Summary
Today, the Senate voted on a motion to proceed to debate on the Freedom to Vote Act and every single Republican voted against it. House GOP leadership whips against holding Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress. Brazilian lawmakers pushed to charge President Bolsonaro with crimes against humanity for his failed COVID response that led to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. The White House unveils a plan to vaccinate children 5 to 11 years.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: And that is tonight`s REIDOUT. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Every single Republican Senator just blocked this chamber from having a debate on protecting Americans` right to vote in free and fair elections.
HAYES: The expansion of federal voting rights are blocked in the Senate as Trump`s henchman menace the select committee.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): You know what, that might work on Steve Bannon`s podcast but that`s not going to work in the Rules Community in the United States House of Representatives. I`m sorry, Mr. Gaetz.
HAYES: Tonight, Sherrilyn Ifill on Republicans against democracy and what we`re beginning to learn from the Select Committee about pre-insurrection planning meetings.
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Mr. Bannon was in the war room at the Willard on January 6.
HAYES: Then, Sen. Sherrod Brown on what might survive in the Build Back Better bill and should leaders who knowingly let COVID rip through their country killing hundreds of thousands be charged with crimes against humanity? It`s happening in Brazil, so why not here?
ALL IN starts right now
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HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York I`m Chris Hayes. You know, in the most prominent liberal democracies around the world, countries would consider our peers, election day is on a weekend. Germany, France, Sweden, Australia, Belgium, Japan, Italy. Many other countries, they cast their ballots on Saturday or Sunday when a lot of people had the day off, have an easier time getting their polling place. It`s a pretty straightforward idea.
Notably, Israel and South Korea both vote on weekdays but Election Day is a public holiday, a kind of celebration of voting and the democratic process itself. I think it`s pretty nice idea, you know, for the purposes of civic morale, sure, but also because voting is something we do as citizens. And it can be time-consuming and people had busy schedules, and it should be in the general public interest to make that process as easy as possible.
That is not the case here in the United States of course where we vote on weekdays, on Tuesdays and do not have that day off where we have this bizarre patchwork of rules and regulations spread across 10,000 distinct jurisdictions responsible for managing elections, everything from where and when and how you can vote.
And if the 2020 election demonstrated one thing, it is that it is probably better for everyone if there was some kind of nationalized standard, something for local jurisdictions to build on. Things like setting nationwide standards for mail-in ballots and early voting or just maybe making voting a national holiday.
And it`s worth noting that these changes, they wouldn`t have any obvious partisan benefit especially as voting coalitions grow and change and realign. There`s really no way to predict if these kinds of adjustments would help one party over the other though it does seem clear they would boost turnout. It also should be said that these suggestions are really just the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to making participatory democracy easier. They`re simple common-sense provisions.
Instituting them takes away what has turned out to be a pretty dangerous tool for Republican politicians across the country who we`ve seen this last year have attempted to use the rules around election administration voting as a means of maybe keeping certain voters out or retaining a certain kind of power for later in closed contested elections.
These bare minimum straightforward election tweaks were up for debate in the United States Senate today, and the bill is called the freedom to vote act. Now, funny backstory here which is kind of interesting, for context, Democrats have proposed a bunch of voting rights legislation over the past year, in fact, even before this year. We`ve covered it frequently on the show.
There is as you might recall, a piece of legislation called the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named of course for the late great John Lewis, basically reauthorizes the key provisions of the original voting rights act that had been systematically gutted by the John Roberts Supreme Court over the past eight years or so.
Then there`s the For the People Act. That`s a big very ambitious proposal tackling everything from ballot access, to ethics rules for members of Congress, taking on dark money groups that have flourished in the wake of Citizens United to use unregulated sources of money to influence elections.
Now, the Freedom to Vote Act, that`s the one that was up for consideration at the Senate this afternoon, that`s like not the big ambitious one. It is a significantly scaled-backed version of that big ambitious agenda that`s already passed in the House. You might even call it the watered-down version of the For the People Act. There`s a reason for that. You might not be surprised to hear who it is, West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin.
He`s been in the news a lot lately as the kind of scourge of progressive legislation. He said he would not support the big bold voting rights proposal that was passed in the House. He instead wanted to go another route. He wanted to find consensus with his friends across the aisle in the Republican Party. He would not support a bill unless he could get some republican votes too.
And in the spirit of bipartisanship, he put his money where his mouth is, he wrote a letter with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska about the importance of both sides coming together for federal voting rights legislation specifically the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act which remember back in the day was like a huge bipartisan thing, not so much anymore.
