Summary
1/6 Committee now reviewing Trump WH documents. Tx man charged with threatening to kill Georgia election officials. Bipartisan group of senators eye changes to Electoral Count Act. U.S., Russian diplomats meet in Geneva. U.S. warns of severe response if Russia invades Ukraine.
Transcript
JONATHAN CAPEHART, MSNBC HOST: And that is tonight`s "LAST WORD." You can catch me on the Sunday show 10 a.m. Eastern right here on MSNBC, 10 a.m. until noon just to be clear. THE 11TH HOUR starts right now.
ALI VELSHI, MSNBC HOST: Good evening once again, I`m Ali Velshi. Day 367 of the Biden administration. Tonight, a stunning new report provides a look at the inner workings of the Trump White House in the run up to the riot at the Capitol. NBC News has learned that the January 6 Investigators now have more than 700 pages of documents that Donald Trump tried to keep secret. Reporting from Politico gives us an inside look at some of those records. Politico has obtained an unsigned draft executive order that would have directed the defense secretary to seize voting machines and calls for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the 2020 election.
The executive order whose author is unknown is dated December 16, 2020. That`s more than two weeks after Trump`s Attorney General Bill Barr said the Justice Department had found no evidence of election fraud.
Politico also reports, "the draft order would have given the Defense Secretary 60 days to write an assessment of the 2020 election." Now think of those dates. That suggests that it could have been a gambit to keep Trump in office until at least mid-February of 2021.
NBC News has not yet reviewed these documents. Earlier on this network, the Trump official who ran the department that called the 2020 election, the most secure in American history had this reaction to Politico`s report about the draft order.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOPHER KREBS, FORMER DHS CYBERSECURITY CHIEF: It actually is a very clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which means the Department of Defense cannot -- you can`t use federal troops for domestic law enforcement and by DoD, asking DoD to seize these machines is a clear violation of the law. So, it`s pretty crazy.
Now, all that said, had it cleared the process and then signed out by the president because we know that process didn`t always work at the tail end of the last administration. I assume it would have been immediately, you know, the several states including Michigan, which was likely a target of the lawsuit would have immediately sought an injunction. And maybe the President may have seen his day at the Supreme Court. It`s such an incredible read. It truly reads to me, almost like an op-ed in Newsmax or the Gateway Pundit or something like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: On January 6, one January 6 committee member says that the report shows that the effort to overturn the election went far beyond the violence at the Capitol.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMIE RASKIN, (D) MARYLAND HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON JANUARY 6: It indicates that there was one more line of possible attack, which was something like a military coup that was being planned before January 6, there were a lot of different efforts undertaken and we may indeed find that there were others even beyond this attempted direct seizure of the ballot boxes in the polling places.
There was clearly an inside coup being orchestrated by the entourage right around Donald Trump to overthrow Joe Biden`s majority in the electoral college to falsely deny him his presidential victory and to seize the presidency for Donald Trump for another four years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Politico also reports that the January 6 committee is looking at whether the Trump White House and campaign were involved in efforts by state Republicans to send Congress alternative slates of 2020 presidential electors.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is charged a Texas man with threatening to assassinate Georgia election officials. Prosecutors say he made those threats on Craigslist. The threats came just days after Trump tried to pressure Georgia Secretary of State, this man Brad Raffensperger into overturning election results. And this all comes amid an attempt on Capitol Hill to avoid a repeat of what happened after the 2020 election, with the Democrats package of voting reforms now dead. Republican Senator Susan Collins is now leading a bipartisan effort to overhaul the electoral Count Act governing how Congress counts and certifies presidential election results.
The reforms could include protections against threats for election workers. And tonight, the Biden administration is dealing with escalating tension on Ukraine`s eastern border with Russia. President Biden will spend the weekend at Camp David with his national security team. The U.S. has been trying to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia has denied that it`s planning to invade its neighbor which is only unusual because the Kremlin has positioned some 100,000 troops on Russia`s border with Ukraine. Latest attempt to diplomacy came today when Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva.
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The 90-minute meeting ended with no breakthroughs, but Blinken repeated the White House`s warning that any Russian military action would have consequences.
