Summary
The DOJ wants Trump`s search warrant affidavit sealed. Trump claims he declassified any documents removed from the Oval Office. Today Rudy Giuliani was told that yes, he is a target of the criminal investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of possible election fraud in Georgia`s 2020 presidential election. Also today, a federal judge in Atlanta ruled that Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham must testify to Fani Willis` grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia. Only one president in our history had to deal with a 50/50 Senate before Joe Biden. George W. Bush had a 50/50 Senate but only for five months. Tomorrow, President Biden will cap his legislative achievements in this Congress, with the oddly named Inflation Reduction Act which is really about corporate tax fairness and climate policy. The DOJ wants Trump`s search warrant affidavit sealed. Trump claims he declassified any documents removed from the Oval Office.
Transcript
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Rachel. And I`m sure you know what my absolute favorite part of your show was tonight.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST, "TRMS": No, what was it?
O`DONNELL: I went into the control room to watch the isolated camera on Rachel, so that I wouldn`t miss a single fraction of a second of Rachel blushing while Alex Wagner was -- was praising her and thanking her for what she has created here at MSNBC.
And you think a lot of that shot at home was on Alex, so a lot of people couldn`t see Rachel blushing part, as much as they deserved to see it. I begged them.
MADDOW: All I could -- all I could do in that moment, while you are staring at, me because you know me well enough to do that, is like, could I have done this in such a way that I precluded this from happening? Could I have spoken the beginning of this interview and this discussion in such a manner, that there`s no way that Alex could have maneuver this into talking about me? And I just was sitting there going, do it again, Maddow, fix it, go back in time. Meanwhile, you had me trapped in your gaze.
O`DONNELL: Well, she was in fact speaking for all of us it, since --
MADDOW: Don`t you dare --
O`DONNELL: You know, before these this version of me on this network, I, for some years, had the pundit title of a senior political analyst, which I got, I think, because no one knew you could get titles. And I guess, can I get that, and they were like, yeah, sure.
So I kind of predated you hanging around here. I was here before you arrived, and I can tell you that this was something of a struggling enterprise before you arrived. And it was struggling to find an audience, and it was struggling to find an identity. You delivered both of those, masterfully, and watching you hand off four of these nights a week, now going forward to Alex tonight, was just a wonderful completion of what you`ve built here, and built it to last, with the same Rachel Maddow staff, running 9:00 p.m., every night of the week, and Alex stepping in, it`s something you`ve built and you`ve delivered for us.
And I get to sit here, at 10:00 p.m., and ride that Rachel wave. And remember what was here before me, we ran tape on the network at 10:00 p.m. There was no live show, there was no live show, after Rachel Maddow at 10:00 p.m. And Phil griffin thought, wait a minute, Rachel is a huge star with a huge audience. Why don`t we just serve that audience for another hour?
So, he dragged me in here, to sit here, and serve the Rachel audience, which I`ve done for a major amazingly long time than I thought was possible.
MADDOW: So, I have a memory that`s like a bodega security cam, it writes itself over every 16 hours, like of the police haven`t called, and they need something from the last 16 hours, we`re just going to re-write that a. So, I don`t even remember that the 10:00 p.m. hour was clips.
O`DONNELL: Live TV ended with you -- on this network. It ended at 10:00 p.m., until I came in here, and just got to, you know, say hi to you. And you know, enough people would hang around, just because you said hi.
MADDOW: Lawrence, this is too much for me. I have to go now.
O`DONNELL: You do -- you know what? Rachel, take the rest of the week off.
MADDOW: Okay, I`ll do that.
O`DONNELL: Thank you, Rachel.
MADDOW: Bye.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
Let`s say you had the job, someone does, right, the job of briefing Donald Trump on his legal problems every day. What would you say today? Where would you begin?
He is already, remember, every day, he is already defendant Trump, and several civil cases, from E. Jean Carroll`s lawsuit, claiming Donald Trump raped her in the 1990s, to some Capitol police officers a lawsuit against Donald Trump for causing their injuries and other injuries in the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
[22:05:00]
And those lawsuits, especially the capitol Police lawsuits, are still on track today, to totally bankrupt Donald Trump eventually, hitting him with verdicts of hundreds of millions of dollars, and in damages that he will have to pay. But they are moving at that standard slow pace of civil litigation. So, that will take years.
