Summary
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy caught on tape condemning Donald Trump`s role on January 6th insurrection, then lied about it. The Republican Georgia congresswoman testified under oath in a case to disqualify her to run for reelection. Marjorie Taylor Greene challenger, Marcus Flowers, speaks out on his bid to unseat Greene. GOP Ron DeSantis is under fire for turning on free speech and the free market.
Transcript
NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: Thank you so much for letting us into your homes for another week of shows during these truly extraordinary times. We`re grateful. "THE BEAT" with Ari Melber starts right now.
Hi, Ari. Happy Friday.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Happy Friday, Nicolle. Hope you have a great weekend. Thank you very much.
Welcome to THE BEAT, everyone. I`m Ari Melber.
And the top story in the nation tonight is simple. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is a liar. He is lying about his dealings with the White House regarding the insurrection, the greatest attack on the Capitol and U.S. democracy in over a century. And he is lying about what his own shifting positions are for what to do about it with the power he has as a leader on this important matter.
Now that`s the top story based on the explosive new tapes rocking Washington. But as you can imagine, the smoking gun tapes, first aired on TV last night, which revealed so much of this, are quickly stoking other developments and questions about whether McCarthy can hold on to his job leading the Republican Party in the House. They`re months out from midterms where he could be in line to become the next speaker if they take back the House.
And the headlines are roaring across Washington all day today about whether Kevin McCarthy is already toast. The facts show that McCarthy was so concerned about Trump leading the insurrection that he thought Trump should be ousted before the Biden inaugural on January 20th. And he was actively discussing and exploring ways to do that. He was blasting Trump`s actions as unacceptable and, quote, "indefensible."
He was discussing if Trump would try to get a criminal pardon, which shows us that in those tense first days before politics, bias, or self-interest clouded his judgment again, that in private McCarthy didn`t think there was much to be investigated, that he already viewed Donald Trump`s actions leading up to it on the 6th as clearly criminal. And yet against all that, just yesterday, McCarthy was still denying all the reporting I just mentioned as, quote, "totally false and wrong."
He may have been betting this would go down as another clash of journalists and sources versus a politician, and that it would land in kind of a gray area of perception, especially for his voters and Republicans who are so used to attacking anything coming out of the press. He clearly was not betting that someone in his inner circle had the receipts, had the smoking gun tapes, like McCarthy saying in this secret call that GOP leadership was discussing in private, that they thought was private at the time, that they surely never expected to come out, saying things like this just days after the insurrection.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): I`ve had it with this guy. What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that, and nobody should defend it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: So McCarthy`s very recent denials up and through this week are themselves the thing that are, quote, "totally false and wrong." It`s what he`s saying about this. And he is stuck with that statement. He`s not just lying to you as a news viewer or a citizen. He`s also lying to every single Republican in his district and around the country. He`s lying to them.
Now this has been quite a story, even if you think, well, I kind of knew some of this because we`ve shown you that in those early days in January, McCarthy in public also was saying Donald Trump was partly responsible for this, which is obviously true. Now he`s walked it back. So what`s new here and important is not just the facts of it but how basically culpable, guilty, so many of these top Republicans look, as it is revealed to the world and to their supporters what they really thought at the time. And that means they`ve put something else other than national security, democracy, and propriety, something else in charge.
Now these tapes first broke last night on MSNBC. I mentioned "The New York Times" reporters. And Rachel was explaining all of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: This is where we`re going to make some news here tonight. The problem with these denials from Mr. McCarthy and his office is that we have now obtained audio of that January 10th phone call that Leader McCarthy held with other top Republicans in which he in fact said, he`s going to call Trump and tell him that he must resign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: There you have it. Rachel reporting on that. The tapes and the underlying sources there are from this new book you may have heard about. "This Will Not Pass" by two "New York Times" journalists. The secret calls were five days after the insurrection. They revealed the top Republican there saying they privately were pressing Trump on his responsibility.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCARTHY: But let me be very clear to all of you, and I`ve been very clear to the president. He bears responsibilities for his words and actions. No ifs, ands, or buts. I asked him personally today, does he hold responsibility for what happened, does he feel bad about what happened?
