IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Transcript: All In with Chris Hayes, 1/28/22

Guests: Elaine Luria, Nicholas Wu, Ari Berman, Jason Furman, Lisa Friedman

Summary

The January 6 Committee issued subpoenas for the 14 involved in the fake electors` scheme. A new report by Mother Jones finds that during municipal elections in November 2021, Georgia voters were 45 times more likely to have their mail ballot applications rejected and ultimately not counted as a result than in 2020. Biden`s economy grew at the fastest pace since 1984.

Transcript

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: I got to get in quick. Sophia Angelle (PH), Olivia Giuliana (PH), the kids from Gen Z for Change, the young students in Florida who tried to speak at the abortion ban hearing, Students for a Democratic Society, the young people, the youth, TikTok kids won the week because they are fighting the power and fighting for learning in books because they`re smarter than the adults who tried to mess up education.

Charlie Sykes, Michael Eric Dyson, thank you both very much. That`s tonight`s REIDOUT y`all. Now, all of y`all won the week because guess what, time for you to watch Chris Hayes. It starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight, on ALL IN.

ANGELA MCCALLUM, NATIONAL EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT, TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: You do have the power to reclaim your authority and send us a slate of electors that will support President Trump and Vice President Pence.

HAYES: Big news from the January 6 Committee.

REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): We want to know who was behind this plot to overturn the election.

HAYES: Tonight, what we know about the new raft of subpoenas for fake Trump electors. Then, as a slow-motion coup continues in states like Georgia, alarming new evidence that voter suppression is already working. Plus --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s morning again in America.

HAYES: New evidence of an economic boom like we haven`t seen since Reagan. And as environmental groups win their biggest climate victory in a long time, why the massive East Coast snowstorm is a new climate normal when ALL IN starts right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. The investigation being conducted by the bipartisan committee into January 6 has just entered a new and unprecedented phase. The committee today announced subpoenas for 14 state Republicans from those seven states that sent phony slates of electors to the National Archives. Those slates of electors falsely claiming that Donald Trump won the election, that they were duly elected by the people to make him president.

The chairperson and secretary for each fake electoral delegation from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are being asked to share what they knew about the plot. And it`s a plot we`ve outlined on this show before.

Basically, it all stems from the wonky kind of counterintuitive way that we elect presidents in this country. But here`s the gist. States have these slates of electors for the Electoral College, one for each candidate. And practically, in every state, the winner of the popular vote in that state once the states count the votes and says this candidate won, sends all of their electors to vote for that candidate.

So, in the case of these seven states in question, all of which Joe Biden won, their slates of electors they sent were Biden electors. But as you can see in this example from Arizona, Republicans in these contested states that Joe Biden won just decided to make up their own slate of Trump electors anyway.

And as reporting continues to show, these seven states did not all independently decide to do this. No. What`s more, we know that Donald Trump`s coup attempt on January 6 specifically involved these phony slates of electors. It is there plain as day for all to read in the handy coup memo that Trump`s lawyer John Eastman cooked up.

Here is Eastman`s guidance for then-Vice President Mike Pence on January 6. "When he, meaning Pence, gets to Arizona, he`s reading through states, he announces he has multiple states of electors and is going to defer decision on that until finishing the other states. And at the end, he announces, because of the ongoing disputes in the seven states, there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those states.

That means the total number of electors appointed, the language of the 12th Amendment is 454. The majority of the electors appointed would therefore be 228. There are at this point 232 votes for Trump, 222 votes for Biden. Pence then gavels President Trump as reelected. It`s simple as pie. It just took a paragraph to spell a coup.

Take a second just to imagine that for a moment. I mean, if they`d gone through with it, if Pence just says, well, yes, disputed, Donald Trump is president. And that`s it. That`s the entire game. They take the seven big states Biden won and they take them off the board. And for each state, Pence says, well, you know, I`m not doing anything. Who`s to say? There are two competing slates of electors. I don`t know which one is correct.

So, look, let`s just put those aside. Let`s count the rest of the votes. See who wins the rest of the votes because those -- so he throws out those seven Biden states, and suddenly Trump is the winner of the existing Electoral College tally. I mean, audacious. I mean, I don`t know if it would have stood up at the Supreme Court scrutiny. Who knows? We`ve never really tried this before, but like, not crazy, OK. A plan, an actual very real plan.

In case you`re still not convinced, Rudy Giuliani helpfully explained the plot to Steve Bannon back in December 2020. After Joe Biden won the election, the states are preparing their electors.

