Summary
Jazmine Cazares was one of several survivors and families of victims of mass murderers who spoke during today`s House Oversight Committee hearing. A Yale study shows that the international sanctions regime against Russia, led by President Joe Biden, is not just working, it is sending Russia into economic oblivion.
Transcript
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Mehdi, and I`m sure Tucker Carlson has no problem with any of that, and he`s basically as much himself.
MEHDI HASAN, MSNBC HOST: Yeah. the problem is, none of them, do this is not some fringe figure. As you said, Tucker, Trump, CPAC, they`re all embracing a guy who has a long history of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. It`s been sort of dog whistles now. It`s saying no to mixed race society from his own website.
O`DONNELL: Well, that`s where they are now. Thank you, Mehdi.
HASAN: Thanks.
O`DONNELL: Well, this is day two of our coverage of the criminal investigation of the 45th president of the night states, and day two has gone exactly expected exactly as expected in investigations like this. We`ve learned the identity of another very important cooperating witness, with the justice department criminal investigation of Donald Trump, and a potential group of coconspirators that includes most prominently, Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and attorney Rudy Giuliani who is no longer legally license to practice law.
Here is the witness, who we learned today is cooperating with the Justice Department criminal investigation of Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Did Rudy Giuliani ever suggest that he was interested in receiving a presidential pardon related to January 6th?
CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE AIDE: He did.
CHENEY: Ms. Hutchinson, did White House chief of staff Mark Meadows ever indicate he was interested in receiving a presidential pardon related to January 6th?
HUTCHINSON: Mr. Meadows did seek that pardon, yes, ma`am.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: She is going to be a very helpful witness to federal prosecutors, investigating Donald Trump.
ABC News was the first to report today, that Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top advisor to then president Donald Trump`s chief of staff Mark Meadows, has recently cooperated with the Department of Justice investigation into the events of January 6th. According to sources familiar with the matter, the Justice Department reached out to her, following her testimony a month ago before the House committee investigating the January 6th Capitol attack, the sources said.
O`DONNELL: Not one word of Cassidy Hutchinson`s now public, under oath testimony to the committee, has been challenged by any other witness to the same events. Her testimony to the grand jury will include direct quotes that she heard Donald Trump say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUTCHINSON: (INAUDIBLE) part of the conversation, I was in the vicinity of a conversation where overheard the president say something to the effect of, I don`t f`ing care that they have weapons. They`re not here to hurt me, take the f`ing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people, take the f`ing mags away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Mags. Magnetometer. Technical terms for metal detectors.
Donald Trump didn`t want his crowd on January 6th have to go through metal detectors, and his presidential speech. And so, Donald Trump will try to fall asleep night tonight, knowing that some of the under oath testimony that the criminal grand jury in Washington, D.C. investigating him, is going to hear. Mark Meadows will have that same challenge, when he`s trying to fall asleep tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUTCHINSON: He`s still sitting on his phone, and I remember Pat saying to him, something to the effect of, the rioters have gotten to the Capito, Mark, we need to go down and see the president now. And Mark looked up and said, he doesn`t want to do anything, Pat. And Pat said something to the effect of, a very clearly, he said this to Mark. Something needs to be done, people are going to die and blood is going to be on your f`ing hands, this is getting out of control, I`m going down there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Today, in an article for "The New Yorker", Harvard law professor says that the evidence of what Donald Trump did not do during the attack on the Capitol, quote, holds the strongest potential for making a successful criminal case stake against him. If individuals have a legal duty to acts, but choose not to, they could be held responsible for the harm that results.
[22:05:06]
Professor Gerson (ph) writes, quote, Trump knew that is armed supporters were marauding, assaulting, and even seeking to kill in his name. His instructions to them placed the armed mob at the Capitol, and put people inside the building in harm`s way. That gave Trump a legal duty, as a person responsible for creating physical danger, to those in the Capitol, to help stop his supporters, once he saw that they had become violent. It is indisputable that he did nothing to stop them for more than three hours, and, if anything, spur them on with his angry tweets about Pence. Potential charges, then, could include an assault, and homicide.