[18:05:05]
He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened. And he needed to acknowledge that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: This goes well beyond the lies. It shows the Republican Party is led by people like Mr. McCarthy who privately, secretly, saw the insurrection for what it was, a terrible Trump-fueled attack on democracy, and then people who buckled and put their own political interests above what they said privately was their concern about democracy itself.
Under pressure, McCarthy bowing to Trump and then fighting against an independent bipartisan probe of this attack. Very rarely is it all so clearly exposed in public.
I want to bring in NYU law professor Melissa Murray and "Bulwark" editor- at-large Bill Kristol.
Bill, you, Melissa, our viewers might say, well, we did know some of this. And yet it feels significant, significant enough to potentially dislodge Mr. McCarthy, which we`ll get to. But before we get to the political fallout, I turn to you on the substance of it. What does it mean that they knew it was this bad?
BILL KRISTOL, THE BULWARK EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Well, it was this bad. It was evidently this bad even to Trump supporters, even to Kevin McCarthy, had three days before, those tapes four days before maybe, had voted to overturn the election, right? He was one of the 140 House Republicans who voted to throw out the electors in Pennsylvania. So Kevin McCarthy is not some kind of anti-Trump guy. I mean he -- but he knew what had happened was wrong. Of course he`ll get in trouble now for having told the truth.
You know, one additional thing just to your excellent setup there, he also says in the course of the conversation I think something about I don`t want to -- Trump should quit, but I don`t want to get involved in the middle of pardoning and having Pence pardon him, something like that, right? Which suggests -- which I don`t quite know if he`s concerned maybe that he would do something inappropriate.
Trump would say, OK, I`ll quit if you can arrange a pardon and McCarthy doesn`t want to be in the middle of that, which for obvious reasons. But it shows that McCarthy kind of basically believes Donald Trump committed crimes. What do you pardon for? You pardon for criminal acts, as Richard Nixon was, I`m sure that was in his mind, you know, almost 50 years ago. So, that also suggests that they knew the gravity of what Trump done.
MELBER: Yes. It`s so important when you put it that way. It is the gravity. It`s a reminder that, you know, we hear about, oh, things are so polarized in America, we can`t agree on common facts. Well, part of that is not inevitable. That is the result of leaders or people who are in these positions and fail to lead because they agreed on the common facts there. And Professor Murray is standing by. But since Bill brings it up, let`s go to that.
There`s the bit about the pardons and the 25th Amendment. And I have something on that for viewers so our guests stay. But McCarthy was among the Republicans as we were just discussing who thought Trump was so dangerous that he had to be ousted before the Biden transition. The tapes show Republican leaders go through kind of a reenactment of what I remember Rod Rosenstein, the former acting attorney general did at one point when he thought, boy, we`ve got a criminal in the White House who was reaching for that ridiculously high bar of the 25th Amendment.
That requires a finding the finding of the president cannot do the job, and you have to get a majority of the Cabinet, almost impossible, never been done. Then there`s the talk of asking Trump to resign. And going to this other tape, it seems a little silly given what everyone knows about Trump. But here`s that part.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCARTHY: Liz, you on the phone?
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Yes, I`m here. Thanks, Kevin. I guess there`s a question. When we were talking about the 25th Amendment resolution --
MCCARTHY: Yes.
CHENEY: And you asked, you know, what happens if it gets there after he`s gone. Is there any chance? Are you hearing that he might resign? Is there any reason to think that might happen?
MCCARTHY: I`ve had a few discussions. My gut tells me no. I`m seriously thinking of having that conversation with him tonight. But what I think I`m going to do is I`m going to call him. This is what I think. We know that it`ll pass the House. I think there`s a chance it`ll pass the Senate, even when he`s gone. And I think there`s a lot of different random cases for that.
Again, the only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign. I mean, that would be my take, but I don`t think he would take it. But I don`t know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: You rarely get this. You got these top Republicans talking to each other. They`re saying, I think it could pass the Senate. They`re saying, I think this person, Donald Trump, could be actually convicted in the Senate, forcibly thus removed under law from office, potentially barred from ever running again, and then the next question that Bill raised, and for you, Professor, this gets right into the law.
This is a short clip, very telling about saying, well, gosh, of course he`s going to want a pardon because he led a criminal insurrection against the United States to overthrow the peaceful transition of power.