[20:05:04]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, WHITE HOUSE FORMER CHIEF STRATEGIST: Why is the Trump campaign sending its own slate of electors to the state capitols?

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER LAWYER OF DONALD TRUMP: If for example, let`s say the state of Georgia decides to continue its hearings and decides that the count is grossly wrong, that Trump actually won Georgia, if we don`t have a group of electors selected today, there`s a question as to whether we can select electors after today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: OK, so that`s an alternate part of the same plot, right? You`ve got the Eastern plot that says, well, if you send these electors, it`s disputed. Then the alternate plot is, we have these electors hanging out in case our pressure efforts in the states to overturn the election works and we can just slip those in.

So, what he`s saying is that if the big live election fraud works, like say the pressure campaign to find 11,000 votes in Georgia or the Kanye West publicist showing up to talk to a random poll worker and try to get her to confess to her crimes, if those work, then they`re going to need those bogus electors to swap in to steal the election.

So, the scheme was part of the Eastman memo. We know that Trump`s top guy Rudy Giuliani was on board. Thanks for some great local reporting out of Michigan, we now also have proof that Trump campaign itself was directly involved as well. This is a voicemail message from a Trump campaign staffer to a Michigan State Representative that was first aired by Rachel Maddow.

MCCALLUM: Hi, Representative. My name is Angela McCallum and I`m calling from Trump campaign headquarters in Washington. We just wanted to make sure you knew how you could be helpful in ensuring that every American is represented and can rest assured that their vote will be fairly and correctly counted in this election.

The United States Constitution provides that the state legislators retain sole authority to designate the Presidential electors. You do have the power to reclaim your authority and send us a slate of electors that will support President Trump and Vice President Pence.

This is an effort that`s happening in other states as well, such as Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia. There are state legislators across the country who are standing with the President to stop this voter fraud from happening or under their watch. We want to know when there`s a resolution in the House to appoint electors for Trump, if the president can count on you to join and support.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Now, no one asked me here but I do have some notes on her delivery. I think you want to sell that a little more. I think you don`t want it to sound like a spam call to sell auto insurance. But that said, it`s like something from a bad political thriller. This is -- this really happened. And we`ve known about this for quite a while now.

As Michigan Secretary of State outlined on this very show last night, it`s been very difficult for the states to investigate it on their own, which is why, as of today, the January 6 Committee is now stepping in.

The committee sent subpoenas to 14 of the people behind these bogus electors, two from each state, writing to them, "According to the documents sent to the National Archives, you are a purported Electoral College elector who met with other purported electors on or about December 14, 2020, to cast votes for former President Trump and former Vice President Pence despite the fact that your state had made the final determination that Joe Biden Kamala Harris were winners of the 2020 election and the appointment of their electors have been certified.

Your delegation of purported electors for Trump and Pence then sent an alleged certificate of the votes of the purported electors to Congress for consideration by former Vice President Pence in his role as President of the Senate on January 6, 2021. The existence of these purported alternate electoral votes was used as a justification to delay or block the certification of the election."

Over a year later, this may be our first step toward some concrete answers about the keystone of this aspect of the attempted coup.

I`m joined now by one of the members of the January 6 Committee, Congresswoman Elaine Luria of Virginia. Congresswoman, how do you understand this aspect of the plot in relation to the efforts by the former president and insurrection on January 6 is something ancillary or something central?

REP. ELAINE LURIA (D-VA): Chris, I think it`s truly central. And you just spelled it out. I mean, there was a plan, the Eastman memo. There`s the receipts. You literally have the certificate set from the seven states. You have voicemails sent and left by Trump campaign staffers.

You have all of this evidence. Giuliani, you know, in a recording saying this is the plan, this is how it`s going to work. And there was immense pressure by the former president -- by the former president on the former vice president, Vice President Pence. And that was publicly put on the Vice President.

And, you know, all of this together is really important for what we`re looking at in the committee. And you know, these new 14 subpoenas, two each from the seven states, you know, we can see that this is a coordinated effort. You know, there`s no possible coincidence that each of these electors from the seven states, you know, could have had these nearly identical certificates that they sent to Washington.

And, you know, the dots are just clearly connecting here. And we really need to hear from these seven states, these 14 people to tie all this together.

[20:10:42]

HAYES: Yes. And we should see -- say these are people who sign their name to a document. This is not -- you know, this was not so -- it`s not covert. You knew who to send this to. This reaction I saw today from one of the individuals, Andrew Hitt, who is one of the individuals in Wisconsin says, I absolutely will cooperate with committee`s request to provide information. As I said, in the past, the Wisconsin electors were simply following the guidance of Wisconsin legal counsel to preserve the ongoing was constant legal strategy. There`s no intent beyond that. I`m happy to participate in this process to clarify any confusion that may exist.

