob to block the transfer of power on that fateful day.
One must imagine Trump is watching -- or, rather, hate-watching -- every second of these hearings. I mean, they are about him, after all. Now we are learning about Trump`s attempt to possibly influence witness testimony.
This week, Congresswoman Liz Cheney revealed that Trump called a witness in the panel`s investigation after one of the previous hearings. Today, Chairman Bennie Thompson confirmed to NBC News that the witness -- the witness referenced by Cheney was a White House employee.
Trump was trying to contact a witness. And Trump trying to contact a witness is just one of the major revelations in Tuesday`s hearing, along with a text exchange between Trump`s former campaign manager Brad Parscale and former campaign adviser Katrina Pierson.
In these texts, Parscale shared strong words about Trump`s rhetoric preceding the insurrection.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FL): Mr. Parscale said -- quote -- "This is about Trump pushing for uncertainty in our country, a sitting president asking for civil war."
And then when he said: "This week, I feel guilty for helping him win," Katrina Pierson responded: "You did what you felt right at the time, and, therefore, it was right."
Mr. Parscale added, "Yes, but a woman is dead" and, "Yes, if I was Trump and I knew my rhetoric killed someone."
When Ms. Pierson replied, "It wasn`t the rhetoric, Mr. Parscale said, "Katrina, yes, it was."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: OK, so these texts, these are a really big deal.
We`re talking about a hardcore Trump loyalist who played a significant role in Trump`s rise blaming Trump`s rhetoric for January 6 death.
But now Josh Dawsey of "The Washington Post" is reporting that Parscale called Trump on Tuesday after those text messages were presented. And Dawsey`s sources say that Parscale is expected to continue working for Trump.
It doesn`t make sense, except, in Trump world, it does make sense, because Trump isn`t the leader of the Republican Party, but, rather, the leader of a cult, like a political Jim Jones. And people like Brad Parscale are his cult followers.
I mean, why else would he condemn a sitting president for asking for essentially civil war, only to tweet exactly one month later a message addressed directly to Trump, saying -- quote -- "If they only impeached you twice, you need to run again, because, to change the system, you have to kick it in the arse. I would love to be the only president to be impeached three times, because history remembers those that didn`t conform. I`m in. Are you?"?
The only thing left out was the sir.
"The Washington Post" reported Parscale`s digital firm accepted -- accepting $150,000 in payments from Trump`s political operation after that tweet, because, along with a cult, it`s also a grift. Meanwhile, the case against Trump`s big lie is expanding well outside of the committee.
Today, a prominent group of conservatives, including lawyers and judges, issued a detailed report showing that there is absolutely no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. The question remains, will their conservative peers finally listen?
Joining me now is David Hoppe, former chief of staff to Speaker Paul Ryan and one of the authors of the aforementioned report, "Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case That Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election," and Abdallah Fayyad, opinion writer for "The Boston Globe."
[19:05:08]
Thank you both for being here.
Mr. Hoppe, thank you for being here.
I got to ask you this sort of baseline question. But it`s a two-part question. Part one. What does it mean that in the year of our lord 2022, you have to write a detailed report explaining that a person who lost by like eight million votes actually lost? How bad does that mean that it`s gotten inside of the Republican Party?
And why do you think that the people who are MAGA at this stage would listen to the Ryan wing of the party? The Paul Ryan wing of the party is what they basically erased.
DAVID HOPPE, FORMER PAUL RYAN CHIEF OF STAFF: Well, one of the things I think you have to look at on this is that this report was looking at every bit of evidence we could find in six specific states, and looking at the cases.
They were brought, how they were argued, what was determined by the court or determined in some cases by state legislatures or others. And what it says is that this election was not stolen. And it`s an important point to make, because, if we`re going to have faith in our democracy, people have to know that elections have real consequences and they are honestly determined.
This one was. Mr. Trump, just as he won the 2016 election, against great odds, was not reelected in 2020. And, once again, the pandemic and some other issues had to do with that. But this election -- and it`s important for the people of the United States to know and believe that their elections are honest and that the -- a winner is a winner and a loser is a loser and nobody steals elections.
And that`s what we did the report for. It is to lay out these arguments. And we didn`t think that anybody had done it before in the way that particularly the judges who were involved here and other lawyers who were involved here -- I`m not a lawyer, but I was a participant in this -- felt would make the case and the arguments, so that people could decide for themselves.
And there are still people who have not looked at all of the evidence. It hasn`t been put all in one place, like we have put it in this report. So we believe that people will get a chance to look and read this and find out how the arguments were made, but that, in the end, President Biden was elected president by winning enough states and enough electoral votes to be elected president. It was not stolen.