[18:10:09]
I don`t want to talk about it. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCARTHY: Now, I haven`t had a discussion with the Dems, that if he did resign, would that happen? Now, this is one personal fear I have. I do not want to get into any conversation about Pence pardoning.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Professor?
MELISSA MURRAY, NYU LAW PROFESSOR: What to say about this? I mean, this is the most craven exercise of political sycophancy that I think we`ve ever seen in the history of the republic. He was against him until he was for him. And who knows what happened at Mar-a-Lago when Kevin McCarthy actually met with Donald Trump. But they were so loved up at Mar-a-Lago that all of these doubts that he had, all of these fears and certainties that Trump had engaged in criminal behavior to the point that he would actually need a pardon from the ostensible new president, Mike Pence, had simply evaporated.
And let`s just leave aside the fact that we did actually have an impeachment and we had a trial on these charges, where a majority of the senators agreed that nothing had happened. There was nothing to see here. We have essentially broken the impeachment process in an effort to vindicate this person that apparently everyone thought was actually engaged in criminal activity on January 6th.
Like the depths to which we have completely dismantled checks on the president and dismantled efforts to actually shore up our democracy is absolutely unfathomable. If I were a Republican right now, if I were Liz Cheney right now, I`d be actually horrified. I mean, she has been vilified by her colleagues, including Kevin McCarthy, when in fact they were all on the same page at one point in time. Like this is perhaps not surprising, but it is actually shocking to see it play out in stark relief in this way.
MELBER: Bill?
KRISTOL: It gets to the point about Liz Cheney, and I do think that`s one reason she`s been so fierce on this in a good way in the last year. She knows. That was one of the conversations with her. She know what they really think. She has said what they really think publicly, and she has followed the consequences of that. We can`t have -- we need to find out everything about January 6th. He shouldn`t be the nominee again. She couldn`t support him again.
Very logical. And what so infuriates her, I imagine, is that she knows her colleagues knew this and really still know this, of course, but it`s pure cowardice at this point. I mean, what else is it? Cowardice, opportunism. There`s not even anyway to paper this over and make this anything more than that.
MELBER: Yes. Well, and I think that`s so serious, Bill and Professor Murray, because sometimes in world history, you look at the misdeeds committed by people who from what we can tell genuinely thought they were trying to do something good and really bad things came out of it. And there`s responsibility for that, too. The only thing worse than that across all of world history are people who are knowingly, wantonly, hypocritically evil, and they just say, that`s evil. That`s bad. Oh, I got to go along with that.
And I`m not one to make historical analogies on air, not my line of work. I`ll just stick to the news. But Bill, when you go along with other people`s evil and you know it to be wrong, that`s when some of the worse things happen in societies. And that`s what we see with McCarthy.
Go ahead. Because he -- well, one more thought. I just want to underscore what we said. This isn`t the standard of me or you or THE BEAT. His standard after watching the violence on the 10th was this was a criminal, dictatorial campaign. He wanted no part of it because it was bad. That`s what he now supports, Bill.
KRISTOL: Yes, he doesn`t just go along but he rationalizes it. He now covers it over. He purges Liz Cheney from leadership. He puts people in leadership like Elise Stefanik who were totally on board the January 6th insurrection. The irony going forward is that Trump -- I think McCarthy will lose after the election the leadership of the House Republicans or the speakership of the majority.
Because I do think the Trump supporters will not, for now -- enough of them will rebel, but he`ll be denied that leadership. And I wonder who leaked that audio, what if from someone like, you know, who wishes to succeed him? An Elise Stefanik or someone like that. Who knows? But the irony is, he will end up having done all this damage to the republic and not getting the job he wants.
MELBER: Yes, they call that going full Mike Pence where you spend years doing that kind of thing and in the end of the day when the whole era is over, they`re not just asking for your political life. They`re asking for your life. I mean, those Trump fans wanted to murder and assassinate Mike Pence. It can`t be understated or minimized.
[18:15:01]
And Kevin McCarthy watched all that, said what he said on the 10th of January, and then is going along with the same thing. And that brings us to the wild politics of it, Bill. In the old days -- and you were in the Republican Party for a long time -- they would have these meetings and the members of the House caucus would pick their leader. Leader of them. They pick their leaders. Sounds tautological.
