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Transcript: All In with Chris Hayes, 1/6/22

Guest: Jamie Raskin, Brian Schatz, Ian Bassin, Heather McGhee

Summary

Today is January 6, 2022, the one year anniversary of a violent mob storming the U.S. Capitol in a deadly insurrection aimed at disrupting the peaceful transfer of power for really the first time in this country`s history. Earlier today, President Joe Biden offered his vision of January 6, as something of a historical inflection point. Earlier tonight, on the steps of the Capitol building, a group of lawmakers held a candlelight prayer vigil marking the anniversary of the insurrection and honoring those who defended the Capitol and those who lost their lives.

Transcript

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: And that same fearless fight for justice is being fought today by folks like Latasha Brown, Stacey Abrams, and all the election workers who face death threats for counting our votes, these people are bending the arc of America`s moral universe towards justice. They are waiting for it to just happen.

So, remember, with 10 months to the next election, we are not powerless. The greatest defenders of democracy are not those in power. It`s you, the millions of Americans living your lives quietly trying to do what`s right. If democracy has any hope of surviving, it will take all of us to keep bending that moral arc towards justice.

And that is tonight`s REIDOUT. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voiceover): Tonight on ALL IN.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One year ago today, in this sacred place, democracy was attacked.

HAYES: One year later, the president attempts to rally a nation.

BIDEN: I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. I will not allow no one to place a dagger in the throat of democracy.

HAYES: Tonight, what history will record a full year since Donald Trump`s failed coup, the fight to stop the slow-motion insurrection in the states.

And what happens next, in a country where one of the two major political parties is abandoning democracy?

STEVE BANNON, RADIO HOST: Cease the day.

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): We`re ashamed of nothing. We`re proud of the work that we did on January 6.

HAYES: Special edition of ALL IN starts right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES (on camera): Good evening, I`m Chris Hayes. Today is January 6, 2022, the one year anniversary of a violent mob storming the U.S. Capitol in a deadly insurrection aimed at disrupting the peaceful transfer of power for really the first time in this country`s history.

And this date, January6, has taken on the sense of power and resonance in the cultural imagination in a way that few dates do. It`s probably the most infamous date in this country`s history since September 11.

And today, we saw in full display the battle over the meaning of this date. Because right now, we do not know what January 6 will mean generations down the line. You know, as you travel across the world, you encounter lots of places named after dates, usually marking the occasion of a revolution or a military victory or hard-won battle for independence.

It`s the case of the city and street Nueve de Julio in Argentina or the neighborhood Diez de Octubre in Cuba, both of which celebrate their nation`s Independence. Or 26 July Street in downtown Cairo celebrating the revolution that overthrew the monarchy in that country.

Years from now, we could see something similar celebrating January 6. There could be plazas dedicated to the insurrectionists all over the country. It sounds preposterous now, but in the aftermath of the Civil War, it probably sounded preposterous there would be an avenue named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Brooklyn, New York. But General Lee Avenue exists as such to this day.

So, right now, in this very moment, there`s a fight over how to signify what this date today will mean in our country`s collective memory. Earlier today, President Joe Biden offered his vision of January 6, as something of a historical inflection point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: So, now let`s step up. Write the next chapter in American history where January six marks not the end of democracy, but the beginning of a renaissance of liberty and fair play. I did not seek this fight brought to this Capital one year ago today, but I will not shrink from it either.

I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation, not allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Now, it probably goes without saying I believe that Biden`s position is the correct one here. And one year ago, it appeared as though Republicans agreed. I mean, Republican leadership in both the House and the Senate condemned the violence, even as a majority of House Republicans then after the violence went into the chamber to vote to abet the coup, voting to refuse to certify the results of the election.

But today, one year later, the response from congressional Republicans has been overwhelmingly silence, exemplified starkly by this image of the only two Republicans in the House Chamber today. On the lower right side of your screen, you will see vice-chair of the committee investigating the insurrection Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming in red and to her right her father of all people, former Vice President Dick Cheney.