I think, if you are briefing Donald Trump on his legal troubles today, you might, and I`m only saying might, lead with the Justice Department`s filing in a Florida federal court, asking to block the release of the affidavit that convinced a federal judge to issue a search warrant of Donald Trump`s Florida home, which was executed by the FBI, exactly one extremely long week ago.
Or, or, you might lead with this breaking news from "The New York Times", late in the day today. Allen H. Weisselberg, a senior executive at Donald J. Trump`s family business, who was charged with participating in a years- long tax scheme is nearing a deal with Manhattan prosecutors, but will not cooperate with the broader investigation into Mr. Trump, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
On Monday, Mr. Weisselberg`s lawyers and prosecutors met with the judge, overseeing the case. The judge scheduled a hearing for Thursday, a possible indication that a deal has been reached and a plea could be entered then. Mr. Weisselberg was expected to receive a five month jail sentence with time credited for good behavior, he is likely to serve about 100 days.
If you are briefing Donald Trump, one of his legal troubles today, it`s really a tough choice, because you might want to lead with the federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., issuing a subpoena to former White House lawyer, Eric Herschmann.
And if you weren`t quite sure how important that is, it would quickly rise in importance, once you read that our first guest tonight, former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said today that he believes that this subpoena, to Eric Herschmann, means that Donald Trump himself is a target of the grand jury investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and the attempt to overthrow the election.
Here is what Eric Herschmann told that January 6 committee, about Trump attorney, John Eastman, whose phone was seized by the FBI.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: Now, I`m going to give you the best free legal advice for over getting in your life. Get a great f`ing criminal defense lawyer, you`re going to need it. And I hung up on him.
(END VDIEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: "The New York Times" and other news organizations have requested that the Florida judge who issued the search warrant for Donald Trump`s home release the FBI affidavit, that laid out the criminal case or cases, that are being investigated with that search warrant. In a brief to the judge today, the Justice Department said, disclosure at this juncture of the affidavit supporting probable cause would, by contrast, cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation.
As the court is aware from its review of the affidavit, it contains, among other critically important and detailed investigative facts, highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government, specific investigative techniques, and information required by law to be kept under seal pursuant to federal rule of criminal procedure 6(e). If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government`s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps.
In addition, information about witnesses is particularly sensitive given the high nature of this matter and the risk that the revelation of witness identities would impact their willingness to cooperate with the investigation. Disclosure of the government`s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as, in other high-profile investigations.
The fact that this investigation implicates highly classified materials further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the investigation, and exacerbates the potential for harm, if information is disclosed to the public prematurely or improperly.
That is heavenly loaded filing, loaded with reference to witness identities. That, alone, is going to leave Donald Trump wondering all night who they are. And, the phrase full -- it is full of extra bad news for Donald Trump.
[22:10:04]
And that bad news is the reference to other high investigations, other high-profile investigations? That`s the Department of Justice saying that the evidence and witness identities, especially in the Trump search warrant affidavit, good compromise was not only the investigation that the search warrant is about, but quote, other high-profile investigations.
The other high-profile federal investigation that we know about is in the criminal investigation of the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and extended attempt, generally, to illegally overturn the election.
Leading off our discussion tonight is Andrew Weissmann, former FBI general counsel, and former chief of the criminal division of the eastern district of New York, and professor of practice at and why you law school. He is an MSNBC legal analyst.
Also with us is Bradley Moss, a national security attorney.
Andrew, I want to ask you to pretend you are briefing Donald Trump on what his biggest problems are. But let`s just go to your class, let`s go to NYU law school class. And you are presenting to your class today, based on everything we`ve seen, just in today`s revelations, what is that lead in all of this for you?
ANDREW WEISSMANN, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: I think the league would be the thing that`s coming up the fastest, which is the Manhattan district attorney`s office. It could be that in a few days, Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump organization, actually pleads guilty. The reason that is important for Donald Trump is the Trump Organization is scheduled for trial in October.
Once Allen Weisselberg pleads guilty, it is over for the Trump Organization. He, the crimes he committed, imputed to the Trump organization, so the leverage in terms of the financial consequences to Donald Trump doesn`t mean he`s going to go to jail, but the consequences for the Trump Organization are huge. And remember, those people think Donald Trump did this in part, for money, but he`s venal. This is a big deal.