To that particular facet of the federal criminal investigation of Donald Trump, Cassidy Hutchinson can tell the grand jury this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUTCHINSON: I remember Pat saying something to the effect of, Mark, we need to do something more. They are literally calling for the vice president to be f`ing hung. And Mark had responded, something to the effect of, you heard it path, he thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn`t think there`s anything wrong, to which Pat said something, this is f`ing crazy, we need to be doing something more. We need to step into Mark`s office, and when Mark said something, to the effect of he doesn`t think they`re doing anything wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Donald Trump didn`t think that the attackers of the Capitol were doing anything wrong, the federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump is going to hear that from Cassidy Hutchinson, and, probably from other witnesses, possibly from Mark Meadows, under oath.
Get used to this, we are now at the leaking stage of the federal criminal investigation of Donald Trump. We don`t know how long the Justice Department has been focusing the criminal investigation on Donald Trump, but in Washington, Wednesday start putting witnesses in front of a grand jury, the leaking begins. That`s what happened when Vice President Mike Pence`s chief of staff Marc Short, was seen by ABC News at the courthouse on Friday. ABC News wasn`t the first to report on Monday, that Marc Short testified to the grand jury about January 6th, on Friday.
And then last night, Carol Leonnig and a team of reporters at "The Washington Post" broke the news that most of the grand jury questions, that Marc Short was asked, were about Donald Trump. And that is when we knew, that Donald Trump is the subject of a federal criminal grand jury investigation.
Last night, Andrew Weissmann told us that Donald Trump is really what he called a subject plus, meaning he`s a subject who is probably on his way to being a target of the investigation if he is not already the target of the investigation. This is it. This is what some members of the January 6 committee have been asking the justice department to do for months now. Launch a criminal investigation, of Donald Trump.
The leaking from the grand jury, almost never comes from the investigators or the grand jurors, but it usually does come from the witnesses themselves, who have every legal right to reveal publicly everything that happened in a grand jury room or the leaking comes from lawyers for the witnesses or associates of lawyers for the witnesses or friends of lawyers for the witnesses. When prominent people in Washington D.C. like Marc Short testified to the grand jury it`s in virtually impossible for that to remain secret.
The other way we will get strong indicators of the progress of the federal criminal investigation of Donald Trump are court filings by the Justice Department. And so we learned today that federal investigators obtained a second search warrant to look at the contents of the phone of John Eastman, the Trump attorney who advocated using fake electors to the Electoral College, to fraudulently overturn the presidential election.
A court filing today by the Justice Department says underlie 12th, 2022, a federal agent obtained a second federal search warrant from the U.S. district court from the District of Columbia that authorizes review of the contents of the plaintiff`s cell phone.
[22:10:01]
Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe interpreted this news this way, the Department of Justice has now obtained a warrant to search John Eastman`s cell phone. The Department of Justice has had the phone since June 22nd, now it has judicial permission to search its contents. To get that warrant, the Department of Justice had to specify the crimes it has good cause to believe the contents will reveal.
"The New York Times" is reporting that people working with John Eastman`s face electors conspiracy, actually referred to the people they were enlisting as, as fake electors. The times reports, quote, in emails reviewed by "The New York Times", and authenticated people by people who worked with the Trump campaign at the time. When lord involved in detailed discussions repeatedly, use the word fake to refer to the so-called electors, who are intended to provide Vice President Mike Pence, and Mr. Trump`s allies in Congress a rationale for derailing the congressional process of certifying the outcome.
And lawyers working on the proposal, made clear that they knew that the new pro Trump electors they were putting forward might not hold up to legal scrutiny. We would just be sending in fake electoral votes to pence, so that someone in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the fake votes should be counted.