That is it, just the two of them. The rest of the Republican Party, it seems, has yet to reach a consensus on how to frame the events of January 6, except to agree that it really was not all that bad.

Florida`s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis decried what he says is the unnecessary politicization of the 6th which of course was well, an inherently political event perpetrated by one party in response to an electoral loss.

[20:05:14]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): I think it`s going to end up being just a politicized Charlie Foxtrot today. I don`t expect anything good to come out of anything that Pelosi and the gang are doing. I don`t expect anything from the corporate press to be enlightening. I think it`s going to be nauseating, quite frankly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Nauseating. Fox News played whataboutism with the events of the day with one anchor publicly speculating why Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi only paid tribute to the police officers who lost their lives and not Ashli Babbitt, the insurrectionist who was killed by law enforcement as he tried to force her way through a door leading to the lobby of the House chamber.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS FAULKNER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: One went, the other went, and now it is done. One year later, January 6, she recognized the police officers only not the fifth person who was also killed that day. We`ll move on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Yes, let`s move on. Republican Congressman Tom Reed of New York who as recently as last May called the insurrection and assault on our democracy and backed creating a bipartisan committee investigate it put out a statement today saying that January 6, was, "The darkest day of my congressional career." But then turned around and said he is still supporting Donald Trump, the man who incited the assaults in the first place.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TOM REED (R-NY): President Trump is the candidate that`s representing the Republican Party. I will support him because the Republican Party that I believe in that would put him in that position is the party that`s going to see us into the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: And speaking of Donald Trump, the ex-president who fomented the insurrection, who watched it unfold, refusing to intervene, indeed, by some accounts, watching with excitement, released a predictably unhinged statement today, in his own bid, to cache the memory and the significance of the date lying about the results of the 2020 election again, predictably, and implicitly endorsing the events of the sixth as a necessary political uprising, which has been his position for a while now.

"To watch Biden speaking is very hurtful to many people. They`re the ones who tried to stop the peaceful transfer with a rigged election. America is a laughingstock stock of the world. And it`s all because of the real insurrection which took place on November 3, the real insurrection. Never forget the crime of the 2020 presidential election. Never give up."

What do you think that means? What do you think people hear when they hear that? What do you think he wants to do again? That position that the real insurrection was the democratic election in which a majority voted him out, that`s a position that is shared by -- well, articulated at least by Trump`s most aberrant most anti-social followers, who are the vanguard of the MAGA movement, and the vanguard of a movement to turn this into a day of celebratory occasion.

Like Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz who openly expresses admiration for the insurrectionists. Some of them beat and tased police officers and said he would celebrate their actions today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, RADIO HOST: Cease the day.

GAETZ: We`re ashamed of nothing. We`re proud of the work that we did on January 6 --

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR-GREENE (R-GA): That`s right.

GAETZ: -- to make legitimate arguments about election integrity. So, we`re going to make those arguments today and a press conference at 2:15. And we`re actually going to go walk the grounds that patriotic Americans walked from the White House to the Capitol who had no intent of breaking the law or doing violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: That is where the Republican Party will try to take this, mark my words. And the meaning of January 6 depends on what comes next. It`s just not set. History doesn`t decide. It gets made. Gaetz will not be the only one pushing ashamed or nothing line. There`s a contingent, a faction in American life, a minority faction, but one that has essentially seized one of the two parties that want to turn today into a holiday, an occasion to celebrate. And they could win.

If everyone who believes in American democracy, who believes as I do, the core vision of a multiracial multi-sectarian, self-governing people across all sorts of lines of difference, commanding our own fate together collectively for ourselves, if all of those people across those lines of difference do not band together in the face the people who refuse to be ashamed of their attack on that principle one year ago, then the recollection of this day could look very different in the future.

Congressman Jamie Raskin is Democrat from Maryland. He is a member of the House Select Committee to investigate January 6. He was the lead impeachment manager for the second trial of Donald Trump for his role in the insurrection. He has a new memoir about the insurrection and its aftermath titled Unthinkable. And he joins me now.