Do you anticipate that to be generally the reset the reaction you`ll get from the targets of these subpoenas?

LURIA: I can only hope so. And it is encouraging to hear that at least one of the people receiving the subpoenas intends to cooperate with the committee to provide full information. And, you know, the question is, you know, to what level were these people conspiring or were they being led by another group of people who are selling them, you know, a false story that they were doing something legitimate in order to support what was being sold as a legitimate process? But it`s clearly not.

I mean, as you outlined in your intro, you know, this was a plan. It was a plan for a coup. And it`s very clear. Like I said, there`s the memo, the Eastman memo, there`s the receipts. And you know, all the evidence that we`re continuing to gather just corroborate what was very clearly put out in the public even while before January 6.

HAYES: It`s worth just zeroing in on something and I`d like to get your reaction to it. I don`t know what was communicated obviously to these electors. The less corrupt intent that appears to be at least the cover story or perhaps the actual story is believed by these individuals, as Mr. Hitt is saying, is that they were kind of like a backup slate of electors. And if it turned out that all this fraud was true, and you know, it came through, then they would be there to be swapped in.

But then when you look at the Eastman memo, it`s very clear that their very existence and purpose is there to facilitate Mike Pence essentially pulling off the coup. It`s not about well, if they -- you know, if he gets to the point, it`s precisely so that he can use them for that purpose. And it seems like maybe there was a little bit of hucksterism around the story being told to various parties here.

LURIA: You know, I think that`s something that will potentially learn from talking to these individuals. It`s hard to tell with 14 individuals. And they`re only representative of two from each state, so there were more people involved. It`s hard to tell, you know, to what extent they, you know, were part of making this plot or this plan or understood how they were being used. And will have to learn that from talking to them and really understanding how they fit into the picture.

But they certainly believed it enough to sign their name to a piece of paper and send it in as an official document.

HAYES: Yes -- no. There`s no -- there`s no hiding from this at this point. And these are -- some of these are elected officials. They`re known entities. They`re going to have to answer for what they did. Congresswoman Elaine Luria, thanks for joining us tonight.

Nikolas Wu of Politico has been doing outstanding reporting on this investigation into the false electors and he joins me now. Nick, you have a piece of the subpoenas today in Politico. You know, something just clicked into place today, so I`m going to just say it to you and get your reaction.

When I first saw this story, I was like, you know, what`s New Mexico doing in there? Right? The other states we -- you know, there`s a lot of attention paid to them. They`re Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. What`s the deal with New Mexico?

And it wasn`t until our second producer Alec pointed out that line in the - - in the John Eastman memo which I went back and read that basically you need New Mexico to make the math work, that the seven states isn`t an accident. It`s all got to add up to enough to take enough votes out of the Electoral College to make the coup work for Mike Pence, which suggests a real level of sophisticated plotting that went into this.

NICHOLAS WU, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Yes. I mean --or at least the ability to do very basic math to get you over the plot in terms of electoral votes. But the interesting thing about the New Mexico electors is that that one and the Pennsylvania ones shared similar language with a caveat, saying that, yes, these would be the, you know, the correct electors for that state. But only if Republicans prevailed in their legal challenges, this is not what the other states sent.

And so, when you ask some of the legal authorities in the states about potential prosecution of crimes, you know, Pennsylvania actually said that they -- this did not necessarily rise to their level of a crime potentially because of this carve out in the language in the certificates.

[20:15:32]

HAYES: That`s fascinating. So, that pertains exactly to the sort of cover story I was talking to the congresswoman about. This sort of -- this is all a hedge. We`re not trying to be imposters, we`re just there as a backup, and we`re telling you were a backup or like an alternate or an understudy on Broadway. Like if those electors go down, like we`re there.

And you`re saying that in two of the states, that language is explicit there, and the other is it`s not, which in some ways makes those other ones you know, more incriminating insofar as they don`t have that language, it looks a lot more like an actual attempt to sort of purport to be the electors.

WU: Right. And that`s, you know, part of the committee`s interest in this, right? Trying to see you know, whether there was coordination here, how exactly all this came to be. Was the Trump campaign or White House involved in planning all this?