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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We`ve been clear if any Russian military forces move across Ukraine`s border, that`s a renewed invasion. It will be met with swift, severe, and a united response from the United States and our partners and allies. I expressed again the Minister Lavrov that on the security concerns that Russia has raised in recent weeks, the United States and our European allies and partners are prepared to pursue possible means of addressing them in a spirit of reciprocity, which means simply put that Russia must also address our concerns.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: On the domestic policy front, a federal judge in Texas has blocked Biden`s vaccine requirement for federal workers which has been in place since November. The White House says 95% of federal workers were already in compliance. And the CDC says that COVID booster shots are keeping people out of hospitals. The agency says the extra doses are 90% effective at preventing hospitalization with the Omicron variant.
But with that, let`s bring in our leadoff guests on this Friday night, Courtney Subramanian, White House Correspondent for USA Today. Cynthia Alksne, former Federal Prosecutor in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, and retired four-star United States Army General Barry McCaffrey, a decorated combat veteran of Vietnam, and a former battlefield commander in the Persian Gulf. He`s a former Cabinet Member and a former member of the National Security Council.
Good evening to all of you on this important news night. Cynthia let`s begin with you. You are a veteran of the U.S. Justice Department as you look at this unsigned executive action that Politico is reporting on that is part of those 700 documents that Donald Trump wanted to keep the public and the January 6 committee from seeing, what goes across your mind?
CYNTHIA ALKSNE, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: What goes across my mind is we need to know who wrote it, we need to know who agreed with it. We need to know who had the classified information to put those executive orders in, we need to know where it was hidden. We need to know who wanted to hide it from the committee and who showed it to Trump and what the discussions were. It`s just done comprehensible that they would try anybody would try to do this in the United States of America. Not only is it just un-American and bordering on treasonous, in my opinion, but it`s a violation of the Posse Comitatus.
And for our viewers. If there`s an interesting history to that, the Posse Comitatus came about after General Grant was president and used federal troops to protect the rights of black Americans after the war. And in order for the next guy to win the nomination, to become President, Rutherford B. Hayes, he agreed to pull all those troops and reconstruction was over. And that`s where Posse Comitatus came from.
In any event, using Defense Department to conceal and take the election information in the voting booth information is a violation of Posse Comitatus, it would never be allowed at the Justice, at the Defense Department, much less approved by the Justice Department.
VELSHI: General Barry McCaffrey, I want to talk to you about Ukraine in just a moment in the tensions on the Russian border there. But let`s just carry this on for a little while. You know, the whole idea of crossing the Rubicon was the idea that a Roman general cannot enter Rome, at the head of a column of troops. You can`t have the military`s for stuff outside not for law enforcement. Every member of the military in this country knows that, how could this possibly, as Cynthia said, have gotten to this level that an executive order was drafted?
GEN. BARRY MCCAFFREY, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, we had a lawless regime in the White House who quite clearly. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, what we were seeing in real time in public was a coup against the United States government. We had an acting Attorney General and Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Trump had sent a retired Lieutenant Colonel White House functionary over to be the Acting Secretary of Defense, along with four other incredibly uncertain lads who took over the Policy Director of the Department of Defense.
You know, there`s only two people who can give orders to the U.S. armed forces, not the Chairman, General Milley, but the Secretary of Defense and the President as commander in chief, and that`s what Trump was up to. He was on the verge of trying to take over our government. And I think he got such pushback from some high integrity, lawful people, not just in commerce in the federal court system, but also throughout the Department of Defense, the FBI and other agencies but we are in great danger.
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VELSHI: We`re in great danger. And many of us did not have any idea. We knew something bad was afoot, but we didn`t know it was that.
Courtney, it was the Supreme Court that released those documents or ordered the release of those documents in a decision in which they said that Donald Trump doesn`t have the ability to prevent them, but really was the White House that paved the way for those documents to be released?