Congressman, what do you see as the importance of shaping the understanding of this day one year after it happened, one year after you were there with your daughter and your son in law?

[20:10:10]

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, it`s everything. I mean, either people are going to understand that this is the expression of a basically fascistic movement that connects the highest reaches in the Republican Party, and Donald Trump with violent fascistic streak criminals where they don`t understand that.

But we are up against a serious right-wing authoritarian attack on American political democracy. So, if we allow it to be swept under the rug, or trivialized, or minimized by people like Matt Gaetz, then we are in very certain danger of opening the road to right wing authoritarianism to take over American government.

HAYES: I thought this image today of Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney and that chamber where they are the only two Republicans who show up for the sort of commemoration and the moment of silence. I found that stark and worth 1000 words and unnerving. What do you see when you see that?

RASKIN: Well, first of all, there were no Republicans in the chamber at all. It was just completely empty, devoid, not as usual just of ideas but devoid of physical presence over on their side of the aisle. And that was chilling was a little bit like a sci-fi movie.

And I was happy that Liz came and I`m happy that she brought her dead because I`ve been trying to check out the history of coups around the world in, you know, Greece, Argentina, Chile, whatever. You can`t find an example of an attempted coup and serious fascist pushing the society where progressives and liberal parties alone defeat fascism. You need a coalition of liberals and the center-right.

And Liz Cheney, has a high burden of Hope placed on her as well as Adam Kinzinger and a handful of others who stood strong, because they represent the possibility that we will really have a broad coalition of constitutional patriots in America who are resisting what Donald Trump is trying to do to us.

HAYES: Yes, and I should note that Kinzinger I think issued a statement saying he wanted to be there but could not today. And he would have been there if he -- if he could have. This question of accountability which sort of haunts the spectrum, I mean, I think you have Republicans basically en mass not wanting to say anything. A few, like I said, in the vanguard, who will -- who will celebrate it and go on Steve Bannon podcast.

But there`s also the question of the -- a year later, I mean, who has really paid a price for this, other than a hundreds of sort of foot soldiers who are have been arrested?

RASKIN: Well, but that`s an important point to make where, you know, there are more than 700 prosecutions that are underway, which should give some comfort to people who feel like the Department of Justice isn`t doing anything.

But it also should be a very important message to Donald Trump`s own followers, that he`s perfectly happy to send in these foot soldiers to go and essentially ruin their lives and put their families at risk and kept people injured and killed. He won`t even come to our trial to defend his own conduct. He wouldn`t even come and testify or turn anything over.

He`s a complete snowflake. And he`s willing to get other people killed and other people hurt, including the people who`ve fallen into his cult, but he`s not willing to stand up and to defend his own conduct. It`s really disgraceful.

HAYES: Yes, and in fact, you will note that while money has been taken from donors to pay for the president`s legal defense and a few people in his inner circle, that large jest has not extended to the hundreds and hundreds of people who essentially answered his call to storm the Capitol on that day, which goes to your point.

RASKIN: Well, and remember, he authorized his lawyers at the Senate trial when we pressed them on it to denounce the violence. And they said they thought it was disgusting and sickening, and nobody would ever utter a positive word for the insurrectionists on their side of the aisle, and, you know, on their defense team. And of course, Trump now is saying that they greeted the police officers with hugs and kisses and it was basically like the second coming of MLK`s march on Washington. It`s utterly fraudulent. And Donald Trump refuses to take a stand.

You know, either you should denounce his lawyers for denouncing the insurrection, or he should, you know, say that he`s opposed to criminal violence. But he won`t say that because fascist political tendencies like his are always surrounded by violence, and he has egged him on from the beginning, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, the Proud Boys that Aryan Nations, you know, the militia groups, everybody who showed up that day, he has egged on their violence.

HAYES: Your book is excellent and I recommend it highly. I`ve actually read it. We had a conversation about it. You are -- you have suffered a tremendous personal loss in the death of your son a year ago, a little more than a year ago, and obviously living through this day. And you remain a fairly hopeful person.