But -- and the interesting thing here, too, historically, is that, you know, we have to look back over 60 years to 1960 back when there was somewhat of a disputed election in Hawaii in all places where a Nixon had actually been certified there. You know, imagine when a Republican could win Hawaii. And, you know, there were alternate slates of electors then sent.

But this was in the middle of an active recount. And so, you have an entirely different variable there that you didn`t have in these cases. But you see a lot of these Republicans in the states point to that precedent anyway.

HAYES: Yes. And I wonder too -- I mean, I don`t know what your reporting suggests about these individuals. I mean, these -- we`ve seen some real squirreliness from some of the folks. One of the -- one of the individuals who`s an elected state rep or state senator, I believe, in Arizona, when confronted, just said, well, you`re going to have to talk someone else. I don`t -- I don`t really know.

So, it`ll be interesting to see how forthcoming these folks are, how cooperative they are, and what they actually say, because I don`t think we know a ton about -- they haven`t been very vocal about who talked to them, who coordinated, who made sure they all came on the same day and signed the document, etcetera.

WU: Exactly. Which is why when my colleague and I had asked the Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson about this, she actually raised the idea that some of these people could actually have been duped somehow or misled into signing these pieces of paper, and in doing so, had created some level of legal exposure for themselves.

And this will all be part of the committee`s examination here whether or not they can, you know, get any of these people to testify and then figure out yes, whether or not they really were true believers here or perhaps they were duped or otherwise deceived somehow.

HAYES: There`s also an interesting aspect to this as well, which is a lot of the focus -- I mean, obviously, the Department of Justice`s investigations into the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that have been arrested and charged. And then a lot of the January 6 committee on the White House, the campaign, folks adjacent present. This now reaches into the state parties where a lot of this was happening. And it`s an aspect of investigation we really haven`t gotten to as of yet.

WU: Exactly. We know that the committee has a team actually devoted to these state-level efforts to overturn the election and meddle at the local level. But this is something that has gone a little bit more under the radar compared to their higher-profile investigations into say, you know, the money trail of January 6 or the attack itself. Which is why I found it so interesting, but earlier on, you actually did see the committee meet with secretaries of state in several of these key swing states and turn over documents to the committee.

HAYES: Nicholas Wu who`s been doing great reporting on this, thanks for joining us tonight.

WU: Thanks, Chris.

HAYES: We`ve detailed at length that many plans and schemes and Rube Goldberg-like attempts by Donald Trump and his supporters to steal the election and how they all failed. The fake electors` stunt didn`t work in the end. They couldn`t pressure officials into magically finding Trump votes. They couldn`t convince Vice President Pence, thankfully, to overturn the election on January 6 by banging gavel and declaring Trump president.

So, now, Republicans are working on a new plan for the next election which is to simply limit the amount of people who are voting in the first place. And a new report from Ari Berman reveals it might be working. He joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:20:00]

HAYES: Even though both the Justice Department and the January 6 Committee are investigating the fake elector plot in Georgia among other states, Republicans in Georgia continue to work to suppress the vote and shape the electric to their liking to ensure that they decide who`s elected in that state.

Remember, early last year, they put a new law on the books that will among other things, give voters less time to request absentee ballots, enforce strict new ID requirements for absentee ballots, drastically slashed the number of ballot drop boxes and make offering food or water to voters waiting in line a misdemeanor charge. That law has already had an effect at the polls.

A new report by Mother Jones finds that during municipal elections in November, that`s in 2021, right, so the year after the election, Georgia voters were 45 times more likely to have their mail ballot applications rejected and ultimately not counted as a result than in 2020. If that same rejection rate were extrapolated for the 2020 race, more than 38,000 votes would not have been cast in a presidential contest decided again by just over 11,000 votes.

But Georgia Republicans are still not satisfied. New York Times reports that with the midterm elections looming at the end of this year, they are considering more voting restrictions. One Republican state senator is promoting a new measure to prohibit the use of dropboxes for absentee ballots which he said would increased security though no problems with their use by voters have been verified. Another would create a constitutional amendment to prevent non-citizens from voting, even though they`re already barred from voting under existing state law.

Even if those don`t get those -- they don`t get those passed by November, the mere suggestion it might be even harder to vote is already perhaps suppressing the vote before a single ballot is cast in the midterms.

This week, a poll by Quinnipiac found that 34 percent of black Voters in Georgia expect it will be somewhat or very difficult for them to vote in 2022 compared to just seven percent of Black voters who felt that way about their voting experience in 2020.

Ari Berman is one of the foremost reporters on voter suppression efforts. He helped break the news about how many Georgians were disenfranchised by GOP voting restrictions for Mother Jones, and is also the author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. And he joins me now.