[20:05:18]
So, this was Joe Manchin`s grand bargain on voting rights, right? He stepped in. He said no, this is too ambitious. We need to work across the aisle. He tempered his own party`s sort of big ambitious goals in order to bring Republican senators into the fold. And surely he must have thought, you know, well, there`s only two big major political parties in the United States, and they will come together with me, I guess, to do the absolute bare minimum to shore up democracy, our sacred right to vote. You can probably see where I`m going here.
Today, the Senate voted on a motion to proceed to debate on the Freedom to Vote Act. Again, not to actually pass it, just to debate it. Every single Republican voted against it. Every single one, complete consensus, even the so-called good Republicans like Mitt Romney and Susan Collins and even Joe Manchin`s co-author, his buddy Lisa Murkowski, the one who wrote the letter with him. She is objectively the most pro-voting rights Republican in the U.S. Senate and she voted against it.
So, of course, the bill did not meet the 60-vote threshold to avoid a filibuster and it died right then and there. Just as a side note, the top Senate Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer ended up voting no for wonky procedural reasons that he could retain the right to bring it up again. That`s why you see that final tally 49-51.
But as Senator Schumer pointed out after the vote, it`s not just about access to the ballot, it is about in large part undoing the real damage Donald Trump has done and continues to do every day to trust in our free and fair elections.
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SCHUMER: Our former president could not accept defeat with grace. He refused to show fidelity to the democratic process. Instead, he told a big lie. A big lie that has now poisoned, poisoned the roots of our democracy. If there`s anything, anything worthy of the Senate`s attention, it`s unquestionably this.
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HAYES: I think the senator is right, clearly. It`s why at this moment in history, it`s impossible to see the entire Republican political project at least as it stands now when you Zoom out as anything other than essentially objectively anti-democratic in its goals.
Look no further than today`s Rules Committee hearing the House. That is where Republicans brought out their MAGA running dogs, Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, Matt Gaetz of Florida, to denigrate the bipartisan committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. During which, both men refused to simply state that President Joe Biden did not steal the election.
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REP. JIM MCGOVERN (D-MA): I asked you to say five simple words. The election was not stolen. And you were unwilling to say them then. Can you say those five words?
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): I`ve never said it was stolen, Mr. Chairman. I`ll give you the same answer. I never said it was. I said, we should investigate it.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Do you accept that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election?
REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): I accept that Joe Biden is the president.
RASKIN: Do you accept that he won the election by more than seven million votes and defeated Donald Trump by 306 to 232 in the Electoral College, a margin that Donald Trump called a landslide when he beat Hillary Clinton by the same numbers?
GAETZ: I think that our election was uniquely polluted by these indiscriminate mail-in ballots.
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HAYES: Oh, there you have it. Of course, those comments are cynical. They`re dangerous on their own. The context is even more jarring considering they were made at a hearing on whether or not the House should recommend that former top Trump adviser Steve Bannon be held in criminal contempt over his refusal, just downright outright go screw you refusal to cooperate with subpoena for testimony relating to the planning of the deadly insurrection on January 6 in which supporters of Donald Trump attempted to use mob violence to overturn a free and fair election against the will of the American people.
And all this is at the national level. That`s just Capitol Hill today. That`s two chambers. That`s the Senate and the House. There`s also the scourge of anti-democratic Republicans at the state and local level passing laws making it harder for voters to make it to polls, making it harder for them to vote, looking to seize control of election infrastructure in some cases to potentially enable Donald Trump`s second attempt to coup.
We`re seeing out a variety of these strategies play out in a whole bunch of places across the country including in Michigan and Arizona where Trump- endorsed candidates are running explicitly for the role of election administrator of the state, that`s secretary of state, and if they win they would oversee the elections in those crucial swing states.
And just in case you were curious as to well, who are these people, what are their views, what`s their -- what`s their deal, who are they hanging with, what are their intentions if elected. Those two candidates from Arizona and Michigan, again, endorsed by Donald Trump will be appearing at an event for the paranoid far-right QAnon conspiracy theory cult in Las Vegas this weekend.
That`s the one that believes that there`s a secret cabal of child sex traffickers who drink children`s blood and withdraw the chemicals from their body in satanic rituals and they -- well, it`s really important that Congress takes action to secure the most basic fundamental right in a liberal democracy. It`s a right that`s increasingly under siege. That was one of the great insights of John Lewis and all the people that he linked arms with in that struggle, right? That democracy only means something if that singular foundational cornerstone right is secured because otherwise you don`t really have a democracy, you don`t have self-determination, you don`t have freedom.
[20:10:38]
And politics is complicated. I mean, right now, you`ve probably been following. If you watch this program, you`re the kind of person attuned to this and Washington is the midst of these painful back and forth machinations trying to pass an infrastructure bill. The Democrats are engaged in intra-party back and forth over granular policy details, spending taxes. But not everything is that complicated. Some of the issues are pretty simple. And voting rights is one of those issues.