COURTNEY SUBRAMANIAN, USA TODAY WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, you know, Trump mounted a legal battle over the release of these documents. And that was, you know, aimed at the National Archives and Records. But, as you said, he did this after the Biden administration denied his request for executive privilege to protect these records from the January 6 committee. And the main issue, the White House Counsel faced here was the scope of presidential authority and executive privilege after a President leaves office. And that`s an issue that just hadn`t been definitively tested in courts, which, you know, allowed Trump to mount a legal case here, but of course, had implications for the Biden White House, you know, for once he leaves office, as well, but they laid out a legal argument for why they believe that executive privilege didn`t apply. And that is because they felt it came amid unique and extraordinary circumstances that extended beyond the typical deliberations concerning the proper discharge of a president`s constitutional responsibilities.
And that it came, you know, pertaining to Congress` examination of an assault on the Constitution. You know, Trump`s legal team, of course, said this was all purely political, the Justice Department did point to negotiations with the house to withdraw or defer request for some of the national security records that it had requested as evidence that Biden was committed to protecting the office of the presidency.
And look, the National Archives also pointed out that a lot of these records that Trump was trying to block from becoming public are destined to become public after he leaves office and are some of these records are routinely released by other White House`s like visitor logs and, you know, schedules, diaries, phone logs, and, you know, records of the like. But as you mentioned, you know, it was a Supreme Court decision that really was key here. Because had they decided to block the release of the documents that were redefined the contours of executive privilege for the first time in over 50 years.
VELSHI: Cynthia, we saw a lot of stuff coming out of the January 6 committee this week, including subpoenas, letters, invitations, very detailed letters, even the invitation to Ivanka Trump was full of detail. But this is something else. This is a whole another department of material. Do we believe that the January 6 committee knew what was coming their way? And now that this is how does that affect the delicate balance about the January 6 Committee being an investigative body and possible criminal referrals that have to be given to the Justice Department and dispatched in that way?
ALKSNE: Well, here`s the thing, they don`t have to have criminal referrals to the Justice Department. The Justice Department doesn`t need a referral from the Congress to open up an investigation. When I was a justice, we would open them up on like a little teeny article in the Washington Post. It could be an inch long we open investigation on a civil rights case. So, they don`t need that. But what he does highlight is the tentacles of this conspiracy and how difficult it is to get wrap your arms around it. There`s the fake electors conspiracy. There`s the steel, the ballot boxes, perhaps conspiracy. There`s the push the Georgia election officials for more votes conspiracy. There`s all everything happening in all these different states in addition to the whatever it turns out, Bannon was doing, and I don`t think it`s completely clear yet what that was. And then you add the pressure from the riots, to try to scare Pence into going along with it. So, there`s all these conspiracies, and they can come under one big umbrella in the Justice Department, and they do not need a referral in order to get there.
VELSHI: General McCaffrey, it is 6:15 a.m. on the eastern border of Ukraine and Russia right now. The sun is not up yet. And the world is on alert for a possible invasion. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman said this earlier on our air and I want to get your take on it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEXANDER VINDMAN, U.S. ARMY LT. COLONEL (Ret): I think we`re basically just on the cusp of war. I think it`s all but certain in my mind that there`s going to the alarm European war on the order of magnitude of World War Two with air power, sea power, massive ground forces offensives.
[23:15:10]
And my concern now is making sure that the United States is postured for that outcome. I think there`s little to be done to avoid it at the balls in Putin`s court.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: General, what do you make of that?
MCCAFFREY: Well, you know, we tell intelligence officers don`t tell me about enemy intention and talk about their capabilities. So clearly, Putin has put together a package capable of seizing Ukraine from the north and the east on probably 90-day campaign. If he was willing to go all out, you know, fight street to street in Kyiv. I don`t think he is. I do think he`s trying to divide NATO, run the U.S. out of Europe. He has never been deterred in Syria, invasion of Georgia, invasion and seizure of the Crimea, invasion of the Donbas. He`s been bold, and he`s gotten a Russian considerable amount of trouble because of that.
Look, this ties economy is less than that of Texas, less than that of Italy. It`s not a strategically significant force. But it is a massive threat to the countries that are joined Russia, and particularly the Eastern European countries, the Baltic states, you know, Poland, who are concerned NATO`s in disarray, the U.S. has already announced we`re not going to fight. We have blundered, I think in our public communications about what we might do by specifying economic sanction before rather than telling the Russians privately. But at the end of the day, Putin is probably going to take some military action. The danger of uncontrolled escalation is there, there`s no question about it. Ukrainians are going to fight. The Europeans are going to be alarmed, Putin will end up unifying NATO and putting himself in considerable strategic peril.