So, I think that would be number one, focus on the financial consequences of the Allen Weisselberg deal. And then, down the road, I mean, Lawrence, you laid out a litany of criminal and national security trouble, in Florida, in D.C., in Georgia. And this is a day where you saw a movement on all fronts. And to me, you know, the thing that I thought was probably the most telling was the grand jury subpoena to Eric Herschmann.
There is a guy who can completely corroborate what we heard from Cassidy Hutchinson. I am sure he has information, also, on the search warrant issues, for instance, I can`t imagine he`s going to corroborate the idea that there was a standing order to declassify everything. I mean, Eric Herschmann seems like somebody who would say that was preposterous. So, that was a very bad fact, in terms of signaling that Merrick Garland is really I think, putting his foot on the gas.
O`DONNELL: And, Bradley Moss, in this filing with the court, they openly referred to other high-profile investigations being possibly affected by the revelation of everything that`s in that affidavit.
BRADLEY MOSS, NATIONAL SECURITY ATTORNEY: Yeah, it makes you wonder, what exactly else are they going after? We know there`s other sealed entries, another search warrant, we don`t know what it is, what it was for, and when.
It makes you, you know, kind of question, okay, how many different tentacles as this thing half? Obviously, there`s the classified information aspect. There`s obviously the -- January 6th, is there something else we don`t know about, are there any of the other individuals and play that we don`t know about yet? So, with Donald Trump, it has to be quite possibly, two worst weeks in your life, since you almost went bankrupt in the `90s. Everything is going against you right now, and you`ve got all these different investigations.
Rudy Giuliani is a target in Georgia now. Weisselberg is going to plead guilty on Thursday. You know, it just keeps getting worth, and you have to wonder, looking at it all of this, what else comes up now, what`s the next shoe to drop?
O`DONNELL: Andrew Weissmann, of course, Lindsey Graham shifted his goal from show us the warrant, to show us the affidavit. This affidavit makes actual legal case, in addition to the substance of what is in it. But mentioning that it involves possible, it does involve 68 information.
[22:15:08]
What are they referring to there?
WEISSMANN: So, the application by the government is they oppose turning over the affidavit in an incredibly well within, and I think pretty well- reasoned brief and what they were saying is there is an ongoing criminal investigation that is active, and there is an ongoing national security investigation. The former, the ongoing criminal investigation, discovered by something called rule 6e. That is grand jury material.
Whatever happens in the grand jury is covered by federal rule of criminal procedure 6e, and that cannot be revealed without a court order.
So, that filing made it clear that there is an ongoing investigation, and although, at times, they use different terms, it`s pretty clear that it involve national security, and a criminal investigation, which I thought was quite telling, because you know, for a long time, people were speculating whether the search in Mar-a-Lago was simply to retrieve documents and just, how much did the government really care about the criminal aspect?
Well, they now have set out directly to a judge that there is an ongoing active criminal investigation. So, as Brian said, that is another bad day for Donald Trump.
O`DONNELL: And Bradley Moss, we have heard -- I`m not sure I want to call them defenses, but we`ve heard things said by Donald Trump and by his advocates over, since Friday, since we learned what was in the search warrant. It`s kind of a rolling mix of stuff. Have you heard anything from Donald Trump, or the people around him, that sounds like a legal defense for what that search warrant was aimed at?
MOSS: No, not much. Most of this is just cable news, you know, Joe Biden was a cable news malarkey. It`s not going to go anywhere. You couldn`t bring up both of this in court.
Bear in mind, we see tons of cable news commentary from Donald Trump`s lawyers. They`re all over Fox. They`re all over Newsmax and OAN. But where have we not seen them? In court.
They`re not filing anything in court. They`re not seeking the way we see temporary restraining orders. They`re not seeking to squash the search warrant. They`re not filing for a special master.
If they had true merits in these allegations, any competent lawyer, any lawyer trying to really protect the client there, would have really told the court. But they don`t have it. What they have as political arguments that are not rationalizations. They don`t have any true legal defense there.
O`DONNELL: Andrew Weissmann, something as we learned about the Trump lawyers over the weekend is that at least one of them signed a document indicating that anything that was classified -- there was nothing classified left at Mar-a-Lago that the search warrant has proved that not to be true?