Right now, the reality situation is pretty clear one of the major parties believes in free and fair elections in boosting voter turnout and making it easier to vote and making our representative democracy stronger, and the other party simply does not.
Sherrilyn Ifill is president and director council of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She`s been litigating voting rights cases since the 1980s. And she joins me now.
Sherrilyn, is that an overly reductive and partisan statement for me to end my opening monologue with as I said it in the wake of today`s vote?
SHERRILYN IFILL, PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR COUNCIL, NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND: Well, Chris, as you know, I lead a non-partisan organization and -- but that doesn`t mean that i have to ignore the reality and the facts the votes speak for themselves. Today, not one Republican was willing to vote to debate the Freedom to Vote Act, not to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, but unwilling to even have the conversation about expanding voter access.
And we have seen in states like Georgia and Florida and Texas what has been happening in terms of voter suppression laws that have been passed, again, purely on party lines with Republicans voting in favor of restrictive voter suppression laws targeted at black and brown voters over the objections of almost every Democrat in those legislatures.
And so, you know, we are seeing something that has kind of embedded down into the party structure. But that doesn`t change what it is. And that`s why i get kind of distressed when people talk about it in purely partisan terms because it allows them to ignore that the reality of what we`re dealing with is no different than the reality of what Black voters were dealing with in 1964.
And we don`t look back at the great voting rights effort and the Selma March and say, oh, the Democrats were doing this or the Republicans were doing that. We look back and recognize that voter suppression was being perpetuated um and advanced to keep fellow citizens from being able to vote and participate in the political process. And that`s what`s happening today.
HAYES: I think it`s a really important point -- we had Nina Perales of MALDEF was on last night. She was one of the people who filed suit against the new congressional districts drawn by the Texas Republicans who have you know full control of the Texas state government. And one of the points we were discussing is look, the -- it`s not clear what the partisan valence of the of districts with Latino large Latino constituents are particularly in place like South Texas. And that might go either way.
What is clear is that the political power of Latinos in that state is being quite pointedly diminished by the map.
IFILL: Yes. And I think it`s convenient and often unfortunately convenient in some corners of the media to want to talk about things in purely partisan terms and not to confront the racial discrimination that lies at the heart of it. But you know, the voting rights act talks about Black voters having the right to elect their candidate of choice. It doesn`t say who that candidate is or what party they have to belong to.
And so, yes, what we see happening in terms of you know, the part -- the maps that are being drawn, what we see in terms of the voter suppression laws that are being passed are targeted very specifically at Black and Brown voters. And that`s the conversation we need to be happening -- need to be having because that is the sign of an unhealthy democracy. That is the sign that white supremacy still remains a critical flaw in our democracy and what it is, Chris, is that it has become the stalking horse. It is the entry for all these other pieces that you were talking about at the top of the hour, the QAnons and all that other stuff. And ultimately, it has come to take down our entire democracy and it`s -- and we have to resist it.
But when we see a vote like this today, not a vote against a bill, but a vote against talking about a bill in what is supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in the world of the United States Senate, then we know that our democracy has lost its way.
[20:15:13]
HAYES: There has been criticism from a lot of corners of voting rights advocates and others that the White House and the president particularly has not been more energetically and publicly pushing on this. And I want to read you a quote that was first reported by Peter Nicholas in the Atlantic and I`m going to read it to you and get your response.
When I mentioned the alarm coming from activists, the White House official told me the Biden administration is pushing full force to pass voting protections. It`s fair for activists to continue to push, the official said. Every constituency has their issue. If you ask immigration folks, they`ll tell you their issue is a life or death issue too. What do you think about that?
IFILL: Well, obviously that`s incredibly insulting. And I don`t know who that official is. You know, I`ve i fairly regularly speak to White House officials. And I would say that the officials that I speak with are quite clear that we are in a critical moment around voting in our democracy. But that`s a different point than the one you originally raised which is the desire of people to see the president and hear his voice engaged as we hear him on infrastructure and other issues of import to hear him publicly engaged on this issue.
You know, Chris, to be honest, I think there`s been a choreography to this and in fact we`re still in the middle of the dance. Part of the choreography as you know was to allow Manchin to try to sell this, you know, skinny freedom to vote act, as a slim down for the People Act and see if you could bring Republicans on.
Today, It was evident he wasn`t able to do that. The John Lewis Bill will be taken up -- the Voting Rights Advancement Act will be taken up next week. And all of this is marching towards calling the question on the filibuster.
And I think at that point, I think we will hear from the White House. They will have no choice. We will -- we will hear from the president. And that`s going to be the moment in which we decide how we`re going forward in my view whether we`re going to be a democracy or not.