REID: So, Abdallah Fayyad, I`m going to ask you this question. Then I will have another question for Mr. Hoppe.
He knows that. You know that. I know that. Mitch McConnell knows that, because he congratulated Joe Biden on December 15, the day after the Electoral College certified that he is president and confirmed it.
The challenge is, is that the people who are hardcore MAGA are not going to read this report. They literally get their information off TikTok, FOX News, Newsmax and OANN. And the kind of Republican that Mr. Hoppe is, as delightful as a person as he probably is, is not the kind of the -- is the kind of Republican that they see as a RINO and that Eric Greitens does ads against, right?
So it`s, like, I wondered. You`re covering these hearings, as I am. You, of course, probably understand that most of the people who testified in these hearings are committed to voting for Donald Trump again, again, even though their families are being threatened. They`re getting death threats. They`re saying, yes, but I`d vote for him again.
Do you see any -- anything about what we have seen in these hearings that indicates to you that there can be any change in the Republican base based on a report like this?
(CROSSTALK)
REID: And this is for Mr. Fayyad. This is for Mr. -- this is...
(CROSSTALK)
HOPPE: ... on our report this evening.
So, they are -- it is being covered in places that Republicans who are MAGA...
REID: But wait. This is for Mr. Fayyad. OK. Yes.
HOPPE: ... and other Republicans will see it. And maybe they haven`t heard this amount of evidence put together.
REID: Right.
HOPPE: But one of the other things you have to understand is that there are people who are loyal to President Trump because he`s the first one who put a voice to their feelings of being shunned, called deplorables.
And those are things that, once somebody put a voice to it, people feel loyalty. They also liked the policies that he put together and passed and brought on his first -- in his...
(CROSSTALK)
REID: OK, Well, hold -- give me one second. Give me -- pause.
(CROSSTALK)
REID: I don`t know if he can hear me.
(LAUGHTER)
HOPPE: Those are things that make people loyal. Those are things that make people loyal.
REID: I hear you.
But I want to let Mr. Fayyad respond to you first. And then I will come back to you.
Go ahead, sir.
ABDALLAH FAYYAD, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Well, thank you, Joy. Thanks for having me on.
And that`s a really great question.
And it`s really difficult to know what these Republicans are thinking in particular. I mean, I just can`t put myself in these people`s heads and understand how they are fully incapable of feeling shame. I mean, these are people who, like you mentioned, expressed regret and felt guilty about helping Trump win. But they won`t try to actually redeem themselves in public.
[19:10:03]
But this is a reality and a pattern that has existed since Trump first announced his candidacy in 2016. And it could not have been more crystallized than when a senator from his own party who voted to convict him for inciting an insurrection went ahead and said that she`s open to supporting him should he run for president in 2024.
I mean, this is really scary stuff. I mean, this is a guy who they now know tried to overthrow the U.S. government. Let`s be clear about that -- what that means. That means he literally tried to end American democracy, literally. And they`re sitting there thinking, oh, I`m not sure whether or not I can -- I`m going to support him in 2024.
Are you really not sure? But this all shows, like you said, just how unwilling the Republican Party has been to finally leave Donald Trump behind. And there are a lot of reasons for that. One is the culture of fear and retaliation that he has created in the GOP, just like any strongman`s party and any autocracy.
But I think one of the biggest reasons is because Donald Trump actually delivered the agenda that the conservative movement has been working toward for generations. And, at the end of the day, that agenda may have looked a little uglier than some conservatives may have wanted. And so now some people are jumping ship.
But it`s great when people stand up and -- stand up to him and call him out. But, at this point, it`s too little too late.
REID: And I have to ask you this, Mr. Hoppe. We`re close to out of time.
First of all, very quick answer, because we`re short on time. Would you vote for Donald Trump again if he ran?
HOPPE: He`s not my candidate in 2024.
But there are -- the policies that he had, I will vote for policies...
(CROSSTALK)
REID: What policies? Can you tell me? Tell me what -- wait. Hold on a second. Sir, I need you to listen to me and have a conversation.
(CROSSTALK)
REID: What policies? Very quickly, list them. List -- list these policies, because I hear people say this a lot. What policies specifically?
HOPPE: Well, the tax cuts, and the effect they had on having more blacks and more Hispanics employed than...
REID: Don`t bring my folks into this. Don`t bring my folks into this.
HOPPE: ... ever in the history of the United States.
REID: These tax cuts.
(CROSSTALK)
HOPPE: You look at his appointment of judges to the Supreme Court.
REID: So, ending Roe v. Wade.
HOPPE: He said he would appoint -- he said he would appoint textualists. He did, those three.