What gives you hope as you stare down the barrel of this year, as you do the work on the January 6, Select Committee because I think there is a temptation to succumb to a kind of despair and doom, watching just how malformed, how aberrant, how insidious the highest levels of one of our two parties has become?

RASKIN: Well, first of all, thank you for reading my book. That gives me some hope that people are reading my book in a really serious way and engaging that. But look, my dad used to say when everything looks hopeless, you`re the hope. And we don`t have time for despair. And we don`t have time for despondency.

Unfortunately, we`ve got to help people who are going through that who have no other choice, but we need everybody out here engaging in democracy this year. We need everybody. That`s why mental health is such a critical issue. But I look also to the past. I look to Frederick Douglass who was a great Marylander, who said power concedes nothing without a demand, it never has, and never will.

I looked at Abraham Lincoln who I quoted on January 6 a year ago on the floor who said that if Doom and downfall ever come to America, it will not come from monsters abroad, it will come from the monsters within, who are here. And by that he meant violent white supremacy and vigilante violence.

And he talked about a mob attack on a newspaper editor, Mr. Lovejoy, who was killed who was -- an abolitionist who was killed by a racist mob. But we also finally have to look -- and most importantly, we`ve got to look, Chris, to the future, and to the young people, because this generation of young Americans, they are beyond everything that Donald Trump wants to pump into the blood of America. They`re beyond the poisons of racism and anti- Semitism, and misogyny. They`re beyond all of that.

And we just have to galvanize the young people to get engaged, which is why my whole campaign has been turned over to Democracy Summer, a project sponsored by the (INAUDIBLE) to try to get young people involved integrally and passionately in this election year. We need all hands on deck because the Democratic Party today is the Democracy Party. FDR used to call us the democracy and that`s really who we are at this point.

HAYES: All right, Congressman Jamie Raskin, the memoir Unthinkable is out now. We talked about it at length on my podcast Why Is This Happening? That will be out next week. You`re also, Congressman Raskin, the subject of a new MSNBC film`s documentary Love and the Constitution, which is premiering here Sunday, February 6th.

Congressman, thanks so much for your time tonight.

RASKIN: Thank you so much for having me, Chris.

HAYES: Our coverage of what happened a year ago has never truly ended. We covered every single night, the ongoing assault on democracy. But it can be easy to forget the absolute horror and violence that unfolded before our very eyes.

When we return, January 6 as it happened, the first-hand accounts of those who survived it as they honor those who did not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. COLIN ALLRED (D-TX): Had those officers not held that line. I would not have met my son Cameron. So, for me, January 6, I don`t see it as a member of Congress so much. I see it as a father, as somebody who, because I didn`t know mine, I`ve always been committed to making sure that my boys knew me. And so, to the Sicknick`s family, I`ll say to you, your son`s sacrifice allowed me to meet mine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:20:00]

HAYES: Earlier tonight, on the steps of the Capitol building, a group of lawmakers held a candlelight prayer vigil marking the anniversary of the insurrection and honoring those who defended the Capitol and those who lost their lives. It`s been a day full of remembrances and commemoration of the worst attack on American democracy frontally at least since the Civil War.

But as President Joe Biden noted in a speech delivered in Statuary Hall at the Capitol, in order to really comprehend what happened one year ago, you have to bring yourself back to the terror of that day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you hold former President Trump personally responsible?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are praying for former President Trump?

BIDEN: The Bible tells us that we shall know the truth and the truth shall make us free. We shall know the truth. Well, here is the God`s truth about January 6, 2021. Close your eyes. Go back to that day. What do you see?

Rioters rampaging, waving for the first time inside this Capitol Confederate flag that symbolizes the cause to destroy America.

What else do you see? A mob breaking windows, kicking in doors, breaching the Capitol, American flag on poles being used as weapons, as spears, fire stickers being thrown at the heads of police officers.

We saw it with our own eyes rioters menace these halls, threatening life of the Speaker of the House, literally erecting gallows to hang the Vice President of the United States of America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can I speak to Pelosi? Yes, we`re coming (BLEEP). Oh, Mike Pence? We`re coming for you too (BLEEP).