HAYES: All right, Sherrilyn Ifill, always great to get a chance to talk to you. Thank you so much for your time.
IFILL: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: The House is expected to vote tomorrow to refer Steve Bannon to prosecutors for criminal contempt. It`s a warning shot to any other witnesses who plan on defying the committee`s investigation. One witness who isn`t taking the Bannon route is Donald Trump`s former chief of staff Mark Meadows. What we know about that and the committee`s investigation into the so-called war room on January 6 after this.
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[20:20:00]
HAYES: -- hotel practically next door to the White House, about a block away, just a short distance for the National Mall in the U.S. Capitol, it`s got a bar, a pretty good cocktail. It`s been around since 1847, has housed notable Americans from Abraham Lincoln, to Martin Luther King Jr. It`s got that kind of like beaux arts look. You`ve seen it if you`ve been in Washington.
Most recently, it had the dubious distinction of hosting some of Donald Trump`s closest advisors who staged their war room there on the day that the Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol. A somewhat unknown Trump world hangar on named Robert Hyde who is running for Senate in the state of Connecticut posted a series of very telling photos from that meeting on January 6.
Photos that include trump`s personal lawyer and fixer Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, the lawyer who wrote the now-infamous memo on step by step how to overturn the election, and Russell Ramsland. He`s a failed Republican Congressional candidate who started to circulate some really quite bonkers voter fraud miss back in 2018 that of course made their way to Donald Trump.
They were not alone. In their new book, the Washington Post Bob Woodward and Robert Costa report, that the day before the insurrection, former Trump Adviser Steve Bannon joined Trump`s allies in a room at the Willard Hotel where among other things the crew work to encourage legislators to oppose electoral vote count. A situation the January 6 Select Committee seemed well aware of ahead of their vote to hold Bannon in criminal contempt last night.
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CHENEY: Based on the committee`s investigation, it appears that Mr. Bannon had substantial advanced knowledge of the plans for January 6th and likely had an important role in formulating those plans. Mr. Bannon was in the war room at the Willard on January 6th.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Yes, it doesn`t seem a crazy inference that Cheney is drawing there. I guess you got to get through discovery, right? You got to subpoena documents and interviews and testimony to figure it out. Today, the House Rules Committee voted on party lines to move Bannon`s contempt vote forward.
Another member of the Trump circle who has been subpoenaed but appears to be engaging with the committee and not taking the Bannon route is Trump`s former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Politico reported this morning that he has hired a top Republican lawyer named George Terwilliger. He served as deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush, went on to replace Bill Barr as acting attorney general in 1993. So, you know, he`s been around.
In 2000, following the presidential election. he co-led George W. Bush`s legal team during the Florida recount, and boy didn`t they do a number. And unlike most Trump-loving Republicans, he has admitted that Joe Biden won the election.
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GEORGE TERWILLIGER, FORMER DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: I respect the outcome of the election, the presidential election completely. If you fast forward to the 2020 election and allegations of vote fraud that were made there, that could never be proven. And it`s irresponsible frankly in my opinion to continue to push the idea that that election had a level of fraud that affected the outcome.
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HAYES: So, that is the guy who is now representing Donald Trump`s chief of staff Mark Meadows who we know is the center of all this from a lot of the reporting. So, that I think that`s an interesting choice, one to look for as things continue to develop.
Congressman Pete Aguilar, Democrat of California, is a member of the House Select -- January 6 Select Committee, and he joins me now. So, Congressman, what is the -- what`s the sort of next steps on this uh complaint referral that made it out of the Rules Committee today?
REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CA): Well, tomorrow in the afternoon East Coast time, we will act on it. We will have 60 minutes of debate and then we will vote on the criminal contempt that the committee -- that the select committee passed last evening unanimously.
So, the full House floor will have a recorded vote on that matter. And after that, after we have the votes to pass that, we will we will then -- the Speaker will certify and then it will go directly to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. And then that individual, the federal law is clear, has a duty to bring it before a federal grand jury.
[20:25:24]
HAYES: You have -- obviously, you have two Republican votes for it already, the two members that serve on the committee with you, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. I think there were 10 Republican votes for impeachment if I`m recalling correctly. Do you think you have any more than those two votes for this referral tomorrow?
AGUILAR: I don`t think we have any more than those 10 votes. But clearly we have -- we have two votes. This is going to be bipartisan. And like I`ve said from the beginning, the work that the Select Committee is doing is being done in a non-partisan way.
We want to get to the facts. We owe that to the American public. We owe that to the brave law enforcement individuals who protected this building and were the last line of defense on democracy that day. We have to get to the facts. And in order to do that, we need -- we need to hear from folks. And so, it`s not optional for Mr. Bannon to shed the subpoena. You know, these aren`t optional. He has an obligation as anyone should to follow the subpoena.