Jack Wilenchik, a Phoenix-based lawyer who helped organize the pro Trump electors in California, wrote in an email to Boris Epshteyn, a strategic adviser for the Trump campaign. In a follow-up email, Mr. Wilenchik wrote that alternative votes is probably a better term, then fake votes, adding a smiley face emojis. In another email, Mr. Wilenchik summarized the plot this way.
All of us, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, et cetera, have our electors and in. Their votes even though the votes aren`t under federal law because they`re not signed by the governor, so that members of Congress can fight about whether they should be counted on January 6.
Mr. Wilenchik got the fight that he was anticipating on January 6th, and we all saw that fight. It is only a matter of time, before we are reporting to you that Mr. Wilenchik testified under oath to the federal criminal grand jury in Washington, D.C., that is now investigating a large range of possible crimes by a former president of the United States.
Leading off our discussion tonight is Daniel Goldman, former House majority counselor for the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. He`s a former U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York is now running for Congress as a Democrat, in New York`s tenth congressional district.
Daniel Goldman, this is the way it`s going to go now. We will be learning from day-to-day, every other day once or twice a week but week, something about this grand jury and who is the latest person who`s going before that grand jury to cooperate.
DANIEL GOLDMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Yeah, that`s right, the only thing I`d caution you on, is I wouldn`t put villa and check in the grand jury quite yet. He could be on the other side of the v, which means United States versus Wilenchik, because if you`re writing in an email that you know that you are cooking up a scheme to try to defraud or overturn an election with a fraudulent basis, that is potentially a conspiracy to defraud the United States.
So, this is how I would expect this to go from the department. They will certainly want to ask all these witnesses questions about Trump, about Meadows, about every topic they might touch upon. I think but they will probably want to do, is drill down on these fringe lawyers, the crazies, as I think Pat Cipollone called them. And try to figure out whether they are worth charging, because Donald Trump`s defense will be, hey, you tell me that Bill Barr and Pat Cipollone told me that this is not okay. But I`ve got these other lawyers who are saying it is okay. Who am I to decide which of lawyers is right on the law?
So one tactic I expect them to use is to go after the lawyers, if they can show that they knew what they were doing was wrong, and fraudulent, you charge them and they may cooperate against Donald Trump or Mark Meadows or someone higher.
[22:15:10]
O`DONNELL: So, this is the interesting part of this, who do they choose? Whose federal prosecutors wanted global for the grand jury as witnesses, and who do they deliberately not call?
Let`s use this Wilenchik for the moment. When you look at, that there will be an argument that says let`s get him into the grand jury, let`s see what is going to tell us about the scheme. There`s another argument presumably in the room saying, no, he`s a criminal suspect here. We`re going to go after him as a criminal suspect, so we don`t want him in a grand jury. We want to build a case against him in the grand jury.
How does that get worked out, how do they decide? That especially with the cast of characters as big?
GOLDMAN: Right, well let me use Allen Weisselberg as example for you that you may remember, Lawrence. There were reports a couple of summers ago, I frankly forget win, that he went into the grand jury in the southern district, in the campaign finance broad case related to Donald Trump that the southern district of New York was operating.
Well, the reports that he wasn`t so honest, and then, all of a sudden, that case gets transferred from the southern district of the Manhattan DA`s office. The reason I suspect why that happened, is because of a doctrine in criminal law which prevents you from using grand jury testimony, if you are immunized, as Weisselberg was, in a future prosecution and it gets very muddy in determining whether whatever evidence you may, have is completely separate from what you testified about.
No doubt Wilenchik would require immunity to testify, and that mean you cannot uses statements against him. So, I would not be throwing him in the grand jury right away, before you can figure out what kind of criminal culpability he may have. So you would have to continue to review emails, continue to do search warrants, speak to other witnesses who may have come into contact with him. And then ultimately, you may approach him through his lawyer and say hey, why don`t you come on in and talk to us and cooperate with us.
Maybe he gets charged, maybe he gets a pass but ultimately that some way of encouraging him to cooperate.