WEISSMANN: Yeah, so, that`s going to be a problem, either for the lawyer, or for Donald Trump. I mean, if the lawyer got their representations from Donald Trump, Donald Trump himself can be charged with making a false statement through his counsel. That`s, in fact, what we did with Paul Manafort, and he pled guilty to it.
On the other hand, the lawyer just did on his own, and it was false. That also is going to lead to potential charges. And you can be sure that the Department of Justice is going to be all over that representation.
O`DONNELL: Andrew Weissmann and Bradley Moss, thank you very much for starting us off tonight. Really appreciated. Thank you.
WEISSMANN: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: Almost certainly a lie, those are the exact words of what Donald Trump`s national security adviser said about one of the possible defenses Donald Trump has offered for having classified material, illegally stored at his home in Florida. Glenn Gerstell, former counsel for the National Security Agency, will join us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:23:45]
O`DONNELL: When somebody begins to concoct lies like this, it shows a real level of desperation. That is what Donald Trump`s former national security adviser, John Bolton, said about Donald Trump`s claim, that he had a standing order that any classified documents, that he took from the oval office, to anywhere else in the residence in the White House, automatically became declassified.
John Bolton told "The New York Times", he had never heard of the standing order that Mr. Trump`s office claimed to have in place. It is, he said, almost certainly, a lie.
Joining us now is Glenn Gerstell, former general counsel for the National Security Agency serving the Obama administration, and the Trump administration. Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
Let me begin by saying, I don`t know anything about classification law. And I`m not sure how much of it, has regards the president, is actually written in federal statute, and how much of it is tradition, how much of it is a set of assumptions and rules?
We are discovering so many other areas of government, that what we thought was rock solid turns out to, a great extent, gentleman`s agreements, and things that are not written in law as solidly as we thought they were.
[22:25:10]
What do we need to know about what is written in law about the president`s authority on classification, and in this case, instant declassification?
GLENN GERSTELL, FORMER NSA GENERAL COUNSEL: Well, you know, since the time of President Truman, we have had a detailed procedure in place for protecting our nation`s secrets, the secrets that we need to keep our nation safe in peacetime and in wartime. That`s enshrined in statutes, in executive orders that have been honored under both Republican and Democratic administrations, an intelligence community directives, Pentagon manuals, and so on, and so forth.
There is a rich system in place for determining I want to classify something and how it should be classified, including, as it applies to the president himself, as well as declassifying, that`s the other side of the coin, to make sure we`re not releasing something that`s an appropriate.
As you would expect, these provisions relate mostly to lesser officers than the president. We don`t need to have a particular provision directed the president himself, or herself, because it is obvious that they will be following the law. And for, you know, 200 years, we`ve had a republic in which the president has followed the laws and conventions, and takes an oath of office to do just that.
O`DONNELL: So, on this notion, that as soon as Donald Trump took a document from the oval office, maybe, walked up the stairs to the residents. That it automatically became declassified.
What is your reaction to that, when you heard it, what did you think?
GERSTELL: I think it`s pretty hard to believe that. First of all, let us assume, for arguments sake, that he, in fact, had a standing order, even though apparently, no one seems to be aware of it, or can find a copy of it in his former chief of staff, who would certainly be expected to know of, it wasn`t aware of it. Even if you make that assumption that there was such an order, and that the president had the power to do that, both of which are big assumptions, in the real world, the practicality of it just falls apart, and it becomes almost very quickly nonsense.
And what I mean by that is, we don`t -- there is no way of knowing exactly what the president, on a given day, took up stairs with him, and at what point did it become declassified? Was it the third step? The fourth step? The top step? What if he decided to come back downstairs, and bring a piece of paper downstairs.
I`m picking silly examples because my point is, we have no way of knowing exactly what was covered by this. And why is that important? Because if indeed, there was going to be some kind of automatic declassification, the agencies at the federal government would need to know what that is, so that the next morning, when a Freedom of Information Act request is post, or a member of the public asks for information, they would have the ability to look at a logbook, as has been done historically for decades, and say, yes, this piece of paper was declassified, or still remains classified.
And if we simply have a system where, at the whim of someone, a piece of paper might or might not be subject to that, and we have no way of knowing, we can`t tell afterwards, we`re not going to have a defective way of safeguarding our nation secrets.