Now it`s some sort of mixed Vatican Mar-a-Lago smoke signal system, which has got to be debasing and pathetic for anyone involved. No shade to the Vatican, but it is an obscure process. And Popes are different than political leaders. So with that said, I`m reading from the reporting. You`ve alluded to some of this, Bill.
McCarthy called Trump and apologized over all this. Quote, "He said he was placating Liz Cheney," that it was fake. That he was just paying her lip service. Quote, "Trump isn`t mad. He`s got other things on his mind. He accepts Kevin for who he is. It`s not like he really trusts him." Many Republicans, quote, "will be watching and waiting for signals," I don`t know if they missed the word smoke or not, Bill, but for some kind of signal from Mar-a-Lago that could decide McCarthy`s fate.
Bill, does that sound right to you? Have they ever picked a speaker or House leader like that before? Is it pathetic?
KRISTOL: It is pathetic. And this gets back to the point that was made earlier. It`s important that Congress act as a check on the executive and hold the executive accountable for misdeeds and make its own decisions, also about its leadership. And we already have members of Congress today saying he insulted Donald Trump. He shouldn`t be our leader.
MELBER: Final thought, Melissa?
MURRAY: I mean, this is totemism at its worst. I mean, again, Kevin McCarthy is supposed to be the leader or wants to be the leader of the House Republicans, and he`s basically shown that he`s in the thrall of the charlatan who is actually leading his party. I mean, the things that Democrats need to be concerned about is it makes very clear that Trump still has a stranglehold on the Republican Party.
And that`s something that I think you have to be cognizant of going into the midterms. Like this is a failure for sure. It is a misstep for sure. But not for Donald Trump. I mean, it just simply shows the lengths to which the members of his party will go to maintain their allegiance to him.
MELBER: Yes. Melissa and Bill, thanks to both of you.
Let me tell folks what`s coming up. MTG grilled today. She`s facing a push to kick her off the ballot. We have that story. And the Republican extremism in Florida and why it may cost voters and citizens there a lot of money.
And by the end of the hour, a very special guest to end the week, who`s been fighting Putin`s regime for over a decade. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:22:15]
MELBER: We`ve been covering many of the different fallout points from the insurrection. And another one happened to hit a key accountability moment today. And this is rare, but Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is the first member of Congress to be questioned and testify under oath about the insurrection.
This all stems from something we`ve been covering, the effort to kick her off the ballot. Takes a lot to kick someone off the ballot, but finally overthrowing the U.S. government can carry the day. It began with her refusing to answer whether interfering in the election would make someone a kind of in-house enemy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW CELLI, LAWYER: So if someone broke the law in an effort to interfere with the counting of the electoral votes, that person would be an enemy of the Constitution. Am I right about that?
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): Breaking the law is unlawful. There`s been over 700 people charged for what happened on January 6th.
CELLI: Those people would be enemies of the Constitution. You would agree with that, right?
GREENE: I don`t know if it -- I don`t know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: "I don`t know." Not exactly a clarion call of leadership about overthrowing the election. Now Greene was testifying as mentioned with this legal challenge hanging over her. That`s the only reason she got forced into court here. Georgia voters would say that she was supportive of the insurrectionists according to those who filed this and thus might not be eligible to run for office in the first place.
Now, that`s important because you can see the pressure on her. This is not just telling the truth or being under oath in theory. She knows exactly what they`re trying to do to boot her off as a transparent process. And so she denies any knowledge of the kind of violence that was coming beforehand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREENE: I had no knowledge of any attempt, and so that`s a question that`s -- I can`t answer. I never meant anything for violence. All of my words never ever mean anything for violence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Now, in fairness, this is a legal proceeding. She gets to speak. She gets to be heard. Ultimately, she is not the final arbiter on whether or not anything she says and does supports violence. But unlike some people, including Donald Trump, she is trying to publicly say clearly that she`s against violence.
Now she continued throughout the hearing, though, to defend a lot of what she said and did and repeatedly dodged, which, again, if you want to be on the ballot and you want to be part of the democracy, you shouldn`t have to dodge that much with questions about whether you support an act in favor of democracy. But she kept saying she could not remember what she was up to going into the insurrection.
[18:25:01]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREENE: I don`t remember.