VELSHI: Courtney, the Secretary of State was in Geneva today in what appeared to be a last-ditch effort to negotiate with the Russian Foreign Minister. It did not result in anything concrete. The United States as General McCaffrey said, has warned Russia, don`t do it. Is that going to work? And does the White House think that there`s a diplomatic solution to this?
SUBRAMANIAN: Well, you know, the diplomatic track is very much the preferred path here, which is why we`re seeing the meetings continue next week between Blinken and his Russian counterpart. Even as, you know, we see Russia continue to build up more troops near the border with Ukraine. Why we`re seeing Biden huddle with his national security team this weekend at Camp David. And today they even left open the possibility of another summit between Biden and Putin.
Jen Psaki was asked about this today, she left it on the table and Vice President Harris was asked about it tonight at an event and she said it was a decision that the President would be making. So again, it`s all about keeping the diplomatic channels open at the highest levels while this question of innovation and whether it`s imminent plays out.
VELSHI: Thank you to the three of you for helping us kick off this evening, Courtney Subramanian, Cynthia Alksne, and General Barry McCaffrey.
Coming up, what could go down as the worst week ever, for the twice impeach former president since losing the election? Two of our sharpest political experts are here to weigh the damage to him and his party.
And later, history will ultimately weigh in on the current president`s first year in office. We thought we`d get a jump on that and ask one of our favorite historians for a very early draft. Michael Beschloss joins me for a look at how it started, and how it`s going for the Biden White House. THE 11TH HOUR just getting underway on a Friday night.
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VELSHI: All things told the Former President has had quite weak. There`s the court filing from the New York Attorney General detailing possible fraud committed by Trump and his two eldest children. The January 6 committee obtained all 700 pages of documents that Trump tried very hard to block. Ivanka Trump was sent a committee request for her testimony, and the Atlanta area DA wants a grand jury to investigate Trump`s efforts to overturn his election loss in Georgia.
The Washington Post reports "Taken together, the events seemed to spell bad news for Trump, but some who have observed him for decades are urging caution. After all, Trump survived two House impeachments, avoiding conviction by the Senate, as well as the investigation led by Robert Mueller into Russian involvement in the 2016 election and several congressional probes of his administration."
Back with us tonight, Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, the Dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas and MSNBC Political Analyst, and Matthew Dowd, former George W. Bush Strategist and Founder of Country Over Party. Good evening to both of you.
Victoria, let`s start with you your evaluation of how things are going in Trump world as it relates very specifically to his efforts to challenge democracy in this country?
VICTORIA DEFRANCESCO SOTO, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: All right, well, look, it was a terrible week for Donald Trump in his family, hard stuff. That being said, Ali, I`m firmly in the camp of urging caution and saying, OK, this is the end of it for Trump and his speaking of power in 2024 and beyond. He -- many have said he has nine lives. I mean, I think that metaphor is apt but dig below the surface. And what`s there is the fact that when you`re trying to prove fraud, that`s difficult. Trump and his family and his organization are lawyers up to the hill. And then the other piece of this is what we`ve seen over the last five years that Trump is a survivor. We saw him survive two impeachments, the Mueller investigation. It add on to that, that he does well in the court of public opinion, that public opinion of his party of the base of the GOP that has shifted to the Trump brand. So, put all of those pieces together. And yes, in this moment, things look very bad for him. But I`m not going to count them out. At this point, I am still waiting to see what happens in terms of his longevity within the Republican Party and its prospects in politics looking at 2024 and beyond.
VELSHI: Matt, I apologize in advance for asking you and our viewers to do a little math but following on what Victoria said, let`s take a look at a new NBC poll that gives us some interesting data. It indicates that 56% of registered voters consider themselves supporters of the Republican Party, 36% of registered voters say they are supporters of Donald Trump.
[23:25:13]
Now, this is an interesting change from past surveys. Three years ago, Republicans often said that they were Trump supporters first. I don`t know whether this is just sort of that embarrassment you get when a pollster calls you or something happening in which Republicans are starting to separate themselves from Donald Trump?