O`DONNELL: You don`t have to apologize for giving silly samples. It is a silly proposition, so you don`t have any option other than silly examples to suggest.
Let me read you a passage from "The Atlantic" that Graeme Wood would has written about his understanding about how big the presidential power is here. He says, it would not have had to file paperwork, just utter the magic words. He told me, he is citing a former director of the security oversight office saying that. He could have waved his hand over the U-Haul trailer, as it headed out of the White House driveway, and down i-95 towards Florida, and there would`ve been no classified material in there to mishandle.
What`s your reaction to that description?
GERSTELL: I just don`t think that makes sense. We`ve got a system where we have to keep track of the nation secrets, and it can`t possibly be the case that putting aside that you are a technical legal power, just put that aside for a second, we can`t have a system where we don`t know it is covered in a bunch of boxes that may be in the trail, that you described, heading down I-95. We have no way of knowing what`s classified or declassified.
What if the president, for example, who apparently, keeps the nuclear codes to launch an attack, God forbid, on his person, as he is required to by law, the so-called football the travels around with him, and other materials. Did he bring that upstairs to the residents? Presumably, he did. It`s required to be kept about sorted in within reach. Was that declassified? Hard to believe that. And if that happened every single day, hard to believe.
So, just the sheer practicality of this just doesn`t make sense in that....
[22:29:40]
(CROSSTALK)
O`DONNELL: Excuse me -- Glenn Gerstell thank you very much for joining us tonight.
GERSTELL: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: We`ll be right back
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:34:50]
O`DONNELL: Here`s something else you`d have to include if you were briefing Donald Trump today on what`s happening up there in the legal world. Today Rudy Giuliani was told that yes, he is a target of the criminal investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of possible election fraud in Georgia`s 2020 presidential election.
Prosecutors informed Rudy Giuliani`s lawyers today that he is a target before his scheduled testimony to the grand jury on Wednesday.
Also today, a federal judge in Atlanta ruled that Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham must testify to Fani Willis` grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia. The judge rejected Senator Graham`s argument that he cannot be compelled to testify because he was acting in his official Senate duties when he made a phone call to Georgia secretary of state asking about the vote counting in the presidential election.
The judge said the district attorney has shown extraordinary circumstances and special need for Senator Graham`s testimony on issues relating to alleged attempts to influence or disrupt the lawful administration of Georgia`s 2022 elections.
Lindsey Graham is scheduled to testify to that grand jury next week. Senator Graham said he appeals to plans to appeal the ruling.
Joining us now is Glenn Kirschner, former federal prosecutor and an MSNBC legal analyst.
And Glenn, I think some of us at some level have expected this day for quite a while. Rudy Giuliani, officially named a target of a criminal investigation. What does that change for Giuliani and for Donald Trump?
GLENN KIRSCHNER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: You know, Lawrence, Rudy Giuliani`s resume really took a turn for the worst today because, you know, on the one hand, yes, he`s a former New York City mayor. He`s a former United States attorney. He is the former personal attorney for the president of the United States. But now he has to include on his resume that he is the target of a criminal investigation into election fraud.
And there is a technical definition of target and I actually pulled out my old U.S. Attorneys manual. That sort of the procedural bible by which we federal prosecutors do business. And it`s the definition of target that is pretty much universally accepted even in the state systems. And I want to read it verbatim.
A "target" is a person as to whom the prosecutor or the grand jury has substantial evidence linking him or her to the commission of a crime, and who in the judgment of a prosecutor, is a putative defendant.
And I can translate that into (INAUDIBLE) Lawrence. A target is the guy we`re looking to indict.
O`DONNELL: But not necessarily the only guy in any particular grand jury?
KIRSCHNER: No, we can have multiple targets and the fact that Rudy Giuliani`s lawyers were just put on notice by district attorney Fani Willis that he is a target in the grand jury`s investigation does not preclude other targets.
We all sort of know based on the way the evidence has developed that Donald Trump is a likely target. And then we may be hearing Lindsey Graham sort of earning himself the distinguished title of target the way things are going.
O`DONNELL: So what happens for Giuliani in the grand jury? Just plead the Fifth Amendment to every question?
KIRSCHNER: Yes, the practical implications are once a prosecutor has told you, you are a target, that gives you an easy vehicle to invoke your Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination because you have been told we are looking to indict you.