They`re Scalia-like.
(CROSSTALK)
REID: They want to end Roe v. Wade.
(CROSSTALK)
REID: OK.
(CROSSTALK)
HOPPE: You look at change in China.
REID: Uh-huh.
HOPPE: Everybody -- every president said before his (AUDIO GAP) over in the last 50 years: I will be tough with China.
REID: OK.
HOPPE: And none of them did. Donald Trump was the first one to hang the -- to bell the cat, if you will, on China and talk about what they were...
REID: And the...
HOPPE: These are things that are important in the future of the world. He started to rebuild our defenses.
REID: OK. Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
HOPPE: Yes, we`re very low in the weapons we need.
REID: I have got to let our other guest in. One second. OK, one second. I got you. I got you. I got you.
(CROSSTALK)
REID: I`m glad you said that, sir. Hold on. OK.
(CROSSTALK)
REID: I`m -- OK, so glad that you said that, because you did work for Paul Ryan.
HOPPE: Yes, I did.
REID: And Paul Ryan`s life dream was to pass a massive tax cut for the super rich. And he -- Trump did that. Trump signed a massive tax cut that benefited rich people.
HOPPE: No. It was to pass a massive tax cut that would build both an opportunity in the United States.
REID: But wait. But that is what -- that is what -- that was the goal.
Can I just get you comment on this, Mr. Fayyad?
HOPPE: I also worked for Jack Kemp.
(CROSSTALK)
REID: Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, because Mr...
HOPPE: I had the opportunity and honor to work for Jack Kemp. And you will never...
(CROSSTALK)
REID: I hear you. I hear you.
(CROSSTALK)
HOPPE: ... that higher taxes are the way to solve our problems in the United States.
(CROSSTALK)
REID: OK. Let me let Mr. Fayyad in.
One second.
(CROSSTALK)
REID: Mr. Fayyad, I`m just going to talk to you too, because I don`t think our other guest is listening to me.
(CROSSTALK)
HOPPE: If we pass a tax increase now, we`re going to have stagflation from Jimmy Carter`s time. And it`s going to be horrible for our economy.
REID: Would you agree that, in the end, because I always tell people this all the time, the one -- the two things Donald Trump actually really did accomplish legislatively was that massive tax cut and putting those people on the Supreme Court, and that the reason that every single person who testified in these hearings would vote for him again is that he was the means to that end, so they don`t care what else he did, Abdallah?
FAYYAD: I think that that`s exactly it.
(CROSSTALK)
REID: Abdallah, yes, please, Mr. Abdallah, Abdallah Fayyad.
FAYYAD: I think that`s exactly -- I think that`s exactly right.
And Trump delivered that agenda. Like I mentioned earlier, the conservative movement has been working toward this for really generations. And now Roe v. Wade has been overturned.
REID: Correct. Correct.
FAYYAD: And that was a cause for celebration for this party.
And this -- they have finally reached this point.
REID: Yes.
FAYYAD: And Donald Trump was the one to deliver that.
And he has made it possible for the Republican Party -- and this is essential -- I mean, he made it possible for the Republican Party to continue governing through a minority coalition.
REID: That`s right.
FAYYAD: And now they are attacking voting rights in order to maintain that strength. They`re attacking democracy, and he was the vehicle through which they did that.
And so that`s why it`s really difficult for them to leave them, to jump off this path at this stage.
REID: Yes.
FAYYAD: It`s just their path to holding power. And they don`t want to abide by the rules of democracy and the rules of elections and catering to the electorate that they serve.
REID: Yes.
Trump -- Trump freed Republicans from having to pretend they cared about the Voting Rights Act. He gave them the massive tax cut for the super rich that they always wanted and the judges on the court that would get rid of Roe v. Wade. Those were their three items. They don`t care if he was the devil himself, and they will all vote for him again.
[19:15:10]
I love -- this was so revelatory. Thank you both for being here, David Hoppe, Abdallah Fayyad. Thank you very much.
THE REIDOUT continues after this. We`re over -- over time.
(LAUGHTER)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: Two months after an horrific racist mass shooting stole the lives of 10 black Americans in Buffalo, New York, an emotional ceremony today marked the reopening of the East Side Tops grocery store, honoring the victims with a moment of silence and prayer in what officials called a step forward.
Although it`s the only grocery store serving the area, some residents felt it should have remained closed, in honor of the lives of the 10 people murdered there on May 14 and preserved as a memorial.
Today`s reopening ceremony came with another step forward, a step forward toward justice. The alleged gunman was indicted by a federal grand jury on more than two dozen hate crime and firearms charges for the attack.