Ari, take me through the math here and the cause and effect, right? So, what is it about the new voter law that was passed that is leading to this wildly elevated rate of rejections for absentee ballots?

[20:25:44]

ARI BERMAN, SENIOR REPORTER, MOTHER JONES: Hey, Chris, well, thank you for having me. So, we found that mail ballot applications are 45 times more likely to be rejected and people not vote in 2021 compared to 2020. The main reason for this is that the State of Georgia dramatically shorten the window of time that people have to request absentee ballot.

So, before you could request it up until the Friday before Election Day, now you can request it no later than 11 days before the election. So, a lot of people are requesting ballots, 10, nine, eight, seven days before the election, like they did in 2020, and they`re no longer able to get a mail ballot.

At the same time, even people who get mail ballots are seeing those ballots rejected at twice the rate compared to 2020 because Georgia did things like add new ID requirements, cut the number of drop boxes where you drop a ballot off, things like that.

So, first off, a lot people just aren`t getting ballots in the first place. But even if you`re able to get a ballot, you`re seeing a higher chance that your ballot is being rejected.

HAYES: And do we know if those folks whose ballots are being rejected -- because it`s the application, right? Do we know if they show up in person anyway or do we have any way of sort of tracking what that looks like?

BERMAN: We do. Only one in four people whose mail ballot applications were rejected subsequently voted in person. Wow. So, 75 percent of people who are rejected are choosing not to vote. And I think that makes sense. People want to vote by mail for specific reasons. They probably can`t get to the polls or they don`t want to go to the polls during a pandemic, and so they`re not willing to take that risk or they`re not able to take that kind of risk.

And what we`re seeing is real-world evidence of voter disenfranchisement here. I think that`s the most important takeaway from this story. You have Mitch McConnell saying states aren`t engaging in voter suppression. You have Joe Manchin saying that no one is going to be obstructed from voting. Well, people are being obstructed from voting. They`re being obstructed from voting in record numbers.

We`re seeing massive increases in voter disenfranchisement, a 4,500 percent increase in rejected mail ballots, a 200 percent increase in rejected ballots. I mean, these are very large numbers. And I think we could be very worried about what might happen in 2022 when there`s a much larger electorate turning out.

HAYES: Yes. So, in terms of that -- I mean, in terms of that worry as well, let`s talk about the Quinnipiac poll because I think, you know, there`s a few things going on. I mean, obviously, the new law and obviously, the messages coming from Republicans. But I also worry or wonder about a little bit of a sort of Heisenberg particle problem here which is like, the press coverage of the laws produce a perception that it`s going to be very hard to vote, and that itself has a kind of effect on how much energy and time people have to put into it. And I`m wondering how much you`ve thought about that?

BERMAN: Well, this is what I do for a living, so I think about it a lot. But I mean, I think what you want to do is you need to make people aware of the laws because if they don`t understand the laws, their votes are not going to be countered. And it`s very clear that we`re seeing that in Georgia. At the same time, you want to show that people can successfully navigate the system.

But it`s clear to me from talking to people in Georgia that absent a massive voter education and voter mobilization effort, there could be a lot more voters disenfranchised in 2022. And that`s not perception. That`s just math at this point based on the numbers we have in 2021. Because remember, the election we`re talking about 21 was a municipal election in Georgia. So, it had the highest educated voters, the most informed voters on the voting process turning out in local elections.

HAYES: Right.

BERMAN: A lot of people are going to turn out in 2022 and 2024 who aren`t as knowledgeable about the voting laws. They are much more likely to request mail ballots late or not -- put the right ID on or get tripped up somewhere else in the system. So, all those people running for office Raphael Warnock, Stacey Abrams, all the people on the ground, Black Voters Matter, New Georgia Project, they really going to have their work cut out for them making sure that people know what the law is and that their votes will be counted.

HAYES: That`s a great point because this is a 2021 being an off-year election. It`s already a very self-selective group of highly motivated voters who are voting on Election and kind of know what`s up even if they know enough to say, hey, it`s a municipal election in an off, off-year in 2021 you can see this much bigger problem.

[20:30:01]

The last thing I would say, just as an obvious point that you mentioned is there was no reason to cut the window of time down. Like that had nothing to do with anything. There was no problem that solved. There was no finding or study that said like, well, this being open this long is producing security issues or fraud. Like there was literally no reason, am I right?

BERMAN: No, the system worked great in Georgia, the number of voters that didn`t cast ballots because their applications came in too late was 0.05 percent of Georgia.