O`DONNELL: I think we can add Mr. Wilenchik check to the group of conspirators who will have trouble falling asleep tonight, after listening to you.
Daniel Goldman, thank you for starting off our discussion tonight. Really appreciate it.
GOLDMAN: Thanks, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: And joining us now is NBC News presidential historian, Michael Beschloss. His latest book is "Presidents of War".
Michael, I`ve been so eager to talk to you about of it, because I have felt the historic import of it since the moment I reads Carol Leonnig`s reporting, her team reporting last night in "The Washington Post". This is one of those moments, as an Watergate, where you know, you know as you hold "The Washington Post" in your hands that you are reading history, basically in real time.
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, NBC NEWS PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: You are so right, Lawrence, and the way we Americans are living in a different world than the one we were living in just 24 hours ago, because here we are for almost the first time in American history, with the immediate prospect of an ex-president of the United States having done things that were so bad, that the Department of Justice is now reliably reported to be exploring the possibility, of not only investigating him, but indicting him, in which case you would go to trial. And if he loses, we may in our lifetime seat of the spectacle of an ex-president of the United States with the prison cell door closing it.
It`s something that we`ve never seen before. And it`s fitting, because if you look at what Donald Trump did, at the center of that blueprint at the 6th of January, which have been in the making, we`re finding more and more for months, that this is someone who is perfectly happy to destroy our democracy perhaps, authorize assassinations, perhaps unleash violence that day, that would`ve led to him declaring martial law, and stealing a second term as president.
But he wasn`t entitled to it, we would right now have a fascist led by Donald Trump, in charge of this country. It was a pretty close call, and thank God the Department of Justice, is at least investigating.
O`DONNELL: This seems to be a reawakening the Watergate rhythms. We`ve had a lot of big investigations. We`ve had a years long investigations of President Clinton.
[22:20:01]
We had the impeachment investigations of Donald Trump, which were much quicker. In both instances, the Ukraine situation where we heard the phone call, and in the insurrection impeachment, we all knew the evidence in the cases before the cases were even presented in the House, and in the Senate. This is much more like the Watergate rhythms, where we will be getting every couple of days, every other day, the word of someone else who is seen leaving the grand jury yesterday, and then we figure out who that person is. In some cases, it will be very easy, we plug them into the puzzle of the moving parts, and we watched it unfold.
It`s so fascinating to watch this kind of grand jury proceeding from outside the grand jury room, and yet know so much about it.
BESCHLOSS: Right, that`s exactly right, it is a little bit like Watergate, except for what Richard Nixon did, I think you and I`ve talked about this in Watergate, was probably about a 100th of what Donald Trump did. Nixon did some terrible things, he violated his oath, violated the Constitution, but this is a guy who wanted to end our democracy, and for every sign we have, still wants to do it today.
That speech he gave in D.C. yesterday, saying that if he comes back to office in 2025, there might be a sort of Stalinist purge. Why on earth with someone`s want to say things like this? This is what is at stake.
Unless the Justice Department draws the line, and says that no president should ever have that kind of unaccountable power, this is not a job where you`re allowed to abuse the military, and take power for yourself, for your selfish purposes and turn this into some kind of fascist regime. If justice doesn`t draw the line now, when is it going to happen?
And all of us and our children, and those children who are in our families are going to be in danger, that any future president will say, Donald Trump got away with it, I`m going to get away with it too, and the result is exactly what our founders did not want, and that is a dictator at the head of this country.
O`DONNELL: Michael Beschloss, we need your insights and following this criminal investigation, as it moves forward. Thank you very much for your insight tonight, very appreciated.
Coming up, Congresswoman Katie Porter in a closed hearing tonight ask gun manufacturers why they don`t put safety controls on their guns. Congresswoman Katie Porter will join us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:26:54]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KATIE PORTER (D-CA): Technology like fingerprint scanners or bracelets with radio frequency identifiers, are nowhere near the standard for firearms. Mr. Killoy, how many of your firearms come equipped with figure prince`s scanning mechanisms?