[19:20:03]
It also comes the day after the U.S. House voted to advance legislation creating a national Amber Alert-type system for active shooter situations, like the one earlier this month in Highland Park, Illinois, where the suspected gunman was at large for eight hours.
But 168 Republicans and one Democrat voted against the measure, with Republicans claiming it would leave Americans living in fear.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): It`s because they want you to be afraid of the Second Amendment. It`s because they want you to be afraid of responsible gun ownership.
REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): This is another example of Washington creating another department, another position, spending more money that we don`t have in order to have a policy objective of continuing to advance fear among the American people.
I think it would probably be a more advantageous use of our time to develop a congressional stupidity alert system.
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): This bill is about Democrat fearmongering that guns are an ever-present threat and we cannot be safe until big government rounds up every last one of them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Yes, yes, because there`s really nothing to be afraid about already when it comes to guns in America, except perhaps this, as we saw yesterday in newly obtained footage from Uvalde, a gunman with a legally purchased weapon killing fourth graders and teachers.
Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi excoriated Republicans for voting against the alert bill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): How can the Republicans vote no to people knowing that there`s an assault in their school or their community centers or wherever? These people think their political survival is more important than the survival of our children.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Joining me now is Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting and press secretary for Equality Florida.
And, Brandon, my friend, I can`t think of anything that should be more bipartisan and easy to vote for than an Amber Alert-type system to let people know, hey, there`s an active shooter in your area. This would be like saying, the current Amber Alert system, which helps us find sexual predators, is just trying to make people afraid of people who want to rape children.
Yes, we should be afraid of people who want to rape children. That`s why we have an Amber Alert system. They kidnap a kid, you want that alert system, because, yes, we`re afraid of people who want to abduct and hurt children.
I -- my mind is blown that 168-some-odd Republicans decided that`s a bad idea. I can only imagine what you think.
BRANDON WOLF, EQUALITY FLORIDA: Well, the absurdity of it all would be comical, if it wasn`t deadly in nature.
I think you have to start by considering what the Republican message to this country has been on gun violence for decades. They have told us that gun violence is inevitable.
They have said, sorry that you sent your kid to school, only to see them carried out in a body bag. Sorry that you had to provide a DNA sample because your nephew`s body was mangled beyond recognition. Sorry, you send grandma to the grocery store, only for her to be gunned down with an assault rifle on the produce aisle. That`s just the way the cookie crumbles here in America. There`s simply nothing we can do about it.
That has for decades been the Republican message on gun violence. And so, if that`s true, if you believe that there`s nothing we can do about gun violence, that it`s just an inevitable way of American life, then why on earth would you oppose giving people the very best information possible to make it out alive?
And I will tell you why. It`s because Republican leaders in this country are not capable of, nor are they interested in doing the jobs that they have asked for. Democrats, I think, need to call it like it is. Republican politicians are obstructionist, wannabe reality television stars who view their positions in government simply as a chance to see themselves on TV as often as possible.
And, America, we have to be honest with ourselves. We need to stop enabling these totally unserious political mercenaries who are content to surround themselves with armed security, while refusing to give us so much as a heads-up that there`s an active shooter down the block.
Honestly, Joy, in a functioning democracy, this would and should cost every single one of them their jobs.
REID: Right. I mean, there`s -- and Democrats are -- I mean, people who want -- not even Democrats, just anybody who cares about gun safety.
There`s this procession of items from the school victims that are headed to Ted Cruz`s house. Like, there`s theatrical things that people are trying to do to sort of make the message that Ted Cruz is ridiculous. But I mean, if you think about the pragmatics of it, let`s talk about what happened at Robb Elementary School.
So they had an internal system to notify people. There`s a Raptor Alert system that was triggered within one minute of the shooter entering the school. But there was no panic button in the classrooms that alerted the entire campus at the same time. While the system did do its job to the extent that it alerted teachers immediately, a more centralized alert system that notified everyone at the same time would have been better.
This is an evaluation of what happened in the Uvalde situation. I mean, when my kids were young, the school system had an alert system that would text you as a parent, because you want to know if there is an active shooter in this school. But that`s not universal.
[19:25:03]
I don`t understand how one can argue that we shouldn`t even have the right to be warned that there`s an active shooter. Are they essentially saying the active shooter has the right to start killing? I just don`t get it.
WOLF: You know, I don`t get it either.
But, again, I think it comes back to the quiet part out loud. They have no interest in keeping people safe from gun violence. They don`t care about the staggering number of deaths. They don`t care that gun-related injuries have now overtaken every other cause of death for American children and teens.
They don`t care, because the only thing they truly care about is furthering their political careers. They`re climbing one rung up the ladder after the next. They will do anything. They`re wholly for sale. They have been bought and paid for by their extremist space and one man who lives on a beach in Mar-a-Lago.