CROWD: Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`ve got the gallows set up outside the Capitol building. It`s time to start (BLEEP) using them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Start making a list. Put all those names down and we start hunting them one by one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) of in the rotunda. Please be advised, there are masks under your seats. Please grab my mask placed in your left and be prepared put on your mask (INAUDIBLE).

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): When the order came to evacuate, I stayed behind for a while until two Republicans came up to me. One of them said, you can`t let them see you. I know these people. I can talk to these people. I can talk my way through these people.

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA4): I remember every moment vividly. I viscerally feel the pounding on the gallery doors.

CROWD: We want Trump! We want Trump! We want Trump!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, no violence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s too late for that.

JAYAPAL: I hear the shot ringing out. I replay how I made plans to use my gas mask and my cane newly at my side from a five-week-old knees replacement surgery to fight back if attacked. And I remember not knowing if I would make it out of our seat of democracy alive or if our democracy itself would survive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re afraid of Antifa? Well, guess what? America showed up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Knock, knock. We`re here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think Cruz would want us to do this.

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-TX): Until like many you -- with many of you, luckily a former linebacker standing next to me. We had to contemplate actually defending the floor of the House of Representatives. And at that point, I thought about what it meant. Was I willing to die for my country? Was I willing to die to make sure democracy continues? And at that time, around this time last year, I said yes, yes I would.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re outnumbered. There`s a (BLEEP) million of us out there. And we are listening to Trump, your boss.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What the extremists who roamed these halls targeted was not only the lives of elected leaders, what they sought to degrade and destroy was not only a building, hallowed as it is, what they were assaulting are the institutions, the values, the ideals that generations of Americans have marched, picketed, and shed blood to establish and defend.

HAYES: One year later, the fight for democracy is far from over. I`ll speak with a member of Congress who lived through the horror of the 6th and is warning about what is yet to come next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BRIAN SCHATZ (D-HI): One year later should be a simple, solemn commemoration of what happened in a collective unified determination to never let anything like that ever happen again. But I`m even more worried now.

Donald Trump is now defining fealty to him by one thing and one thing only. Are you willing to install him into power regardless of the vote count? And so now, every Republican politician and elected officials, secretaries of state, county elections commissioners, United States Senate candidates have to promise to put Trump above democracy itself. And many are doing it. They are now organizing the next coup in plain sight.

So, this week, we commemorate the fallen. We thank everyone who came to democracy`s defense across the country and in our great capital city. But we know that this was round one. We know that authoritarians rarely give up and we know that they aren`t doing their preparation for the next coup in hiding. They are doing it all in plain sight and they must be stopped.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii standing exactly where he was a year ago today inside the Senate as rioters stormed the Capitol warning that American democracy itself is at stake. And Senator Schatz joins me live tonight.

I talked to Congressman Jamie Raskin over on the House side today. And I`m curious your reaction to the day and whether there are a lot of Republican senators around.

SCHATZ: Republican senators are not around now. My good old friend and colleague Johnny Isakson, his funeral is today, so 30 of the -- of the Republican senators are in Atlanta, Georgia for that purpose, but 20 are not. And I just think it`s noteworthy that there was not a single Republican United States senator in the building.

HAYES: I thought as I was watching that speech, that one -- there was a chance to do something right afterwards, which is the president was impeached for a second time the first time in American history. It was the largest bipartisan vote of impeachment and the largest bipartisan vote for conviction, but not the threshold.

And one of the punishments that you could have dealt out had he been, you know, convicted in the Senate was just barred from future office. And I wonder if you think about that at all, and how different things might look in America had Republicans understood that that was their opportunity to sort of like cauterize this wound.

[20:35:32]

SCHATZ: Yes, that could have been it. They could have just used that opportunity to get rid of Trump. They used him as an instrument to get their Supreme Court justices installed, to get their tax cuts done. And then they could have thrown him on the ash heap of history having achieved a bunch of right wing goals, but basically saying, we`re going to draw the line at democracy itself. They did not draw the line at democracy itself. They have tethered themselves to him.