MATTHEW DOWD, FORMER CHIEF STRATEGIST TO BUSH-CHENEY CAMPAIGN: Well, I kind of look at the numbers slightly differently than most people. I think what`s happened is the Republicans have now decided the Republican Party has become what they wanted to be with him, which was what Trump wanted to become. And so, what I think it reflects is the party, which is wholesale behind the big lie, wholesale behind all this stuff, the stuff that Donald Trump says and does, that party has become that. And so, I think what the voters in the party have decided, is that yeah, our party is finally become what we wanted it to be, which is what trolled Trump represented, and therefore, we support the Republican Party. That`s what I think has happened. It has become the Trump party without the Trump name, and they no longer need the Trump name to brand themselves.
VELSHI: Well, Victoria, that was a real gloomy spin on something I thought might have indicated something else, what do you make of it? That`s a hell of an argument that Trump has transformed the party. And now one doesn`t have to separate or make that distinction between being a Trump supporter and a Republican?
DEFRANCESCO SOTO: I agree with my friend, Matthew, I think that what we`ve seen is a shift of the Republican Party. The other thing it`s just didn`t happen overnight. You know, I want to take us back to 2010, to that midterm election, to the rise of the Tea Party. And what we saw there was really the seeds of this extremism within the Republican Party. And I might even take it a little farther back and go back to 1994 Newt Gingrich. So, this was an effort that was building and building and building and Trump was able to just consolidate that movement, put his branding on it, put his happiness on it. And I do think that we have seen a shift, at least for the short and medium term of the brand of the Republican Party. So, I`m all with Matthew on this one.
VELSHI: Matthew, let`s talk about Donald Trump, he had a rally, I mean, seems like weeks ago, but it was actually last weekend in Arizona that looked very much like a campaign style rally. The only distinction is that he had more conspiracy theorists and election deniers around him than typical. The pillow guy was there. But so was every sort of off-beat, off center Republican in Arizona. Is he running again for President?
DOWD: I think he`s going to act like he`s going to run again. I mean, Donald Trump, I mean, people say that he wants to be president, but I think Donald Trump really wants to be as the center of attention at all possible times. And I think he`s figured out that being the center of attention, the avenue to that is to keep talking like he`s running. So that`s one thing, I don`t know if he`s going to run, I mean, do a psychological test on Donald Trump, we`d be here for days and days and days and days about what we`re going to do about that. But so, but I also think it`s, it allows him to keep raising money for all these funds that he has, that he uses for legal funds, he uses all that. And once he says I`m not no longer running, it makes it harder for him to do that.
So, whether or not he runs, I think he`s going to act like he`s going to run all the way up until the very last minute when he`ll make a decision. I think in the end, he won`t run because I don`t think he wants to risk another loss in the manner of this, but I think he`s going to keep acting and acting and acting like he`s going to run because it serves his purpose of fame, and it serves his purpose of fortune and raising money for all those committees.
VELSHI: I`m much smarter after just a few minutes with both of you so if you don`t mind sticking around for another few minutes, I can wrap it up being substantially smarter this evening as can our viewers. What to watch for next after a week that`s our voting rights legislation sputter and die on Capitol Hill.
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[23:32:41]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: What the President was trying to convey is we need to be clear eyed, open eyed, educated about what our rights are. He wasn`t trying to predict that the elections will be illegitimate. But he was trying to make clear to people that 2020 and what President former President Trump tried to do after that election is not 60 years ago, you know, that was less than two years ago. And we need to keep talking about it and make sure people understand what is going to be attempted out there and communities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: The White House Press Secretary on the view this morning clarifying the President`s response this week when asked about the impact of state level Republican voter suppression laws on the 2022 elections.
As the Wall Street Journal reports Republicans say their measures will improve election security and that Democrats are attempting a federal takeover of elections. But remember, even the former president`s own election officials deemed the 2020 election, "the most secure in American history."