Now he doesn`t have to invoke the Fifth, he could certainly waive the Fifth and testify truthfully about the crimes of Donald Trump, but he would also have to testify truthfully about any crimes he may have committed. And I think it`s unlikely that Rudy will go that route.
O`DONNELL: So at this stage the most likely choice for Giuliani is the Fifth Amendment at the grand jury. Then what is the prosecutor`s choice?
KIRSCHNER: So the prosecutor`s choice will be to proceed with the investigation. And the fact that D.A. Willis has already announced that Rudy Giuliani is a target of the criminal probe suggests to us that he has met that threshold to have somebody designated a target. Substantial evidence linking him to the crime and that intent to indict.
So he can invoke the Fifth and that may give him some momentary comfort, because he won`t be compelled to incriminate himself but that does not stop Fani Willis from asking the grand jury to indict Rudy Giuliani.
O`DONNELL: What to Donald Trump`s lawyers see in this development?
KIRSCHNER: Well listen, if he ends up being criminally-indicted for any number of violations of Georgia state law then that certainly ratchets up the pressure and we prosecutors say, pressure bursts pipes.
[22:39:53]
KIRSCHNER: So I think that will increase the odds that Rudy Giuliani may decide to save himself and flip, turn and cooperate against Donald Trump.
O`DONNELL: All right. Let`s go to the New York state case with Allen Weisselberg where the "New York Times" reporting, you can have a guilty plea from him by Thursday. Once he has pled guilty -- once he has pleaded guilty, he can then be called as a witness by prosecutors in other matters and he has no ability at that point to plead the Fifth Amendment does he?
KIRSCHNER: That`s a great point. Once you plead guilty, then that extinguishes your right against self-incrimination, because your truthful testimony will no longer incriminate you because of the double jeopardy prohibition.
So he could be compelled to testify but that doesn`t mean Lawrence, he can be compelled to tell the truth. It looks like he is taking what is called a soldier`s plea. When somebody just says, I will take my hit, I will do my time, but I am not going to flip on the bigger fish.
If he is willing to sort of hold fast like that, I think, you know, threatening additional time, because we try to compel your testimony, and you may opt to lie rather than give up Donald Trump, is not likely to have much of an effect.
O`DONNELL: Glenn Kirschner thank you very much for joining us tonight.
KIRSCHNER: Thank you, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up. President Biden`s strategic mastery of the 50/50 Senate has led to another big legislative win with a bill signing tomorrow. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus will join us next.
[22:41:34]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Only one president in our history had to deal with a 50/50 Senate before Joe Biden. George W. Bush had a 50/50 Senate but only for five months, and that is when the Bush tax cuts were passed through the Senate. But it wasn`t even close with 62 votes in favor of the tax cuts.
No president has ever successfully designed a legislative strategy to get legislation through the Senate with the support of only the 50 members of his party. No one has ever done that, no president before Joe Biden.
And Joe Biden has done it for his entire legislative agenda. He has done it for the appointment of a record number of federal judges, including Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The two best presidential legislative strategists prior to Joe Biden were Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, both of whom had huge Democratic majorities in the Senate and in the House.
Joe Biden`s list of accomplishments with the 50/50 Senate make him single best legislative strategist in the history of the presidency. And at this point he appears to be in the running -- running third probably to Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson in terms of real legislative achievements.
He might be in a tie for third with President Obama who passed the historic Affordable Care Act.
Tomorrow, President Biden will cap his legislative achievements in this Congress, with the oddly named Inflation Reduction Act which is really about corporate tax fairness and climate policy. Joe Biden has always welcomed Republican votes when he could get them as he did with the Infrastructure Bill but when it became clear that every Republican in the Senate and the House would oppose the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden pushed it through with the team that supported him for the presidency in the House and the Senate and he did it with the Democrats standing alone in both the House and the Senate.
Joining us now is Representative Pramila Jayapal Democrat of Washington state. She`s the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a member of the House Judiciary Committee.
Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
It seems with the election calendar and the recess calendar we are probably at the end of the Biden legislative agenda for this two-year Congress. And it has ended with this achievement on climate policy in particular which is the single largest piece of legislation ever to pass through these bodies on that subject.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): That`s exactly right, Lawrence.