CELLI: OK. So, you`re not denying it. You`re just saying you don`t recall.
GREENE: I don`t recall. I`m not answering that question. I don`t remember. I don`t remember. I don`t recall making that tweet. I don`t know anything about this. I`ve never seen it before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: It sounds like someone who`s spoken to a lawyer because if she lies under oath about any of this, that can create new criminal liability and frankly a bigger problem than just not being allowed to run for office.
And then here`s the key point. In a proceeding about whether she supported the type of insurrection and violence to overthrow the election, which some say could make her ineligible to run for office, she continued to repeat the lie at the center of that effort and she continues to claim wrongly and falsely that Donald Trump won the election he lost.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CELLI: Your wish was that Congress not certify Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election?
GREENE: No. That`s not accurate.
CELLI: You believed that Joe Biden had lost the election to Mr. Trump, right?
GREENE: Well, yes. We saw tremendous amount of voter fraud --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That is false, whether it is her genuine belief or not is a trickier question. But the assertion that voter fraud somehow changed the course of the election has been debunked by independent fact checkers, the courts, and if you`re counting, Attorney General Bill Barr himself, a member of the Trump administration.
Then there was a moment where Greene claimed she originally thought that those rioters -- remember with the red hats and the Trump flags who were summoned by Donald Trump in a tweet, who were at a rally for Donald Trump, that she claims she thought maybe they were part of some other groups.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREENE: I heard a gunshot. We all heard it. And we were so confused. We thought Antifa was breaking in or BLM because of -- those were the riots that had gone on and on all throughout 2020.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: There you have it. Also telling because that`s false. We know who was at the Capitol. What she`s saying is trying to besmirch or defame others who weren`t even there.
There`s only two ways to stop this particular individual. One is to kick her off the ballot, and as I`ve reported, the legal path for that is very, very tough. In other words unlikely. The other is to beat her at the ballot box.
Our next guest, Georgia Democrat Marcus Flowers is trying to do that, and unseat her, and he joins me when we`re back in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: We`re joined now by Democratic candidate running against Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Marcus Flowers.
Welcome to THE BEAT.
MARCUS FLOWERS, DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE GEORGIA`S 14TH DISTRICT: Thanks for having me, Ari.
MELBER: What do you think we learned about her in today`s testimony?
FLOWERS: Well, Ari, I didn`t watch too much of that. I was busy talking to Georgia voters. But what I did see was that Marjorie Taylor Greene can`t seem to remember anything that led up to and happened on January 6th.
Well, I remember, and let me remind you, what happened was an attack on the citadel of our democracy, our Capitol. Domestic terrorists stormed our Capitol in order to stop a democratic election. That`s what happened. That`s what prompted me to resign my post as a government official on January 7th, to run against Marjorie Taylor Greene because I saw the danger this country was in. That`s what happened.
MELBER: Yes. And I appreciate your point. We were just talking earlier in the show in a different context about how people looked at what happened, what they did about it, what kind of leadership people want, which is up to the voters.
[18:30:00]
I did want to play another moment from the hearing where she is sort of pressed on the rhetoric here because you know, for years, we were told don`t take this to that politician, literally. But people did. That`s the whole point. That`s what leadership can be about. People know, 1776 was an armed revolution. It`s not a reference to debate. But take a look at this exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): This is our 1776 moment. Talking about the courage to object.
ANDREW CELLI, ATTORNEY: You`ve never heard anybody say, use the term 1776 as a code word for violence to occur on January 6th, 2021?
GREENE: No, absolutely not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Do you think she`s lying to cover up her role in fomenting violence?
MARCUS FLOWERS (D-GA), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: Well, you know, perjury -- I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is definitely lying. She knows. And she`s seeing right now that our words have consequences. I learned this at a very young age as a young soldier lost sworn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States when I joined the army at 18. Now, look, all that aside, that`s what got me into this race. But I`m talking to Jordans every day, I`m out on doors, talking to voters, and to a person, they are embarrassed by Marjorie Taylor Greene, what we really have here right now is a void.