So basically, everyone was able to vote by mail. People loved using drop boxes. Brian Kemp requested his mail ballot on the Friday before Election Day and voted via dropbox on Election Day. Two things that are now illegal because of the law he signed.

So, I mean, there, there it is for you right there. The system worked so great for Brian Kemp that he then outlawed it for the next election.

HAYES: That is an incredible, incredible fact about this, we should say just the numbers here. Right, the last time it was 0.05 percent getting rejected because of missing the deadline in this last year was 2.19 percent. That`s the enormous increase you`re talking about.

Ari Berman, thank you so much.

BERMAN: Thanks so much, Chris.

HAYES: This week, we learned that under President Biden, the economy grew so much in 2021, that you`d have to go back 40 years to find another success story. It`s a huge victory. So, why doesn`t it feel that way? That`s next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:35:38]

HAYES: Some of the most incredible economic news in recent memory came out yesterday and pretty much fall under the radar.

The Commerce Department announced the nation`s gross domestic product as the total of the economy grew 5.7 percent last year, that`s faster than China for the first time in two decades, it was the strongest year of economic growth we have seen in this country since all the way back in 1984.

Now, 1984 is a very significant year in the history of American Political Economy, perhaps the most important year because it was the year that Ronald Reagan ran for reelection campaigning on how he had turned the economy around after inheriting the so-called stagflation, high unemployment, high inflation brought to you by the liberals and Jimmy Carter. Well, he turned it around. He said it was famously morning in America again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s morning again in America. Today, more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country`s history. With interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980. Nearly 2,000 families today will buy new homes, more than at any time in the past four years.

This afternoon, 6,500 young men and women will be married. And with inflation of less than half of what it was just four years ago, we can look forward with confidence to the future. It`s morning again in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Now, let`s be clear, that is a damn good political ad. And of course, the message worked quite well for President Reagan.

In fact, he won in a massive landslide carrying 49 states. And the legacy of that victory is that it really cemented a particular ideological story the right-wing has told about economics for nearly 40 years.

They are still arguing that trickle-down economics, especially big tax cuts for the rich and for corporations, it unleashes America`s dynamism and it fosters growth.

Even though that is not really borne out at all over decades of economic data. I mean, this chart shows just one example we`ve been slower overall growth in GDP under supply side conservative policies.

Now, we`re seeing the reverse, OK? Joe Biden`s highly ambitious America Rescue Plan, which they passed very soon into getting in the office. This bottom up economic policy has done all sorts of great things, it sent most Americans $1,400 COVID relief checks, extended unemployment benefits, increased the child tax credit. And all of this together produce the fantastic growth we saw in that announcement yesterday.

The problem of course, is no one seems to feel like this is what`s happening. It doesn`t feel like morning.

Recent polling from Gallup found that Americans view the economy more negatively than positively overall, with just 29 percent saying the economy is improving while 67 percent think it is still getting worse.

I recently heard a comedian Aziz Ansari`s new stand up special and he`s got a great riff on this. He was talking about how so many people have quit their jobs to take new ones and companies keep on going without them. But they`ve got new workers are not enough.

And so, everything is just run a little bit shoddier. Everything in the economy just feels like more passively (PH). And I think the big defining question right now is whether the inflation and then that hassle disruption from the pandemic, those things making everything feel a little bit worse, if they`re going to go away and unleash a full morning in America story for Joe Biden.

And there`s a case for that. And one of the top economists in the country made it very persuasively yesterday, he will join me ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:43:15]

HAYES: The first year of the Biden economy has outpaced every single prediction from every single corner from the government to private banks and Wall Street about how fast American growth could recover. It blew through all the estimates growing at its fastest pace since 1984.

It amounts to one of the greatest macroeconomic policy success stories in a generation. And it`s currently under attack from right-wing politicians and media and getting drowned out by the angst of high prices, but it is there.

Jason Furman is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He served as the 28th Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama.

He has a piece on this issue titled: The U.S. economy grew faster than expected in 2021, but the pandemic transformed its composition. And he joins me now.

Jason, you know, you were there dealing with the difficulty of the last time a Democratic President was sworn into office with the country in the midst of crisis and huge economic challenges.

And so, and I think you have the scars to show for it, because it`s a very difficult job that you all inherited in the Obama administration. What would you say -- how would you characterize the -- what`s the policy grade you give the macro-economic and fiscal response this time around?