CHRISTOPHER KILLOY, RUGER FIREARMS PRESIDENT & CEO: Congresswoman, none of them currently come equipped with such a device.
PORTER: Mr. Daniel, how about Daniel Defense, how many of your weapons come with fingerprint identity scanners?
MARTY DANIEL, DANIEL DEFENSE CEO: Congresswoman, we do not sell any type of firearms that our customers have not asked for such.
PORTER: So that`s a no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Today, the very rich presence of the gun manufacturers that are the favorites of America`s mass murderers, appeared before a congressional committee. The CEO of the manufacturer of the weapon that was used to murder seven people at a July 4th parade in Highland Park Illinois, Smith and Wesson, was invited to testify, but did not appear before the House oversight committee.
Christopher Killoy, president and CEO of Ruger, the maker of the weapon used to kill 25 people in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017, and ten people in the 2010 Colorado supermarket shooting.
And Marty Daniel, CEO of Daniel Defense, the maker of the assault rifle that killed 19 children and two teachers and Uvalde, Texas, and was one of the weapons used killed 60 people in Las Vegas in 2017, did testify.
In a video play during Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney`s opening statement, the fiance of Andre Mackneil was one of the ten people murdered by a white supremacist, at a Buffalo supermarket. He asked the CEOs this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRACEY MACIULEWICZ, FIANCEE OF ANDRE MACKNEIL: What are you going to do?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: It`s okay.
MACIULEWICZ: To make sure that your products, don`t get into the hands of a white supremacist mass shooter ever again and will take her child`s father away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining us now is Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter of California. She`s a member of the House Oversight Committee, and deputy chair of the House Progressive Caucus.
Congresswoman Porter, what did you learn today from these manufacturers of our mass murderers favor weapons?
PORTER: Well, the gun CEOs made very clear, that they are unwilling to adapt technology to keep guns bemused an accidental deaths. I held that myself on today, and I demonstrated the fingerprint technology that people used to, for example, unlock their iPhones, and asked the gun manufacturers, will you use essentially a trigger lock or gun lock?
[22:29:51]
We`ve been studying this technology, it`s been in place for over 20 years. And the studies have found that it would dramatically reduce accidental gun deaths, including those that kill children every year.
And the gun manufacturers simply refused to put this safety technology in place. And the response was our customers aren`t interested.
That really misses the point, Lawrence. If we don`t let manufacturers sell faulty appliances, we don`t let Americans buy faulty appliances because if they short-circuit and start a fire, it would burn down not only your house but your neighbor`s house.
It`s the exact same thing with guns. We shouldn`t allow unsafe products in the marketplace, period. So we ought to have regulation. If the gun manufacturers won`t do it voluntarily, they ought to have the same safety regulations that every single other industry in this country has to deal with.
O`DONNELL: The Daniel defense, the makers of that mass murder weapon, they actually got started with a very big government contract to produce these weapons of war for the military. Is there any consideration in Congress of saying to these manufacturers, if you want to manufacture and sell to the military. You are not allowed to sell these weapons to the public. That`s one of the conditions of having a federal contract.
PORTER: Well, we certainly could think about strategies like that. Look, we put a lot of conditions on federal contracts, and we need to enforce those conditions. I actually have a hearing tomorrow on this very topic with the Bureau of Land Management.
But we absolutely -- the United States is a very large purchaser virtually everything including guns. And we ought to very well be able to use that authority to try to make sure manufacturers that we are using our tax dollars to buy their guns to keep our country safe, that they`re not turning right around and using that revenue to manufacture guns that make our communities less safe.
O`DONNELL: Did you get any sense, any feeling at all that these people who enrich themselves, by producing these weapons used by mass murderers, have any qualms about that?
PORTER: No, they have none. They flat out refused. The two most obstinate categories of CEOs that I`ve encounters, and I have a lot of contenders for this award, Lawrence, would be the gun manufacturers and big oil companies. Both of those industries simply refuse to acknowledge their role in putting Americans at risk. And that is a shameful conduct for a leader of a corporation.