They had that opportunity. That offer was proffered. But remember, at that time, Mitch McConnell was still in charge of the United States Senate. And so those articles of impeachment were not going to be dealt with until we took the gavels several weeks later.

So, that would have been their opportunity. And I think looking back on it, they probably -- many of them probably wish they had gone through with it because they wouldn`t have had to deal with him ever again.

HAYES: That night, when everyone came back and reconvene for the vote, I remember thinking that the mood was bizarre, there was a kind of strange jocularity to it. And I think it was just how people were processing what had happened. There was, you know, solemnity when everyone came back, but then, you know, a lot of jokes and Lindsey Graham said, I`m off the train, and you know, Ben Sasse did a monologue about how awesome it is to shovel your neighbor`s driveway when it snows.

I remember thinking that it hadn`t sunk in then. And I wonder a year later, do you feel it has sunk into the body?

SCHATZ: No. I think it is sunk in for many of us. I think it`s sunk in for Ben Sasse. I think it`s sunk in for Mitt Romney and others. But there are others who are, you know, whistling past the graveyard. I think they really are dancing on the edge of overturning the American experiment.

And I don`t understand their justification on a human level, on a moral level. To stay in office in the United States Senate, it is the greatest honor of my life professionally, but nothing is worth that. And why be a United States Senator if you`re going to be a party to overturning democracy itself.

A lot of these people ran for office, they ran for mayor or Secretary of State or lieutenant governor or governor, you know, because they actually wanted to help their community. And now they`re sitting there all privately telling us, this guy`s insane, this guy`s an autocrat. But if it`s not me in office, it`s going to be someone even crazier than me.

And that`s why I`ve come to the very sad conclusion that the Republican Party is no longer committed to American-style democracy. There are individual Republicans who still remain committed to American-style democracy. But Donald Trump is the indisputable leader of the Democratic -- excuse me -- of the Republican Party. There is no way to win a primary without Donald Trump`s endorsement. And there`s really no way to get his endorsement unless you promise to install him into power regardless of how the votes fall.

HAYES: You called out by name two people -- two of your colleagues in that speech, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. Both of whom led the effort on the Senate side to volunteer to object to electors based on nothing, a very tortured, preposterous constitutional theory that states didn`t have the -- they weren`t allowed to determine their own election provisions.

Those two basically escaped accountability. Like, they`re -- they aided and fomented the coup. Josh Hawley famously gave them the fist to the marchers that morning. And there was some pressure on them for a while, but that seems to have gone away.

SCHATZ: I think you`ve described the situation accurately. They use their fancy educations, their big brains and their unlimited ambition to at least dance on the edge of, if not go over the line and try to overturn the American experiment. These are people who want to know better, but they have been overcome with their ambition.

And I think one of the failures of official Washington, of pundit Washington, of lobbyist Washington is that these guys are back in the fold. They`re, you know -- Ted Cruz talking about Nord Stream 2, and Josh Hawley is treated as like a thoughtful person on tech issues. They shouldn`t be allowed in the door in terms of public policy, if they`re not willing to stipulate to the basic premise that whoever gets the most votes gets to take the office.

[20:40:08]

HAYES: Yes. That basic premise is really under assault and it`s kind of the whole ballgame at a certain level. Senator Brian Schatz, thank you for your time tonight.

SCHATZ: Thank you, Chris.

HAYES: One year since the attack, just 10 months to the Midterms, what needs to be done before November, ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DAN KILDEE (D-MI): As many of you know, for me personally, the path forward after January 6 has not been an easy one. It`s been made more painful, however, by the fact that most of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to accommodate that big lie that was the predicate for the attack on our country.