We don`t have a servant leader right now. Marjorie Taylor Greene can`t even be bothered to have an office here in the district, I have an office, I get out and I talk to voters, I don`t always know if I`m talking to a Democrat, and independent or Republican, but I`m telling you, Ari, to a person. They are all embarrassed. These are great people here in Northwest Georgia, and they want a leader who`s going to get things done for our communities, they want someone --
MELBER: And then --
FLOWERS: To represent --
MELBER: Let me jump in. Because, you know, I`m juggling different segments. But I feel you on that. The other thing I did want to get to is there is a closer question about the awesome and rare power of kicking someone off the ballot. Do you support this effort to kick her off the ballot? What do you say to critics who argue well, shouldn`t you just be able to beat her and win the voters over rather than this effort right now, which is by some groups that are local that voters they have the right to appeal to the courts, but who would prevent her from being able to run?
FLOWERS: You know, Ari the voters who brought this challenge to Marjorie Taylor Greene being on the ballot, they have every right to do so. And I support their right to do that. However, I can only control what I can control. And that`s getting out, getting on the doors, talking to the voters, letting people know that I`m here I will be a servant leader. I will have offices in the district, there will be constituent services. When I`m elected to Congress. Marjorie Taylor Greene can`t be bothered to do that, because he`s running around the country with the likes of Matt Gaetz.
What we are focused on here at Northwest Georgia is education, housing issues, homelessness, our veterans are homeless. You know, there`s so many things that need to be worked on right now. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is not doing it. We have an absentee voice in Congress right now. The constitution says that I should have a representative. I don`t have that right now. And no one in Northwest Georgia does. That`s what I`m focused on right now.
MELBER: I hear you and when you run against someone, this polarizing, you`re balancing sort of whatever that that show is and that wildness with of course what you`re also emphasizing your campaign and your pitch to the voters. So, we get that Marcus Flowers. Thanks for coming on THE BEAT.
FLOWERS: All right, one last thing before I go Ari. I`d like to say I can`t do this alone people. So please go to www.MarcusforGeorgia, and join our mission to unseat Marjorie Taylor Greene and bring decency and integrity, and decorum back to Congress. Thank you.
MELBER: Marcus. I feel like I`m inside one of those commercials. But you say it clearly got to get your plug in there. We understand it. Thank you, sir.
FLOWERS: Thanks, Ari.
MELBER: Absolutely appreciate it. Have a good weekend. Coming up. Republican extremism in the classroom and Florida taxpayers might actually have to pay more because of DeSantis. And tonight, by the end of the hour and the end of this long week. Well, we have something special, a punk rocker and longtime Putin foe. Our special guests live tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:38:37]
MELBER: Florida`s Republican governor is punishing one of the state`s largest employers because of its own free speech as well as its support for basic civil rights protections and standing up for LGBTQ citizens. And now, Governor Ron DeSantis, paying for it with a tax hike on his own constituents. That`s what`s happening right now. They`re signing this bill that strips Disney of a tax status in Florida because of its opposition to these governors, quote, Don`t Say Gay law, or at least that`s how it`s described by critics. CNBC reported the move will hit Florida taxpayers with ultimately a $1 billion additional bill.
DeSantis has been using children as a kind of a set of political props. He`s also limiting schools from teaching. What he says would be certain racial concepts whether that`s really happening has been up for debate anyway, but the larger point is an attack on free speech and free-market principles. So clearly not very conservative or libertarian, and he apparently hopes all of this will put him first in line to be the Republican nominee for president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): We`re here today because we believe in education, not indoctrination. Those standards do not allow pernicious ideologies like critical race theory to be taught in our K. through 12 schools.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[18:40:00]
MELBER: This is a little bit like trying to patrol elementary schools from teaching the pre-med curriculum in college. Critical race theory is a graduate-level college course. Whether it`s ever been mentioned somewhere in an individual school is virtually impossible to fact check. But it is not part of the curriculum. It hasn`t stopped DeSantis from still trying to use this as a wedge issue to go after all kinds of textbooks including 54 math books that contain the quote, prohibited topics. Officials have finally coughed up examples.