HAYES: My colleague Rachel Meadow last night was pointing out the history here which is the last time the House did this it was for a EPA administrator who had been embroiled in a scandal about allegations of misuse of superfund sites at the EPA. And she was -- she was given this criminal complaint by a House that voted unanimously every single vote of both parties because I think it viewed it as an institutional prerogative to not essentially be trampled by the executive.
What does it say that House Republican leadership is recommending a no vote on this vote now, you know, 30 years later?
AGUILAR: You know, it`s -- you know, I`d say it`s shocking but it sure doesn`t you know feel that way, you know, given the political temperature and how folks on the other side of the aisle have treated this issue since January 6th when many of them spoke out against the former president.
Now, they seem to walk back those remarks. It`s just deeply unfortunate. These were individuals, many of them, were on the House floor with us and they were witnesses and they saw what happened. And they still continue to avoid, you know, the accountability that is due. And so, that`s the -- that`s the problem that we -- that we have here and it`s truly unfortunate.
HAYES: There are three other witnesses who are subpoenaed along with Steve Bannon. There`s a whole bunch that have been speeded generally. But along with Steve Bannon, Kash Patel who worked on the intelligence committee and then was the Department of Defense, Mark Meadows, the former congressman, chief of staff, Dan Scavino who was the president`s chief poster online. What -- how would you characterize the status of their compliance with the subpoenas?
AGUILAR: I`d say that they`ve been engaging. Mr. Meadows and Mr. Patel have engaged with the committee so we have had conversations with their counsel, but that`s all I would say, you know, at this point. And then, Mr. Scavino, there was a delay in servicing that subpoena, and so there was a mutually agreed upon postponement for those deadlines.
But I would say at this point, you know, we are engaged but nobody is openly defying a subpoena like Mr. Bannon. And that`s why it`s forcing this unprecedented step of a full House vote of Congress.
HAYES: All right, Congressman Pete Aguilar, thank you very much.
AGUILAR: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: Ahead, Brazilian lawmakers pushed to charge President Bolsonaro with crimes against humanity for his failed COVID response that led hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. And the same happened to Donald Trump. That`s next.
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[20:30:00]
HAYES: Have you ever took a philosophy class in college or in any point? You probably heard of the trolley dilemma. It`s a thought experiment classic used in philosophy particularly moral philosophy that sucks out our ethical intuition. So, there`s lots of variations on it but here`s the simplest if you haven`t heard it before.
Let`s just imagine you`re watching a train hurtling down the tracks, and there are five unsuspecting workers on those tracks and it`s about to run them over, and it`s right before a switch. You have an option to flip a lever to divert the train down a separate track. If you choose to pull that lever, five people die.
Now, there are all kinds of ways to complicate the scenario. What if there`s one worker on the other track like you just saw in that illustration, right? So, you`ve got five people on one track and one in the other. Or what if there`s family members of yours on one of the tracks, and on and on and on.
I think all of us share the intuition that in the starkest version of this you have a moral obligation to act. You cannot in good conscience simply sit there as the train`s going to run over these folks that are on the -- on the track and say well, it had nothing to do with me, it was just kind of natural, it was an accident. I have no ethical responsibility for what transpired. We intuit that there`s an affirmative duty to do the right thing there while the train kills people that you could have saved with a little bit of effort and action.
And I`ve been thinking about this a lot that the trolley problem, that specific scenario, because I think essentially that`s what some world leaders did in the face of the coronavirus. They just sat there and didn`t pull the lever, and many people died.
The two most egregious examples I can think of, of course, are our own Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. And there are a lot of similarities between them. I mean, there were before coronavirus and during it. From the very beginning, both of them downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic. Both I think with an eye towards the markets and the economy.
President Bolsonaro called COVID "a little flu." Donald Trump, you might remember, made very similar claims.
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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That`s a little bit like the flu. It`s a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for. And we`ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner. This is a flu. This is like a flu.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Both Presidents Bolsonaro and Trump resisted even the simplest most obvious containment measures during the pandemic. Bolsonaro even more than Trump who remember briefly gone on board for a few weeks. But Bolsonaro fought the governors who wanted to take proactive steps to fight the virus, even encourage mass gatherings. And you`ll remember, Donald Trump similarly lashing out at blue state governors and then holding rallies throughout the pandemic, cramming in crowds that numbered in the thousands.
President Bolsonaro flatly discouraged Brazilians from wearing masks as coronavirus deaths surged across the country. For months, Donald Trump also downplayed the effectiveness of masks and he really liked to mock those who wore them including his then opponent for the presidency Joe Biden.