JASON FURMAN, NONRESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW, PETERSON INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS: You know, I`m glad that we`ve seen such a big response. You know, there`s two differences between this experience and the experience we had before. The first is this was, in some ways, like a natural disaster that hit, it`s not all the way gone away, but it`s somewhat gone away.

The second is our policy response was too small. I think that`s one erred on the side of being too large. But you know, I`m glad when I see the economic growth that you just showed your viewers.

[20:45:04]

HAYES: Yes, I mean, I guess there`s this -- there`s a little bit of this sort of Goldilocks question. And the question is, if you`re going to miss, in what direction?

And you know, you could have a situation in which prices are low and inflation is low and we`ve got unemployment at seven percent. At which point everyone will be complaining about unemployment, obviously, not about inflation. But it seems to me like this is the better problem to have, which is part of the key my understanding of the macroeconomic targeting that happened here.

FURMAN: Oh, look, yes, I`d much rather have a low unemployment rate and a high inflation rate than the opposite. Absolutely.

I mean, we can debate if you went back in time, could you have done something better? Should the Fed be doing something different? They`re starting to change what they`re doing. So, I don`t think there is, you know, zero constraint on what you do. I don`t think the more the better is always true. There is a Goldilocks part of it.

On the big picture 3.9 percent unemployment, 5-1/2 percent growth this past year. You know, that`s really, really impressive.

HAYES: So, then the question becomes like what happens, right? Because I think the best case for both the country economically and for the Biden administration, politically, is that we see that the inflation has been essentially produced by the disruption of the pandemic, that as that diminishes, inflation diminishes, although none of that is guaranteed, as we saw with Omicron. And that you end up in a situation where prices come down and growth maintains and I wonder how likely you think that is?

FURMAN: You know, I -- inflation partly has been disrupted by the pandemic and policy has played a role as well. The Fed has assigned the job of dealing with inflation, the president`s doing some things in terms of ports, and the like, all of that`s really worth doing, I support all of that. I don`t think any of that`s going to make a very big difference.

What`s going to make a big difference is the Fed. And what`s notable is the Fed isn`t acting just because of inflation, it`s also acting because the economy is in much, much better shape. We don`t need massive emergency support for an economy deep and recession when the unemployment rate is 3.9.

So, what the Fed is going to be doing over this coming year, is as much because of the growth picture you showed before, we`re in decent shape. They should help it along but not in the same way they were helping for the last two years.

HAYES: How likely do you think -- I mean, I get this feeling of disruption, right? That is everywhere you look in the economy, I guess there`s no way look into a crystal ball because the pandemic itself is so unpredictable in certain ways. But how likely you think that unwinding in the near term is?

FURMAN: We`re beginning to see some normalization of the economy. One of the crazy things in the economy is people are spending way more on goods and weigh less on services, you see that everywhere. Personal care products, spending is way up. personal care service spending is way down.

People are spending about 15 percent more on sporting goods equipment than they normally do, and about 15 percent less on gym memberships than they normally do.

If you look at the last three months, though, service spending has been rising, good spending has been falling. And so, the economy is starting to look, you know, a little bit more normal. And you see that in some other, you know, wonkier section -- sectors of the economy like inventories, exports and imports.

All of that is going back towards looking like a more normal pattern for the economy, but we still have a decent ways to go.

HAYES: All right, Jason Furman, thank you very much.

FURMAN: Thanks.

HAYES: Coming up, tens of millions of Americans are under winter watches as a storm system works its way up the East Coast, potentially dropping more than two feet of snow, bringing hurricanes speed winds. And how the planet`s warming oceans are fueling this extreme weather, after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:53:10]

HAYES: Hear in New York and across the Northeast, millions of people are bracing for a potentially monster winter storm this weekend. The storm is making its way up the East Coast, it`s expected to strengthen into a bomb cyclone sometime tonight. High winds and heavy snow.

It`s already triggered the first blizzard warnings on the East Coast in four years, it could dump up to three feet of snow in Boston. It`s just the latest extreme weather event which is fueled by climate change.

The 10 hottest years on record are all within the last decade and a half. And the planet`s oceans just had their hottest year ever. A warm ocean water basically acts as fuel supercharging hurricanes, it`s warmer (PH) over the ocean. Warmer planet, warmer oceans, bigger storms.

In the case of tonight`s storm, the warming Atlantic is helping to create the perfect conditions for a big blizzard. As Bloomberg puts it, winter storms derive their power in part from the wide contrast and temperature. With sub-freezing temperatures over land and mild water just off the coast, this current nor`easter has a potential to be a beast.