And he deserves -- President Biden deserves enormous credit for coming in with an agenda that was transformative, that was expansive, that was popular and populist and addressed the needs of working people across the country.
And he has not given up on that agenda and I`m very proud to say, I think the Congressional Progressive Caucus has been one of his best friends on Capitol Hill in terms of getting many of these things done.
But this is an enormous achievement for Democrats across the board. To cut carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030, to take on the negotiation of prescription drug pricing, as you know, a very tough thing to even get your toe in the door for, bring down the cost of insulin, and make the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share.
[22:49:51]
JAYAPAL: It`s a huge amount of good for the country and it gives us hope as we are out there in the next couple of months making the case for why we need a couple more Democrats in the Senate, a slightly expanded majority there, and of course, to keep and hopefully expand our House majority so that we can get the rest of the president`s economic agenda done.
O`DONNELL: Yes. This drama of having exactly 50 Democratic senators is like really like nothing we`ve ever seen before because what happened before was only for a few months.
This has been on everything, and we all knew as soon as we saw that formation, by the time we knew it was going to be 50/50 in the Senate, we knew that that meant on the Democratic side every single Democratic senator, each one of them could stop anything that that Democratic senator might want to stop. That created a tremendous tension in the Senate.
JAYAPAL: Yes it did and I will just point out that not every Democratic senator did that, only one or two did. But that is really important because I know I`ve heard Senator Sanders saying he could hold this entire Senate hostage to get Medicare for all in, for example or something like that but he hasn`t.
And I think the reality is, that we have to celebrate the wins but we also have to recognize that with the stuff that was left on the cutting room floor, things that are very important to the economic agenda, to the ability for the economy to recover, like child care, universal child care, universal pre-k, housing -- investments in housing, particularly as these costs are the ones that are rising across the country.
One measure of success is that Lawrence, we got 99 percent of Democrats on board with this agenda. A very progressive agenda that is the president`s agenda. The majority of the country agrees of us and thanks to the Progressive Caucus, we got legislation drafted.
So as soon as we get those additional senators, a couple of senators in the Senate, we actually have text, we have the opportunity to do another reconciliation bill, we can pass the rest of the president`s economic agenda in the next -- as soon as we get that majority.
So I hope people across the country understand, it`s not just the success of passing legislation. Obviously, that is the final most important goal, but there is work that has to be done to get us there. And Lawrence, we are so close in terms of the rest of this agenda.
O`DONNELL: Well, there was also that lesson to be learned I think especially for people who might -- and I think every time there`s a new president, there`s as new set of younger people watching this kind of thing for the first time is that the story of legislation is seldom told in one try or one attempt.
It is usually, we try, we didn`t get it, then we try to get it in the next congress, we got a little bit of it. And then in the congress after that, we got a big bunch of it, and so it goes. And we are seeing that pretty much all of the Biden agenda in some form has now gotten through not in the original form proposed because it pretty well never gets through in the original form proposed.
JAYAPAL: That`s right and I think we are not talking here about incremental changes. I think that`s a really important point. We are talking about dramatic transformations with the way the economy works and making the economy work for regular working people, instead of the wealthiest.
And these kinds of transformations do require some time to get the idea socialized, to get the legislation drafted and debated. Don`t forget Lawrence, that when the Infrastructure Bill came to us in the House, there was no Build Back Better Act, there was no legislation, there were no negotiations. And I was on your show multiple times talking about why we had to hold the line which we did until we passed Build Back Better.
Those provisions, so many of the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act came directly from that other piece of legislation and so much of what we want to do next is already outlined. It is already agreed upon, it is already debated, we literally just need a couple of votes in the Senate and that gives me a lot of hope.
And I really hope it gives a lot of people who`ve been part of this movement a lot of hope too because these are not incremental changes, these are transformations in how our economy works, and how the United States leads the rest of the world.
O`DONNELL: Representative Pramila Jayapal, thank you very much for joining us once again tonight. Always appreciate it.
JAYAPAL: Thank you so much, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: We`ll be right back.
[22:54:27]
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O`DONNELL: Time for tonight`s LAST WORD.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy. Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly without fear or favor. Under my watch, that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:59:57]
O`DONNELL: The 86th attorney general of the United States, Merrick Garland gets tonight`s LAST WORD.
"THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE" starts now.