This is not a party that takes their job seriously. This is not a party that is interested in saving the lives of American children. And, quite frankly, it`s not just disturbing. It`s heartbreaking, because Americans deserve so much better from their leaders. Americans deserve leaders who go to Washington, D.C., who go to state legislatures with a public servant`s heart.
They deserve leaders who go to those places to do good work to keep our communities safe. And, unfortunately, we have people like Matt Gaetz, who are much more focused on being TV-ready, hair and makeup on standby, instead of actually doing the jobs that, once again, they have asked their constituents for.
REID: Well, allegedly, the Amber Alert system might have been needed for him, taking underage girls around, allegedly, which he denies.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: This isn`t even confiscatory. This is just give us a heads-up that there`s an active shooter. I don`t even get it.
Brandon Wolf, you`re great. Thank you very much. Really appreciate you being here.
Still ahead: what the disturbing case of a 10-year-old rape victim forced to travel to another state to terminate her pregnancy says about abortion access and anti-abortion activists in America.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:31:30]
REID: The Supreme Court`s abortion decision didn`t happen in a vacuum.
Women and girls across the country are already paying the price. Take, for example, the 10-year-old girl from Ohio who was raped at the age of 9 and impregnated. Yesterday, "The Columbus Dispatch" reported that a 27-year-old man confessed to raping the girl at least twice.
Because Ohio bans most abortions, the girl traveled to Indiana to terminate the pregnancy. "The Indianapolis Star" was first to report on this after the girl`s story was shared by an Indianapolis physician who helped facilitate the procedure.
President Biden shared the horrific details a number of times at public events. Sadly, this is also a story about bad-faith arguments from the party that wants to ban abortion outright, but doesn`t want to be accountable for the consequences of those decisions.
Instead of confronting the reality of their choices, Republicans and Republican pundits chose to call President Biden a liar.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: And why did the Biden administration, speaking of lying, just repeat a story about a 10-year-old child who got pregnant, and they got an abortion or was not allowed to get an abortion, when it turns out the story is not true?
HARRIS FAULKNER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: And we know that potentially it`s not true.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The idea that you would have politicians in America trying to exploit a story like this and make up a story like this in order to advance their own sick agenda tells you they`re not serious about the issue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Ohio`s Republican attorney general implied that the story was made up because, well, he hadn`t heard about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Have you had anybody come to you in your state to say, we`re looking into this, a police report was filed?
DAVE YOST, OHIO ATTORNEY GENERAL: Not a whisper.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: He also claimed that the child, who was six weeks and three days pregnant, didn`t have to cross state lines, because her age was a medical condition that would have allowed an abortion.
OK. Meanwhile, today the president of an anti-choice advocacy group told members of Congress that the girl`s abortion wasn`t even an abortion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Do you think a 10-year-old should choose to carry a baby?
CATHERINE GLENN FOSTER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AMERICANS UNITED FOR LIFE: I believe it would probably impact her life and so, therefore, it would fall under any exception and would not be an abortion.
SWALWELL: Wait. It would not be an abortion if a 10-year-old with her parents made the decision not to have a baby that was the result of a rape?
FOSTER: If a 10-year-old became pregnant as a result of rape, and it was threatening her life, then that`s not an abortion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: The National Right to Life Committee does not agree.
Their general counsel said the now 10-year-old girl should have been made to carry the fetus to term and that she would be required, required to do so under a model law that they have written for state legislatures.
The Ohio General Assembly is ready to ban abortions even earlier than the current-six week ban, with zero exceptions for rape or incest.
And, in Indiana, the state that facilitated this child`s abortion, the state legislature is looking into further restricting access to abortion care.
Joining me now is Dr. Katie McHugh, an Indiana OB-GYN and board member with Physicians for Reproductive Health.
Thank you for being here.
We -- it seems lately we`re spending a lot of time debunking basic facts that Republicans who want to ban abortion get wrong. Let`s start with this one. If a 10-year-old was attempting to end a pregnancy, which, by definition, is the result of rape, because the child is 10, is that or is that -- not terminating that pregnancy, that`s an abortion, right?
[19:35:10]
DR. KATIE MCHUGH, PHYSICIANS FOR REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH: That is an abortion.
And we are honored, as abortion providers, to be able to provide that safe and compassionate health care to patients just like this one in this story.
This case out of Ohio is tragic and devastating, but it is not unique in any way. We see patients like this, of this age, or with this condition, or with this trauma. And it is our responsibility as physicians and it is our honor as abortion providers to be able to provide that medically sound, evidence-based, compassionate care for these people who so desperately need it.