O`DONNELL: Congresswoman Katie Porter, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
PORTER: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up, Jazmin Cazares, whose nine-year-old sister Jackie was murdered at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas was in attendance at that hearing in Washington today. She offered video testimony about her sister to the committee.
She will join us once again in our next segment, along with someone who has been with us several times before. David Hogg, who for the last four years since he survived the mass murder in his high school has been actively supporting sensible gun legislation. That`s next.
[22:33:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAZMIN CAZARES, SISTER OF JACKIE CAZARES: I`m Jazmin Cazares. I`m 17. And I lost my little sister Jackie at the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
This picture was taken on her first communion on May 10th. 16 days later, she was shot and killed using a Daniel Defense AR-15.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: That was testimony from Jazmin Cazares, whose nine-year-old sister Jackie was murdered at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Jazmine was one of several survivors and families of victims of mass murderers, who spoke during today`s House Oversight Committee, hearing. Last month Jazmin testified to a Texas House of Representatives committee hearing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAZARES: I shouldn`t have to be here right now. I should be at home watching a movie with my sister. But I`m not. and I`m here begging for you guys to do something. To change something. Because the people that were supposed to keep her safe at school didn`t. They failed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: After speaking at a March for Our Lives rally in Austin, Texas Jazmin organized a march in Uvalde, Texas. That`s where she met Parkland mass murder survivor David Hogg, who is a cofounder of March for Our Lives and has spent the four years since the mass murder at his high school advocating for common sense gun reform.
Joining us now are Jazmin Cazares and David Hogg, co-founder of March for Our Lives.
Jazmin, let me begin with you. it`s been only two months since you lost your sister. And we`re all very sorry for your loss and concerned about how you are doing, how you`re managing the grief and carrying on.
CAZARES: We`re doing as best we can. Of course, all of our activism is really helping us get through these tough times.
O`DONNELL: Now, I`m very sorry for your loss, Jazmin, and I don`t want that to be missed when we get into this discussion of what happened in Congress today.
[22:39:49]
O`DONNELL: And David, you`ve been at this for four years and I`m always concerned about how you`re doing with the trauma that you suffered and survived. We`ve talked about that privately. And what can you tell Jazmin about what the feelings are like, four years later?
DAVID HOGG, CO-FOUNDER, MARCH FOR OUR LIVES: Exhausted. You know, we worked with people who have been doing this work since Sandy Hook before. Unfortunately, there are many veterans in this movement that have been doing this work for decades.
What I would say more than anything though, is the importance of having a community to know that Jazmin is not alone. I know that I`m not a lot because Jazmin it`s here. And unfortunately the movement is very large, none of us have to be doing this work 24/7 because there`s always somebody else out there fighting right now.
O`DONNELL: Jazmin, what was your impression of the way Washington deals with this after what you saw today?
CAZARES: Seeing everybody`s reactions to the video or the testimony, you can tell who is genuine and who wasn`t. You can tell who cared and who didn`t about what is going on.
O`DONNELL: Let`s listen to a moment where Chair Maloney spoke to these gun manufacturers. Let`s listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. CAROLYN MALONEY (D-NY): Will you accept personal responsibility for your company`s role in this tragedy, and apologize to the families of Uvalde?
MARTY DANIEL, DANIEL DEFENSE CEO: Chairwoman Maloney, these acts are committed by murderers. The murderers are responsible.
MALONEY: Reclaiming my time. Mr. Killoy, how about you? Will you apologize?
CHRISTOPHER KILLOY, PRESIDENT, RUGER FIREARMS: Congresswoman, with all due respect, while I grieve like all Americans at these tragic incidences, again to blame the firearm, the particular firearm in use here that we`re talking about, (INAUDIBLE) rifle, to blame the firearm, it`s an inanimate objects.
MALONEY: Thank you. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: David, you`ve spent years now listening to that. What is your reaction to that?