Still with us, Victoria DeFrancesco, Soto and Matthew Dowd. Victoria, I want to point to a poll that Republicans like to point to, it`s a Pew poll that was taken in November of 2020, which indicates if you add up the two numbers 77% plus 17, you get to 94% of Americans saying voting was easy for them. This, to me is possibly one of the greatest challenges in dealing with this decline of democracy that we`re facing, because most Americans don`t actually believe that democracy is threatened because they don`t think that their voting rights are threatened.
DEFRANCESCO SOTO: Right. And when you see a phone number, like this, Ali, you`re like, oh, OK, 94%, there`s no problem. People have easy access to the ballot. But the deal is we need to take a step back and ask, who is the sample that is being asked this question.
And look, I love Pew. I think they do fantastic work. They do representative samples of adults. But in terms of this question battery, they`re only asking people who voted in the election. So that means that this question is not capturing those folks who were not able to vote who, were deterred from voting who, you know, did not have proper access to voting, who were not registered. So, we`re missing a whole bunch of folks who we need to consider when we`re thinking through voting access. And so yes technically 94% of Americans found that when they voted it was easy but what about the larger population of Americans, again, eligible voters because we haven`t even touched the topic of how difficult that is to register to vote.
[23:35:18]
So, I just -- I want some implore the viewers to read that fine print, look at what the sample is, before you start drawing conclusions on these numbers, is look at who the sample is, and who they`re actually talking to.
VELSHI: Matt, NBC News is reporting that a bipartisan group of senators led by Susan Collins is planning to meet virtually during next week`s recess to find a path forward on issues from clarifying the electoral Count Act of 1887 to protecting election officials from threats and intimidation. You tweeted earlier today about the Electoral College Act, the Electoral Count Act, merely fixing the electoral college, without fixing underlying voting rights problems, would be like saying, we are going to make sure winning -- the winning pot in a poker game is accurately counted without fixing the cheating in the actual game. Tell me a bit about that.
DOWD: Sure, what I was saying is, and this is my problem, I mean, obviously, we should fix the Electoral College Act to make sure we`re not going to be in this situation, obviously, about that. But if that`s all we do, all we`re doing, as I said, is, it`s like winning a poll -- about pot and poker is all we did was make sure the chips were counted that were in the pot. And we didn`t deal with all the people cheating around the table. That`s what we have to deal with. And my fear is, if we go ahead and do this, it`s going to give people who don`t want to make the hard stand on voting rights, who don`t want to deal with all the issues need to deal with a pass, because it`s going to be like, oh, hey, I dealt with the Electoral College Act. Don`t ask me any more questions about voting rights, when we didn`t deal with the fundamental issue of this.
So that`s my issue with that. I want to go back to something Victoria says which I completely agree with. That poll, in my view, actually makes the arguments the Democrats are made because that poll was based on the voting that was done in 2020, which allowed all these new things like vote by mail, ballot boxes to drop in, all of these new things that were established, all of which in the aftermath, which people said made it easier and was easy to vote, the Republicans in the states are taking away. So that poll actually makes the point that yeah, it was easier in Victoria`s right to point out it didn`t pull people that didn`t vote, but it makes the point. But we did all these new things to make it easier, and people thought it was easier. So, the Republicans are using that as an argument. They`re making the Democrats argument for him, which is, yeah, we made it easier in 2020. That`s why people felt that way about it. So why are you taking it away from us?
VELSHI: Because we apparently have a lot of voter fraud in this country, even though nobody seems to be able to find any. Thanks to both of you for joining us tonight. Victoria DeFrancesco Soto and Matthew Dowd, we appreciate your time.
A leading presidential historian on what we should and should not make of year one of Joe Biden`s presidency, when the 11th Hour continues.
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VELSHI: With President Biden entering his second year in office, it`s worth remembering some of the notable moments from his first year.
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BIDEN: Violence sought to shake the capitalist very foundation. We come together as one nation. Today, we`re closer than ever, to declaring our independence from a deadly virus.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bravo.
BIDEN: Despite the cynics, Democrats and Republicans, we can work together, we can deliver real results be concerned about Omicron. But don`t be alarmed. The former president United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. The threat to our democracy is so grave that we must find a way to pass these voting rights bill. It`s a year of challenges, but it`s also many years of enormous progress.