REID: And what do you make of the Republicans lying now -- there is just - - there`s no cute way of saying it -- and saying, oh, no, no, no, we don`t think getting rid of an ectopic -- ectopic pregnancy is abortion, we`re not going to make that illegal?
Well, that`s an abortion too. And saying, oh, no, if the girl is 10, we`re going to -- we`re going to claim that on an abortion. So now you`re going to make up things that you say are not abortion?
Because as I was growing up, knowing the pro-life movement, they said that taking an IUD, put an IUD in is an abortion, taking the pill is an abortion. They think they`re all abortifacients. So they actually think all of that is abortion.
What do you make of the fact that they lie about what they claim they want to ban and that they`re -- they lied about specifically this poor girl, this case, and said it was made up?
MCHUGH: Those are all great examples of how the legislature has no business making medical decisions or medical policy.
I went to school for years and years and spent hours and hours of my life training to do this work. And I don`t serve in the state legislature, I don`t try to do their work for them. And I would rather that they not try to do my job.
Pills and IUDs are not abortifacients. Medical procedures that help people to live their best lives and be their healthiest versions of themselves that are safe and medically supported have no business being debated on a legislative floor.
That is a decision between a patient and a physician and no one else.
REID: And, by the way, I will note that multiple Republican governors, legislators are on the record -- we have the tapes, and we will play them every day if we need to -- of them saying 10-year-olds who are pregnant should be forced to have the baby.
I want to go into another issue here. The Indiana attorney general now says he`s investigating the doctor, investigating the doctor who treated this 10-year-old victim, said that his office is also looking into whether she failed to report the procedure, the doctor, in Indiana, because it is a crime to not report intentionally a case like this, and has -- the governor -- and has sent a letter to the governor demanding the release of documents from the Indiana Department of Health and Department of Child Services to determine whether she filed the proper complaint.
This is the future, right? Doctors will be the targets and then eventually women will be the targets and, in this case, a kid.
MCHUGH: That`s exactly right.
Complicated medical reporting is no stranger to abortion. We have been dealing with changing and shifting regulations around what we have to report, what kinds of time frames we have to report these things in for years. And they serve no purpose, except to try to trap abortion providers and abortion clinics to criminalize us and the work that we do and to trap and criminalize patients.
Again, this has nothing to do with protecting life or protecting health. This only has to do with control and removal of bodily autonomy and taking away the choice of what to do with your own body.
REID: Yes, I make it -- I say it a lot. I`m a lot less delicate about it. I say it is about making women into state property. That -- and I won`t put that on you. I put that on me.
Dr. Katie McHugh, thank you for all that you do.
We`re back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:43:45]
REID: So we in the media have gotten a lot of mileage out of this "New York Times"/Siena College poll showing President Biden at 33 percent approval, with just a quarter of Democrats thinking he should run for reelection.
And it`s given "The Times" and other media outlets the perfect opening to repeat the favorite conventional wisdom that, for sure, for sure, for sure, Democrats are going to get wiped out in the November midterms.
Republicans remain supreme, despite their most recent president being proved to be an insurrectionist criminal by the January 6 Committee, and still losing to Joe Biden in a reelect matchup in the self-same poll.
So how do the conventional wisdom folks know what will happen in November? Well, this poll, which surveyed 849 registered voters, says so. And so do other polls of like 1,000 or sometimes even 1,200 Americans.
And history, I mean, history tells us that the president`s party always gets shellacked in the midterms, except when it doesn`t happen. It didn`t happen to George W. Bush because of a huge external event called 9/11 and the subsequent meritless U.S. invasion of Iraq. Voters tend to keep wartime presidents in.
No, forget that. Forget that. Forget that. Democrats are for sure, for sure, for sure, going to get wiped out. I mean, that`s the conventional Beltway wisdom.
[19:45:00]
Biden`s approval rating is trash. Inflation, gas prices, duh, those are the external events that we need to pay attention to, except that the MAGA Supreme Court majority just zeroed out women`s rights over our own bodies, and Clarence Thomas is threatening to go after birth control and gay marriage and gay relationships too.
But ignore that. External events, like, totally only hurt Democrats, even when Republicans are running candidates like this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK BURNS (R), SOUTH CAROLINA CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: The LGBT transgender grooming our children`s minds is a national security threat.
You need to hold people for treason, start having some public hearings, and start executing people who are felt guilty for their treasonous acts.
JACKY EUBANKS (R), MICHIGAN STATE CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: You cannot have a successful society outside of the Christian moral order.
And things like abortion and things like gay marriage are outside of the Christian moral order.