One was a reference that would tell students, uh-oh, you should empathize with classmates. Another one that is objected to by this DeSantis type. Censorship is a reference to students` social and emotional learning. Yes, they are being very careful that we don`t discuss learning in school. That`s what you need to know about the law signed today. We`re going to fit in a break. Coming up tonight, we have a Russian artist who has famously and courageously stood up to Vladimir Putin`s regime. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:45:50]
MELBER: Putin`s war in Ukraine grinds on. This is day of 57. Soldiers there continued gruesome attacks against Ukrainian civilians, on children, cities leveled. Reports of Russian soldiers brutally raping women there. It`s enormous cost. And it`s not only to the Ukrainian people, but also to many in Russia who are not necessarily in any way supportive of Putin`s aggression, who must deal with these global sanctions.
And despite facing internal oppression at home prison or worse, we are also seeing these reports of people bravely protesting the war inside Russia, indeed, a rough count is that there have been over 15,000 arrests. There may be many, many more people who oppose the war and are not out in public risking everything.
And then there`s (INAUDIBLE) Russian television employee who interrupted that live broadcast just to protest what she called Putin`s war propaganda. Putin is running a country where holding even a blank piece of paper, which is seen as a symbol of war protest right now can get you arrested. It is beyond Orwellian. It`s a risk that people have taken. For years though, to stand up and warn about Putin`s autocratic regime even before things got as visibly bad abroad as they have. One group that`s been at the forefront of this and brings us to something special tonight is a punk rock performance collective.
They go by the name Pussy Riot, founded in 2011. The groups created songs and staged these guerrilla gigs throughout Russia, opposing Putin and also advancing a whole range of issues that aren`t just anti-Putin but are for the Russian people like universal rights including LGBTQ rights. The group also gained more global notice when five members did a performance inside Russia`s National Cathedral that led to arrests and prison time.
There was also a song and a video called Make America Great Again, but it marked Donald Trump, and this sort of Putin-Trump axes in a kind of goofball but scary dystopian universe. This is a group with -- I can say brave members who have long stood up to Putin in all sorts of ways. Both protests, physical, and cultural, while sharing their work and music.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The women of Pussy Riot spent hours waiting in a glass box for the judge to start reading her verdict.
LESLEY STAHL, CBS NEWS HOST: The young women had become the poster girls of Russian descent.
YEKATERINA SAMUTSEVICH, CO-FOUNDER, PUSSY RIOT (through translator): We want the government to leave power because we consider it illegitimate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: German doctors tonight say Pyotr Verzilov, a Putin critic, and the most prominent male member of the protest group Pussy Riot was most likely poisoned.
VERONIKA NIKULSHINA, CO-FOUNDER, PUSSY RIOT: Must go into such a different place. As our government wants to show it.
NADYA TOLOKONNIKOVA, CO-FOUNDER, PUSSY RIOT: They can try to silence one of us but they cannot silence every one of us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: For a special edition of Fall Back here on THE BEAT, I`m joined now by Nadya Tolokonnikova, a founding member of that Russian protest punk band Pussy Riot, she served prison time in Siberia for some of her work, cultural, political, and otherwise speak out against Putin. And back with us is Bill Kristol. Welcome to you both. Appreciate it, Nadya starting with you, straightforwardly. Why was it important for you to stand up to what you viewed as this type of repression in the past? And were you trying to warn the world about Putin?
TOLOKONNIKOVA: Any type of concentration of power brings a lot of negative consequences. What we see today is the result of complacency of a lot of people inside and outside of Russia. For example, in 2014, it was obvious that Putin started war in Ukraine and we did ask the global community to take it more seriously.
And I felt like partly what`s happening today is the result of the global community treating it too lightly. So basically, when the power is concentrated in the hands of just one person, it`s becoming incredibly dangerous because you know at some point, they might just lose their mind and invade neighboring country which what just happened.
[18:50:00]
MELBER: Yes, you`re talking about concentrated power, and Putin, as we`ve charted has grown that power from when he first came in as kind of an installed or quasi-incumbent for an election. Bill, you`ve given a lot of thought to democracy around the world. What do you see here as important in culture, as Putin tries to decimate not only the Ukrainian people, but their culture, and yet the story of the Russian people is complicated it`s not monolithic by any means.
BILL KRISTOL, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, THE BULWARK: Ari, I so admire the people who`ve taken real risks and paid the real price, obviously to be dissidents. And usually, like Putin. When I came to Washington first, I was a -- you know, one of the reasons that I got into politics was, I was so admired Sakharov and Sharansky, and others in the 70s, and 80s.