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VELSHI: With us tonight is the celebrated author and presidential historian Michael Beschloss. His latest work in a bookshelf of works is Presidents of War. Michael, it is good to see you. Thank you for being with us this evening. Let`s first just talk about this year, this big year for Joe Biden, the first year of a presidency, something you historians and we the public take very, very seriously. But boy, tumultuous, unusual, one might argue of an unprecedented given all of the efforts to overturn the election that he then had to take over after he joined office. What do you make of this first year?
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, NBC NEWS PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, Ali, I agree with everything you`ve said, and wonderful to see you tonight. By the way, this program has been so exciting and important. I`m going to try not to screw it up. Not hard, because there`s so much happening today. And you and the others have analyzed this so well. Here we have Biden being evaluated after one year, which modern presidents tend to be. And I can just tell you, as a historian, the way a president looks, after one year has almost nothing to do with whether he gets reelected or whether historians like and later on. Franklin Roosevelt, one of our greatest presidents, after a year, a lot of people were saying he`s going to be a one term president is up to the job, hasn`t fixed the depression. A lot of people unemployed, Abraham Lincoln in 1862, was seen as a president who was not filling his role at the beginning of the Civil War, the Union Army was stalled. And people were saying, we should have elected someone who`s a little bit more competent. Whether Biden is seen as a great president, in the end, will depend on a couple of things, and so will the midterms. And if he runs for re-election, number one the economy 10 months from now, it could be very different also, the pandemic.
VELSHI: You know, he held a long press conference the other day, took reporters` questions for almost two hours. Biden is a big thinker. He came in with big ideas, and one of the reporters asked him, whether he might need to downsize his expectations, given what`s happened. Listen to the exchange. Let`s talk about it on the other side.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are only guaranteed control of Washington for one more year before the midterms, do you need to be more realistic and scale down these priorities in order to get something passed?
BIDEN: No, I don`t think so. We just have to make the case what we`re for and what the other teams not for.
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VELSHI: Michael, can you evaluate that that response. It was an interesting question. What do you make of the President`s response? No scaling things back, do a better job of convincing Americans about what he represents.
BESCHLOSS: He`s absolutely right. That`s what strong presidents do. They try to make sure that their reach exceeds their grasp. They don`t just say gee, I`ve got a narrow margin in the House and Senate, might lose it this fall so I better be timid and not do anything. Biden knows we`ve got some large problems, people are naturally frustrated by the fact that the pandemic has not ended, and the economy has not just soared unimpeded, as many people might have expected a year ago, the most important metric I think, that will be used to evaluate Joe Biden least in these first couple of years is, do we have a democracy next year? Do we have a democracy in 2025? If we don`t, and if Joe Biden fails, nothing else he can possibly do will matter.
[23:45:31]
VELSHI: Do we have a democracy next year? Do we have a democracy in 2025 may be two of the most important questions facing Americans right now? But as you saw in that last discussion I had in the last block, there are lots and lots and lots of Americans who would agree that they cherished democracy, but don`t really, really believe it`s all that threatened.
BESCHLOSS: Well, they just have to take a look at what`s happening in state legislatures and how voter suppression is being in tried and how difficult this is going to be for many of these elections result in a victor being declared who actually won the election rather than some partisan planning, someone won, who actually did not. And the other thing today is we`ve been looking at what I call the push of January 6, 2021, where an effort by Trump by its almost conquered Congress and the Capitol, almost conquered our democracy that day.
VELSHI: You make a very interesting point when we were discussing, we, you know, a year ago, whether that was really an insurrection or a coup or an attempt there are a lot of people said you can`t call it that because it didn`t succeed. You tweeted something today about the Beer Hall Putsch, about the fact that it also didn`t succeed. And then suddenly, Hitler was in power?
BESCHLOSS: You and I love history, and this is a dark moment, but 1923 Adolf Hitler with 2000 Nazis, tried to stage what we would consider an uprising that looked awfully like what happened at the Capitol, it failed. History, Hitler was arrested and jailed for treason. And so, what Hitler took from that, as he said, gee, I think maybe you know, an extra-legal way of getting into power is not going to work. And so, what he did for the next 10 years was, he looked for weaknesses in the Weimar German democracy, ways you could game the system to get into power, which he did in 1933. He was appointed chancellor, month later, the parliament building the Reichstag was burned down. Hitler said its internal enemies, Jewish people and communists, we have to eradicate them by giving more power to the Nazis. And after that moment, the Nazis never again at a real election.