To truly protect our democracy, we need truth. Truth is clear as this shard of broken glass that I have carried with me for the last 365 days. The glass that I picked up from a broken window in the capitol in the aftermath of January 6 as a reminder, a constant reminder in my pocket of the brutality of that day. We must have truth, we must have accountability.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:45:00]

HAYES: It`s often the case and people live through violent events or tragedies. They come out on the other side of it with some sort of trauma. In fact, the nation right now is living through the enduring trauma of COVID and the lives we`ve lost to that. When we look at the images of January, it`s hard not to feel some pain just as an observer. Hearing the screams of police under attack and the war crime from the mob creepily hunting down elected officials, watching a rioter get shot killed trying to break into the House chamber.

Today members of Congress were inside the Capitol when it was happening share their very personal stories. They`re moving. And I just want to play a few of them for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SARA JACOBS (D-CA): January 6 was my fourth day in office. January 6 was my first time ever to the House gallery. My team had to walk me there because I didn`t know how to get through the Capitol. I`ll never forget the buzzing of the escape hoods, the fear when I couldn`t open the packaging, the sound of the doors closing and being locked, introducing myself to my colleagues as we were hiding under the chairs, Annie Kuster grabbing my hand, fashioning weapons out of stanchions and pens, and my high heels ready to take on the rioters who were banging on the doors behind us. Climbing over chairs and under rails, not sure where the writers were and if we were going fast enough to escape them.

REP. ROSA DELAURO (D-CT): I remember, I was laying on the floor and had just a very little bit of juice left in my cell phone. And I wanted to call my husband. I wanted to call Stan. I was afraid to say I love you, because it hearkened back to September 11 and those last calls.

So I just said, I`m all right. Tell the kids, I am all right. They are going to get us out of here. And I hung up the phone.

REP. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER (D-DE): I reflect on that day, being trapped in the gallery, ultimately praying for all of our safety and peace in our nation. I also reflect on just how close, how close we were to losing it, to losing our democracy. Those of us trapped in the gallery, we lived it, ducking, crawling under over railings, hands, knees, the sounds, the smells.

We had a front-row seat to what lies hate or plain old misinformation conjures. We went from victims, to witnesses. And today we are messengers. We reflect on the fact that January 6 was about so much more than an effort to break into a building. It was an effort to break down our institutions.

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HAYES: A year later, on the sober anniversary, the question of what American democracy will be is very much an open one. Democrats have 10 months until the next election to save it.

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BIDEN: You can`t love your country only when you win. You can`t obey the law only when is convenient. You can`t be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies. Those who storm this capitol and those who instigate it and incite it and those who called on them to do so held a dagger at the throat of America and American democracy.

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HAYES: A dagger at the throat of American democracy that President Biden invoked at the capitol today is still right there. Time is ticking. As election lawyer Marc Elias wrote earlier this week, "10 months from the 2022 Midterms, it is up to Senate Democrats to decide whether to advance these pro-democracy laws alone or allow Republicans to use the filibuster as the weapon that murdered democracy. If these two voting rights bills fail, our democracy will suffer and may never recover.

Ian Bassin served as associate White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. He`s a co-founder and executive director of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to fighting efforts to undermine democracy. Heather McGhee is the board chair of Color of Change, the nation`s largest online racial justice organization, and the author of The Some Of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone And How We Can Prosper Together.

Let me start with you, Heather. How are you thinking about these next 10 months towards these midterms which take on this kind of existential weight that I don`t think any midterm election I`ve ever encountered before felt like it took off?

HEATHER MCGHEE, BOARD CHAIR, COLOR OF CHANGE: It does, because it feels like because of the baked-in counter-majoritarian weight of instruction of the U.S. Senate combined with the rules that Republicans at the state level have put in to gerrymander the House and to suppress the vote, we have a situation where we are looking at a question of do we have a pro-democracy, not a Democratic Party, a pro-democracy party, because we only have one of those, sadly, in this two party system right now, that is willing to do everything to preserve the American experiment.

And so, I agree with the idea that there`s 10 -- there are 10 months here that we have. And obviously, the thing that`s standing in the way is an arcane Senate rule that allows people who represent 41 million fewer people than the Democratic Party to hold up a set of democracy reforms that have nearly supermajority support across the country.