HERSCHEL WALKER (R), GEORGIA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Since we don`t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China`s bad air.
(LAUGHTER)
WALKER: So, when China gets our good air, their bad got to move.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Oh, no, no, no, no, doesn`t matter. Democrats are doomed, except that the same "New York Times"/Siena poll shows Democrats with an advantage over Republicans when it comes to who Americans want in control of Congress after the November vote.
Oh, and where have we heard the old the president should simply announce that he is not running for reelection already line? As you can see, these headlines were about Barack Obama back in 2011 after Democrats did, in fact, get shellacked in the midterms, just as the media told the country over and over and over and over and over that they would as punishment for passing Obamacare, while the Tea Party raged with an extremism the media generally tended to ignore before President Obama was soundly reelected.
And then they were like, well, he`s still unpopular.
Look, maybe it is time for us to admit that we really have no idea what`s going to happen in November and that external events, not the conventional political wisdom or history, will decide. And the events overtaking this country are deeply personal and polarizing, gun massacres, abortion, deadly and sometimes incompetent policing, or the heroic policing that tried to stop a physical coup, crazy ass prices, the climate catastrophe, fascism, our broken politics, and the never, ever, ever ending pandemic.
These are not conventional times.
When we come back: "The New York Times" poll did reveal something that I think we can all agree is 100 percent true about the Democratic Party, our sole pro-democracy party, and it is a tough conversation that I think we need to have about age and leadership.
And we`re going to have it, but nicely, on the other side of this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:51:50]
REID: Now, I will state again that polls, in and of themselves, are only somewhat meaningful in predicting election results, even more so this far out from the midterms that are in November.
But what polls can do is give you a sense of trends, especially when you read them like in the aggregate. And they can also give you a sense of the mood of parts of the country -- country and electorate in a specific moment in time. That is the best way to read polls, honestly, not as predictions, but really as status checks.
So "The New York Times" and Siena College poll finds that, at this moment in time, just 1 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds strongly approve of President Biden`s job performance so far, 18 percent somewhat approve, while 94 percent say they want another candidate to run in 2024. That is a status check that tells the White House that the mood right now, it`s, frankly, pretty grim.
And as "The Times" puts it, what`s bugging younger voters most about the leaders of this country and of their party is that, frankly, many of them are three times their age. And so many believe that they are out of touch with the issues that young voters say matter most to them.
Essentially, it`s a statement about younger voters who prefer in general the policy that Democrats offer, but who often feel stifled in what essentially is a gerontocracy.
Here`s what one young voter told NBC`s Vaughn Hillyard this past weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID COURSEY, REGISTERED DEMOCRAT: He`s pretty, like, clueless and out of touch and...
VAUGHN HILLYARD, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: And you guys are registered Democrats?
COURSEY: Yes.
HILLYARD: Would you want somebody to run in 2024?
COURSEY: Yes, I mean, part of -- I thought -- my understanding that part of the wager in 2020 was that he was only going to run once, and then he was going to give up power to, I guess, Kamala or whoever.
And that doesn`t seem to be the case anymore. And it`s not a winning strategy. And it looks bad. And it is bad.
(LAUGHTER)
COURSEY: And someone else needs to run. I will take anyone else, really.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Joining me now, former Democratic senator from California, Barbara Boxer, and Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, president of NextGen America.
Thank you both for being here.
And I`m going to start with you, Senator Boxer, because, I mean, I have this conversation a lot even with my kids, who are in their 20s. And they say that the there is a sense that the Democratic Party is hanging on to a gerontocracy, that it is much, much older people who they generally agree with most of their views, but not all, are hanging on to the sort of institutional old party that doesn`t work in the modern politics.
So what these 70-something-odd -- some of whom who are bomb, like, who were terrific, like Nancy Pelosi, who really know what they`re doing, but some of whom are like behind a step. And, sometimes, Biden is. They`re fighting, like, a culture of people who are Gen X and young -- Gen X and younger.
Look at the ages of the most radical Republicans that we see out there. DeSantis is 43. Hawley is 42. Poor old Madison Cawthorn was just 26. Lauren Boebert is 35. Matt Gaetz is 40, Tom Cotton 45, Elise Stefanik 38. Rubio is 51. Ted Cruz is 51.
So the Republicans push forward younger radical people, and the people fighting them are people like Biden, who still think the institutions can work like they did in the `70s and `80s.
[19:55:00]
Your thoughts.
FMR. SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D-CA): Sure.
Well, someone who is fast becoming the Betty White of politics, me...
(CROSSTALK)
REID: That`s a great reference. Everybody wants to be Betty White. She`s amazing.
(LAUGHTER)
BOXER: But, in any...