VELSHI: Michael, please stay with us. We`re learning a lot tonight. Michael Beschloss is a noted historian. We`re going to discuss democracy and some of the recent setbacks and things that might come out of 2022 when the 11th Hour continues.
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[23:51:12]
VELSHI: Still with us is presidential historian Michael Beschloss, your history lesson about what happened in Germany in the 20s and 30s is alarming. On the other hand, you actually think that Americans have some reason to hope and be positive about the preservation of democracy in this very moment?
BESCHLOSS: I do. You know, if you`re in a story, and I think you`d agree with this, you really have to be an optimist. If you`re studying American history, American democracy was gravely threatened 1860s Civil War 1932, a lot of people Dispossessed by the depression, 1940 Americans arguing over whether we should rise up to oppose Adolf Hitler and the Imperial Japanese, you look at our DNA, we tend to get through moments like this, but only if people get on the playing field. All I can say to everyone who`s within the sound of our voices tonight, you know, don`t be in a situation where we lost our democracy in 2022. And the reason was that people should have cared about it. We`re doing other things. The forces against autocracy have yet to express themselves, a majority of Americans and 2022, they`re not for autocracy, they`re not for radical programs. If this happens, it`s going to happen against the will of the people.
And the other thing is that, you know, you`ve been talking all week about the -- and rightfully so about the vulnerability of Donald Trump. Donald Trump right now is relatively riding high. But he`s got a lot of trouble, as you have been discussing all week, in the States, in the courts, from all sorts of places that could metastasize. If Trump is a less appealing figure, to his followers, and to Republican leaders that say 10 months from now, this could be a whole new ballgame. Because if Trump is intimidating people like Lindsey Graham and Kevin McCarthy, and other Republican leaders, then perhaps when he is gone, they will be a little bit less intimidated, and returned to the side of people who care about democracy and want to preserve it. But the one thing I have to say, Ali, is democracy is really in danger tonight.
VELSHI: Well, I think your message about people getting into the game or as Roosevelt said, being in the arena applies to all of us now.
BESCHLOSS: Right.
VELSHI: All citizens, this isn`t just something to be looking at politicians for. Michael, I always appreciate it. I appreciate the optimism. But I appreciate the honest words. Michael Beschloss is a noted author and presidential historian. His latest book, which is remarkable read is called Presidents of War.
Coming up, the lie from the White House that set the tone for years to come, a look back at an event that took place five years ago today from this lecture when 11th Hour continues.
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[23:57:42]
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DONALD TRUMP, (D) FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.
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VELSHI: Last Thing Before We Go Tonight, remembering a performance that set the tone for years to come. Five years ago, yesterday, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President in front of a crowd on the National Mall.
Now, the differences were pretty obvious when that 2017 crowd was compared to Barack Obama`s 2009 inauguration. And all that led to this memorable performance five years ago tonight, the new president ordered his new Press Secretary Sean Spicer to hold an impromptu news conference and insist that, "this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period."
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SEAN SPICER, FORMER TRUMP PRESS SECRETARY: Photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way in one particular tweet to minimize the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall. This was the first time in our nation`s history that floor coverings had been used to protect the grass in the mall, that had the effect of highlighting any areas where people were not standing while in years past, the grass eliminated this visual, inaccurate numbers involving crowd size were also tweeted, no one had numbers because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall does not put any out. We know that 420,000 people use the D.C. metro public transit yesterday, which it actually compares to 317,000 that used it for President Obama`s last inaugural.
This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period, both in person and around the globe.
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VELSHI: A moment forever etched into our memories with a little help from Saturday Night Live. And the wonderful Melissa McCarthy, the fiery debut of Sean Spicer exactly five years ago and what feels like a lifetime ago today to take us off the air.
That`s our broadcast for this Friday night and for this week with our thanks for being with us. Be sure to join me here again tomorrow morning for Velshi at 8 a.m. Eastern. On behalf of all of my colleagues from the networks of NBC News, good night.