Bolsonaro and Trump looked for anyone else to blame for the death and destruction of the pandemic. I mean, they`re just sitting there watching the train go by. They both found scapegoats in the World Health Organization and China.
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TRUMP: It`s China`s fault. They allowed this to happen. They allowed it to escape. They allowed it to escape China. But 2.2 million people would have died. Just remember that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Both Bolsonaro Trump pushed unproven solutions. I mean, it really was like they were getting their information from the same place. They both got into hydroxychloroquine, they both got into letting the virus run its course in an effort to reach so-called her immunity. They embraced the malaria drug, like I said, hydroxychloroquine which is not effective in treating the virus. And Bolsonaro even posted this video of him swallowing the pills.
By the way, that was the second time the Brazilian president caught COVID. I mean, Donald Trump only got it once. You would think after they both went through that experience, with Trump`s case serious enough to land him in the hospital, they might adjust their views on the virus. But no, no, no, no, absolutely not.
Now, Donald Trump did get vaccinated earlier this year. He refused to do so publicly which was crucial. And he`s made very little effort to convince others to get the shot as well. Bolsonaro is an avowed anti-vaxxer. In fact, when he attended the United Nations meeting in New York last month, he had to eat pizza on the sidewalk because no restaurants would allow him inside unvaccinated.
And so, they both had essentially the same approach. They really stood out in the world in the way they went about. They were they were both content to watch the train plow forward, leading to an incomprehensible number of deaths. I`ve said this before. I believe we need some sort of -- you know, for lack of a better phrase, truth and reconciliation commission, some sort of formal inquiry to investigate what we went through over the past year and a half, and what the culpability is for what I think is that decision to let the train go down the track. We just learned something fascinating. Brazil is actually moving in precisely that direction.
A Brazilian congressional panel is set to recommend that President Jair Bolsonaro be charged with crimes against humanity. They have produced nearly 1200 page report that effectively blames Mr. Bolsonaro`s policies for the deaths of more than 300 000 Brazilians, half of the nation`s coronavirus death toll, and urges the Brazilian authorities to imprison the president according to the excerpts from the report and interviews with two of the committee`s senators.
Think about that. Now, it`s unlikely Bolsonaro will be actually charged. He appointed the attorney general who`s serving there now. His supporters also control the lower house in the Brazilian legislative branch. But I read this and it just brought me up short. It`s the first time I`ve seen some official action taken that actually represents how -- I have to say I feel about the crimes we have all witnessed, crimes in a -- in a sort of philosophical moral sense, not necessarily strictly legal.
Bolsonaro and Trump along with several like them around the world, they just willfully got hundreds of thousands of people killed. That`s just I think the plain truth of the matter. And again, whatever the specific legal means for accountability for that in this country or in Brazil, that`s the core moral fact about these built these men.
There`s a quote from a Brazilian politician who worked on a report I`ve been thinking about all day. He said this. I am personally convinced that he is responsible for escalating the slaughter.
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[20:40:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Getting mass vaccination is up and running is critical. But in some places, it hasn`t gotten off to a great start.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Developed at Warp Speed, tonight the vaccine rollout has been described more as slow motion.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Many states are already overwhelmed. Scheduling websites are crashing and phone lines just ring busy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At Yankee Stadium in New York today, Bronx residents braved freezing rain and long lines.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We couldn`t get an appointment for three months.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tonight, a vaccine headache.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were extremely frustrated. For people in Rhode Island, trying to get a shot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They said we were either all booked or we had no vaccine.
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HAYES: That was the constant news in the first few months of this year, right, as the long-anticipated coronavirus vaccine was rolled out for American adults in varying phases. And I think we all remembered how harried and frantic it felt, the long lines of people waiting for the shot at stadiums from New York to Los Angeles, the National Guard mobilized across the country to aid in vaccine logistics.
Many people forced to spend hours and days endlessly refreshing websites or going from pharmacy to pharmacy trying to find open appointment slots that at times felt like playing the lottery. Now, preparations are underway to begin rolling up the vaccine to kids age 5 to 11. That`s after the FDA approves Pfizer`s modified dose for that age group as they are expected to do.
And the Biden administration coronavirus task force members are insisting that we saw in the winter and the spring is absolutely not what it`ll look like for kids. Instead stressing that there`s a plan from the logistics of smaller needles and vials of vaccine to the fact that they quote don`t want lines of kids at mass vaccination sites. I think that`s probably a good idea.
Coronavirus response coordinator Jeffrey Zients declaring we`re going to be ready. Dr. Vivek Murthy is the Surgeon General of the United States, one of the people responsible for the nation`s public health. He joins me now.