And we could do our bit here to help and I hope we`re doing as much as we can. And I`m curious what Nadya thinks of this. I mean, are we doing as much as we can to get information into Russia? Do they have access to information or is Putin succeeded in shutting it down? That`s something the U.S. government can do somewhere.
But it`s also something I`ve worked with a couple of people who tried to use in the private sector, make end-runs around Putin`s censorship of the internet and so forth, that we do need to get the truth to help get the truth to the Russian people.
MELBER: Nadya how about that, and the free flow of information in Russia, as Putin has gone after social media, etc.
TOLOKONNIKOVA: That`s challenging. You got to use VPN -- can use our third project to access Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, we still have Telegram. All the outlets who cover the war, they blocked. In the territory of Russia, that we`re creating mirrors, sitting right here in search of (INAUDIBLE), which is media outlet that we created 2014, and became quickly one of the most important independent voices in modern Russia.
We grew the whole generation of like young Russians who stand against the regime. Well, there is an understanding as well, as well. And that why they blocked as. But we still work. A lot of journalists had to flee to save their lives and lives of their families, but they still work. And I guess, until we -- if you breathe, if you breathe, we`re going to deliver real news to Russian people.
MELBER: Yes, I wanted to ask you about a really tricky debate. That`s really raging in the west, because the sanctions are designed to go after Putin and the Russian government with the effect the Russian people, as long-running debates about sanctions in the world. Then there`s people going further, I want to read from something this is from a more conservative outlet in United States. But people don`t always admit this, but it happens in wars. We know that. And it`s very concerning.
But somebody says, reading here from a Wall Street Journal letter, of calling for the boycott of Russian artists, dancers, musicians, they should go back to Russia hanging their heads, we want to make it uncomfortable for the Russian people who need to recognize their rogue state will not be accepted by the west in any way. What is your reaction to people who confuse or link the diverse entire Russian population or its cultural offerings, with this authoritarian leader? What I wanted to give you here on the American airwaves a chance to respond?
TOLOKONNIKOVA: I think it should be selective. If person supported continuously Kremlin, Putin`s war in Ukraine then definitely you should -- they should not be able to enter other countries. Well, there are a lot of residents who did not support Putin and they`re oppressed, like seriously oppressed, they`re risking their lives every day to oppose, oppose this lack of freedom that they have. And I think we should help those Russians. Because if you are going to turn against them.
Well, some of them might go back to Russia and actually join Putin because it`s going to be the only one way for them. If they`re going to be rejected by the whole world. I don`t really think if your ultimate goal is to fight Putin, I think you should show support to people who do not support him.
MELBER: Bill, I`ve got 40 seconds. There`s nothing new about anti-Russian sentiment in America, or all kinds of bigotry for that matter. War supercharges it. Your thoughts?
KRISTOL: I very much agree. I think we need to support decent Russians and the Russian people and ultimately be clear. I wrote a piece on this right before the war. This is Putin`s war. Now, unfortunately, he controls Russia and a lot of people are going along with it and it controls the sources of information. So, a lot of -- you probably has a lot of temporary support. But we need to make clear this is Putin`s war. Putin is what has to be dealt with. We have no quarrel with the Russian people. We want Russia to be a free and successful time.
[18:55:00]
MELBER: Yes. Well, this is a kind of a wartime fall back it`s a segment where we look at culture, but culture is part of how we learn about these issues including these major problems with a lot of risk and suffering out there. I want to thank, Nadya Tolokonnikova from Pussy Riot for joining us for your work and Bill Kristol. Thanks to both of you.
TOLOKONNIKOVA: Thank you for having us.
MELBER: Absolutely appreciate it. And we will be right back.
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MELBER: And before we head into the weekend, I want to tell you that NBC is "INSPIRING AMERICA" returns for a second year. Lester, Savannah, and Hoda hosting a series which focuses on people who are trying to help their communities. It`s an inspiration list. It`s a set of thoughts about where we`re headed as a society and communities around the country, Saturday, May 7th. That`s on NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC Plus. It will air the next day May 8th on Telemundo, plus on all of our streaming platforms.
What I`m saying is, you can find it and we recommend it. That`s "INSPIRING AMERICA" from our NBC partners. That does it for us. Have a great weekend. And "THE REIDOUT" with Joy Reid, starts now.
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