(CROSSTALK)
REID: She was.
BOXER: This is how I view it. This is how I view it.
When you put those pictures up of those right-wing crazies, it says to me right away, it doesn`t matter how old you are. You could be dangerous at 80 and you could be dangerous at 40.
The point -- but I do think there`s an important point to this poll. And that is, we Democrats, we do have a very good and diverse coalition. It truly is diverse, everywhere you look at it. But in terms of leadership in Congress, it is true, they`re getting older.
And so I think it`s easy to fix that. I think we need to have younger people standing behind the leaders and getting to the podium and making the presentation. Look at the January 6 Committee. It`s so impressive, people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. Each one has something to offer.
So my feeling is we have got to push people forward who are younger and who are good and smart and are caring.
REID: Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, I want to let you counter.
What do you make of it? Because, yes, there are -- I mean, look, people, they love Liz Warren. There are young people who love Bernie Sanders, who`s about as old as Joe Biden.
But is it the sense that people are not being allowed to not just stand behind the leaders, but lead? Or is it the issues that younger people want, police reform, more aggressive pushes on voting rights, and that that`s not happening because the other leaders are sort of old school?
CRISTINA TZINTZUN RAMIREZ, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEXTGEN AMERICA: I think it`s that young people are voting for Democratic candidates, but they`re voting on progressive issues and a progressive agenda.
This wasn`t a news flash, this poll, that Biden wasn`t the youth vote candidate. He wasn`t the youth vote candidate in 2020. That was Bernie Sanders, and he`s pretty old.
What I saw in "The New York Times," and the Harvard youth voter poll showed us is that 32 percent of young eligible voters said they plan on showing up this election. That tracks on turnout of the youth voter turnout in 2018 that helped Democrats win back the House and also elect a slew of progressive, diverse candidates that are much younger and backed by young progressives.
So you elected congresswoman AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Katie Porter. This is the largest, most diverse and progressive generational voting bloc in the country right now. And they are just starting to flex their power. And they`re demanding the Democratic Party be more responsive to their issues, and they`re actually winning.
So the message that I see is that elected officials and the headline should really be, don`t underestimate or discount the power of a pissed-off generation this election.
REID: But -- and I hear all that.
And -- but, Senator Boxer. Here`s what happens. The AOCs, the more progressive younger candidates get elected, and then they say we want Build Back Better. We want all of this great stuff. We want a really aggressive voting rights bill. And then Joe Manchin says no. And then Joe Biden says, OK, well, we will split Build Back Better off and just give Joe Manchin his bridge bill.
And that`s the way politics works, because the progressive things that would excite young voters can`t get through the gerontological Senate.
(LAUGHTER)
BOXER: Let me just say this.
The way the Senate works, as you know, it`s a supermajority to get anything done. It has nothing to do with age. We could all be -- they could all be in their 30s or their 40s. They still couldn`t do it.
And I think that the panelist we have on here is so right. It`s about the issues. Now, we`re going to have the first national election since January 6. Think about that, with these hearings just driving it home to the young voters, to the old voters, to those in the middle. It`s the first one since that horrible Roe v. Wade decision.
And we have got crazy Republicans telling 10-year-olds they have to have a forced birth if they`re raped. So we have seen an uptick in gun violence.
REID: Yes.
BOXER: We have seen an uptick in voter suppression.
REID: Yes.
BOXER: So I think it`s the issues. And, yes, let`s get some more younger people out there with the older ones.
REID: Well, as the Gen -- as a member of Gen X, who we just get skipped all the time. We`re just going to go -- we will go to the next generations. We just get skipped.
I will give you the last word, Ms. Tzintzun Ramirez. Last word.
TZINTZUN RAMIREZ: Well, I`m going to say that young voters are actually winning on the issues, that what we need to realize is that, if it weren`t for young voters, Donald Trump would be president, Mitch McConnell would be a majority leader, we wouldn`t have the first African-American woman on the Supreme Court, that we have won investments in climate and historic gun safety legislation.
So let`s turn out young people this election, because we can send a powerful message to every single one of those elected officials that`s trying to take our country backwards, that, if they want to cling to the past, they can have it, but the future is going to belong to America`s young people.
REID: I absolutely agree.
And, young voters, listen, the way Republicans did this, they spent 50 years relentlessly voting, losing, voting, losing, voting, until they won. You have to vote persistently.
Vote like your grandma. That`s how you get what you want. Vote like your grandma, because she never stops voting. She`s in the church hat. She shows up. She always votes. That`s why she gets what she wants, ultimately.
Former Senator Barbara Boxer, Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, thank you both very much.
That is tonight`s REIDOUT.
"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.