This is of course going to keep happening, weather events getting more and more extreme, the more we heat up the planet with fossil fuels and carbon emissions.

Fortunately, tonight, there`s a little bit of good news on that front. A federal judge just invalidated oil and gas drilling leases over more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico. Ruling the Biden administration did not sufficiently take climate change into account when it auctioned the leases late last year.

Lisa Friedman is covering the news for the New York Times and she joins me now. Lisa, can you tell us, what were these leases and who sued to stop them?

LISA FRIEDMAN, CLIMATE CHANGE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Thanks, Chris. So, these leases were in the Gulf of Mexico, as you said, about 80 million acres and this was established under the Trump administration. But the lease sale was scheduled to happen in November of 2021.

[20:55:05]

FRIEDMAN: The Biden administration came in with a very strong climate change -- climate change agenda. One of its top policy issues was to block new leases on federal lands and waters, that ran into roadblocks and they were forced to hold this lease sale, about 1.7 million acres were ultimately sold.

And yesterday, a judge said to the Interior Department, this is an invalid lease sale, we did not take climate change into account well enough. And you need to go back to the drawing board and really take -- do a deep study on the impacts that this lease sale will have on climate change.

HAYES: And what is the judges -- the sort of legal rationale here for the judge to block this because it`s encouraging. Obviously, we`ve failed in many ways to pass climate legislation. But there are many parts of existing law that can be interpreted as pertaining the climate, we saw that with the Clean Air Act being used in certain ways. What`s the legal reasoning of the judge here?

FRIEDMAN: Sure. I mean, under the National Environmental Policy Act, you know, agencies are required to study the impacts of projects that the federal government is involved with.

You know, increasingly, we`re seeing judges saying, you cannot just do a simple study of climate change, you really need to account for in the case of this project, not just the domestic emissions, but foreign emissions as well, that will occur because of the burning of, in this case, oil and gas if these leases are developed.

You know, I think this is a somewhat new thing that legal analysts are telling me that they`re seeing is a real emphasis among judges on making sure that the federal government is very clearly and transparently explaining to the public what the impact of climate change is on the projects that are going through the governmental regulations.

HAYES: There are other leases again, we should say the Department of Interior owns this land. It`s a huge part of what interior does. They take the land, they lease it out to people to extract things on. And this has been par for the course for over a century. There are other leases that the -- that were sort of lined up to start the Biden administration has actually proactively revoked, including one near in the Minnesota wilderness, which was a Trump era decision.

What is the policy -- aside from this Gulf of Mexico, what is the kind of policy posture of the Biden administration so far?

FRIEDMAN: Well, look, you know, administration officials have said, you know, over the past several months that they have felt that they were in sort of a rock -- between a rock and a hard place on this, particularly the South. They tried to ban new leases across the United States and federal lands and waters and a judge block that.

That same judge in Louisiana court said you must go forward with this lease sale. And they did. You know, they are taking other steps, as you pointed out, to block new mining, and they`re also starting to really move forward with other regulations to reduce emissions in the transportation sector and elsewhere.

HAYES: They`ve also -- you wrote about a big -- two big solar projects that they just approved. Again, these are all things happening, sort of through this executive channel. Two approved solar projects, and a third for which approval is nearing completion will generate 1,000 megawatts, enough electricity to power about 132,000 homes, the Interior Department said.

This seems like a growing focus of this administration on the executive level, which is to push these projects forward.

FRIEDMAN: Absolutely. I mean, as we`ve all seen, this administration is struggling to pass its centerpiece agenda, the Build Back Better Act, which would go a long way in helping President Biden reach his goals of cutting U.S. emissions roughly in half from 2005 levels by the end of this decade.

And so, they`re taking plan B. And maybe that`s not even quite the way to say it, because I think the administration has always been planning to use several routes to achieve their goals. But there`s certainly much more of an emphasis right now on the things they can do without going through Congress.

HAYES: Yes, and we should note that the climate portion of the Build Back Better I think is very much not dead. Just my own reporting with folks on the Hill, and I know you`ve reported on this as well. So, we`re going to keep following up on that as that proceeds.

Lisa Friedman, great reporting. Thank you.

FRIEDMAN: Thank you.

HAYES: That is ALL IN for tonight, The Rachel show -- "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now with Ayman Mohyeldin in for Rachel. Good evening, Ayman.

AYMAN MOHYELDIN, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thank you so much. I greatly appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of your evening. And thank you to all of you at home for joining us this hour. Rachel has the night off. She`s going to be back on Monday but don`t worry, I know why you`re here.