HOGG: Right. It`s so frustrating, it`s like saying it`s not the smoker, it`s the cigarette, or vice versa. It`s ridiculous. These companies have just as much of a role in gun violence, as big tobacco did in perpetuating lung cancer in the epidemic of smoking in this country.
As Americans, we need to take a similar approach that is public health based and focuses on addressing this issue on a bipartisan basis.
Look Lawrence, I`ve said this many times before on your show, and I know it to be true, and it becomes more and more true every day. Americans are fed up and exhausted of having to hear this on TV, Republicans, Democrats, gun owners, non gun owners.
My father is a gun owner. My father is a former Republican. I`ve met many family members that are as well. I can tell you from conversations that I`ve had with them and Republicans across the country and gun owners. None of them want this issue to continue.
These gun companies and the NRA, do not represent gun owners or Republicans anymore than the smoking industry represented the interests of smokers in the first place.
We have to work together to address this issue. And I want to say one last thing, which is that is deeply frustrating when, you know, I interrupted the House Judiciary Committee hearing the other day when there were the same talking points being reiterated by a Republican congressman, as were said by the shooter in El Paso, for example, about a quote-unquote "Hispanic invasion" happening in the United States.
It is deeply frustrating, when I`m doing that I`m trying to put up a good fight. And we don`t have Democrats that fight for us the same way Republicans fight for their own side. Because right now House Democrats just shelved a plan to pass an assault weapons ban within the House, and said they`d come back to it in August.
That`s not going to happen. We need to demand that House leadership makes good on their promises to families, and brings this to a vote before they leave for recess on Friday. Because what they are voting on is how to save big cats, but they aren`t voting on how to save our kids from assault weapons. And that is despicable.
O`DONNELL: Jazmin, what was it like today to see the man who profits from the sale of the weapon that murdered your sister and her friends, and see that he doesn`t feel a thing about it?
CAZARES: I hate to say I`m not surprised. Just the way he spoke, you can tell, he genuinely does not care. Nobody cares until it happens to them.
O`DONNELL: Jazmin Cazares, I`m very sorry for your loss. Thank you for joining us tonight.
David Hogg, thank you for joining us once again tonight.
CAZARES: Yes. Thank you for having us.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up, a Yale study shows that the international sanctions regime against Russia, led by President Joe Biden, is not just working, it is sending Russia into economic oblivion. That`s next.
[22:44:29]
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O`DONNELL: With worldwide gasoline prices jumping dramatically after Vladimir Putin`s invasion of Ukraine, "Fortune Magazine" reports, quote, "During World War II President Roosevelt ignored the isolationist voices of appeasement as he took on another murderous imperialist bully. The five tiers of gas rationing in the United States from 1941 to 1945, led to a 32 percent reduction in usage and somehow the republic did not collapse. While we may not be as great as the greatest generation, surely we can learn from them that freedom requires some investment."
[22:49:48]
O`DONNELL: That was written by our next guests: Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Yale research Steven tian (ph). They led a team of Yale researchers, who have produced a 118-page report titled, "Business Retreats and Sanctions are Crippling the Russian Economy".
The report shows that the international sanctions regime against Russia, led by President Biden, is working. Russia`s strategic positioning as a commodities exporter, has irrevocably deteriorated. Russian imports have largely collapsed, and the country faces stark challenges securing crucial imports, parts and technology from hesitant trade partners.
Russian domestic production has come to a complete standstill, with no capacity to replace lost business, products, and talent. And Russia has lost companies representing 40 percent of its GDP, reversing nearly all of three decades worth of foreign investment.
With me ahead, there is no path ahead out of economic oblivion for Russia, as long as the allied countries remain unified in maintaining and increasing sanctions pressure against Russia.
And joining us now are professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management and chairman of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. He`s a CNBC contributor. And Steven Tian, the director of research at the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. They are co-authors of an article in foreign policy titled "Actually, the Russian Economy is Imploding."