What are the specific logistical challenges here that you all are thinking about in the White House and how are you thinking about making sure that we don`t end up in a situation like we did when the vaccine first became available for adults?
DR. VIVEK MURTHY, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: Well, Chris, let me just say, this is a really important moment that we`re in. And I would say as a parent of a 5-year-old who is eagerly awaiting a vaccine for kids under 12, it`s an exciting moment too. We have many of us parents around the country who`ve been waiting for this moment because we know how important it is to protect our kids who haven`t had a vaccine yet.
Over the next few weeks, you know, as the FDA and CDC evaluate, the data we hope to hear soon about the possibility of a vaccine. But we are going to be ready from the federal government side to be ready to get that vaccine to children and to be able to talk to their families.
Here`s some core things that we`re working on, Chris. Number one, we want people to know that this vaccine will be free like all other versions of the vaccine. Number two, we want them to know that there will be adequate supply. We`ve already secured the supply needed for all 28 million kids in this age range.
This is very different from how things were in the very beginning. You might remember when scarcity of supply existed.
HAYES: Right.
MURTHY: The third thing though that`s critical to know is access points. But we don`t want long lines. Instead, what we are setting up are tens of thousands of locations where people can get vaccinated from doctor`s offices, to pharmacies, to schools, to hospitals. And finally, Chris, there`s the information and outreach which is so critical.
We`ve already seen so much misinformation flowing around vaccines over the past year. We want to make sure that parents get accurate information so they can make good decisions which is why we`re working with so many channels including healthcare providers to get them that information.
HAYES: Well, it`s interesting you said that because I mean when I think back to the logistical challenges of earlier this year which were supply constraints, supply and logistic complaints, I mean, you know, to the Biden administration`s great credit, I think they solved that quite well.
It turns out demand problems are harder than supply problems. Demand problems lie within the human mind which you cannot just like logistically unkink with, you know, a good project manager. This is the polling right now. When the vaccine is approved for your child`s age group, do you think you will vaccinate right away, 34 percent. Wait and see, 32 percent. Only if required seven percent. And definitely will not, 24 percent.
That 34 number, I mean, at some level, you know, it sounds like you`re ready for a rush. And I just wonder maybe there won`t be a rush in the beginning.
MURTHY: Well, Chris, I`m really glad you brought this up because this is a place where I think we can actually learn from the past. If we look at the experience with adults, when that`s -- a similar poll like that was done in the fall of 2020, a few months before the vaccine was available for adults.
It was around 35 percent in a Kaiser family foundation poll that said that they were ready to go out and get the vaccine right away. And over the months, as people learn more about the vaccine, as they saw friends and family get it safely and do well, that number has gone up to now nearly 80 percent of people have either gotten vaccinated or looking to do so as soon as possible.
I anticipate a similar thing will happen with children. We know parents have questions and rightly so. And that`s why we`re prepared to go out there, to answer those questions, to help them hear from credible sources. I also think when parents see other parents making this decision when they talk to through with their family, we`re going to see those numbers, that confidence go up.
HAYES: Yes. I`ll say for myself that I`m in that 34 percent. I`m a right away person, just speaking personally for how my wife and I think about this with our kids who are eligible. But we`ll be continuing to cover this. Dr. Vivek Murthy, thank you very much.
MURTHY: Thanks so much, Chris. Take care.
HAYES: Ahead, Senator Sherrod Brown on the fight to keep some of the most critical pieces of the Biden agenda alive and why a conversation with Joe Manchin left him cautiously optimistic. That`s next.
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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let`s be the generation that says right here right now we will have universal health care in America by the end of the next president`s first term. We can do that.
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HAYES: When President Obama first came into office, he made it very clear that he had want major legislative priority and that was getting his health care bill passed. President Biden on the other hand has taken a different approach for a whole variety of reasons. Right now, the Biden administration is trying to pass kind of everything at once, putting the entire Biden agenda into one big bill or at least two bills. You got the bipartisan bill and now the reconciliation bill.
And the bills together address everything from climate change, to health care, to prescription drugs, to child care, to education, all these different priorities. All extremely important but they`re basically wrapped together in one bill because of Senate procedure and the fact there`s a very narrow democratic majority which is part of what makes this bill and especially the messaging around it so difficult.
There`s no single overarching priority. It`s the full agenda. And if everything is a priority, well, then nothing`s a priority. That has been thrown into sharp relief as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, for all kinds of reasons, push to reduce the size of the bill forcing among the 48 other Democratic senators very, very difficult and painful choices about what stays and what goes.
Senator Sherrod Brown is a Democrat from Ohio, the chair of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and he joins me now. Senator, I want to start with you on the child tax credit. That is something that you`ve been advocating for very long time. It was included in the first piece of legislation, the American rescue plan. Tens of millions if I`m not mistaken, households with children have been getting a monthly payment from the government.
SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D-OH): Yes, tens of millions. 60 million, yes.
HAYES: Tens of millions. That is going to expire. So, one of the priorities was to put that in the reconciliation bill. Where does it stand right now?
BROWN: Well, it`s in. I mean, we had three goals. One is to -- most importantly to extend it. Second, to make sure that it didn`t -- that it didn`t have restrictions, low-income restrictions, that it didn`t cut people off if they didn`t file a w-2, all those kinds of things. And third, to extend it as long as we could.
And I mean, you know, this is the most important thing I`ve ever done in my career is getting the child tax credit. I worked on it for eight years. The best day of my career when we passed it and -- but the best thing is reading these stories online from people that for the first time were getting this $250.00 a month.
We got it up and running, passed in March, up and running in July, monthly checks in July, August, September, October. The child poverty rates dropped 40 percent. I can`t think of anything that`s been that effective that quickly.
In the stories, a father said first time I can buy fastpitch softball equipment for my daughter. A mother said to me, I fly -- I can spend -- my son can go to summer camp for a weekend. It takes the pressure off these families that are -- that skimp the last week of the month just to pay their rent. It relieves their anxiety. It`s $250.00 or $300.00 a month per child depending on the age of the child. I mean, it`s made a huge difference in families` lives.
HAYES: But given that, I mean, all of that -- we`ve covered on the show and I think it`s been quite a success. I think both substantively, politically, I think it`s been a success, right? Just -- I don`t know how honestly you`re going to answer the question but I`ll ask anyway.
Like, how does it feel to have -- I mean, to be like the best thing I`ve ever done, I worked on it for eight years, got it passed, and now it`s like please Joe Manchin, don`t kill it. Please, please, don`t kill it. Like, what is that conversation like?
BROWN: Yes. Well, it`s a conversation. It`s a regular conversation. Manchin -- don`t forget Manchin joined 45 of us, Joe and I and 45 other Democrats sponsored this bill earlier in the year or it`s last year. But a bill to do exactly what this bill does, so everybody`s on record. We passed it by one vote, keep in mind, twice 51 to 50 back in, I guess, in early March.
So, everybody`s on record is being for this. Joe is just looking at keeping the price tag down in some of those things. But the fact is that this is -- I mean, imagine next year, you`re a Republican candidate running for the -- for Congress in the Senate and, you know -- and you`re in a debate and somebody says well -- or more importantly, somebody comes up to the street and says hey, I`ve been getting this child tax credit now for a couple of years. It`s made all the difference in the world to pay my rent, to provide child care for my -- for my kids. Are you going to vote to take it away or whose side are you on?
So, this is -- you say it`s been good subsequently and politically. It`s not been as good politically as it should because we`re not talking about it enough. Democrats were all talking -- always talking about the next package. We should be talking about the successes here and extending those successes because they`re so important to so many families.
HAYES: You just mentioned child care. I want to ask you. There`s a child care provision of this legislation. There`s a few different things, universal pre-k. There`s a child care provision and it`s sort of structured somewhat similarly the ACA sort of sliding scale subsidy payments for households that have kids under a certain amount of age.
And there was an analysis today by a sort of online progressive think tank that was very worried about it having some of the problems the ACA had which is folks that were just a little above that subsidization level finding themselves with a big expense all of a sudden. I remember interviewing folks and I`m sure you talked to people in Ohio after the ACA passed that were not getting the subsidies in the exchange and felt like suddenly they had this unaffordable thing.
And I wonder if that`s a thing that you`re talking about in your caucus about the design of this program to make sure that doesn`t end up happening.
BROWN: Yes. I mean, two things about that, Chris. Thank you for bringing that up. One is I think we learned something from ACA because ACA was sort of unplowed ground in how it was rolled out. You know, it took too long to pass. It was this sort of -- Max Baucus, the chair of the finance committee, have assembled this group of bipartisan people and senators from small states and it took forever to do it.
So, we learned the process. I mean, I think we -- I think we`re learning that lesson. We haven`t learned it well enough yet. But the other thing is it emphasizes is, you know, a whole lot of senators don`t think enough about how hard it is to raise children, how hard it is financially, and how hard it is just to be a parent.
And it`s what binds so many of us together. For me, as you know, Chris, it`s grandchildren. I`ve watched my kids struggled just how hard it is to raise children, to balance work and home life, and the kids` education particularly during a pandemic. And we need to keep that front and center as we talk about child care, as we talk about tax credits, as we talk about grant subsidies or housing construction and access. All of that is -- all of that is -- hold together.
HAYES: Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, thank you so much for your time tonight, sir. That is ALL IN for this evening. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.