And so, that is the silver bullet. It is filibuster reform. I was glad to see President Biden finally come out and very -- you know, full-throated Lee endorse it. And here`s what we -- here`s where we are.

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HAYES: Yes. And I will say -- I mean, we`ve been rattling around in circles obviously on this for a very long time. You know, they`re pushing again. There`s questions about the conversations and Sinema and Manchin. You know, people who are closest effort will point out that there has been tremendous progress already made in the number of senators who have come over to decide of rules change for this purpose, which is significant, and you shouldn`t lose sight of.

Ian, how`re you thinking from your perch about these sort of next 10 months in the context of preserving these bulwarks of democratic representation?

IAN BASSIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PROTECT DEMOCRACY: Well, clearly, step one next week is the filibuster. And I think we should understand a couple of core facts about it. First, we are the only advanced democracy in the world that now effectively has a supermajority requirement for basic legislation.

Second, contrary to arguments that the filibuster fosters bipartisanship, it`s the exact opposite. We did some data analysis. And over the past 30 years, nearly 80 percent of bills blocked by the filibuster were bipartisan, with the average supported by five senators from the other party. Congress would have been much more bipartisan without the filibuster.

Third, contrary to the argument, that without the filibuster, we`d see wild swings in legislation that would destabilize the country. We went the first 200 years as a nation without regular use of the filibuster and became the strongest country on Earth. It`s only in the past 12 years that the filibuster has been abused, that America has lost its shine in the world.

And lastly, we have been here before. After the passage of the 15th Amendment guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote, Southern Democrats impose all manner of restrictions from poll taxes to literacy test to Florida. So, in 1890, Republicans in the House passed the Lodge Act, which would have created a federal backstop to prevent Southern attacks on democracy. It was filibustered by segregationist in the Senate and died. And with it, democracy died in the American South for the next 75 years. We cannot let that happen again.

HAYES: That is a great precedent to cite there. And I had sort of encountered that before but had kind of forgotten about that specific 1890 fight over this. And I think also it`s important, Heather, I mean, my perspective on this is, in politics in general, and American politics and democratic struggle, small D democratic struggle, there`s no permanent victories, no permanent defeats.

And I think it`s important for people to understand that in this context because the works got to continue. Like, I mean, this idea that people have to be engaged at the ground level, you know, in a state of kind of quasi- permanent emergency is a hard thing to hear but I think the truth.

MCGHEE: No, it`s absolutely true. I mean, this -- if you come -- I feel like the Black community understands this in a very visceral way, right? Because the idea that we have this democracy that has always been so free and fair and it`s been smashed away just in the past number of years obviously not our truth, right? It`s not the historical truth. It`s not the truth that we, we viscerally have lived in our parents and grandparents have lived. And so, that sort of constant vigilance is so necessary.

And if you zoom back, I think it`s really important I wrote about this today, in a Medium post, I think it`s so important to remember that the core logic of January 6 and of the big lie is a racial one, right? It is the lie of the racial zero-sum. President Biden alluded to this in his speech today, this idea that there`s only so much democracy to go around, that we are in this battle for supremacy.

And so, if people of color vote, that must be sort of stealing something that is rightfully the province of white people. Like, that`s the core logic. There was a great University of Chicago study about the insurrectionist and what is their core ideology, what drove them. It wasn`t economic insecurity. One and four were business owners, right? It was this idea of the great replacement, the idea that as people of color gain more rights, those will come at the expense of white people.

Now, obviously, that idea is being sold, right, packaged and marketed. The same people who funded the Stop the Steal Movement and or funding ongoing attacks on our democracy are the ones who win financially when Republicans stay in power despite losing the majority of votes, because that is the economic page --

HAYES: That`s right.

MCGHEE: For where the moneyed elite that has been funding this racism as a way to drive their greed. And ultimately we are at a real inflection point. Do we understand that the racial zero-sum is -- has always been the Achilles of our democracy or not.

HAYES: Ian Bassin and Heather McGhee, great to have you both on this night. That is ALL IN for this evening. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.