And full disclosure, I`ve known Professor Sonnenfeld since before professor was his first name. And so Jeff, what are the highlights of what you found, and how these sanctions are working against Russia?
JEFFREY SONNENFELD, CNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Lawrence, thank you so much. And yes, I can`t believe that you`ll even feature that fairly turgid 120-page scholarly piece, that somehow 70,000 economists have been downloading already, setting a record the last two days. It`s something called SSRN that backs up the research that we have in that "Fortune" piece today and in "Foreign Policy".
We originally wanted to title it "Chicken Little Was Right, Putin is wrong, the economic skies of Russia are falling".
But of course, no editors would go for it. But I thought you`d let me get away with it. Yes, it`s that as you`ve talked about often, there`s sort of these beanbag thrill that we see in the media often, they want to throw the beanbags at the Biden administration. And you know, maybe Sometimes it`s deserved, but boy, in terms of the policy towards Ukraine and Russia on the energy front, it`s completely not deserved.
And we can see that the Russian economy is imploding, but it`s amazing until this work came out, immodestly, all you saw everywhere. Even the IMF, saying Russia is not doing that badly. What are they talking about?
They`re not revealing any of the standard national economic statistics that they were putting out monthly about inputs, about outputs, about oil flows, about air travel, about capital movements -- things that have been regularly reported upon and things that were required. Like Russian firms have had to give us our operating results each month.
All that stuff has been suppressed, and these cherry-picked, rosy-purchase that Putin is putting out, the western press until now was swallowing.
O`DONNELL: Steven, what are the prospects for Russia going forward?
STEVEN TIAN, YALE RESEARCHER: As long as sanctions remain in place, Russia has no way out of it. Read Putin`s speeches. He`ll talk about how Russia can become a self-sustaining economy, that is simply not true. Russia is deeply integrated into the global economy, its reliance on global economies for imports, for technology, for parts that go into manufacturing.
They can`t access any of that right now, they are locked out of international capital markets, after their sovereign debt defaults. They have simply zero chance of emerging from this cathartic (ph) state, as long as sanctions are in place.
O`DONNELL: Jeff, we are seeing Europe taking serious steps towards working around life with Russian energy as a source for them.
SONNENFELD: It`s remarkable. I`m glad you bring that up because that is just pegged on the day`s headlines, as a matter of fact. If we`ve talked two days ago, we would`ve seen a lot of hand-wringing in the western media saying oh look how fractious the E.U. is going to be overall this with threatened cut offs.
And now we`ve seen some cut offs in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline of gas into Germany, from Russia into Germany as a delay.
I`m glad you mentioned the kind of rationing we had in World War II, we don`t need that here in the U.S., but already just today we`ve seen a 15 percent voluntary cutback unified across Europe, thinking well, we can buy some time here.
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SONNENFELD: And guess what? something that wasn`t even on the books a few months ago, they`re now several months into building up liquefied natural gas. They can pick this stuff up their own from Norway, from the U.S., from other places. We`ll be able to get them the gas they need, they just needed to buy a little bit of time.
But these crazy economists who didn`t understand the geology here think, they can just send some of the oil that oil that Germany is not buying, send it to India or China. They can`t do that. It takes pipelines for this to get there. It`s not liquefied. They don`t have those pipelines, they have one little pipeline, 10 percent of the gas that could flow there..
O`DONNELL: The Yale team of Jeff Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian, thank you both very much for doing this important research and bringing it to us tonight, we really appreciate it. Thank you.
SONNENFELD: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: Tonight`s LAST WORD is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:59:46]
O`DONNELL: Let`s listen to what House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy will be asked about when he is subpoenaed to testify to the grand jury about his conversations with Donald Trump after the capitol was attacked.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Asked him personally today, does he hold responsibility for what happened? Does he feel bad about what happened?
He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened. And he needs to acknowledge that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Future witness to the grand jury, Kevin McCarthy, gets tonight`s LAST WORD.
"THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE" starts now.